You jumped headlong in to a new training program and are really sore. If you are like most of my clients, at this point you are likely to do one of two things, neither of which sets you up for long-term success:

1)     A hot bath, curl up on the couch, and decide that training isn’t for you (or that you will start again once you feel better).

2)     Keep pushing yourself as hard as you can – after all “no pain, no gain.”

Neither option is ideal.

If you choose what is behind door #1, there is a distinct possibility that you won’t start again – momentum is everything. Bonus: you will actually recover more quickly if you continue to move – you really want to keep from getting stiff.

So, then the answer must be to keep at it, right? Wrong again. If you are really sore or hurt, training that way is most likely going to exacerbate the problem – so if you aren’t hurt yet, you will be soon. If you are hurt, you will either further aggravate the existing injury or cause new injuries from your compensatory movement patterns.

This week, if you just aren’t feeling the love for the training program you have planned that day, take a day of active rest. By active rest, I mean still get out and do something, but cut way back on the intensity. It can be a nice walk, a leisurely bike ride, or light dynamic mobility work to keep the body moving.

Work out the stiffness, but never move in to pain.

In short, the study states that the windmill style of pitching in softball leads to a higher incidence of bicep injuries. The windmill style of pitching, if you aren’t familiar with it, is where the pitcher starts with the arm in front of them, goes up to 12 o’clock, back to 9, down to 3, and releases at 3 o’clock.

Mobility Training

You know the old saying “the hip bone is connected to the thigh bone”, well that is true up and down the body — and force transmits up and down the body. If you think about pushing something or someone, something with a bit of give is less likely to topple over and break that something solid, yes? The same holds true with joint mobility. The shoulder drives the movement, and the force radiates both down the arm and across the back and down the opposite leg. If you don’t have mobile chains up and down, what do you suppose happens to that force? It has to come out somewhere. So, if the body has a full arsenal of mobile joints, the entire body is able to absorb the force of the pitch.

Deliberate Practice

Moving at the speed to get a pitch out is A LOT of work. (I just tried it, and wish I hadn’t.) Getting the shoulder to move in that motion, even at a slower speed can be a stretch, no pun intended. It’s important to work through the entire range of motion related to the pitching movement at a wide variety of speeds, working on the rough spots in the circle. Then, as the circle improves at slow speeds, you can speed it up gradually.

The vast majority of sports injuries come from either eccentric (uneven) loading — things like lunging — or movement at end range of motion (you can think of that as joint lockout, generally speaking). It’s because people don’t train there, so the body becomes vulnerable.

While the example was a softball injury, the concepts of mobility training and deliberate practice apply everywhere. Your body needs to be ready and mobile in all ranges of motion and at all speeds. Even if you are not an athlete, you never know when you need to catch something that is falling or mis-step coming off a curb. And it’s always the “stupid stuff” where we get hurt.

While this study is not conclusive one way or the other, what it said was interesting. It said that brain exercise programs on the market have not actually proven via clinical trials to slow dementia.  According to one researcher involved with the study, “The brain aging products sold today can be a financial drain, decrease participation in more proven effective lifestyle interventions, like exercise, and potentially undermine cognitive health by frustrating the “worried well” if poorly designed.”

My personal take on it is that the way to maximize results is to combine movement WITH the exercise programs. That would increase the number of neurons firing, create new connections, and keep the body adapting and learning. I’m not talking about running a marathon – even something as simple as some Z-Health mobility drills while doing the exercises should be sufficient to help clients progress.

Given our rapidly aging population and the boom in these products, I really hope some well-designed studies come out soon. We need it!

We did some R-Phase mobility, discussing the arthrokinetic reflex and why joint mobility is important. And, there is nothing like a few demos to prove your point!

All of the students in the room are on the varsity teams for ball sports, so we spent quite a bit of time on visual drills and hand/eye and hand/foot drills and letterball drills. Those were really eye-opening (no pun intended) for mentors and students alike. Everyone saw dramatic improvements in their skills, after just a few reps.

We did before and after tests of their vertical jump, and everyone had a definite improvement — one student even had a 3″ increase.

Tonight, for the first time, I did a full-body R-Phase using weights (other than where not practical, such as cervical spine). I’m still trying to decide if my body thought was a good idea or not.  A self-assessment tells me that my body liked it — I’m just not so sure that my muscles and joints agree, even if my nervous system thinks it was good. I used 2.5-3 pound weights just about everywhere, except for lumbar circles, where I used a 26lb kettlebell.

As always, the rule for adding weight is to follow the Four Elements of Efficiency. The moment you start going in to startle, then you need to either get rid of the weight altogether or go to a lighter weight. I ended up having to change how I did my ankle circles a few times, as I didn’t want the weight to result in bad mapping for me (the last thing I need with my current gait weirdness).

I’m looking forward to making this a regular part of what I do, and my body getting more and more comfortable with it.