Before Atlas Shrugged, He Strengthened His Core

In a previous entry I mentioned how strong abdominals can help in curing or preventing back problems. The operative word here is "help." Strengthening the core is an essential piece of the puzzle, but sometimes there are additional changes you may need to make. Many things can cause back problems; being overweight, disc disease, scoliosis (curvature of the spine), poor posture, poor seating, Xbox, laziness, and downward the spiral goes. It's amazing how many folks come to me and say their back goes out all the time, what can they do. The first rule is that YOU need to go out more than your back does. So on and on I go making a living being the Saint Lydwina of prolonged back pain, when all I really did was get them off their couch or Craig's List.

The first hurtle in conquering back pain is to determine its cause(s). Locating the cause of your back pain and developing a core training routine can help in eliminating some of its symptoms.

To find out what might be causing the problem take a look at these:

Do you have scoliosis or some form of disc disease? In many cases scoliosis can be corrected through proper therapy using, you guessed it, flexibility and core exercises.
How is your posture? Nearly all of us are born with good posture and proper execution of movements. Over time, we mess them up. As adults we don't squat to pick things up, we bend over. Big difference. Compare your posture and form to that of a child's. Their biomechanics of movement is nearly perfect!

So what do you need to do:

What kind of shoes do you wear? Your workout shoes need replaced more often that you think.
Were you ever in an accident that injured your back or neck?
Mattress need turned, replaced?
Are you under a lot of stress?
Do you sit for prolonged periods of time?
What type of chair do you use?
How is your body positioned at your desk?

Now, who can help you answer these questions?
A podiatrist. A podiatrist will help you answer all of those questions. He will perform a gait analysis, check how you walk, inspect your posture, and make recommendations for everything from therapy to shoes to an exercise program. A lot of back problems originate from the ground up.

The burning question: How does strengthening my abs help my back?

Any movements where you are pushing something, a door, shopping cart, a spouse, or pulling something, a door, a stubborn dog, or pulling yourself up involve contraction of core muscles. During a pushing type of movement your rectus abdominus (6 pack) and internal obliques must contract in order to stabilize your torso mainly from hyperextending or, leaning back. The same is true when you are doing any pulling type of movement. Your low back extensors and your obliques must contract to stabilize you from bending forward; another way the back is overstressed.




When your core is strong, stabilizing your back during push/pull movements is usually not an issue. When it is not strong the result is hyperextension in the back, and that causes excessive pressure on your spine. This pressure is further compounded when you have excess abdominal weight. A person with excess abdominal weight, tends toward hyperextending the back anyway simply to maintain "normal" posture. The more abdominal weight one has the harder their back muscles must work to keep them straight. This is why we see so many overweight people, mainly men, walking around looking like chemistry teachers, big belly out, arms back, wasting so much energy trying to offset the weight imbalance.
Solution: Change eating habits, get some good walking shoes, start walking, use my check list to see what's causing your back pain, and start a core strengthening program. You have a very good chance of eliminating some of the symptoms and looking better as well. Easier said than done, I know. But as Fernando Lamas said, "it's better to look good, than feel good." Maybe you can do both.

S T R E T C H I N G - The Truth

There are a couple schools of thought relative to stretching. One school says "why," and my school says because flexibility training helps alleviate joint pain, back pain, reduce muscle soreness, reduce stress, aid in workout recovery, loosen tight muscles, improve posture, increase functionality, increase range of motion in joints, and possibly help your social life. Got me?

This young lady spends an hour a day stretching. You don't need an hour a day, but you should stretch everyday. That does not mean a full blown hot yoga routine. It means a few short, effective stretches for; muscles you know are tight, muscles associated with those you know are tight, your calves, hamstrings and core. I include the latter three because; if your calves are tight, that contracture can cascade up through your hamstrings and into your low back. (A virtual show of hands here, who among you has some back pain?) Your core muscles are always in use, and are inclined to some tightness somewhere. It is a good idea to keep the core muscles flexible if for no other reason than eliminating some possible causes of back pain.



To better understand how a muscle functions, look at the basic physiology of stretching. (Use the links for further clarification.) Keep in mind that a muscle can be stretched to 1.5 times its resting length. For example, an 3 inch muscle can be effectively stretched to 4.5 inches. The stretching of a muscle fiber originates at the sarcomere, the smallest unit of contractile property in a muscle. As a muscle contracts, down in those sarcomeres, the area of between the thick and thin myofilaments(tiny protein threads) increases. This is why a muscle looks bigger when you "flex" it. Now, as a muscle stretches, the area between these tiny protein threads actually decreases allowing the muscle fiber to lengthen. It's kind of like a balloon; stretch it, it gets longer and thinner. When you can get all these fibers lengthening together, you have an effectively stretched muscle, (proper credit to the brutally thorough Brad Appleton). The key to getting as many fibers as possible to stretch is relaxation of the muscle. There is a realignment of those muscle fibers when you stretch them. They are reset in a way, similar to how a chiropractor resets, or realigns your spine.

Before I discuss the "how to," I need to mention my two cardinal rules:
1. Relax into and through your stretches. You must think of allowing a muscle to stretch, not forcing the stretch.
2. Never bounce during stretching. When you bounce during stretching you are triggering the stretch reflex. Your muscle recognizes the "abnormal" lengthening and attempts to protect itself by contracting, and thus countering your attempt at a stretch.

The first step to stretching a muscle is to locate the muscle to be stretched. Easier said than done. I have listed a few sources below for reference so that you can get a visual of skeletal muscles and what their responsibilities are in terms of joint movement. A short cut to learning the anatomy is to examine which way a muscle moves when you are working it, say, doing a push up. You want to stretch your chest, and during a push up your arms move toward you. Stretching a muscle occurs when you move that relaxed muscle past its resting length in the opposite direction it moves when it's working (bearing weight.) With that in mind you now know that to stretch the chest you move the arms away from it.

Next, find the area of zero tension, maximum relaxation of the muscle. The muscle must be unloaded, meaning, it is NOT bearing any weight. The worst example of this is when I see a runner stretching hamstrings with a leg up on a wall. Very inefficient in that the muscle he thinks he's stretching is actually bearing some of his own body weight. He might feel a stretch there, and might be stretching the muscle somewhat, but there are other ways much more effective and less likely to cause an injury. One of the reason some folks don't stretch is because they have gotten injured during stretching.

Step three is to locate the muscle's resting length. Resting length is a muscle's maximum isometric tension. Isometric meaning static contraction - no movement. When you get out of bed in the morning and raise both arms to a letter Y and down to a letter T, you are sort of reaching resting length in your chest and biceps. If you really "force" that movement, you are stretching those muscles. But you are stretching them past their resting length. To reach a muscle's resting length, gently activate the muscle on its opposite side. For example, if you want to reach resting length in your chest, gently pull your shoulders back.

And now, the stretch: while applying slight, but increasing pressure against the resting muscle, relax, exhale, and allow the muscle to lengthen. Let that muscle go. You must relax during this phase and allow the muscle to stretch. A relaxed muscle will lengthen, it's just up to you to fight the urge to force it to stretch. At the point when you feel you are about to experience pain, slowly back off of the stretch. That's it, the muscle is stretched.


You never want to feel pain while stretching. You want to stretch a muscle to the point of, but not to pain. As you become more flexible your "threshold" and your range of motion will increase. You will be able to stretch farther without reaching the point of pain.

As you get more familiar with these steps you will stretch more effectively, and achieve more stretches in less time.

Keys to effective stretching:

Once you allow the muscle to lengthen, the stretch is over. Release and stretch again.
Your muscles have no concept of time, the a stretch does not need to be held for a long time. If you do the technique properly, a muscle can be effectively stretched in 2-4 seconds. Do the 2-4 second stretch 2-4 times.

You want to feel the stretch over the full length of the muscle, not on the joint. For example, when you stretch your hamstrings you want to feel the stretch in the entire back of your thigh, not in back of your knee. Don't force the stretch, allow the stretch, gradually.

A few excellent sources for:
stretching anatomy,
stretching method and form,
stretching for back pain.

Welcome Back My Friends To The Belly That Never Ends

Sit Ups vs. The Fajita Tumor

The myth: If I really focus on working my abs, my tummy will go away. Or, I'm going to hit my abs to get rid of this pouch. Short answer, false. No really, doesn't work that way. So all those Ab Rollers and Body By Jake gadgets that look more like the Jaws of Life and artist easels are really good for is one more place to hang your laundry. I've seen apartment building gyms that look like repositories for these things. What's funnier is that all the flat, lean tummies in those infomercials were not even made by using these gizmos. They were made by people who, as least as far as their fitness goes, think with their minds, not their brains. What am I talking about? In terms of fitness, I mean, my brain says I want cheese cake, my mind says it's not good for me.

Enough with the psychology, let's understand the physiology of the fat and muscle and how to achieve a kinder, leaner core. In one of my previous entries, the "muscle will turn into fat" myth, I explained a bit of the physiology of fat and skeletal muscle cells. To expand on that, we have a finite number of fat and muscle cells. They either get larger or smaller depending on what the body needs them to do, or in the case of an overweight person, not to do. When a person is fit, lean looking, their fat cells have reduced in size and their muscle cells have increased in size. We can see the muscle, we can not see the fat. The opposite is true in an overweight person. Crunches and sit ups are excellent ways to train the abs, but they will not reduce what I affectionately call, the Fajita Tumor.* They will make that part of your core muscles stronger, indeed. They will also have a hypertrophic effect (increase in size) upon those muscles. This is good for the fit guy and bad for the fat guy who wants a quick fix. Fit guy will get stronger and leaner because he is using ab training as only part of his workout plan, fat guy will actually increase his waist size because he is increasing his abdominal muscle size, and not eating properly and aerobically training - Fajita Tumor not going away. *(I must give credit for that term to my guru Dr. Thomas Sattler, Ed.D.)


Why is this not happening? Every has heard the one about spot reduction; can't be done, in the gym, that is. It CAN be done in a surgical suite. Enter..... your dermatologist - they can perform liposuction, change all that, and you are all set, right? Here's what he wont tell you; we have a finite number of fat cells, yes? When you take away some of those cells, i.e. liposuction, your brain recognizes the loss of those cells, which your body really does need, and compensates by increasing the SIZE of fat cells elsewhere in your body to make up for that loss. This sets the stage for a Michelin Man look if you are not really on top of your diet, strength, and aerobic training. Your body is a network of systems which need each other in order to operate effectively and efficiently. If you take away fat cells, because it needs a certain amount, it will get them back somehow, and you wont be to thrilled about where the deposit is made. This is similar in physioLOGIC to the calorie cutter diet; your brain recognizes the caloric loss and actually slows metabolically in order to compensate for that loss. So now that we have taken Ab Rollers and elective cosmetic surgery off the table, let's look at an effective solution.


"Nope, not quite....what I had in mind was sort of a double-helix."


First, the immovable object: genetics. I am not a genetic engineer, but I do know that the human genome has not changed in 20 years. What has changed is our behavior. In that last 20 years Americans' waists have expanded like Chia Pets on steroids. Technology - email, XBox, On Demand, eternal shelf-life food engineering, and shoddy parenting have allowed us to become lazier and bigger. Genes do play a major role in the type of body we have, but they are not destiny. Genetics gives us the gun, but we can decide to pull the trigger. Sometimes, unfortunately, nature pulls that trigger for us.

"Each of us, a cell of awareness, imperfect and incomplete."

Each one of us, within our DNA, possess some proto-oncogenes. A proto-oncogene is a normal gene that can become an oncogene (cancer causer) due to mutations or increased expression. Scientists believe that oncogene expression can caused partly by a poor diet Proto-oncogenes can actually be expressed, or awakened through unhealthy living. Yes, you might be a candidate for heart disease or cancer because your father and grandfather and great grandfather had it, but there are ways to break that chain. In the words of Dirty Harry, "you've got to ask yourself one question;" do I eat well and exercise, live and act as if to prevent these genes from waking up, or do I want to give oncologists more work?
There's your genetics lesson. Keep the good ones awake, and keep the bad ones asleep.

Second, the irresistible force: Frappachinos and breakfast burritos.
Some of us are blessed with a very efficient metabolism and some of us are not. I have 18 personal training clients. One of them, ONE has got that fantastic efficient metabolism. She could drink whole milk, eat bagels for breakfast, pecan pie for lunch and toss a fifth of Jameson a night if she wanted. Yes, it would eventually burn out her liver and plug up her coronary arteries, but here's my point. She doesn't even bother touching ANY of that stuff. Maaaybe once in a while. Instead, she lives as if she IS a candidate for obesity, coronary artery disease and wants to prevent those things from happening. I call it PRE-hab. Pre-hab good, re-hab bad. Pretty wise approach.
I've grown tired of clients telling me that this or that runs in their family. Maybe that's the problem - maybe nobody RUNS in their family. Assume that you are a candidate for "this or that" and get ready to make the changes necessary to create a more resistible (to those bad genes that is), you.
The single most important factor in getting fit and shrinking that Fajita Tumor, is a plan of action based on the tools you have.

I'm going to add a new post, which will discuss a nutrition plan of action. Meanwhile, call your doc and schedule an exam.

The Muscle Will "Turn to into Fat" Myth

A client told me that his girlfriend does not want to build too much muscle because when she stops exercising her muscle will turn into fat.

Mental knee-jerk reaction: why would one ever stop exercising?

And now the myth, one of the greatest, MUSCLE WILL TURN INTO FAT. Not physiologically possible, although scientists are very near doing just the opposite. They are two intrinsically different cell types. (Thank you Pasteur. Indeed, an old box of clothes in your attic will not "turn into" a mouse.)

There are lots of different types of cells in the human body, but here we are concerned with two types; skeletal muscle cells and fat cells.
Skeletal muscle cells are the ones we are so concerned about making bigger, stronger and more visible. As we get stronger, those muscle cells actually increase in size, hence, you like what you see in the mirror. Fat cells are the ones we want to make smaller so that our muscles can be seen. When we are aerobically fit, our fat cells decrease in SIZE, not amount, and the result is a leaner look. Fat cells are smaller, therefore there is less "room" between our skin and our muscles resulting in a leaner look.

Muscle cells use what we eat in the form of carbohydrates for fuel. The cell consumes a usable form of what we eat called glycogen. Glycogen is a form of sugar, it is muscle fuel. It is energy for the cell, and, therefore, energy for the muscle.

A fat cell is quite different. Fat cells are designed to store fats, which they acquire from your blood stream, hint hint, watch your saturated fat consumption.They basically store energy, energy that your body does not yet need. That is a good thing, but there can be too much of a good thing. Fat cells do more than just store energy. They also insulate the body, and manufacture many hormones, incredibly important stuff. The fitter you are, the more of what you eat will be stored in the muscle cells, and less in the fat cells. The reverse is true the less fit you are.

If you stop working out, specifically, stop lifting weights, the muscle (cells) that you have built, increased in size, will, in time, lose that size. You still have the same number of muscle cells, but each cell has gotten smaller. Quite simply, the supply is meeting the demand. The muscle is not doing the work it used to, and therefore the cell does not need to be bigger and stronger. Consequently, if you continue eating the same amount of food (calories) you were when you were working out, the fat cells, which were always there, just smaller, will now expand. You see, the muscle cells then get smaller, and the fat cells get larger. The muscle cells no longer need as much energy, strength and size, so their nutrition (fuel) is stored in the fat cell. The fat cell is just doing its job by storing that energy and getting larger. But in no way has the muscle "turned into" fat. We still have two different cell types doing two different jobs. Bottom line: Build muscle, not bulk, just muscle, to keep your body functioning as efficiently as possible. Keep fit to feed muscle.