The first gem of knowledge is this; chuck out your running sneakers. They’re doing you damage. I first got switched onto this by my Muay Thai instructor in Chiang Mai when I was training there. I saw him putting on these rather unusual shoes, which were like toe socks, but in shoe form. They were very thin, but had enough rubber on the bottom to prevent cuts and scratches, and not enough rubber to obstruct natural foot movement. I quizzed him about them and he said that they were the best things he’d ever worn. He said that he had to relearn how to run, because when you run with jogging shoes on, you typically run heel-to-toe, which is NOT the way our feet are designed to move.
It makes sense. Millions of years of human evolution made the foot a remarkably well adapted load bearing device. But only if it is using its natural range of motion. When we wear bulky sneakers, it reduces a lot of the contact that our feet have with the ground in the delusion that less contact is better. Studies have already proven that the opposite is true. Sneaker wearing joggers may acquire far more injuries than those who take the barefoot approach, for the simple reason that the foot is not moving naturally; placing undue stress on different parts of the leg NOT designed to run in that manner.
Since then, I got myself Vibram Five Fingers, the same ones that my instructor was wearing, and I can already feel increased strength in my legs, as well as an improvement in posture and agility. My girlfriend despises the way they look, and I get plenty an odd stare while out and about in them, but just like all good things, it takes time for people to accept them. Plus, I've never been one to care too much about what others think anyway. Go here to check them out http://www.vibramfivefingers.it/eng/produtcs.aspx
The second revelation is that I’ve been doing my weight training wrong. All wrong. When I was younger, I took the gym very seriously and used to lift weights relentlessly, in a vain attempt to get bigger, because I equated that with being healthier. The stuff that I’ve learned recently dispels that myth.
FACT: Isolation weight training does more harm than good. For the layman, isolation weight training involves isolating the rest of your body to focus on one specific group of muscles to target during exercise. Kind of like your typical frozen barbell curl over a rest. The reasoning behind WHY this is bad for you is painfully simple, and should have been just that obvious all along... and when I read the following, I slapped my forehead out of frustration. YOUR BODY DOES NOT WORK IN ISOLATION!
No! Muscle groups are supposed to work together, and when you isolate particular muscles (for aesthetic appeal) you are putting your body at a higher risk of injury.
Instead, do exercises that involve many different muscle groups and get them all firing at once. Gone are my old notions of just working on my arms and chest! That is merely aesthetic fluff. Bodybuilders are NOT strong at all, relative to their weight, and they have poor fitness as well as a higher chance of chronic injury. The human body was designed to operate naturally, so if you want to get really strong, think “mountain man” exercises. You know, the simple stuff, like lifting big rocks and throwing them down a hill. You get the idea.
After all, what is the point of having big and bulky muscles if they can't efficiently do what is required of them? Training in this way will reduce the bulk and allow the muscle fibre to grow much more densely, which is called Myofibrillar Hypertrophy, compared to Sarcoplasmic Hypertrophy, which has much more fluid in the muscle fibre and is less capable of intense muscular exertion. It's kind of like having a Chevy Camaro '69 hotrod with a dinky little 2500cc engine in it. Pointless. Be the stealth fighter. Have a muscular, compact body that exerts a lot of strength.
For more specific exercises, you should consider doing squats and lunges and deadlifts, as these actively engage your upper and lower body, as well as activate the largest muscles in your body; your quads. If you do these, I guarantee you will find your general strength levels increase. For upper body, go back to basics. Forget about all these fancy schmancy variations of isolation exercises. Go back to the benchpress. If you want to vary this, you can do decline and incline to work on the upper and lower pectorals. Kettlebell exercises are great too. Google "kettlebell" for a list of exercises you can do.
But most importantly, if you really want the strength gains, it is HOW you do these exercises that really matter. Most gym instructors will be getting you to do sets of 3 or 4 at 12 to 15 reps. Or, even worse, reps to failure. All this does is just tear the muscle fibre and gets it to build bigger, but not denser and stronger. This explains why I have, in the past, won arm wrestles against guys with arms much bigger than my own. For REAL strength, go with the heaviest weight you can possibly do, and do two sets of 5 to 6 reps. And make sure you are going nice and slow. Fast and jerky is crap. It won’t help at all. The worst thing you can possibly do is to do reps until failure. If you rep to failure, you're training to fail. This simply does not build dense muscle, and causes more problems than is worth the added mass.
Follow these pointers for your exercise, and I guarantee that you will build stronger, more efficient muscles that are less prone to injury. Plus, denser muscle has higher energy consumption, so the added bonus is that the more lean and dense muscle you put on, the more fat you’re burning even when you’re standing perfectly still. BONUS!
Lastly, I am going to raise a controversial topic. Stretching. STOP IT!I have found that since I have stopped stretching pre-workout, I have completely eliminated injury. This doesn’t mean that it won’t happen ever again, but it does reduce the chances of injury. The theory goes that by stretching before a workout, you are actually tightening your muscles instead of relaxing them, putting yourself at greater risk of pulling a muscle. If you want a really good warmup before a workout, do a light jog instead.
Researchers have found that intense static stretching actually reduces maximum force production during exercise. Which makes sense! It’d be the same as an Olympic deadlifter doing a whole bunch of benchpresses just before his event. It’s stupid, and injures you. So STOP IT! If you want the best for your muscles, stretch lightly AFTER your workout, during your cool down. This will actually help your muscles condition, as they are already warm, and will not likely cause injury.
So there you have it! Three health and fitness tips for the new year.
Let me spell them out again for you in summary.
1. Run barefoot. If you don’t want to go completely barefoot, get vibram five finger shoes. They’re amazing.
2. Do low rep, low set exercises with heavy weights. Only do exercises that involve many muscle groups at the same time. Remember, your muscles weren’t designed to work in isolation.
3. Do NOT stretch before workouts. Although this is common practise, it is not necessarily the right thing to do. Anyone that tells you to stretch before exercising is misguided. The scientific data is there. If you don’t believe me, google it, and you will see a mass of information on why stretching pre-workout is bad for you.
Anyway, thus endeth another rant. Happy new year, and I hope that everyone out there achieves their health and fitness goals for the year.
