FITNESS TOOLS AND TRENDS

John M. Cissik

“There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things.” Machiavelli, The Prince.

Tools

What they are Advantages/Disadvantages How they are used

Tools

Olympic lifts Powerlifts Assistance exercises Kettlebells Heavy ropes Suspension training

Trends

Functional training Conditioning Core training FMS/Corrective exercises

Olympic Lifting: Cautions Very fast, not

forgiving of mistakes Requires

specialized equipment

Requires specialized instruction

Very technical, takes a long time to learn

Powerlifting: Diminishing returns/injury potential…

Functional training

Training with much better application to “real life” than traditional strength training and cardio.

Balance, unstable, unilateral training. Great branding. Isn’t increased muscle mass and

strength functional?

Conditioning In theory, getting the

benefits of doing cardio (burning calories, cardio-vascular fitness, endurance, etc.) without actually having to do cardio.

Involves performing a series of strength training exercises, for a period of time, with little to no rest.

Theory: best of all worlds

Conditioning, cont. In the 1980’s we called it either circuit training or

getting in shape for our sport With 21st century branding you have:

CrossFitInsanityP90XHigh intensity interval trainingMetabolic conditioningMetConConditioningEtc…

“Outward show is a wonderful perverter of reason.” Marcus Aurelius, Meditations.

Conditioning Benefits:

Group setting good for adherenceVariety, “fun,” not boringEasy to increase/decrease intensity

Concerns:One size doesn’t fit allGroup setting also promotes injuries and

overtraining/peer pressureBranding leads to dogmaCardio can be very intense too, most people just

don’t want to do it at that level – too hard“The first rule of CrossFit is to talk about CrossFit…”

Conditioning: What about cardio? Too much of anything is bad What are you training for? Bro science Article titles from

www.t-nation.com: “Fasted cardio eats

muscle” “Regular cardio will make

you fat” “Cardio kills” “The death of steady

state cardio” “The final nail in the

cardio coffin”

Core training “All movements originate

in or are coupled through the core”

Core training focuses on the muscles at the lumbar-pelvic region

The thought is this training will improve athletic performance, prevent lower back injuries, and rehab lower back injuries

No evidence for any of those things, but it’s fun

Core training

Stabilization exercises “Classic” exercises Balance exercises

FMS/Corrective exercises

There are things fundamentally wrong with how you move.

If these things are not fixed, you will be (or are) in severe pain and will possibly be disabled later in life.

A functional movement screen (FMS) can diagnose these things and then a corrective exercise program can be designed to help you.

What’s wrong with you? There are muscles that

you don’t do a good job activating.

There are other muscles that you activate too much.

You have scar tissue in the connective tissue that surrounds and makes up your muscles.

All of this alters your movement patterns.

Altered movement patterns…

Altered movement patterns

Adaptations in tissue/microtrauma

Changes in muscle recruitment patterns

Pain/injury

Diagnosis, examples (there are others) Overhead squat Hurdle step In-line lunge Shoulder mobility Active straight leg

raise Trunk stability push

up Rotary stability

Tools for corrective exercises Self myofascial

release for scar tissue and areas that are overly active

Stretching Exercises for areas

that are not active enough

Lots of balance and stabilizing exercises

Thoughts on corrective approaches Awesome marketing and sales potential Sounds great No research basis Research disputes foam rolling, flexibility and

neural activation, and is mixed on the FMS Makes assumption about how the body

functions that aren’t really founded in anything “Skepticism is the mother of security”

Frederick the Great

IF YOU ARE IN THE FIELD LONG ENOUGH,

EVERYTHING COMES AROUND AGAIN!

“Since, however, the blind leads the blind they fall into the ditch together.” Tertullian, Against Marcion.