While I've previously explained that stretching seldom helps improve your flexibility in the long term, there are some benefits that come from stretching. This exciting study from 2015 done by Miranda et. al. tested stretching as a means for increasing training volume (the number of repetitions performed in a set or session) in the wide-grip seated row exercise. There were two groups of participants, both of whom performed three sets to failure with two minutes of rest in between sets. The only difference between the groups was that the experimental group performed 40 seconds of a passive pectoralis major stretch at the end of their allotted rest periods. The idea here was to stretch the antagonist (opposing) muscles.
What the experimenters found was fascinating: there was a statistically significant difference in the antagonist stretching group. Those participants performed more repetitions in all three sets. Additionally, the experimental group demonstrated greater contractions in the latissimus dorsi and the biceps brachii muscles.
While this particular study only tested one exercise, it is likely that we can utilize this concept with other movements to reap similar benefits. For instance, in doing a bench press, you could stretch the latissimus dorsi. Before your set of leg curls, stretch out your quadriceps. You get the idea. This hack can help you get more training volume, which will ultimately result in greater hypertrophy (muscle growth)!
The mechanisms behind these findings are still unclear. My guess would be that stretching the antagonist muscles would allow for greater range of motion throughout the exercise, and thus, a stronger contraction in the agonist muscles. For example, the pecs have to stretch during the top of the rowing exercise. A bigger stretch in the pecs could possibly allow for the lats to generate a stronger contraction.
Static stretching before a set may be disadvantageous for power production, and thus, I do not prescribe it before movements like the clean and jerk. However, in a bodybuilding routine, there may be some added bonuses to stretching during rest periods to accumulate more total training volume.
This concept has not yet been applied to strength-based movements, but it could be an interesting point for experimentation on your own before the big lifts. Give this trick a try and see how you like it!
The body and mind are intimately intertwined. We must always look at the bigger picture. Despite Western medicine’s attempt to further break the body up into distinct “parts,” everything is connected. Your stress at work and your shoulder pain are absolutely related. Your toxic relationship and your sinus infection is likely the result of your body’s symbiosis. Emotional stress manifests itself physically, and, conversely, physical pain impacts our emotions.
“Muscles” are just used for classification purposes, but that is not exactly how your brain works. You’re never just using one muscle at a time, and the same thing goes for your organs: nothing works in solitude, but rather, your body is a symphony.
Everything is originated in your brain. The brain is responsible for the function of all bodily functions (heart beat, digestion, respiration, etc.), and it also controls your perception. Thus, it would be foolish to consider pain without first understanding the cognitive processes behind it.
Research suggests that thinking about contracting a specific muscle is beneficial for improving muscular hypertrophy. A study of 18 resistance-trained men found that "individuals can increase triceps brachii or pectarilis major muscle activity during the bench press when focusing on using the specific muscle at intensities up to 60 % of 1RM." Essentially, thinking about activating a muscle can increase its activation at lower intensities.
A history of injury to a certain area can perpetuate symptoms, even after your body has healed. Pain and trauma form pathways in your brain. There's an adage that says "neurons that fire together wire together." This means that if a pathway of pain becomes familiar to you, it can be difficult to dissociate the two things. Let's say you tore your UCL in your elbow throwing a baseball. You may still experience pain when throwing, even long after the tissue has healed, because your brain associates throwing with danger.
You can improve on a skill using mental imagery. "Vandell et. al. reported that groups of subjects who mentally practiced basketball free throws or dart throwing demonstrated improved skills similar to those who physically practiced the task. The [mental practice] and [physical practice] groups improved 23% and 24%, respectively, as compared with no improvement in a control group that did not practice either task," mentioned Warner and McNeill. That means that the group who practiced a skill using mental imagery alone had nearly the same level of improvements as did the group using physical practice!
Mental practice can improve balance. Fansler et. al. tested 36 elderly female subjects. Women were randomly assigned to one of three groups: non-sense+physical practice, relaxation+physical practice, or ideokinetic facilitation+physical practice. The final group "showed fewer subjects with negative change and more subjects with greater than 100% improvement." Effectively, the combination of mind-body awareness along with physical practice elicited significant improvements for the subjects. "This improvement in balance, which is a fundamental component of human movement, suggests that [ideokinetic facilitation] has promising usefulness in health care." Perhaps this study could be expanded into other areas, as well!
Wim Hof, a dutch man known as the "Ice Man" has been able to achieve incredible feats using meditative breathing. He regularly goes for dunks in freezing cold water, hikes frigid mountains in only his shorts, and has even demonstrated control over his autonomic nervous system. If you haven't heard of this guy, I recommend watching this video and reading more about him! He's a pretty incredible and inspiring man.
There's still much research to be done on the concept of mind-body connectivity. I believe that with a strong mind, we can build a strong body. We cannot achieve what the mind doesn't believe. Incorporating mental imagery into your routine might just be the change you need to break through your training plateaus!
Biceps curls, lateral shoulder raises, and shrugs, oh my. These are just a few staple exercises of the bodybuilding community. Although individuals who belong to the more "functional" end of the spectrum can write these exercises off as being useless and purely vain, isolation exercises for the sheer purpose of hypertrophy (muscle growth) certainly have their place in a well-constructed strength training routine.
Bodybuilders aim to achieve symmetry and balance. They use open chain exercises (isolations) to attack specific muscle groups.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have the strength athletes (in sports like weightlifting or powerlifting). While movements like squats, presses and pulls are excellent for building power and brute strength, the big lifts can sometimes fail to target certain groups of muscles.
Let's use a powerlifter, for example. A squat, bench press and deadlift will, yes, activate nearly every muscle in the body. In each of these lifts, however, big prime movers will be responsible for generating the majority of the force required to move the weight. The smaller muscles may not get the attention they require or deserve.
There are three major reasons why I believe bodybuilding exercises can help take your strength to the next level.
They target lagging muscles. Now, as I alluded to above, while movements like a deadlift do require nearly every muscle in the body to work in unison, the synergistic (assistant) muscles may not fire to a very high degree. It is quite common that powerlifters need to add some assistance work to focus on weaker areas. Barbell hip thrusters could help you improve glute activation and take some stress off of your lower back. Cable triceps extensions could be just the exercise you need to strengthen your triceps. Now, your triceps can work in conjunction with the latissimus dorsi, pectoralis major and minor muscles, and deltoids to create a stronger drive in your bench press. Depending on your technique, you may not be strengthening all of the necessary muscles from the big lifts alone.
They improve muscular balance. When there is a lack of balance between the right and left sides of the body, or even between the anterior chain and the posterior chain, problems can arise. If your left side is significantly stronger than your right (as you might find in a pitcher or a tennis player), it is extremely important to give your weaker side some extra love. Similarly, issues like knee pain can arise when a lifter is quadriceps dominant with comparatively weak hamstrings. Similarly, if I hear someone complain of shoulder pain, I look for a lack of balance in the upper body. I will have them strengthen the posterior deltoids, the middle and lower trapezius, and the external rotators. An ideal physique in bodybuilding is one in which all areas of the body are equally developed. "[A] symmetrical body is also less prone to injury. A particular muscle group will be less likely to compensate for a weaker muscle group, thus overburdening that muscle group while further weakening, and potentially injuring, the under-developed muscle group, if the weaker muscle group is balanced with the stronger grouping," says David Robinson, CPT. Some isolation work will go a long way to build a more symmetrical physique.
Bigger muscles are stronger muscles. Pretty straight forward. Greg Nuckols, a powerlifting coach, said it well, "Think of muscle mass as potential strength. If you gain mass, you may not necessarily be stronger right away (i.e. if you trained with lower weights and lost a bit of technical efficiency with max weights), but you have the potential to be stronger. If you stay the same size, you have a cap on how strong you can possibly get. When comparing two individuals, the one with more muscle may not necessarily be the stronger one (for all the factors listed above – muscle attachments, segment lengths, technique, etc.), though he probably will be. However, when comparing small you to jacked you, all other things being equal, jacked you will be stronger." Basically, the bigger your muscles are, the more force they can produce! Weightlifters fixate on training for strength, but sometimes they forget to include hypertrophy work into their accessory sessions. This small change can have a big influence on your performance.
Doing "curls for the girls" is fantastic, but isolation movements can also provide a multitude of other benefits. In fact, building bigger muscles overall can potentially improve your main lifts and simultaneously make your body more resilient to injury! Improve aesthetics and get stronger. Channel your inner Ahhhhnold and add some more bodybuilding exercises into your workout routine.
The knees are the largest joints in the human body. Unfortunately, these large joints also seem to be an even bigger area for pain and injury. In the U.S. alone, surgeons perform around 700,000 knee replacements annually--that's a lot of bionic knees! Other knee-related injuries include ACL tears, MCL tears, patellar tendon tears, patellar tendonitis, dislocated patellas and osteoarthritis. In my opinion, many of these surgeries or injuries are easily preventable. With the proper training protocol, you can avoid knee pain and inevitable surgery down the line.
We use our knees for a lot of different activities from walking and running to jumping, squatting and lunging, and therefore they withstand a lot of impact. It is incredibly important to prioritize solid movement patterns to avoid any further stress.
I should warn you, that this post will be fairly heavy in anatomical jargon. Brace yourself.
The "knee" covers an area of four bones: the femur, the fibula, the tibia, and the patella. As a hinge joint, the knee can only flex and extend. Though its actions are simple, the muscles around it are vast and complex. Some of the important muscles that directly help the movement of this joint are the hamstrings complex (semimembranosus, semitendinosus, and biceps femoris), the quadriceps complex (vastus medialis, vastus lateralis, vastus intermedius, and rectus femoris), the calf muscles (gastrocnemius, popliteus, tibialis anterior, and the peroneals). If you feel overwhelmed with the laundry list of muscles I just mentioned, fear not! I will elaborate.
Now, we need to remember that the body acts as a chain. One part of the body reacts to the feedback of another part. What are the two major joints near the knee? If you guessed the hip and the ankle, high five! We cannot just consider the knee in the case of knee pain, but rather, we must think about how the surrounding joints are compromising the integrity of the knee. If you have poor hip or ankle stability, the knee is going to work a lot harder to compensate for the lack of stability elsewhere.
Let's start from the ground up, at the ankle. The ankle can plantarflex (point), dorsiflex (flex upwards), invert/supinate, or evert/pronate. Check your feet. Are your arches exceedingly high or collapsed? What happens to them as you squat or jump? Ideally, we want to strive for a perfect balance between pronation and supination when standing. Both of these two movements are completely natural ankle movements when walking or running, but we do not want either in excess.
If, for example, you squat and your ankle collapses (pronates) completely, you will likely experience some collapse of the knee with it. The muscles on the inside of your leg (adductors) are over-active or tight, while the antagonists (abductors) will be lengthened. Do you often feel pain in your IT bands? Well, you may fit into this category of people. Your IT bands may be tense because they're working really hard for some other guys. Think about how this position is going to effect the ligaments and tendons in your knee!
Look at the relationship between his knees and ankles in the squat.
Conversely, if you drive your knees out too much and shift your weight laterally (supinate) your feet, the opposite will happen. Your adductors are going to be lengthened while your abductors will work over time. I was one of these people. The lateral areas of my knee always caused me pain, because I was nearly rolling my ankles as I squatted.
Obviously, the ankle position will effect the knee and hip mechanics, and vice versa.
If one lacks sufficient strength in the gluteus medius and the peroneals, the lifter will, again, revert to a valgus (collapse) of the knees. Weak gluteus maximus will result in an abuse of the quadriceps complex, which is going to pull onto the patellar tendon for dear life. Put more simply, if your glutes aren't strong enough, your knees are going to pay the price.
As I said, we want to maintain a balance in how we shift our weight as we move. Too much outward shifting of the hip or ankle is just as counter-productive as shifting too much weight inward. True strength comes from a balance.
Some of these inefficiencies may be a matter of learning. You might not understand what a proper squat should look like, and there for cueing and repetition will go a long way. If cueing has not helped, then you need to follow a strengthening and mobility routine. The exercises I've listed below will be tremendously helpful.
Now that we've made it through the meat of this article, it's time to learn how to correct these faults. Figure out where you lie on this spectrum of movement dysfunction, and correct your mechanics as necessary.
Here are some great ways to mobilize the hips and the ankles:
Where there is pain, there is weakness and dysfunction. You don't have to "accept" being in pain. Strengthening the hip and ankle muscles are vital in perfecting your mechanics and preventing unnecessary stresses on the soft tissues of the knee. Pay attention to those stabilizers and you will save your knees for many years of heavy lifting to come.
The most common questions a client or friend asks me are "what muscles does (fill in the exercise name here) train?" or, "what exercises can I do to lose fat in my (fill in muscle group name here)?" My answer will always be, "no muscle works in isolation."
The answer is all of them.
You are one single entity. Everything in your body, all of its muscles, organs and soft tissues work in unison.
Unfortunately, our modern understanding of anatomy has influenced people to divide the body up into smaller and smaller parts. You have the digestive system, the musculoskeletal system, the vestibular system, and so on and so forth. There are over 200 bones in your body and well over 600 muscles. The unfortunate part is that, for the purpose of classification or in order to break up something so vast and complex into more memorable, tangible parts, text books and health professionals have made increasingly specific distinctions for each part of the body. We have a never-ending list of different "specialists" for certain areas of the anatomy: cardiologists, podiatrists, orthopedists, endocrinologists, and many, many more. Sometimes it's confusing to know where the territory of one specialist ends and that of another begins.
In this intricate web that is the human body, everything is intertwined and interconnected. Your brain does not isolate certain parts at a time, but rather, they all work in concert to produce normal bodily functions and extraordinary feats. Your brain remembers movement patterns, not muscles. Your brain does not think "okay, I'm going to contract the biceps femoris now." Rather, it functions by using a sequence of impulses to fire several muscles at the same time, while relaxing the antagonist muscles. This happens thousands of times per day.
Now, the reason why this is so important is because one part of a muscle may fire, while the other part may not. I know this sounds confusing, but let me explain. Yes, this muscle has been classified as one comprehensive "unit," for the purpose of anatomy textbooks, but that does not mean that it always functions that way. Many muscles can perform several different actions. In order to really understand how the body uses movement, we have to think about the actions these muscles perform.
I hear plenty of people say something to the effect of “she has a big booty, so she must not have weak glutes!” That is not necessarily true. Just because you have large gluteus maximii, you do not necessarily have equally strong gluteus medii and minimi. One or two of those muscles may still be dysfunctional.
The gluteus maximus is, primarily, hip extensor. Deep squats, lunges, deadlifts, and back extensions will all activate the gluteus maximus. The gluteus medius is activated during hip abduction (when your legs move laterally away from the body). At the same time, the gluteus medius prevents hip adduction. If one has proper activation in the gluteus medius, all of the aforementioned movements should activate this muscle. If not, the muscles like the hip adductors will take the reigns. Usually the result of this is knee, hip or ankle pain. These people will be quad-dominant.
Stability exercises can change the way the muscles in the hip function. Another way is to try to improve your somatic intelligence (also known as mind and body connection). Essentially, this means that you need to actively think about recruiting the muscles you want to fire. Using a lacrosse ball or a foam roller on those areas is an easy way to remind your neuromuscular system to function properly. Check out my article on why you need to have a big butt for some ideas for exercises.
The trapezius muscle is another great example of this. Many people have humongous upper traps, while the middle and lower traps are underdeveloped. Although the muscle has been lumped together under one name, it has many different functions. Therefore, each action of the muscle is accompanied by a group of synergistic muscles.
Do you have chronically tight upper traps? Well, I can tell you with almost 100% certainty that you’re probably a neck breather (rather than a diaphragmatic breather). Your latissimus dorsi (the antagonist of the upper trapezii) and serratus anterior probably don’t function properly. Your lower and middle trapezii are likely not firing as they should. Again, the lower and middle trapezius are all the same muscle, but they perform different functions. Your body views them as separate entities. The upper trapezius (elevates) shrugs the scapula while the middle trapezius upwardly rotates and adducts the scapula. The lower trapezius also adducts and depresses the scapula. Notice one important distinction here: the upper/middle fibers of the muscle elevate the shoulders while the lower fibers depress the shoulders. These actions are functional opposites, and therefore, it is important for us not to lump the entire trapezius as one entity.
Don’t just assume because one part of your muscle appears to be large that it is functional in every action. Basically, you want to train the muscles as you’d like to activate them. Even during an "isolation" exercise like a "biceps" curl, you are using other muscles like the brachialis to move the weight.
Muscles are just broad general terms that don’t really explain how our brains process movement. The ultimate way to prevent injury and get stronger is to learn how to use your body and your brain together. Just because a muscle is strong through one range of motion, does not necessarily mean that it will function optimally during its other actions. If you find that a muscle is weaker or smaller than you'd like, think about other the other synergistic muscles and their tasks, then pick and exercise that will target them accordingly. Finally, vary the exercises you use to train one muscle group, so that you can train different movement patterns.
Every single woman should lift weights. Yes, every one of them. I don't care if you're 14 or 72, you can still benefit from strength training.
The media has condemned strength training for women for years, saying that lifting heavy weights will make you appear "bulky" or manly, and that is 100% false. Some women seem to think that a dumbbell heavier than 5 pounds will give them magical giant biceps that appear overnight. I've heard so many celebrity fitness trainers perpetuate this myth and say that women are better off lifting really light weight for more repetitions to "tone" their muscles. First of all, the word "tone" does not mean anything. Our muscles either grow (hypertrophy) or deteriorate (atrophy). We can lose body fat to make those muscle more apparent, but we can't "tone." Lifting light weights for a lot of repetitions will not make you stronger or more toned, so you are effectively wasting your time. There, I said it. If you want to make the most out of your time in the gym, you need to lift heavier weights. Our bodies need to adapt to a stimulus. If we are doing the same exercise everyday (i.e. going on the elliptical for 30 minutes, and then doing 15 minutes of crunches and light dumbbell exercises), our bodies will never adapt.
I can promise you that in my two years of strength training so far, I have never been mistaken for a man!
Now that that's out of the way, strength training has tremendous benefits, specifically for women, who already have less muscle mass than men.
Those with more muscle mass burn more energy (calories) at rest. Yes, you read that correctly. If you have more muscle, you can eat more, because your body simply needs more calories to sustain this extra muscle tissue. "Each day, your body uses more than 35 calories to maintain each pound of muscle, while only 2 calories are needed to sustain a pound of fat (Westcott and Baechle 1998)."
Not only will you burn more calories in the course of the day, it has been proven in several studies (see sources below) that individuals with a higher lean body mass live longer, healthier lives. Strength training obviously makes your muscles stronger, but many fail to realize that lifting weights also strengthens our bones, tendons and our ligaments. If you want to avoid degeneration of your bones (osteoporosis) and connective tissue injuries later in life, strength training is extremely important. "Osteoporosis is partially preventable with adequate amounts of calcium in the diet, along with progressive high-intensity resistance training (Graves and Franklin 2001)." For women who are pre or postmenopausal, strength training is especially important to prevent further loss of muscle tissue.
In addition to the physiological benefits, there are many psychological benefits. Personally, I've proved to myself that I am capable of so much more than I realized. I recently set a deadlift personal record at 275 lbs (2 times my own bodyweight). I never would've dreamed of lifting that much weight. I know too many women who are unable to perform a push-up or a pull-up without assistance, which I believe are two movements everyone should be able to do.
Being a woman is not an excuse for being weak! Step out of your comfort zone and try something new. Make sure you have a friend with you who can make sure you are moving correctly. I promise you, you won't regret it!
The process of muscle growth is called hypertrophy. However, based on your training, your muscles will adapt accordingly. There are two types of hypertrophy of skeletal muscle: sarcoplasmic hypertrophy and myofibrillar hypertrophy:
Bodybuilder Ronnie Coleman
Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is often coined as being "aesthetic muscle." Without getting too technical, this type of hypertrophy increases the size or the volume of the muscle. Bodybuilders are often known for having this type of muscle. Usually, the training protocol to achieve "size" gains consists of 3-4 sets of 12-15 reps of any given exercise. These sets are performed at a moderately heavy weight, and the athlete rests for less than 3 minutes of rest in between each set.
Powerlifter Scott Lade
Myofibrillar hypertrophy is sometimes called "functional muscle." Myofibrillar hypertrophy creates a more compact, dense muscle. Typically this type of hypertrophy indicates significant gains in strength. A training protocol for strength usually calls for lower repetitions (between 1 and 6) and, depending on the goal of the athlete, between 5-10 sets. These sets are performed at the heaviest weight that the athlete can use with good form. The rest time between sets is often longer than 3 minutes. When an athlete is trying to increase strength, he or she typically looks to find a 1 repetition maximum (1 RM). This means that he or she is trying to lift as much weight as is possible with good form for 1 repetition. When developing a strength training program, he or she would likely perform multiple sets of either 3 or 5 repetitions at a percentage of that 1 repetition maximum. The idea behind this is that, in order to experience real gains in strength, you need to put your body under a heavy stimulus. Without using the heaviest loads possible, you are never going to adapt and lift heavier weights.
As you can see, Powerlifter Scott Lade and Bodybuilder Ronnie Coleman weigh nearly the same, but have very different body types. It is important to note, however, that these two types of hypertrophy go hand-in-hand. With size, you will find increased levels of strength, and with strength, you will certainly see the size of your muscles increase. Obviously, this does no mean that bodybuilders are weak, or that strong athletes cannot have big, defined muscles. This is simply meant to guide you when you are developing your own exercise regimen. If you are training more for aesthetics, aim for higher repetitions. If your primary focus is strength, stick with lower repetitions and heavier weight. By sticking to these basic guidelines, you can program a more effective training program for yourself.
