I got a comment asking about my food intake and I thought it would make a better post than a comment (plus my computer won't let me write comments right now). But first a little bit about confidence.
I had a logic teacher in grad school who was always annoyed by statements like "I think that..." He felt that it added no information to the proposition. I always thought he was wrong - knowing how confident someone is in some claim is important in many situations. Diet is one of them. There are some things I am very sure about, things I'm less sure about, and things I suspect but am really not sure about. The first two groups are what I'll recommend to others - that is, if I tell you to absolutely do something it's because I'm at least pretty sure that it's right. Now I could find out later that I was wrong all along - nobody has all the answers in this business.
What am I sure about? Artificial trans fats and high sugar intake are bad for you. I'm really sure that wheat is bad for you, less sure about legumes and dairy. I'm sure that interval training is better for your karate-specific endurance than jogging, but I'm not at all sure which intervals are best (20 seconds work, 10 seconds rest? 30 s work, 30 s rest? 30 s work, 4 minutes rest?) I'm pretty sure that green leafy vegetables are good for you but not absolutely sure. I think you get the idea.
One thing I suspect but which I'm not confident about is the value of intermittent fasting (IF). Basically, this is a style of eating where one fasts for extended periods of time on a regular basis. Now everybody (almost) fasts for 8-10 hours a day, every day (when they sleep), so I wouldn't count that as IF. To me IF means fasting at least 16 hours (leangains style) and at most 36 hours (alternate day fasting, or ADF), repeated anywhere from every day to once a month. I do something very like the Warrior Diet (a book you can pick up) - I eat most of my food during a 2-4 hour window in the evening. Is this something that works well for me? Yes. Is it something I would recommend to others? Not until I get more evidence. I suspect that periodic fasts will improve longevity - literally that they'll help me live longer - and there's some science to back that up, but it's pretty minimal. If you want to try it, go ahead (as long as you're over 18 - it's not something I'd recommend for somebody who's still growing!), but I can't be sure it's a good idea.
Keep that in mind.
So here's what I eat most days:
I get up and have 5 capsules of fish oil, 3 capsules of Respir-All (a quercetin supplement with bromine), 1 Allegra D (prescription allergy medication), 1 capsule of green tea extract (about 80 mg caffeine and some other good stuff), 4 tablets of calcium carbonate (Tums - but not actual Tums, the Kirkland knockoff, because it's cheaper), all with water. I make a mug of green tea sweetened with 1 packet Truvia to drink on the way to work.
At work I don't eat. I drink water and up to 2 liters of cold green tea sweetened with Truvia that I made up the night before. I have another capsule of green tea extract on my way home if I'm working out (which I do most days). If I'm home I'll drink water and hot green tea.
If I work out early (like on a weekend, where the workout might end at 2 or 3) I'll have a snack when I get home. Maybe 2 oz. of roast beef, 2 oz. of cheese from grass fed milk, and a couple of ounces of nuts (I like cashews from Trader Joe's - they come in individual bags so portion control is easier). If it's a regular workday I won't eat until dinner (which is right after my workout.
Dinner: Usually 1 lb. ground beef (from grass fed cows) browned in a pan with 2 tablespoons coconut oil. I'll mix in some mashed sweet potatoes - I get white sweet potatoes (called Korean yams by my grocer), peel and cut them up and roast them in coconut oil or in tallow if I have any around. I mash then and add in some more fat - tallow, coconut oil, lard, or butter, and stick them in the fridge. Each day I try to eat about a pound worth - but not a pound of mashed sweet potatoes, I mean whatever I get after starting with a pound of the raw stuff (they lose a lot of mass because they lose water when I roast them, so it's the same calories but doesn't actually weigh a pound when I put it in the pan.) I mix the mashed potatoes and beef together - the potatoes absorb all the fat and liquid, so I'm not losing any nutrients. It looks kind of disgusting (I"ll post pictures as soon as I get a camera situation worked out), but I don't mind. I also season it - garlic, cayenne pepper, a little salt.
Some days I'll have a package of smoked beef ribs and some noodles instead - I get these noodles called "korean vermicelli" which are made from sweet potato starch. I make about 100-120 grams of raw noodles. I cook them and add some sesame oil and red pepper flakes to taste. I'll use the leftover fat from the ribs to cook my potatoes for the next few days.
Some days I'll eat (instead of either meal above) 5-6 eggs cooked in butter, half a package of nitrate free bacon, 4 oz. or so of cheese (from grassfed cows), some leftover cold cuts like turkey, ham, or roast beef that my wife leaves me, and the sweet potato vermicelli.
With dinner I'll take a multivitamin, my D3 and K2, C and E. I'll drink water or seltzer (plain, just carbonated water).
Closer to bedtime - maybe 2 hours after dinner - I'll take 5 more capsules fish oil or 2 teaspoons of cod liver oil, eat about 100 calories worth of dark chocolate (85% dark from Trader Joe's), all with water. I might also have some fruit or some nuts (nuts only if I haven't had any earlier). Last night I ate 1/2 a cantaloupe at that point.
I'm actively trying to lean out now. If I can get down to a good bodyfat level I'd add in more protein and more fat, but NOT more carbs. I might start eating more fruit, or more low-carb desserts (I don't know if I wrote about this, but I take coconut milk, cocoa, and erythritol and a little vanilla and xanthan gum and refrigerate it - comes out like chocolate mousse).
IMPORTANT: My diet is not perfect, even by my own standards. I should be eating more vegetables, I just don't like them very much. I'm working on it! I should probably cut back on caffeine - again, I'm working on it. I'd like to do away with artificial sweeteners altogether, but I think I'm doing better with Truvia than I was with aspartame (I gave up diet soda just about a month ago). I go out probably once a week on average - I stay grain free, but I'll eat regular potatoes, steak from grainfed cows, salads made with regular Caesar dressing, and so forth. I have a bad habit of eating dried fruit with added sugar as a night time snack - which is not good, I know, I only do it occasionally. I also cheat and have some ice cream over the weekend (but not every weekend).
So if you ate like me but cut down on the tea and sweeteners and added a large mixed salad every day you'd be doing pretty well!
This diet has me at the leanest I've ever been with relatively few cravings. When I ate low carb I'd keep breaking the diet - like the day before a sparring session I'd eat some carbs, knowing they'd help me perform. By intentionally putting carbs into the diet I have no excuse for cheating, and... I don't cheat as much. This works suprisingly well!
I've always had trouble controlling my food intake when eating carbs. By eating all my food in one sitting and staying away from grains I've been really successful lately keeping the portions under control.
Feel free to ask more questions if anybody wants more details or if you want more explanation about why I do certain things the way I do them! And thanks for all the positive comments!
Monday, September 20, 2010
Living La Vida Lo Carb mention! Plus more on podcasts and carbs.
If you're reading this post, congratulations! Because I'm pretty lousy at marketing/ publicizing this blog, a failing for which I have no real excuse. Anyway, despite my lack of efforts, my blog got mentioned by Jimmy Moore of the Livin La Vida Low Carb blog and podcast! Check this out.
If you look at the right side of this page you'll see a list of blogs I like and, further down, a list of podcasts I listen to religiously. Why? Well, the fact is that I have a 30+ minute commute to and from work each day and I fairly regularly have vacations that involve 4+ hours of driving at a clip. I also have a job where I sit at a desk and, at times, engage in fairly routine computer type work that doesn't require my full attention span. About five years ago I discovered a couple of podcasts that let me fill in that time while learning valuable things. Jimmy's is one of them.
Now the Livin La Vida Low Carb podcast is probably not the most valuable one on the list - I'd say start with The Paleolithic Solution or the Strength Coach Podcast - not because of any fault of Mr. Moore but because it's an interview show. Some of his guests are full of valuable information and some... are not. Mr. Moore does a very good job with the questioning and has a lot of knowledge about nutrition and weight loss (along with personal experience) and a ton of positive energy, but there's no way he's going to find 3-5 guests each week, week in and week out, who can fill 45 minutes with awesome information. The weekly shows are always going to be denser. If you have very little time to listen, keep that in mind. If you have a little more time to fill, absolutely add Jimmy Moore's show to your schedule!
Now Mr. Moore put me down as a low carb blog, and I wanted to go into some details about carbs and my opinion about their role in nutrition.
First of all, you absolutely do not need to eat carbohydrates for your health. I can't emphasize that enough. If anybody says you "need" carbs or starts talking about the importance of whole grains in a balanced diet nod politely and back away. They do not know what they are talking about. There are no essential carbohydrates - there are essential fats and amino acids, substances your body can't manufacture and can't live without - but no carbs.
Now your body does need some glucose to run. Certain cells can't get their energy directly from fat. I hear what you're thinking - "but Joe, isn't glucose a carb?" Yes, it is. But you absolutely don't need to get that glucose by eating it - you can survive just fine on the glucose your body can manufacture from extra protein through a nifty process called gluconeogenesis. Wikipedia it.
The story does get a little more complicated. To optimize health you probably need to eat some vegetables, berries, and fruits - there are some arguments against that, but the evidence is in favor of some veggie intake. And veggies mostly contain carbs - some more than others. The point is you need to eat some veggies despite the carbs they contain, not because of it. If we had a magic wand that could take all the carbs out of broccoli without altering it in any other way the broccoli would be just as good - if not better - for our health.
"But Joe, won't we fall into ketosis if we don't eat carbs?" Yes, we will. And no, that's not a problem. Ketoacidosis is a dangerous condition that can befall diabetics with out of control blood sugar. Ketosis sounds similar but isn't the same thing and isn't bad for us. In fact, there's all sorts of evidence that ketosis preserves muscle, helps fight cancer, helps us lose fat fast, and is, in general, a healthy state of being. Keep in mind that there are populations of people that spend most of their lives in ketosis and show perfect health.
The fact that we don't need carbs doesn't necessarily mean that they're bad for us, does it? Not necessarily, no. But there are a few problems with carb intake:
First, fructose specifically seems to cause a host of metabolic problems by increasing insulin resistance, especially in the liver. Basically, a high fructose intake will push you towards a pre-diabetic state, which is bad for all sorts of reasons including both health and performance. Does that mean you shouldn't eat fruit (after all, fruit has fructose in it)? Not exactly. Sure, fruit has fructose, which means you should somewhat restrict your fruit intake - you shouldn't get the bulk of your calories from bananas or apples or anything - but a much bigger danger is sugar, or sucrose (which is half fructose) and high fructose corn syrup. You need to eat a lot of bananas to get a dangerous load of fructose - more than one - but a can of regular Coke will damage you a lot more easily. Fruit juice will also make it easy to overdo the fructose intake. So eat your berries and fruits, in moderation, but cut out juice and sugar and HFCS completely and you'll be better off.
What about starches (which are made up of glucose molecules predominantly)? The problem with starches is where you get them from. Grains (especially wheat) and legumes (beans and peanuts), which are the source of most American starches, have all kinds of compounds in them along with the starch that damage you in a number of ways - increasing inflammation, irritating the gut lining, and increasing insulin resistance. They are also often empty calories - if you eat 250 calories of bread as opposed to, say, 250 calories of grass fed beef - you'll get a lot fewer nutrients like essential fats, vitamins and minerals, and protein. That's fine if you only eat 250 calories of starches, but if they make up the bulk of your diet you're going to have a hard time getting in optimal quantities of those other nutrients.
[As an aside - I suspect (but can't prove) that a big source of the health benefits for low carb dieters is that they aren't eating much fructose or grains. It would be interesting to take a group and put half on a low-carb diet and the other half on a moderate carb diet where all the carbs came from non-grain and non-sugar sources and see if the low carbers did all that much better. It also makes me feel sick when I look at some supposedly safe items sold to diabetics - like cookies sweetened with fruit juice. Yes, fructose won't raise blood sugar on its own, but it will worsen the diabetes. Oh well.]
So if all you're interested in is perfect health, I'd suggest just getting your carb intake as low as possible - just eat the carbs that you get with your fruits, nuts, and veggies and stop there. Try to keep the total number as low as you can (under 30 g/day is best for weight loss.)
BUT if you're interested in maximizing performance there's another side to things. If you engage in high intensity exercise (which, if you practice karate, you do) then your body will need to use glucose to fuel those workouts. The energy system involved in really intense, short term efforts just can't use fat well. Where can this glucose come from? Two places - either your body makes it from amino acids (protein) through gluconeogenesis or you eat it directly.
Say you need 400 calories worth of glycogen each day to make it through your workouts (which is quite a lot - that's enough to do a whole lot of very intense training every day). Say you need 75 grams of protein each day to support muscle growth and repair, cellular health, and so forth. Say you eat only 35 grams of carbs in your diet. Now 400 calories worth of glycogen is 100 grams of carb. If you eat 35 you need another 65 grams of glycogen from somewhere. Your body just isn't good at turning fat into glycogen and it isn't perfectly efficient at converting protein either. So you'll need to eat an extra 85-100 grams of protein to make up those 65 grams of glycogen through gluconeogenesis. So to stay very low carb and keep your muscles packed with glycogen you'd be looking to eat 175 grams of protein a day. That's a solid amount, but not ridiculously so - we're not talking protein shakes every 2 hours or anything.
I personally find that I feel better and perform better if I try to get that glucose directly from starch and keep my protein intake more moderate. What does that mean? I only eat 100-125 g protein/day but I try to eat 100-125 g carb/ day as well. The rest of my calories come from fat - primarily saturated and monounsaturated fat. Mmm, fat....
Does that still qualify me as low carb? I'm not sure. It's a lot lower carb than the Standard American Diet, that's for sure, but probably not low enough for me to be in ketosis most of the time. To be asolutely clear: I only eat that much starch because I feel it benefits my performance during very high intensity exercise, NOT because I feel it contributes to health. Most people do not need anywhere near that amount of carbs.
Now you might be wondering where I get my starch from if I am so opposed to grain and legume intake. The answer: Sweet potatotes! Stick to sweet potatoes and yams for your carb. Mix it with some cassava if you have to. You can also try white rice - it seems to have a lot less damaging effect on your health than wheat (which is part of why those eating traditional Asian diets tend not to show signs of the diseases of civilization like heart disease and atherosclerosis). For a yummy treat stop by the Asian market and pick up some white sweet potatoes instead of the orangey/ yellowy ones. I find them much tastier. Add in some fruit (in moderation) and some nuts (also in moderation, because of the high amount of omega-6 fats, not fructose) and some veggies (green leafy ones especially) and you'll have no problem filling up your glycogen stores to get ready for some serious training.
Thanks again to Mr. Moore for mentioning my blog!
If you look at the right side of this page you'll see a list of blogs I like and, further down, a list of podcasts I listen to religiously. Why? Well, the fact is that I have a 30+ minute commute to and from work each day and I fairly regularly have vacations that involve 4+ hours of driving at a clip. I also have a job where I sit at a desk and, at times, engage in fairly routine computer type work that doesn't require my full attention span. About five years ago I discovered a couple of podcasts that let me fill in that time while learning valuable things. Jimmy's is one of them.
Now the Livin La Vida Low Carb podcast is probably not the most valuable one on the list - I'd say start with The Paleolithic Solution or the Strength Coach Podcast - not because of any fault of Mr. Moore but because it's an interview show. Some of his guests are full of valuable information and some... are not. Mr. Moore does a very good job with the questioning and has a lot of knowledge about nutrition and weight loss (along with personal experience) and a ton of positive energy, but there's no way he's going to find 3-5 guests each week, week in and week out, who can fill 45 minutes with awesome information. The weekly shows are always going to be denser. If you have very little time to listen, keep that in mind. If you have a little more time to fill, absolutely add Jimmy Moore's show to your schedule!
Now Mr. Moore put me down as a low carb blog, and I wanted to go into some details about carbs and my opinion about their role in nutrition.
First of all, you absolutely do not need to eat carbohydrates for your health. I can't emphasize that enough. If anybody says you "need" carbs or starts talking about the importance of whole grains in a balanced diet nod politely and back away. They do not know what they are talking about. There are no essential carbohydrates - there are essential fats and amino acids, substances your body can't manufacture and can't live without - but no carbs.
Now your body does need some glucose to run. Certain cells can't get their energy directly from fat. I hear what you're thinking - "but Joe, isn't glucose a carb?" Yes, it is. But you absolutely don't need to get that glucose by eating it - you can survive just fine on the glucose your body can manufacture from extra protein through a nifty process called gluconeogenesis. Wikipedia it.
The story does get a little more complicated. To optimize health you probably need to eat some vegetables, berries, and fruits - there are some arguments against that, but the evidence is in favor of some veggie intake. And veggies mostly contain carbs - some more than others. The point is you need to eat some veggies despite the carbs they contain, not because of it. If we had a magic wand that could take all the carbs out of broccoli without altering it in any other way the broccoli would be just as good - if not better - for our health.
"But Joe, won't we fall into ketosis if we don't eat carbs?" Yes, we will. And no, that's not a problem. Ketoacidosis is a dangerous condition that can befall diabetics with out of control blood sugar. Ketosis sounds similar but isn't the same thing and isn't bad for us. In fact, there's all sorts of evidence that ketosis preserves muscle, helps fight cancer, helps us lose fat fast, and is, in general, a healthy state of being. Keep in mind that there are populations of people that spend most of their lives in ketosis and show perfect health.
The fact that we don't need carbs doesn't necessarily mean that they're bad for us, does it? Not necessarily, no. But there are a few problems with carb intake:
First, fructose specifically seems to cause a host of metabolic problems by increasing insulin resistance, especially in the liver. Basically, a high fructose intake will push you towards a pre-diabetic state, which is bad for all sorts of reasons including both health and performance. Does that mean you shouldn't eat fruit (after all, fruit has fructose in it)? Not exactly. Sure, fruit has fructose, which means you should somewhat restrict your fruit intake - you shouldn't get the bulk of your calories from bananas or apples or anything - but a much bigger danger is sugar, or sucrose (which is half fructose) and high fructose corn syrup. You need to eat a lot of bananas to get a dangerous load of fructose - more than one - but a can of regular Coke will damage you a lot more easily. Fruit juice will also make it easy to overdo the fructose intake. So eat your berries and fruits, in moderation, but cut out juice and sugar and HFCS completely and you'll be better off.
What about starches (which are made up of glucose molecules predominantly)? The problem with starches is where you get them from. Grains (especially wheat) and legumes (beans and peanuts), which are the source of most American starches, have all kinds of compounds in them along with the starch that damage you in a number of ways - increasing inflammation, irritating the gut lining, and increasing insulin resistance. They are also often empty calories - if you eat 250 calories of bread as opposed to, say, 250 calories of grass fed beef - you'll get a lot fewer nutrients like essential fats, vitamins and minerals, and protein. That's fine if you only eat 250 calories of starches, but if they make up the bulk of your diet you're going to have a hard time getting in optimal quantities of those other nutrients.
[As an aside - I suspect (but can't prove) that a big source of the health benefits for low carb dieters is that they aren't eating much fructose or grains. It would be interesting to take a group and put half on a low-carb diet and the other half on a moderate carb diet where all the carbs came from non-grain and non-sugar sources and see if the low carbers did all that much better. It also makes me feel sick when I look at some supposedly safe items sold to diabetics - like cookies sweetened with fruit juice. Yes, fructose won't raise blood sugar on its own, but it will worsen the diabetes. Oh well.]
So if all you're interested in is perfect health, I'd suggest just getting your carb intake as low as possible - just eat the carbs that you get with your fruits, nuts, and veggies and stop there. Try to keep the total number as low as you can (under 30 g/day is best for weight loss.)
BUT if you're interested in maximizing performance there's another side to things. If you engage in high intensity exercise (which, if you practice karate, you do) then your body will need to use glucose to fuel those workouts. The energy system involved in really intense, short term efforts just can't use fat well. Where can this glucose come from? Two places - either your body makes it from amino acids (protein) through gluconeogenesis or you eat it directly.
Say you need 400 calories worth of glycogen each day to make it through your workouts (which is quite a lot - that's enough to do a whole lot of very intense training every day). Say you need 75 grams of protein each day to support muscle growth and repair, cellular health, and so forth. Say you eat only 35 grams of carbs in your diet. Now 400 calories worth of glycogen is 100 grams of carb. If you eat 35 you need another 65 grams of glycogen from somewhere. Your body just isn't good at turning fat into glycogen and it isn't perfectly efficient at converting protein either. So you'll need to eat an extra 85-100 grams of protein to make up those 65 grams of glycogen through gluconeogenesis. So to stay very low carb and keep your muscles packed with glycogen you'd be looking to eat 175 grams of protein a day. That's a solid amount, but not ridiculously so - we're not talking protein shakes every 2 hours or anything.
I personally find that I feel better and perform better if I try to get that glucose directly from starch and keep my protein intake more moderate. What does that mean? I only eat 100-125 g protein/day but I try to eat 100-125 g carb/ day as well. The rest of my calories come from fat - primarily saturated and monounsaturated fat. Mmm, fat....
Does that still qualify me as low carb? I'm not sure. It's a lot lower carb than the Standard American Diet, that's for sure, but probably not low enough for me to be in ketosis most of the time. To be asolutely clear: I only eat that much starch because I feel it benefits my performance during very high intensity exercise, NOT because I feel it contributes to health. Most people do not need anywhere near that amount of carbs.
Now you might be wondering where I get my starch from if I am so opposed to grain and legume intake. The answer: Sweet potatotes! Stick to sweet potatoes and yams for your carb. Mix it with some cassava if you have to. You can also try white rice - it seems to have a lot less damaging effect on your health than wheat (which is part of why those eating traditional Asian diets tend not to show signs of the diseases of civilization like heart disease and atherosclerosis). For a yummy treat stop by the Asian market and pick up some white sweet potatoes instead of the orangey/ yellowy ones. I find them much tastier. Add in some fruit (in moderation) and some nuts (also in moderation, because of the high amount of omega-6 fats, not fructose) and some veggies (green leafy ones especially) and you'll have no problem filling up your glycogen stores to get ready for some serious training.
Thanks again to Mr. Moore for mentioning my blog!
Friday, September 17, 2010
Muscle Activation: Why "turning on your glutes" is not a sexual reference
Bear with me for a little background.
If you're like me you learned about muscle function using elbow flexion as the model. The elbow is a nice, relatively simple hinge joint. You've got biceps and triceps. When the biceps contract the triceps relax and the elbow flexes, when the triceps contract the biceps relax and the elbow extends. We know the story is a little more complicated - there's a brachialis to worry about and two bones in the forearm - but not much more.
This is a nice starting model to understanding reciprocal inhibition and muscle function, but it has serious limitations. The joints that are more important to movement - the hips and shoulders, and the spine (I know the spine isn't technically a joint, but you get the idea) - are not nearly as simple. Take the hips. Do the quads flex or extend the hip? Why, flex it of course. So the quads relax when the hip extends? Well - not exactly. Do a heavy squat and tell me if your quads are nice and relaxed. Hip function is just a lot more complex, and most hip movements involve a lot of different muscles working together in various ways.
The shoulder is similarly complex. Why does tensing your lat improve pressing power? Doesn't the lat pull the upper arm down? Well, yes, but it also settles the shoulder in its socket. Don't believe me? Try doing heavy kettlebell presses. Now tense the lat - pull the shoulder down with the lat and see how the bell moves (by the way, this is a nice thing to do when throwing an upper block - actively pull the shoulder down towards the back of your hip by tensing the lat as your arm moves up. You should see a nice boost in power as well as preserving the integrity of your shoulder joint).
I'm not going to fully descibe the way these muscles interact to produce movement in this post - I don't know enough and I don't have enough room. The take home points are as follows:
Try this as your warmup:
Now if you have a big enough issue you may need to see a physical therapist or massage therapist or some kind of movement specialist to fix your inactive muscles. But try some other things first. I can feel a big difference in movement just by trying to tilt my pelvis forward and intentionally squeezing my glutes when moving. You might too!
If you're like me you learned about muscle function using elbow flexion as the model. The elbow is a nice, relatively simple hinge joint. You've got biceps and triceps. When the biceps contract the triceps relax and the elbow flexes, when the triceps contract the biceps relax and the elbow extends. We know the story is a little more complicated - there's a brachialis to worry about and two bones in the forearm - but not much more.
This is a nice starting model to understanding reciprocal inhibition and muscle function, but it has serious limitations. The joints that are more important to movement - the hips and shoulders, and the spine (I know the spine isn't technically a joint, but you get the idea) - are not nearly as simple. Take the hips. Do the quads flex or extend the hip? Why, flex it of course. So the quads relax when the hip extends? Well - not exactly. Do a heavy squat and tell me if your quads are nice and relaxed. Hip function is just a lot more complex, and most hip movements involve a lot of different muscles working together in various ways.
The shoulder is similarly complex. Why does tensing your lat improve pressing power? Doesn't the lat pull the upper arm down? Well, yes, but it also settles the shoulder in its socket. Don't believe me? Try doing heavy kettlebell presses. Now tense the lat - pull the shoulder down with the lat and see how the bell moves (by the way, this is a nice thing to do when throwing an upper block - actively pull the shoulder down towards the back of your hip by tensing the lat as your arm moves up. You should see a nice boost in power as well as preserving the integrity of your shoulder joint).
I'm not going to fully descibe the way these muscles interact to produce movement in this post - I don't know enough and I don't have enough room. The take home points are as follows:
- In most cases muscles work together in teams to produce movement. The hip and shoulder are not much like the elbow in this regard.
- In many people muscles will work inefficiently or incorrectly to produce movement. There's a "right way" for your muscles to extend the hip ("right" meaning most efficient and healthiest for your alignment) and if you sit at a desk all day your body is probably not doing it the right way!
- Muscles can "shut down" - which just means they don't do their fair share of moving you around. The glutes, parts of the core, and the shoulder stabilizers are all prime suspects for this.
- One way to help imrpove your performance and alignment during movement is to "wake up" those underperforming muscles.
Try this as your warmup:
- Get warm (literally, raise your body temperature). I like doing a breathing kata (sanchin, tensho) for this.
- Do some dynamic stretching (leg swings to the front and side for 1-3 rounds of 10)
- Get a pair of light dumbells and do YWTL's (check these out on YouTube - much easier to see than to explain).
- Do a round of planks - front, side, and one armed to each side - but not to exhaustion, just 10-15 s so you feel a nice contraction where you're supposed to.
- Do some glute bridges - lie on your back, plant your feet flat on the floor, and thrust your pelvis up at the sky. If you feel it in your hamstrings your glutes are asleep. Squeeze the glutes, hard, as you do the movement. You can try these one leg at a time as well. Or do some kettlebell swing (my favorite choice).
Now if you have a big enough issue you may need to see a physical therapist or massage therapist or some kind of movement specialist to fix your inactive muscles. But try some other things first. I can feel a big difference in movement just by trying to tilt my pelvis forward and intentionally squeezing my glutes when moving. You might too!
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Stretching for Performance
Nearly every aspect of my own training has been altered by the things I've learned from books and online sources over the last five years, but perhaps the way I stretch has changed most of all. I see many martial artists stretch incorrectly, which can cause injury or decrease performance at worst and waste time at best. As you know, I'm not a fan of wasting time!
There are several different types of stretching, but I'm going to focus on two:
Look, we've all been told at some point to sit on the floor and static stretch for fifteen minutes or half an hour before karate class or other exercise. We've been told that it prevents injuries and prepares the body for the workout. This is just not true. The scientific evidence behind using static stretching pre-workout for injury prevention is nil - it just doesn't work. Holding stretches for a long time, like sitting in a near - split and trying to touch your chest to the floor for 30 seconds or a minute, significantly reduces the amount of force your muscles can generate for quite a while thereafter. Do you think that's what you want to do - weaken your leg muscles right before practicing kicks? Or before fighting?
On the other hand, two to four minutes of dynamic stretching will get you to the limits of your dynamic flexibility - that is, get you to the point where you can kick as high as your body will allow you to kick. Don't believe me? Try it. Do a quick warm up - any movement that raises your core body temperature. Do some planks and some glute bridges maybe (lie on your back, put your feet flat on the floor, and thrust your pelvis at the sky. Repeat). Then do some leg swings - 10 each leg, first 10 to the front, then 10 to the side. Repeat for 2 or 3 rounds if you need to. Do these fast, but not full speed - you're trying to move your leg through its full range of motion and then back, not hold it up in the air. Total time? Maybe 5 minutes. Then practice your high kicks.
Does that mean no static stretching? Well, not exactly. There are two reasons to do static stretching. The first is that some static stretching will help you increase your flexibility, if you need it. And if you have minor muscle damage (tweaks, not full tears) stretching seems to help recovery. So if you're still working towards a full split, sitting in front of the TV every night and cranking your legs apart will probably help you get there. Do this stretching while fairly cold and preferably after some foam rolling or massage.
The other thing to do if you're trying to improve your range of motion is to increase your strength in those muscles at the stretched position. How? Well, try getting into a horse stance (kiba dachi). Widen it as far as you can - keeping the knees bent, try to get as close to a split as you can. Then squeeze the floor with your inner things - try to pull your heels towards each other. Hold, really working hard to contract those muscles, for 30 s or so.
You can do anything else that works those muscles from the stretch position. My favorite? I set up a pair of gymnastic rings. I put my feet into the rings (one in each). Then I lower myself into a split position, or as close as I can get, without using my hands (I'll usually keep a palm on the wall in front of me for balance). Then I pull myself back up - so my feet come together - using my hip adductors alone.
Bottome line:
Do only dynamic stretching before your workout. Save the static stretching for off days or nighttime, not close to your workout.
I recommend dynamic stretching once or twice a day, every day. There are two reasons for this: the first is that it prepares you for mini workouts - like getting out of your chair and just throwing five or ten kicks with each leg. The second is a self defense issue. If you use high kicks in your karate practice and get into a fight you should be prepared to throw those kicks anytime. No mugger (or whatever) is going to jump you, then stand aside and wait ten minutes for you to warm up and stretch before continuing the beating.
If you're curious, the core of these recommendations comes from Thomas Kurz and Mac Mierzejewski. check out their stuff at stadion.com.
There are several different types of stretching, but I'm going to focus on two:
- Dynamic Stretching: This means moving a limb to the limits of its range of motion, then back (as opposed to holding a limb in the stretched position). Think leg swings, or mae keage, or yoko keage.
- Static Stretching: This means holding a limb at a point near or at the limit of its range of motion. This is the typical sitting on the floor with legs spread, leaning over one leg or the other and holding the position for some period of time.
- Movement prep: This is stretching before a workout, as part of your warmup, or before a performance of some kind. Think of the stretching you do before practicing kicks. Also known as limbering up or loosening up.
- Flexibility enhancement: Stretching you do to increase your long term flexibility.
Look, we've all been told at some point to sit on the floor and static stretch for fifteen minutes or half an hour before karate class or other exercise. We've been told that it prevents injuries and prepares the body for the workout. This is just not true. The scientific evidence behind using static stretching pre-workout for injury prevention is nil - it just doesn't work. Holding stretches for a long time, like sitting in a near - split and trying to touch your chest to the floor for 30 seconds or a minute, significantly reduces the amount of force your muscles can generate for quite a while thereafter. Do you think that's what you want to do - weaken your leg muscles right before practicing kicks? Or before fighting?
On the other hand, two to four minutes of dynamic stretching will get you to the limits of your dynamic flexibility - that is, get you to the point where you can kick as high as your body will allow you to kick. Don't believe me? Try it. Do a quick warm up - any movement that raises your core body temperature. Do some planks and some glute bridges maybe (lie on your back, put your feet flat on the floor, and thrust your pelvis at the sky. Repeat). Then do some leg swings - 10 each leg, first 10 to the front, then 10 to the side. Repeat for 2 or 3 rounds if you need to. Do these fast, but not full speed - you're trying to move your leg through its full range of motion and then back, not hold it up in the air. Total time? Maybe 5 minutes. Then practice your high kicks.
Does that mean no static stretching? Well, not exactly. There are two reasons to do static stretching. The first is that some static stretching will help you increase your flexibility, if you need it. And if you have minor muscle damage (tweaks, not full tears) stretching seems to help recovery. So if you're still working towards a full split, sitting in front of the TV every night and cranking your legs apart will probably help you get there. Do this stretching while fairly cold and preferably after some foam rolling or massage.
The other thing to do if you're trying to improve your range of motion is to increase your strength in those muscles at the stretched position. How? Well, try getting into a horse stance (kiba dachi). Widen it as far as you can - keeping the knees bent, try to get as close to a split as you can. Then squeeze the floor with your inner things - try to pull your heels towards each other. Hold, really working hard to contract those muscles, for 30 s or so.
You can do anything else that works those muscles from the stretch position. My favorite? I set up a pair of gymnastic rings. I put my feet into the rings (one in each). Then I lower myself into a split position, or as close as I can get, without using my hands (I'll usually keep a palm on the wall in front of me for balance). Then I pull myself back up - so my feet come together - using my hip adductors alone.
Bottome line:
Do only dynamic stretching before your workout. Save the static stretching for off days or nighttime, not close to your workout.
I recommend dynamic stretching once or twice a day, every day. There are two reasons for this: the first is that it prepares you for mini workouts - like getting out of your chair and just throwing five or ten kicks with each leg. The second is a self defense issue. If you use high kicks in your karate practice and get into a fight you should be prepared to throw those kicks anytime. No mugger (or whatever) is going to jump you, then stand aside and wait ten minutes for you to warm up and stretch before continuing the beating.
If you're curious, the core of these recommendations comes from Thomas Kurz and Mac Mierzejewski. check out their stuff at stadion.com.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
On Supplements
Supplements (as in dietary supplements) are a fairly contentious issue in the health and fitness community. The research on supplements, like general nutrition, is hard to do - there are just so many variables in diet and in performance, let alone in genetic makeup from person to person. A lot of supplements should work but don't seem to actually work for practicing athletes (HMB, anyone?) A lot should work to improve health, in theory, but in practice have mixed or even negative results (multivitamins are the classic example of this). A handful of supplements definitely do work to improve performance - but it's a small handful. Creatine is one - it's safe, effective for most consumers, and has few to no side effects. Other substances will work but have side effects of various sorts - think anabolic steroids. Worth it? Well, I'll offer my opinion on steroids in a future post.
A lot of the disdain for supplements is a reaction against those people, usually young people, who buy into the supplement company marketing and think that supplements are the key to health and fitness. They'll eat crappy diets and have crappy training and focus on getting the latest, greatest pills and powders into their mouths. This is silly - you can't supplement your way out of a crappy diet, unless the "supplements" are anabolic steroids, and even then you won't come close to maximizing your potential. That doesn't mean supplements are of no benefit. Think of them like extra stretching sessions - if your training is good, extra stretching will somewhat improve your karate. But stretching alone or instead of real training won't come close to making you a great martial artist.
Down to brass tacks. You do NOT NEED any supplements to be healthy and perform well IF you eat a good diet. By "good diet" I mean lots of grass fed beef (including the organs) and wild caught fish, fresh fruits, vegetables, and berries in a wide variety, and plenty of sunshine year round. So why take supplements?
There are two general reasons. First, some supplements can enhance your performance above what it would be on an excellent diet. A person eating a great diet who added in some creatine would probably see a boost in endurance and size - even a fantastically healthy diet won't supply an optimal dose of creatine. Another example is caffeine. Take a fantastically healthy person in great shape and have them spar for an hour. Compare them to another equally healthy and in-shape person who spars for an hour after taking 250 mg of caffeine. We can argue about the overall benefits of caffeine, but in the short term at least you'll get a definite performance boost out of it.
The second reason to take supplements is to make up for some deficiency in diet or lifestyle. For example, I work indoors in a climate where there isn't much opportunity for sun exposure during half the year. So I take Vitamin D3, 5,000 - 10,000 IU of it, every day. Would it be better to spend hours in the sun with my shirt off? Well, it would be healthier for me, but it's just not going to happen. The same goes for sleep. I'm sure I'd be better off reducing my stress levels, going to bed earlier, and staying away from electronics for an hour and a half before bedtime - but none of that is going to happen. So I take supplementary magnesium before bed, which seems to help my sleep quality.
If you have limited money:
I personally take a multivitamin, quercetin (great for asthma and seasonal allergies), fish oil, 5000 IU D3, 100 mg K2, calcium carbonate in the morning, magnesium or ZMA at night, green tea extract (for the caffeine, mostly), 1 g C, 400 IU E, and am always throwing new stuff in there to try.
One last point - I tend to have a slightly laissez faire attitude towards supplements (I'm a little bit of a supplement junkie), but many openly sold, legal supplements do have potential side effectcs. Do some research before you just fill a basket with pills to take. Beware of anything that's supposed to affect hormone levels or stimulants. Not to say that they're all dangerous, just that I wouldn't pop them willy nilly without putting some thought into it.
A lot of the disdain for supplements is a reaction against those people, usually young people, who buy into the supplement company marketing and think that supplements are the key to health and fitness. They'll eat crappy diets and have crappy training and focus on getting the latest, greatest pills and powders into their mouths. This is silly - you can't supplement your way out of a crappy diet, unless the "supplements" are anabolic steroids, and even then you won't come close to maximizing your potential. That doesn't mean supplements are of no benefit. Think of them like extra stretching sessions - if your training is good, extra stretching will somewhat improve your karate. But stretching alone or instead of real training won't come close to making you a great martial artist.
Down to brass tacks. You do NOT NEED any supplements to be healthy and perform well IF you eat a good diet. By "good diet" I mean lots of grass fed beef (including the organs) and wild caught fish, fresh fruits, vegetables, and berries in a wide variety, and plenty of sunshine year round. So why take supplements?
There are two general reasons. First, some supplements can enhance your performance above what it would be on an excellent diet. A person eating a great diet who added in some creatine would probably see a boost in endurance and size - even a fantastically healthy diet won't supply an optimal dose of creatine. Another example is caffeine. Take a fantastically healthy person in great shape and have them spar for an hour. Compare them to another equally healthy and in-shape person who spars for an hour after taking 250 mg of caffeine. We can argue about the overall benefits of caffeine, but in the short term at least you'll get a definite performance boost out of it.
The second reason to take supplements is to make up for some deficiency in diet or lifestyle. For example, I work indoors in a climate where there isn't much opportunity for sun exposure during half the year. So I take Vitamin D3, 5,000 - 10,000 IU of it, every day. Would it be better to spend hours in the sun with my shirt off? Well, it would be healthier for me, but it's just not going to happen. The same goes for sleep. I'm sure I'd be better off reducing my stress levels, going to bed earlier, and staying away from electronics for an hour and a half before bedtime - but none of that is going to happen. So I take supplementary magnesium before bed, which seems to help my sleep quality.
If you have limited money:
- Seriously consider spending it on better food first. You're going to get a lot more out of a pound of raw butter from grassfed cows than from $10 worth of pills. Upgrading your beef to grassfed and adding in some more fruits and vegetables, are both better investments than anything from a bottle.
- Go with the sure things first. Probably start with a multilvitamin (there is mixed evidence about this, but this is a pretty common recommendation). After that, fish oil (aim for 3000 mg/day total of EPA and DHA - ignore anything else in there, and DO NOT take flax oil, it's not useful for humans) and Vitamin D3 (2000 - 10000 IU/day) are pretty well researched, important for health and inflammation, and relatively inexpensive.
- Creatine is cheap and safe if it works for you. I personally don't respond to it. Try it out. Creatine should cause some immediate weight gain (not fat, just water in the muscles). I don't know how that might affect your lateral quickness. Post to comments if you have insight into this issue!
- ALWAYS shop around. I personally buy most everything from Netrition (no, I don't have any relationship to them other than customer). They usually ship quickly and have good prices and good customer service. Plus they send free t-shirts with your order, so now I have a drawer full of Netrition.com t-shirts that I wear to the gym all the time.
I personally take a multivitamin, quercetin (great for asthma and seasonal allergies), fish oil, 5000 IU D3, 100 mg K2, calcium carbonate in the morning, magnesium or ZMA at night, green tea extract (for the caffeine, mostly), 1 g C, 400 IU E, and am always throwing new stuff in there to try.
One last point - I tend to have a slightly laissez faire attitude towards supplements (I'm a little bit of a supplement junkie), but many openly sold, legal supplements do have potential side effectcs. Do some research before you just fill a basket with pills to take. Beware of anything that's supposed to affect hormone levels or stimulants. Not to say that they're all dangerous, just that I wouldn't pop them willy nilly without putting some thought into it.
Hero of the Month: Denise Minger
I"ve been more than lax in my "Hero of theWeek" entries, so I'm going to try to post monthly and hope I can stick to that schedule.
Denise Minger is many things, I'm sure, but she's my hero specifically because of her blogging activities. As you can probably tell by the name of her blog, Denise is a raw food advocate, and I'd place her roughly in the raw paleo camp - she eats foods available in paleolithic times and doesn't cook them. Yes, that means raw meat, egg yolks, and so forth.
Now I'm not a raw food advocate - I'm not against it, but I can't personally get over the ick factor of eating raw meat. Would we be better off eating raw? I'm not sure - the science I've seen on this seems mixed. Some nutrients are more bioavailable in cooked foods, some less. I don't do a lot of research into this area because even if I discovered that an all raw diet was healthier I just can't bring myself to do it.
There are two overall reasons Denise is my hero. The first (but not the one that brought her to my attention) is her overall approach to nutrition. You can read her blog yourself to see what I mean, but she's the best kind of scientist. She has experimented with many diets, on herself, and made many modifications until she found a mix that works for her - makes her feel and look good. She's very open about acknowledging that this eating style may not work forever and that she may tweak it further in the future if she finds something else to make her healthier. So a strong research background combined with a nice lack of dogmatism - that's how you get at the truth.
The second thing I love about Denise is her posts dissecting various scientific publications, including most famously The China Study. If you're not familiar with it, The China Study (I won't link to it out of sheet spite) is a book based on a massive amount of data taken in China (go figure) that got detailed dietary information and health status information from a huge number of people. The book took this raw data and tortured it to make a case for veganism. It's been torn apart by a number of people - the authors don't understand statistics, they ignore strong correlations that don't match their argument, so on and so forth. Denise took that criticism to another level entirely. She took the raw data (publicly available) and did a much more sophisticated analysis of it, showing how specious the book's authors conclusions were and finding some new stuff - like a very nice demonstration that wheat consumption may be pretty bad for us.
This was a massive task, labor-wise, and not done to further a book sale or supplement company. She did it, I assume, to satisfy her own curiosity, and shared it to edify the rest of us. To be honest, these posts could form the core of an intro to science course at a university. In fact, we'd all be better off if intro to science courses were all based on this kind of writing. Until then, I highly recommend going through Denise's blog regularly. I guarantee it will provide food for thought and help you clarify your own thinking about science and research and the dangers of just reading abstracts!
Denise Minger is many things, I'm sure, but she's my hero specifically because of her blogging activities. As you can probably tell by the name of her blog, Denise is a raw food advocate, and I'd place her roughly in the raw paleo camp - she eats foods available in paleolithic times and doesn't cook them. Yes, that means raw meat, egg yolks, and so forth.
Now I'm not a raw food advocate - I'm not against it, but I can't personally get over the ick factor of eating raw meat. Would we be better off eating raw? I'm not sure - the science I've seen on this seems mixed. Some nutrients are more bioavailable in cooked foods, some less. I don't do a lot of research into this area because even if I discovered that an all raw diet was healthier I just can't bring myself to do it.
There are two overall reasons Denise is my hero. The first (but not the one that brought her to my attention) is her overall approach to nutrition. You can read her blog yourself to see what I mean, but she's the best kind of scientist. She has experimented with many diets, on herself, and made many modifications until she found a mix that works for her - makes her feel and look good. She's very open about acknowledging that this eating style may not work forever and that she may tweak it further in the future if she finds something else to make her healthier. So a strong research background combined with a nice lack of dogmatism - that's how you get at the truth.
The second thing I love about Denise is her posts dissecting various scientific publications, including most famously The China Study. If you're not familiar with it, The China Study (I won't link to it out of sheet spite) is a book based on a massive amount of data taken in China (go figure) that got detailed dietary information and health status information from a huge number of people. The book took this raw data and tortured it to make a case for veganism. It's been torn apart by a number of people - the authors don't understand statistics, they ignore strong correlations that don't match their argument, so on and so forth. Denise took that criticism to another level entirely. She took the raw data (publicly available) and did a much more sophisticated analysis of it, showing how specious the book's authors conclusions were and finding some new stuff - like a very nice demonstration that wheat consumption may be pretty bad for us.
This was a massive task, labor-wise, and not done to further a book sale or supplement company. She did it, I assume, to satisfy her own curiosity, and shared it to edify the rest of us. To be honest, these posts could form the core of an intro to science course at a university. In fact, we'd all be better off if intro to science courses were all based on this kind of writing. Until then, I highly recommend going through Denise's blog regularly. I guarantee it will provide food for thought and help you clarify your own thinking about science and research and the dangers of just reading abstracts!
Monday, September 13, 2010
Core Training
Training for "the core" has become a buzzword in the fitness industry, and an oft-maligned buzzword in many circles. Understanding jsut what core training means might provide a useful boost to your martial arts training.
The term "core" refers roughly to the muscles that connect your ribcage to your pelvis. There is no single, universally accepted definition, but the core always includes the surface and deep abdominals and lower back muscles, and often includes the lats and serratus, and sometimes the glutes and hip flexors.
Why train your core? Fundamentally, the core transfers energy from the lower body to the upper body or vice versa. Imagine for a moment that you had no core muscles. What would happen when you turned your hips, say to drive a punch? Well, the hips would turn, your spine would twist, and your shoulders would stay right where they were. There would be two problems: first, your punch would have very little power. Second, your spine would be in big trouble - spines are meant to twist, but only a little, and not very vigorously. So bad punch and bad back.
Now nobody actually has no core muscles - when somebody says they have "no abs" they mean they're too fat to see their abs, not that the muscles are actually missing. But many people have weak core muscles, and they end up with sloppy technique. You can see their hips move, but the ribcage isn't totally in sync. Basically, they're losing energy in their hand techniques because some of the hip drive isn't transferred properly. Again, bad for the punch, and bad for the back. Ideally you want your hips and ribcage to move together as if there were iron bars attaching them. Want a good visual of this? Watch Enter The Dragon and watch the scenes where Bruce Lee is fighting a bunch of no-name bad guys. Watch him punch them - every time his hips twitch his whole upper body moves perfectly together. There's a reason the guy was such a fanatic about ab training, and you can see the value of having super strong abs in his movement.
So how to we train the core? Let's think about what the core does. Basically, the core flexes the trunk (brings your chest forward), extends the trunk (brings your chest backwards, like when you arch your back), twists the trunk both ways (like when you throw a cross with either hand), and bends the trunk side to side (I'm sure there's a fancy word for this but I don't know it). Or, you could say it does all those things for your hips, if your upper body is stationary - so if you hang from a chinup bar or something, the core moves the hips in all those ways. Now here's a mindbender - since the core flexes the trunk, it also works to prevent extension. In other words, if some force is pushing your upper body backwards, the core is what allows you to maintain your alignment. The same is true for rotation. Imagine throwing a medicine ball with one hand. the reaction force of that medicine ball pushing into your shoulder tries to twist your trunk away from the throw. Your core prevents that from happening.
Most people train the core with lots of crunches and leg raises. That's trunk flexion - crunches flex the trunk, during leg raises the weight of your legs pulls your trunk into extension (your back wants to arch) and your core has to prevent the extension (preventing extension is roughly the same muscles as flexion). That's not a terrible start, but we can do better.
Here are the bullet points:
Osu!
The term "core" refers roughly to the muscles that connect your ribcage to your pelvis. There is no single, universally accepted definition, but the core always includes the surface and deep abdominals and lower back muscles, and often includes the lats and serratus, and sometimes the glutes and hip flexors.
Why train your core? Fundamentally, the core transfers energy from the lower body to the upper body or vice versa. Imagine for a moment that you had no core muscles. What would happen when you turned your hips, say to drive a punch? Well, the hips would turn, your spine would twist, and your shoulders would stay right where they were. There would be two problems: first, your punch would have very little power. Second, your spine would be in big trouble - spines are meant to twist, but only a little, and not very vigorously. So bad punch and bad back.
Now nobody actually has no core muscles - when somebody says they have "no abs" they mean they're too fat to see their abs, not that the muscles are actually missing. But many people have weak core muscles, and they end up with sloppy technique. You can see their hips move, but the ribcage isn't totally in sync. Basically, they're losing energy in their hand techniques because some of the hip drive isn't transferred properly. Again, bad for the punch, and bad for the back. Ideally you want your hips and ribcage to move together as if there were iron bars attaching them. Want a good visual of this? Watch Enter The Dragon and watch the scenes where Bruce Lee is fighting a bunch of no-name bad guys. Watch him punch them - every time his hips twitch his whole upper body moves perfectly together. There's a reason the guy was such a fanatic about ab training, and you can see the value of having super strong abs in his movement.
So how to we train the core? Let's think about what the core does. Basically, the core flexes the trunk (brings your chest forward), extends the trunk (brings your chest backwards, like when you arch your back), twists the trunk both ways (like when you throw a cross with either hand), and bends the trunk side to side (I'm sure there's a fancy word for this but I don't know it). Or, you could say it does all those things for your hips, if your upper body is stationary - so if you hang from a chinup bar or something, the core moves the hips in all those ways. Now here's a mindbender - since the core flexes the trunk, it also works to prevent extension. In other words, if some force is pushing your upper body backwards, the core is what allows you to maintain your alignment. The same is true for rotation. Imagine throwing a medicine ball with one hand. the reaction force of that medicine ball pushing into your shoulder tries to twist your trunk away from the throw. Your core prevents that from happening.
Most people train the core with lots of crunches and leg raises. That's trunk flexion - crunches flex the trunk, during leg raises the weight of your legs pulls your trunk into extension (your back wants to arch) and your core has to prevent the extension (preventing extension is roughly the same muscles as flexion). That's not a terrible start, but we can do better.
Here are the bullet points:
- Pick exercises where your core is working to keep your posture neutral, not ones where you are moving the spine. Planks are better than crunches. Throwing a medicine ball is better than that exercise where you lie on your back with your arms out and legs sticking straight up and rotate your legs from side to side. There are two reasons for this: First, the core muscles work harder when resisting movement than when they initiate movement (sounds weird, but it's true). Second, rotating or flexing the spine a lot is asking for trouble - as in back injury trouble.
- Work exercises where you resist extension (planks), resist rotation (one armed planks, birddogs, one arm medicine ball throws), resist yaw (side to side movement - like side planks), and resist flexion (deadlifts, swings). The exercises can absolutely be ones you already to for other reasons. Swings aren't "core" exercises, but they work the core. That's fine. Just make sure to add core dedicated exercises if you aren't incorporating a challenge in your other exercises.
- Progress to movements where you are resisting that motion in unstable ways. Planks are great. Try doing them on an underinflated exercise ball (Swiss ball) instead. Don't settle in - jiggle around the ball so your core is challenged by a rapidly varying force. Try carrying around a slosh pipe (a 8-10 foot pipe, pvc or something, half filled with water). You'll get a better contraction and you'll prepare your core to stabilize you in a dynamic environment - like a sparring session.
- Don't settle for doing looong sessions of moderately challenging exercises. There's no reason to hold a front plank for five minutes. Once you can hold it for one or two minutes progress to something harder - ab wheel rollouts, swiss ball rollouts, superman planks, something hard. Treat your core strength like your strength anywhere else in your body.
- Don't think that because the core is so important that you should make core-specific training the bulk of your workout. Working only the core is as silly as working only the legs in isolation. You can't actually punch or kick anybody with your core!
- Don't exhaust your core early in your workout! The last thing you want to do is really fry your core muscles early in a routine, then throw a bunch of punches or kicks later. You need your core for all that other stuff! Do your core last or close to last in your workout.
Osu!
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