Why does my body move?

The human body is an amazing thing.  I’m in awe of it on a daily basis and how it allows us to move with enough chemical reactions to overload a large computer many times over – each minute, continuously for our entire life.  Just to take stock, you have over 640 muscles and roughly 230 joints (depending who you ask).  Your one foot alone contains 26 bones and 33 joints.  Your spine contains 31 pairs of nerves, each terminating in a huge amount of innervations in order to relay information all over the body, not only to the muscles, but to all of your organs as well.  So every time you take a step, there is a lot of stuff going on.  Obviously I’m not going to write about everything that makes us move, because textbooks have been written on that subject so covering it with a blog article is a bit ambitious.  What I would like to talk about is the concept of joint movement and how the levers and pulleys work in order to move your body from place to place.

Movement begins with a thought that “I’d like to take a step”.  I’ll use this as an example because walking is something we do without thinking about it.  A sympathetic nervous system response is initiated by our hormonal system, specifically something called a catecholamine, which are derived from the amino acid tyrosine.  The ones that are involved in smooth muscle contraction are called noradrenaline and adrenaline.  These hormones bind with receptors and initiate a contraction of smooth muscle.  Now, there is a lot more that goes into it than that but the point I’m trying to get across is that our hormonal system is actually what controls the basic mechanisms of movement.  There are some serious hormones that come into play while the body is trying to function, but let’s leave this discussion at that level and move on.

By initiating a contraction of smooth muscle, the brain fires a message down the spinal cord to the nerves that control contraction of the muscle in question (the foot in our example).  There are 31 pairs of spinal nerves, each coming out of a level of vertebrae from the dorsal (back or posterior) and ventral (front or anterior) roots.  The dorsal roots carry messages towards the brain and spinal cord, and the ventral ones carry them away, towards things like muscles and glands.  These efferent nerves carry the signal down to the somatic motor neurons which cause the muscles in question to fire and contract.  The interface between the motor neuron and the muscle fiber is called the neuromuscular junction and is crossed by neurotransmitters, much like an electrical pulse crosses a current line.  The most common neurotransmitter when it comes to muscle contraction is called acetylcholine.  There is a long process of contraction, which again I won’t get into in full detail here, but it is usually in response to the type of force that is being required and if you are taking a step, there is a concentric contraction and the muscles shorten up, prompting the joints to move.

Just in order to lift your foot, your body has to relay information all the way down your leg and into your back.  When your body moves a joint, it affects every muscle that crosses over that joint, who have to contract concentrically as an agonist, or eccentrically as an antagonist.  When one contracts, the other relaxes and then vice versa in order to return the muscle back to the start position.  So just as an example of major joints, to take a step you need to contract your hip, knee, ankle and many joints in the foot, never mind the smaller joints in your lower back in order to stabilize your pelvis.  There are 12 muscles alone that cross the knee and are involved in knee flexion and extension, so you can imagine how much is involved just by moving this way.  Some muscles, like the rectus femoris, cross over two joints and help out a bit more.  So imagine a rubber band pulling on a rod and moving it from one angle to another.  One concept that a lot of people don’t understand is that muscles don’t move – they shorten and lengthen, but it is in the joints that the movement actually happens.  By moving the end of one joint closer to another, all skeletal movement is created.  Many things depending on what type of force is required to be generated can alter this.  For example, taking a step forward is one thing.  Taking a step up on a stair that is elevated requires not only a different amount of force generated by the joints, but also a completely different sequence of muscle contraction.

So why am I breaking this down for you?  What I’m really trying to do is get across to you what an astounding cycle of events needs to occur in order to take a simple step.  From the beginning of thought to just walking in sequence, we often take for granted all of the things that need to happen to do something very simple.  In life we take many things for granted, and one thing I try to get across to all of my clients is don’t take your health, ability to move properly and how you live day to day for granted.  With just one small alteration of this sequence – you will have trouble walking.  The good news is that your body is constantly learning and turning over old cells and replacing them.  It is constantly improving if you give it the tools to do so.  We move all of the time without thinking about it.  My goal is to get you to think about it.  Only through that will you be able to really figure out how you should move properly.  If you have any questions feel free to contact me.

Why Aren’t I Getting Results?

When people seek out a personal trainer, in some way they have a vision of a better life because they will look amazing. They will be able to do amazing things with their body, attract a partner, and have people pay positive attention to them or achieve something athletic that they potentially couldn’t do before. What is really most important behind results when it comes to physical fitness is the reason that you are doing it in the first place.

Probably 80% of the time (more for some trainers) the first reason we get hired is that people want to “lose weight” or “get toned”, which is a complicated way of saying “I want to wear smaller clothes and look better naked in the mirror or to my partner.” The hard truth is that to achieve the type of body you see in movies and on magazine covers it takes an incredible amount of time and dedication unless you have high levels of resources. The reason celebrities and athletes look the way they do is because it is their job to do so, and they also have trainers every day, coaches and healthy food available to them on call and in any form that they desire. Brad Pitt’s personal trainer who got him in shape for the movie Troy worked with him two hours a day – every day – and he also has a personal chef cooking him meals all the time. Naturally he is going to get results. But the average person I sit down with doesn’t have that type of resources.

The average person who has a gym membership wants to lose 20 pounds and become more attractive to their partner, or possibly attract a new partner (reproduction). Another common reason is that they have received a bad scare medically and have decided to not have the high potential of dying (survival). Third is that they want to get over an ailment that is limiting their mobility and quality of life (usefulness in society). Fourth is pure narcissism where they just want to look great naked, but this often goes into not feeling good about who they are for some reason, often due to a previous partner, or bad parental guidance or trauma. These reasons are all part of our genetic makeup and goes back to primal days, but I’m not going to digress into that here because it would be another ten pages of writing. There are other reasons, but this likely comprises about 95% of the reasons that a client hires myself or any other trainer. I’m removing any athletes from that equation because often they have different motivation. Normally their training patterns have been put in place since they were young and have had years to develop.

So if you have hired a trainer previously, gone through the motions and not gotten any results, or gotten results but then slipped back into your old patterns and then destroyed them (and please don’t blame your trainer for that) then there is usually one main reason that you aren’t seeing any results, and that simple reason is:

You don’t really, really, really, really want to.

There is a video online by an amazing man called ET the Hip Hop Preacher where he lectures to a group of high school students about success (you can YouTube it if you like). The point of the talk is essentially that within all of us, there is stuff we would rather do than be successful – like sleep, hang out with our friends, or waste time doing various things. When you remove all of that and have 100% focus on what you really, really, really want then it will happen. When you are really, really focused on something you forget to eat. You forget to go to the bathroom. You forget about anything because the only thing you can think about is achieving what you want at that moment. Fitness and health is never really enough of a priority for most people. It is often 3rd or 4th on the list, or even lower depending on how many other demands you have in your life. Athletes have a different perspective – they are getting paid (or are hoping to get paid) to perform. Therefore it is much higher on the priority scale. They will miss work rather than miss a workout. They will get up early and sacrifice some time with their family in order to work out. They will forgo a night out of partying in order to be ready for a practice or an event. The average gym goer will rarely do this, and that is why they don’t achieve the same result.

Tony Robbins has a saying that you need to turn your “should” in anything you say into a “must”. “I should go to the gym today” sounds a lot different than “I must go to the gym today.” A must implies that unless something of incredibly high priority comes up, there is absolutely nothing that is going to stop you from doing it. Think about it for a moment, and think about all those times when you said to yourself “I have to do x” – that is the thing that always gets done. Change your brain and you can change everything.

If you want results physically, you have to get uncomfortable. You have to change your previous patterns, you have to change how you eat, sleep, spend time socially, interact with some people that you may care about and several other ways so that applying time and effort towards your physical fitness and healthy eating regimen becomes more of a priority than a few other things on your list that are always an excuse for not going to the gym or eating that unhealthy thing that is getting in the way of whatever reason you have for changing the way you are currently. You have to be sore and tired. You have to eat things that sometimes don’t taste great or don’t trigger that rush of pleasure. And if you don’t choose to do this, then you simply can’t expect anything beyond what the effort you are putting into it is going to give you. The great thing is, you can also apply this strategy to many other things in your life. Work, family, even taking up a new hobby or skill can all be prioritized so that you can truly be excellent at them – if you make the choice to revamp the order in which you make things important to you.

Here’s an example from the movie Fight Club: Ask yourself this – if someone held a gun to your head and told you that if you didn’t do something you were going to die, would you change things? Think about that the next time you make a decision.

http://vimeo.com/1790734

Why are you Paying for That?

In my many years as an exercise professional I’ve worked in many different types of facilities, including chain gyms, private studios and corporate facilities.  When I began in the industry as a wide-eyed personal trainer working for a national fitness chain (you can guess which one) I was probably a pretty poor trainer.  The fact that anyone can call himself or herself a trainer with no formal post secondary education and a certificate from attending a 20-hour weekend course – or even via online correspondence without attending a classroom at all – means that the industry is full of unqualified, inexperienced individuals.  A case in point happened to me a couple of years ago when I moved to a new city with my wife and had to restart my practice up from nothing.  I was hired by (ironically enough) the same national chain gym I began my career with to train in a brand new facility.  Attending the first staff orientation session and starting to talk to the other trainers that had been hired, I received some startling news.  Guess how many of the “trainers” in the room had ever trained anyone before other than themselves?

One.

And it was me.

Out of – and this is the true number – over TWENTY new trainers, I was the only one who was even certified, or with any practical experience handing weights to anyone beyond “I’ve trained my buddy/parent/Aunt Sally in their garage”.  Shock was not even a small part of my emotion when I found this out.  The worst part was, these people were allowed to train clients right away without having even attended any coursework or receiving any actual training about training!  Of course this was never revealed to the clients in question but ethics never seemed to come into play working for that particular company.  I’ll get to that situation in another article in the future.

So what would happen is that a client would pay money (sometimes thousands of dollars) for someone who was dangerously unqualified, had no clue about proper movement, form or progressions, and in a large part didn’t have any idea about how to actually help the people they were “training”.  Or, the client would pay the exact same amount and get someone with ten years experience, and a high level of knowledge of the human body and how force and movement actually affect it.

Through the years due to working in an unregulated industry I have seen some horrendous things.  I have worked across from people who spent most of their time with clients doing the same routines over and over – with entirely different people.  I have worked alongside people who injured their clients through ignorance, referred them out to therapists (at massive expense) – and then the clients continued to train with them!  Lazy and potentially dangerous trainers are commonplace in most commercial gyms today, and to me this is just ridiculous.  So I ask anyone who is reading this who is thinking about or currently has a trainer who does the following things:  why are you paying for that?

  • Inattentive or distracted trainers.  They would rather make conversation or stare at a television than pay attention to you and what you are doing.  And, I believe that any trainer even touching a cell phone when with a client should be fired on the spot.  A trainer who sits on his/her butt while their client is exercising should be reprimanded as well.  This is a huge pet peeve of mine, but it often makes me look good compared to others when I’m actually engaged, spotting my client properly and coaching them like a trainer should.  When a person is holding excess resistance and being asked to do movement that is taxing their neurological system, you might want to keep an eye on them.
  • A trainer who can’t tell you what progressions you have made and why they are following that path, or why you are doing a particular exercise in a particular way.  And “I saw this really neat thing on YouTube” doesn’t cut it.  You are not a guinea pig.  Tracking your results should also be happening on a regular basis.  Ask to see your file once in a while.
  • A trainer who can’t properly demonstrate or do what they are asking you to do.  If your trainer can’t do it, do you really think you will be able to?  If you can’t do a proper lunge movement standing with your feet on the ground, why would you be doing it with a foot off of the ground, on an unstable surface, or with impact?  Far too often clients are asked to do things not because of any purpose beyond the trainer wanting to create “muscle confusion” (whatever that is supposed to be) or because the trainer is bored – not the client.
  • An obviously overweight, unhealthy trainer.  Yes, I said it.  Unless the trainer participates in a sport that requires them to be overweight (and there are many examples of this) trainers should constantly be applying fitness principles to themselves i.e. working out.  My personal program is constantly changing based on my personal goals, just like the clients’ program should be.  Lead by example.

In order to change this paradigm there are two things that need to happen.  The first is that fitness facilities need to see training as something other than a cash cow and stop packing in unqualified, undereducated trainers for the sake of more revenue from vulnerable new members who just don’t know any better or fall for a slick sales pitch.  The likelihood of this happening is probably .001%.  However, the other is that as a client, you need to expect more of your trainer.  And, as a trainer you need to expect more of yourself and give your clients what they have spent their hard earned money on.  Personally if I was paying a high amount of money per hour I would expect a pretty high standard of quality, and so should you.  If you are a trainer reading this, remember that these people are entrusting you with their physical health and well being, and what you do to them every session can either create a strong, healthy body – or destroy it.  As one of my instructors used to say, use your powers for good, not evil.  Although I guess I shouldn’t complain too much – it keeps me busy!

The Purpose of this Blog

It is a good morning to write.  I’m full of energy and have been just reading about the latest “amazing weight loss” company to hit the market with a new product.  Which of course, has no information about how the product actually works, but reveals google search pages full of glowing testimonials, all from people that sell the product.

My career as a health professional started when I was quite unhealthy myself.  Over the past 12 years I have helped many, many people learn about not only what they need to do to get stronger and able to move without pain.  However, one of the things that I see constantly within my industry is that many people will tell you what to do, but they will never tell their clients why they are supposed to be doing these things.  Personal trainers will throw random exercises at clients in a circuit style because “it makes them sweat” or “it’s good for their core”.  People seeking nutrition advice will be handed a long list of what to eat and when, but never told how the food they eat actually works within their body or what might work better for their individual biochemistry.  This type of behaviour is something I try to change when I’m working with my people.

Everything you do as a health professional should have a purpose.  It should be designed specifically for that individual at that time in order to optimize the eventual end result or goal.  When designing a program for a client in order to increase strength,  many things need to be considered.  For example – plane, range of motion, speed, range of repetitions, body position are just a few.  Too many “personal trainers” eliminate the whole personal side of things and simply do the same exercises in the same order – with five different people.  I’m an advocate of the Resistance Training Specialist protocol, which states that:

The Functional Continuum® represents the understanding that every sound exercise fits along aspectrum. Each provides a specific challenge and adaptation/benefit that, when implemented appropriately is vital to a comprehensive exercise program. No exercise should be condemned or glorified. It is when, why, how, and with whom it is used that makes the difference.   The vital part of this statement is the WHY behind what you are supposed to be doing.

There are lots of myths about what is real or not within the exercise industry.  My hope with this blog is to bring to light a lot of things that I see on a regular basis and how to make things more effective for everyone.  In a purely selfish way it also allows me to do research on topics that I think will help people get to where they want to be – including myself.  I welcome any feedback and appreciate all comments.   Thanks for reading!

David