Agatsu West Classics are articles I wrote in 2007 when I had just graduated from the Somatics Institute of Massage Therapy, and had just started BJJ. I wrote them to give a unique anatomical and pathophysiological point of view on the techniques I was learning, that inquisitive minds might better their understanding of "why" certain techniques worked the way they did, rather than just being satisfied with "how" to do them. Some were basic rehab and prehab concepts as well. This one deals with one of the most widely used forms of physical therapy in the world - heat and cold.
***
The "How" and "Why" of Proper Hydrotherapy
What is Hydrotherapy?
For those of you that are not familiar with the term hydrotherapy, it describes the application of heat or cold to help with the healing process of an injury, or to produce some other physiological response. Hydrotherapy forms one of the staples of an effective massage treatment, and is also widely used in sport, but as well-meaning as coaches or comrades are, there are many misconceptions about the proper application and timing of hydrotherapy for an injury as the result of training, and make no mistake, incorrect hydrotherapy can have a significant effect on the completion and speed of the healing process. Cold hydrotherapy, as a general rule, draws fluid out of the area of application, and heat draws fluids in. Common knowledge usually extends at least this far. But when exactly do you want fluids drawn into the site of injury, or out? Can both hot and cold be used in the same treatment? And how long and often should the hydrotherapy be applied? For that matter, what do cold and heat actually do, beyond their effect on fluids? To answer these questions, I first have to explain the physiological effects of hot and cold, and the three stages of healing that every injury undergoes.
What Heat Does:
-A local increase in tissue temperature, studies have shown that an application of heat on the surface of the skin can affect tissues about 3-4 cm into the fascia and superficial muscles.
-Increase in vasodilation, as well as blood flow both to the skin and muscles. This results in an increase in metabolism, oxygen and nutrient supply, and an increase in sweat production. Applications to the limbs is proven to increase bloodflow two-fold, with the effect persisting for approximately one hour after the application was removed.
-Pain perception is decreased, as a result of decreased nerve conduction velocity.
-Muscle spasms are decreased, because heating of muscle spindles causes them to decrease their sensitivity and rate of firing.
-General relaxation and sedation occurs.
What Cold Does:
-Local reduction of the temperature of skin and muscle.
-Local vasoconstriction, decreasing blood flow. Decreased cell metabolism and leukocyte migration results in a decrease in inflammation.
-Pain may be decreased if the skin is hypersensitive to cold, in this case the ice may act as a counter-irritant, decreasing the stimulus of the pain.
-Collagen extensibility (muscle flexibility) is decreased.
**VERY IMPORTANT: Stages of Stimulus with Ice Application**
When ice is applied to the skin, the client will experience the following stages in order over several minutes:
1) a sensation of cold
2) tingling or itching
3) aching or burning
4) numbness
An application of ice should not be removed before all four stages have been experienced, and to remove the application after numbness has been experienced for a couple of minutes is an effective guideline for the length of each treatment.
Stages of Healing:
Acute: This is the first stage of an injury, the stage immediately following the onset of the injury, whether it was some kind of trauma such as a car accident, or something more gradual, perhaps related to some kind of overuse over time, such as tendonitis. This stage usually lasts about a week at most, and for a traumatic injury is usually characterized by significant inflammation, a significantly decreased range of motion, and severe pain (or at least, the most severe the pain from the particular injury is ever going to be). During this stage, cold hydrotherapy is appropriate. A local application (ice pack) is ideal, To control inflammation but also to quarantine the appropriate amount of it. If you read the explanation of what heat does, you may be wondering why you wouldn't want an increase of oxygen and nutrients, and decreased pain sensitivity. Always remember that pain and inflammation are tools that the body uses to protect itself, and to let you know that something is wrong, and they are both useful and necessary. However, the body often overcompensates with inflammation, so ice is a good way to make sure there's enough inflammation to splint and protect the joint, but not too much.
Sub-Acute: This stage usually lasts for 2-3 weeks after the acute stage. There may still be swelling and inflammation, but not as much. Usually pain will be decreased as well. Most if not all range of motion will usually be recovered, but if there was any loss of strength as a result of the injury, it will be noticed during this stage. During sub-acute it is appropriate to apply heat, as well as contrast hydrotherapy, which means to apply heat for a period of time, then immediately apply ice for about a third of the time the heat was applied. This will create a pump action within the site of injury and help to clear away what is left of the inflammation, and restore functionality to the surrounding muscles.
Chronic: This stage lasts from whenever sub-acute ends, until either the injury is resolved or the person dies. During this stage, heat and contrast hydrotherapy are appropriate, but a short application of cold can be used after activity, especially if the activity aggrevates the injury.
Monday, 26 August 2013
Sunday, 25 August 2013
Beyond 5/3/1 Bench Aug 25
If I were to describe this morning's bench training in one word, it would be... confusing.
Getting out of bed was rough, way too hot and muggy to sleep well last night and only enough time for a small bowl of oatmeal and some creatine hydrochloride before I had to get out the door. Warm-ups and the first two working sets felt really good, but the max set at 245 was... well, it just was. 9 good reps with 245 isn't terrible, but it isn't great either - certainly not knocking on a PR of any kind. As I started my first two Joker sets I felt better, triples went up nice and easy at 255 and 270. 285 for a triple would have been breaking new ground as the best sets of 3 I got up to when I was doing the Patrick Nyman program were at 280, and those were the main course at the time, not something I would've done after a set of 9 at 245.
Unfortunately, something happened as I was lowering the bar for the first rep. I wish I could say exactly what. I think I may have taken it too high, or maybe my hand position was off but I ended up kinda pressing it up and to the left instead of straight up. I still managed to wrestle it back to center and finish the rep, but my position on the bench was compromised. I tried for a second rep but she wasn't having it. By this point I was considering calling it and moving on to assistance work, I was starting to feel hungry and deflated and my joints were a bit iffy after my diagonal 285lb bench, but I didn't quite feel done.
I decided that I would throw on the slingshot and try it that way. The slingshot is a nifty invention by Mark Bell that adds a bit of mechanical overload as well as some much-appreciated stability in the bench press. You can get one at howmuchyabench.net and I highly recommend that you do - it's great for when you have as many old injuries as I do and don't want to miss workouts when you have tendonitis flare-ups. My reps felt fantastic with the slingshot on, so I went all the way up to a pretty easy triple at 315.
Warm-Ups
3 @ 45, 95, 115, 135, 155
Working Sets
3 @ 190
3 @ 220
9 @ 245
Jokers
3 @ 255
3 @ 270
1 @ 285, missed second
3 @ 285 w/ss
3 @ 295 w/ss
3 @ 315 w/ss
3 x 15 Rear Delt Flies superset with 3 x 15 tricep pressdowns (not shown in video)
The handsome gentleman behind me is my best friend and training partner, Brandon. We're actually doing the same programming but he doesn't blog like the cool kids.
Getting out of bed was rough, way too hot and muggy to sleep well last night and only enough time for a small bowl of oatmeal and some creatine hydrochloride before I had to get out the door. Warm-ups and the first two working sets felt really good, but the max set at 245 was... well, it just was. 9 good reps with 245 isn't terrible, but it isn't great either - certainly not knocking on a PR of any kind. As I started my first two Joker sets I felt better, triples went up nice and easy at 255 and 270. 285 for a triple would have been breaking new ground as the best sets of 3 I got up to when I was doing the Patrick Nyman program were at 280, and those were the main course at the time, not something I would've done after a set of 9 at 245.
Unfortunately, something happened as I was lowering the bar for the first rep. I wish I could say exactly what. I think I may have taken it too high, or maybe my hand position was off but I ended up kinda pressing it up and to the left instead of straight up. I still managed to wrestle it back to center and finish the rep, but my position on the bench was compromised. I tried for a second rep but she wasn't having it. By this point I was considering calling it and moving on to assistance work, I was starting to feel hungry and deflated and my joints were a bit iffy after my diagonal 285lb bench, but I didn't quite feel done.
I decided that I would throw on the slingshot and try it that way. The slingshot is a nifty invention by Mark Bell that adds a bit of mechanical overload as well as some much-appreciated stability in the bench press. You can get one at howmuchyabench.net and I highly recommend that you do - it's great for when you have as many old injuries as I do and don't want to miss workouts when you have tendonitis flare-ups. My reps felt fantastic with the slingshot on, so I went all the way up to a pretty easy triple at 315.
Warm-Ups
3 @ 45, 95, 115, 135, 155
Working Sets
3 @ 190
3 @ 220
9 @ 245
Jokers
3 @ 255
3 @ 270
1 @ 285, missed second
3 @ 285 w/ss
3 @ 295 w/ss
3 @ 315 w/ss
3 x 15 Rear Delt Flies superset with 3 x 15 tricep pressdowns (not shown in video)
The handsome gentleman behind me is my best friend and training partner, Brandon. We're actually doing the same programming but he doesn't blog like the cool kids.
Saturday, 24 August 2013
Functional Strength - Are You Missing the Point? (Part 1)
Unless you have been living under a rock (or at least, since 300 came out) you've likely heard the term "Functional Strength" a few times. If you're involved directly with the strength and conditioning world, you've probably heard the term from about 100 people, with 120 definitions. Everyone seems to agree on at least one point - that functional strength refers to the idea of applying strength training in activities other than strength training. It seems pretty straight forward to me. Unfortunately, there seem to be quite a few different schools of thought as far as how you actually build functional strength, as opposed to non-functional. This is especially important for the training of athletes, where the entire function of the training itself is only to improve performance in a sport.
It's not unusual for there to be differing schools of thought regarding some aspect of strength and conditioning. I honestly don't even consider it a bad thing. I start to have issues right about the time I start talking to this guy:
"Oh I don't lift weights or do any of that bodybuilding stuff anymore, I'm working on functional strength."
Okay, so you don't see the point in doing concentration curls, cable crossovers or machine leg extensions to improve your football performance. That's fine, but this guy came up and started talking to me when I was doing box squats. It isn't the first time this has happened either, on a personal or professional scale. I've heard this language used even in interviews with the coaching staff of professional and collegiate sports teams - that they're leaving the entire weight room behind in pursuit of functional strength, opting instead for a whirlwind of tire flipping, rope undulations, mercilessly beating tires with sledgehammers and whatever else they can scribble down while watching UFC All Access. When did squats, deadlifts, pressing and benching get thrown in with the hydraulic preacher curl machine?!
Ultimately, the problem starts and ends with people misunderstanding this simple fact:
Strength is strength.
Functional strength isn't different from strength, it's a mixture of STRENGTH (the contractile potential of the muscle tissue itself) and SKILLS (the speed and efficiency by which the brain and nervous system can assess, interpret and react to a given stimulus). Strength + skills. It's that simple. Misunderstanding this is what leads to anecdotal arguments like this:
"When I used to work for a moving company, there was a guy that we hired who was huge and lifted crazy weights at the gym, but he had no functional strength compared to the guys that lifted couches all day. Even I could do the job easier than him and I was half his size."
This sort of example isn't uncommon, and it feeds into the idea that this guy was missing some kind of special strength that can only be obtained by lifting couches. What the veteran movers had that he didn't were skills. While they didn't have the strength he had, they had spent years grooving the neuromuscular patterns necessary for the specific demands of their job, making more efficient use of what strength they did have. This makes a huge difference, and once the stronger man learns the skills necessary for the job, it'll be much easier for him than it is for the others.
We see this all the time in BJJ and MMA. Of course a skinny 150lb purple belt is going to humiliate a muscular 200lb white belt most of the time because of the huge skill disparity. However, give it a couple of years and now it's a 200lb blue belt against a 150lb brown belt. The brown belt may still win more often than not, but I guarantee it will be a very different match. The 200lb fighter didn't have to catch his skills all the way up to the 150lb fighter's level, he just needed to gain enough skills to apply his strength advantage. This is why we have weight divisions.
Odd Lift/Strongman movements like hitting a tire with a sledgehammer address neuromuscular development, by building "specific power production". This is the ability to channel the strength of all of your individual muscle groups in a team effort to do something more specific, like hitting the tire. This, with enough repetition forms the basis of the "skill" of hitting the tire. That skill will increase your aptitude for applying your strength in other specific ways that are neurologically similar, like swinging a baseball bat, or throwing a punch. Ultimately nothing will improve skills for your sport more than playing your sport (SERIOUSLY), but the sledgehammer/tire provides an easy way to make the training repeatable, scaleable and trackable - very important for goal-setting.
Now, here's the important part. While doing these kinds of unconventional movements can be great for specific power production and conditioning, you can think of them as shaping a clay sculpture - taking what clay you have and applying it differently. The clay itself is your baseline level of strength, and you can shape it as many different as you want but at some point, you may simply need more clay. These kinds of movements will never build actual baseline strength anywhere near as quickly or effectively as plain old squats, deadlifts, pulling and pushing using barbells, dumbbells and kettlebells. If a football player can't squat his bodyweight, he isn't going to get the same benefit from flipping tires as another player that can. Even strongman competitors will do a lot of weekly volume of basic weight training, and the wierd unconventional stuff is the actual sport they play. Given a similar skill set for the yoke carry event, a strongman competitor that can squat 600lbs will be able to move a 400lb yoke a lot easier than another one that squats 400lbs.
To sum up Part 1 - Go ahead and do all the crazy alternative stuff you want, but it shouldn't be all you do. If you're serious about being a better athlete, don't neglect the basics. The first step to being functionally strong is being strong, period.
Stay Tuned for Part 2!
It's not unusual for there to be differing schools of thought regarding some aspect of strength and conditioning. I honestly don't even consider it a bad thing. I start to have issues right about the time I start talking to this guy:
"Oh I don't lift weights or do any of that bodybuilding stuff anymore, I'm working on functional strength."
Okay, so you don't see the point in doing concentration curls, cable crossovers or machine leg extensions to improve your football performance. That's fine, but this guy came up and started talking to me when I was doing box squats. It isn't the first time this has happened either, on a personal or professional scale. I've heard this language used even in interviews with the coaching staff of professional and collegiate sports teams - that they're leaving the entire weight room behind in pursuit of functional strength, opting instead for a whirlwind of tire flipping, rope undulations, mercilessly beating tires with sledgehammers and whatever else they can scribble down while watching UFC All Access. When did squats, deadlifts, pressing and benching get thrown in with the hydraulic preacher curl machine?!
Functional strength isn't different from strength, it's a mixture of STRENGTH (the contractile potential of the muscle tissue itself) and SKILLS (the speed and efficiency by which the brain and nervous system can assess, interpret and react to a given stimulus). Strength + skills. It's that simple. Misunderstanding this is what leads to anecdotal arguments like this:
"When I used to work for a moving company, there was a guy that we hired who was huge and lifted crazy weights at the gym, but he had no functional strength compared to the guys that lifted couches all day. Even I could do the job easier than him and I was half his size."
This sort of example isn't uncommon, and it feeds into the idea that this guy was missing some kind of special strength that can only be obtained by lifting couches. What the veteran movers had that he didn't were skills. While they didn't have the strength he had, they had spent years grooving the neuromuscular patterns necessary for the specific demands of their job, making more efficient use of what strength they did have. This makes a huge difference, and once the stronger man learns the skills necessary for the job, it'll be much easier for him than it is for the others.
We see this all the time in BJJ and MMA. Of course a skinny 150lb purple belt is going to humiliate a muscular 200lb white belt most of the time because of the huge skill disparity. However, give it a couple of years and now it's a 200lb blue belt against a 150lb brown belt. The brown belt may still win more often than not, but I guarantee it will be a very different match. The 200lb fighter didn't have to catch his skills all the way up to the 150lb fighter's level, he just needed to gain enough skills to apply his strength advantage. This is why we have weight divisions.
Odd Lift/Strongman movements like hitting a tire with a sledgehammer address neuromuscular development, by building "specific power production". This is the ability to channel the strength of all of your individual muscle groups in a team effort to do something more specific, like hitting the tire. This, with enough repetition forms the basis of the "skill" of hitting the tire. That skill will increase your aptitude for applying your strength in other specific ways that are neurologically similar, like swinging a baseball bat, or throwing a punch. Ultimately nothing will improve skills for your sport more than playing your sport (SERIOUSLY), but the sledgehammer/tire provides an easy way to make the training repeatable, scaleable and trackable - very important for goal-setting.
Now, here's the important part. While doing these kinds of unconventional movements can be great for specific power production and conditioning, you can think of them as shaping a clay sculpture - taking what clay you have and applying it differently. The clay itself is your baseline level of strength, and you can shape it as many different as you want but at some point, you may simply need more clay. These kinds of movements will never build actual baseline strength anywhere near as quickly or effectively as plain old squats, deadlifts, pulling and pushing using barbells, dumbbells and kettlebells. If a football player can't squat his bodyweight, he isn't going to get the same benefit from flipping tires as another player that can. Even strongman competitors will do a lot of weekly volume of basic weight training, and the wierd unconventional stuff is the actual sport they play. Given a similar skill set for the yoke carry event, a strongman competitor that can squat 600lbs will be able to move a 400lb yoke a lot easier than another one that squats 400lbs.
To sum up Part 1 - Go ahead and do all the crazy alternative stuff you want, but it shouldn't be all you do. If you're serious about being a better athlete, don't neglect the basics. The first step to being functionally strong is being strong, period.
Stay Tuned for Part 2!
Wednesday, 21 August 2013
Box Squats August 21
Alright, so I went for another adjustment and some ART yesterday, and tried squatting for the first time in a few weeks. It went about as well as I could have hoped. I started to feel it once we got over about 225, but I'm not in any pain now so I imagine the worst of it is behind me. I just have to acclimate myself to loading the spine with the heavier weight now, but the sluggishness and stiffness could just as easily just be the time off as the neck.
Triples at:
45, 95, 115, 135, 155, 185, 205, 225, 245, 255, 275, 325
Romanian Deadlifts:
3 x 12 @ 95, 115, 135
The Romanian deads weren't the greatest idea I've ever had. I didn't think they would affect my neck as much as the heavy squats did but they were actually worse. Lots of menthol gel and foam rolling in my near future.
Triples at:
45, 95, 115, 135, 155, 185, 205, 225, 245, 255, 275, 325
Romanian Deadlifts:
3 x 12 @ 95, 115, 135
The Romanian deads weren't the greatest idea I've ever had. I didn't think they would affect my neck as much as the heavy squats did but they were actually worse. Lots of menthol gel and foam rolling in my near future.
Sunday, 18 August 2013
Ordered a Strongman Log!!!
I've been planning for a while to order a strongman log, and I finally pulled the trigger on it. I'm planning on making my second upper body day a log pressing day, should make for awesome carryover for BJJ, and be easier on my joints too. I'll probably do a simple 3-week wave of 8's, 6's and 4's to see where I'm at, then do a rep-max calculation so I can integrate it into 5/3/1. I haven't done a ton of log work before so this preliminary wave will also give me time to work on technique, especially for the clean. Psyched!
Friday, 16 August 2013
Agatsu West Classic: Reciprocal Inhibition
Agatsu West Classics are articles I wrote in 2007 when I had just graduated from the Somatics Institute of Massage Therapy, and had just started BJJ. I wrote them to give a unique anatomical and pathophysiological point of view on the techniques I was learning, that inquisitive minds might better their understanding of "why" certain techniques worked the way they did, rather than just being satisfied with "how" to do them. Some were basic rehab and prehab concepts as well. This one deals with a neuromuscular function called 'reciprocal inhibition' and how it can be useful for stretching and cramps.
***
I know that "Reciprocal Inhibition" sounds unnecessarily wordy, but bear with me, because this concept will help immensely in your tournament/fight prep and general well-being. It has to do with stretching and relaxing muscles, and is especially useful when a muscle is cramped, spasming, or is tight for some other reason and stretching it normally is too painful. The concept is based on one of the fundamental rules of muscles, that in every action there is an agonist muscle and an antagonist muscle, and that every movement of the body involves the agonist contracting (shortening) and at least one antagonist relaxing (lengthening). The easiest example is a bicep curl. When you contract your bicep and it shortens to lift the weight, the tricep, which is our antagonist in this case, is informed by the brain by way of proprioceptors to lengthen and relax. When the weight is let back down, the bicep lengthens and relaxes, and the tricep shortens.
When a muscle is lengthened through reciprocal inhibition, there is one fundamental differing factor from manually lengthening the muscle through stretching, and it has to do with how each type of lengthening is interpreted by the brain.
When a muscle is manually stretched, it is being pulled close to, or all the way to, its limit, which may be shortened if the muscle is currently in dysfunction. At this point, you may feel pain, which is the brain's way of telling you to stop lengthening the muscle because it is going to tear. As an added precaution, the brain stimulates a proprioceptive response telling the muscle to contract, in order to fight the stretch. If a muscle is shortened by a spasm, which is an uncontrolled and painful contraction, it's common sense that to do anything which would stimulate it to contract further is harmful and ineffective, so what can be done to help the muscle to lengthen in this situation?
This is where reciprocal inhibition comes in. Say you have a spasm in your hamstrings on your right leg, and its stuck about halfway in the range of motion. It hurts too much to extend the leg anymore, so it can't be stretched manually. You wouldn't want to try to bear through it either, because as I said before, your brain will fight you over it. So how do you get the brain and its fleet of proprioceptors on your side? The hamstrings are responsible for flexing the leg (bringing your heel to your butt), so their partner in reciprocal inhibition is the muscle group that does the opposite, which is the quadricep group.
So then, have a seat, and get a partner to hold your shin and secure it in place, and contract the quadriceps, trying to extend your leg, but with your partner bracing against you, so that you can't actually lengthen it any further and worsen the spasm. The muscles are working to extend the leg, but in order for the quadriceps to shorten and pull the leg into extension, their antagonist, the hamstrings, have to be able to lengthen. So now, even though the leg isn't actually extending, the brain detects that it's trying to, and therefore triggers the proprioceptors to tell the hamstring spindles to let down and relax, therefore making it easier after a few repititions of this process to gradually extend the leg with less and less pain.
Simple, isn't it? But there's one catch, the hamstrings/quadriceps pairing is easy enough to figure out, and other simple ones like the bicep/tricep pairing, but not all agonist/antagonist pairs are as easy to figure out if you haven't studied anatomy, so how do you know which muscle to contract in order to help another lengthen? With this in mind, I've put together a list of common muscles and their reciprocal partners, it's at the bottom. Remember, reciprocal inhibition works both ways. If one of these muscles is shortened and it hurts too much to stretch it, contract its partner.
**NOTE: This can also be thought of in terms of action. If you want to use RI on a muscle but don't know the name of it, think about what it does. If it hurts to extend your arm, then hold it in place and flex it.**
Triceps/Biceps
Hamstrings/Quadriceps
Forearm Flexors/Forearm Extensors
Upper Traps/Latissimus Dorsi
Deltoids/Latissimus Dorsi
Abdominals/Quadratus Lumborum (lower back)
Pectorals/Rhomboids (upper back)
Right side of neck/Left side of neck
Hip Flexors/Glutes
Hip Adductors (inner thigh)/Hip Abductors (outer thigh)
***
I know that "Reciprocal Inhibition" sounds unnecessarily wordy, but bear with me, because this concept will help immensely in your tournament/fight prep and general well-being. It has to do with stretching and relaxing muscles, and is especially useful when a muscle is cramped, spasming, or is tight for some other reason and stretching it normally is too painful. The concept is based on one of the fundamental rules of muscles, that in every action there is an agonist muscle and an antagonist muscle, and that every movement of the body involves the agonist contracting (shortening) and at least one antagonist relaxing (lengthening). The easiest example is a bicep curl. When you contract your bicep and it shortens to lift the weight, the tricep, which is our antagonist in this case, is informed by the brain by way of proprioceptors to lengthen and relax. When the weight is let back down, the bicep lengthens and relaxes, and the tricep shortens.
When a muscle is lengthened through reciprocal inhibition, there is one fundamental differing factor from manually lengthening the muscle through stretching, and it has to do with how each type of lengthening is interpreted by the brain.
When a muscle is manually stretched, it is being pulled close to, or all the way to, its limit, which may be shortened if the muscle is currently in dysfunction. At this point, you may feel pain, which is the brain's way of telling you to stop lengthening the muscle because it is going to tear. As an added precaution, the brain stimulates a proprioceptive response telling the muscle to contract, in order to fight the stretch. If a muscle is shortened by a spasm, which is an uncontrolled and painful contraction, it's common sense that to do anything which would stimulate it to contract further is harmful and ineffective, so what can be done to help the muscle to lengthen in this situation?
This is where reciprocal inhibition comes in. Say you have a spasm in your hamstrings on your right leg, and its stuck about halfway in the range of motion. It hurts too much to extend the leg anymore, so it can't be stretched manually. You wouldn't want to try to bear through it either, because as I said before, your brain will fight you over it. So how do you get the brain and its fleet of proprioceptors on your side? The hamstrings are responsible for flexing the leg (bringing your heel to your butt), so their partner in reciprocal inhibition is the muscle group that does the opposite, which is the quadricep group.
So then, have a seat, and get a partner to hold your shin and secure it in place, and contract the quadriceps, trying to extend your leg, but with your partner bracing against you, so that you can't actually lengthen it any further and worsen the spasm. The muscles are working to extend the leg, but in order for the quadriceps to shorten and pull the leg into extension, their antagonist, the hamstrings, have to be able to lengthen. So now, even though the leg isn't actually extending, the brain detects that it's trying to, and therefore triggers the proprioceptors to tell the hamstring spindles to let down and relax, therefore making it easier after a few repititions of this process to gradually extend the leg with less and less pain.
Simple, isn't it? But there's one catch, the hamstrings/quadriceps pairing is easy enough to figure out, and other simple ones like the bicep/tricep pairing, but not all agonist/antagonist pairs are as easy to figure out if you haven't studied anatomy, so how do you know which muscle to contract in order to help another lengthen? With this in mind, I've put together a list of common muscles and their reciprocal partners, it's at the bottom. Remember, reciprocal inhibition works both ways. If one of these muscles is shortened and it hurts too much to stretch it, contract its partner.
**NOTE: This can also be thought of in terms of action. If you want to use RI on a muscle but don't know the name of it, think about what it does. If it hurts to extend your arm, then hold it in place and flex it.**
Triceps/Biceps
Hamstrings/Quadriceps
Forearm Flexors/Forearm Extensors
Upper Traps/Latissimus Dorsi
Deltoids/Latissimus Dorsi
Abdominals/Quadratus Lumborum (lower back)
Pectorals/Rhomboids (upper back)
Right side of neck/Left side of neck
Hip Flexors/Glutes
Hip Adductors (inner thigh)/Hip Abductors (outer thigh)
5/3/1 Bench Training August 16
Okay! First day back after a much-needed vacation in Mexico. I wish I'd gotten more training in but the resort gym had dumbbells up to 50 and a smith cage half covered in rust. We fooled around a bit but aside from bodyweight dips and stuff like that, we never did get anything we would call a workout. God do I hate smith machines.
On the bright side, I did go and see Dr. Masters (amazing chiro and ART specialist at Champions Chiropractic in Edmonton) to get my back and neck put back together. I swear, there must have been fifty cracks, most of those from cervical adjustments. I'm still a bit stiff but most of the pain is gone and I'm going back in on Monday for some ART. I wasn't sure what to expect from today's benching but I think it went pretty well.
Warm-ups
3-5 @ 45, 95, 115, 135, 155
5 @ 180
5 @ 205
13 @ 230 (This felt quite good actually, projected a max of 329. I have done 240 for 12 before so it wasn't a peak performance but since I haven't benched in a week and a half, I'll take it)
Joker Sets
5 @ 245
5 @ 255
5 @ 265
Backed off with a set of 8 @ 180 with pauses of around 2s. No time for assistance work again today, going to have to start training earlier. The primary work for Beyond 5/3/1 with jokers and back-offs takes a LOT longer than original 5/3/1. I like the extra volume a lot though.
On the bright side, I did go and see Dr. Masters (amazing chiro and ART specialist at Champions Chiropractic in Edmonton) to get my back and neck put back together. I swear, there must have been fifty cracks, most of those from cervical adjustments. I'm still a bit stiff but most of the pain is gone and I'm going back in on Monday for some ART. I wasn't sure what to expect from today's benching but I think it went pretty well.
Warm-ups
3-5 @ 45, 95, 115, 135, 155
5 @ 180
5 @ 205
13 @ 230 (This felt quite good actually, projected a max of 329. I have done 240 for 12 before so it wasn't a peak performance but since I haven't benched in a week and a half, I'll take it)
Joker Sets
5 @ 245
5 @ 255
5 @ 265
Backed off with a set of 8 @ 180 with pauses of around 2s. No time for assistance work again today, going to have to start training earlier. The primary work for Beyond 5/3/1 with jokers and back-offs takes a LOT longer than original 5/3/1. I like the extra volume a lot though.
Saturday, 3 August 2013
Agatsu West Classic: The "Why" of the Triangle Choke
Agatsu West Classics are articles I wrote in 2007 when I had just graduated from the Somatics Institute of Massage Therapy, and had just started BJJ. I wrote them to give a unique anatomical and pathophysiological point of view on the techniques I was learning, that inquisitive minds might better their understanding of "why" certain techniques worked the way they did, rather than just being satisfied with "how" to do them. Some were basic rehab and prehab concepts as well. This one features the triangle choke - and though my understanding of BJJ is now light years ahead of what it was at the time, everything in the article is still accurate and relevant. Hope you enjoy.
***
I chose the triangle to cover today, because not only is it likely the highest-percentage of the three in high-level competition, it's also one of those subs where tiny things make huge differences, and attention to positioning and ice-cold technique is key. Thanks to www.lockflow.com for the demonstration pictures.
1. Royce Gracie holds Jonothan Burke in his closed guard. He secures one of Burke's arms above the elbow. This is done for two simple reasons. The first is that he has more control over the dexterity of Burke's arm, and the second is that later on in the technique, when Royce wants to assert control on Burke's torso, he'll have more influence the closer to the torso he is. Which arm he chooses to secure will depend on which arm will be easier to pass through his legs. In this case, Burke is actually trying to separate Royce's legs with his left arm, so Royce controls the right.
2. This shows from another angle that Royce has successfully passed Burk's left arm through his legs. He still has control over Burk's right elbow in the same fashion as described in number 1. At this point he's also controlling Burk's left arm, the one he passed through, with his right hand, and driving it in toward Burk's body. This is done for two reasons. One reason is that Burk can't employ his left hand in any way to defend against the triangle choke, or in the context of MMA, he can't punch Royce with it.
The second reason is that in any style of martial arts, whether the practitioners do a good job of it or not, a fundamental rule is that the more off-balance your opponent, so long as you remain balanced, the more advantageous the situation is for you. At this point in the situation, Burk's upper body is overextended forward, and the majority of his weight is outside his realm of strength.
This is another angle of the second position, but this is displaying another critical detail in Royce's expert execution of this technique. As he rests his calf across the back of Burk's neck in preparation for the choke, he moves his right hip in toward the arm he passed through, using his left foot on Burke's hip to speed up this movement, to make his body almost perpendicular to Burk's.
This is done for two reasons. The first reason is that if Royce remains in line with Burk's body, he is vulnerable to slamming. Check out Arona vs Rampage if you want to see a good example of that. Even in a fully locked-in triangle, it's possible for Burk to get to his feet. If he can get to his feet, and Royce is in line with him, he need only assume the proper head-up posture for a deadlift or squat in order to easily lift Royce's body.
The second reason has to do with the strength of Royce's choke in this position. With his body in line with Burk's, his right leg is internally rotated, which makes squeezing inward about half hamstrings, half adductor group (inner thigh). However, refer to my article about reciprocal inhibition. Anytime a muscle is working, its partner somewhere on the body is being sent signals to relax. The hamstrings and adductors, the muscles that you're trying to squeeze with, are all main players in EXTERNAL rotation of the flexed knee, which is the opposite movement. so if you're in line with the person you're choking, forcing you to internally rotate your leg, all the muscles you're trying to squeeze with are being sent signals by the brain to relax and lengthen, which means the strength of your choke is being halved without you even realizing it. By switching up the position attack from the side, you're making it a more direct hamstring effort, with much less interference from the brain.
Finally, the finished choke position. Not much to say about this, besides the actual location of the artery you're attacking. The mechanics of any choke with the arm inside is to bring the acromio-clavicular joint (bump about halfway between your neck and shoulder) into the common carotid artery, or one of its branches, on the side of the neck, just in front of the cervical spine, shown here:
If that artery isn't being pressured, the choke isn't working, so if he's been hanging out in your triangle choke for 30 seconds, look at his ear, then track straight down the neck from the ear. About halfway down the neck, in line with the ear, is your target, so shift around until his shoulder is there and then try squeezing again. Hope you guys found this useful, make sure to leave me some comments whether you did or not!
***
I chose the triangle to cover today, because not only is it likely the highest-percentage of the three in high-level competition, it's also one of those subs where tiny things make huge differences, and attention to positioning and ice-cold technique is key. Thanks to www.lockflow.com for the demonstration pictures.
1. Royce Gracie holds Jonothan Burke in his closed guard. He secures one of Burke's arms above the elbow. This is done for two simple reasons. The first is that he has more control over the dexterity of Burke's arm, and the second is that later on in the technique, when Royce wants to assert control on Burke's torso, he'll have more influence the closer to the torso he is. Which arm he chooses to secure will depend on which arm will be easier to pass through his legs. In this case, Burke is actually trying to separate Royce's legs with his left arm, so Royce controls the right.
2. This shows from another angle that Royce has successfully passed Burk's left arm through his legs. He still has control over Burk's right elbow in the same fashion as described in number 1. At this point he's also controlling Burk's left arm, the one he passed through, with his right hand, and driving it in toward Burk's body. This is done for two reasons. One reason is that Burk can't employ his left hand in any way to defend against the triangle choke, or in the context of MMA, he can't punch Royce with it.
The second reason is that in any style of martial arts, whether the practitioners do a good job of it or not, a fundamental rule is that the more off-balance your opponent, so long as you remain balanced, the more advantageous the situation is for you. At this point in the situation, Burk's upper body is overextended forward, and the majority of his weight is outside his realm of strength.
This is another angle of the second position, but this is displaying another critical detail in Royce's expert execution of this technique. As he rests his calf across the back of Burk's neck in preparation for the choke, he moves his right hip in toward the arm he passed through, using his left foot on Burke's hip to speed up this movement, to make his body almost perpendicular to Burk's.
This is done for two reasons. The first reason is that if Royce remains in line with Burk's body, he is vulnerable to slamming. Check out Arona vs Rampage if you want to see a good example of that. Even in a fully locked-in triangle, it's possible for Burk to get to his feet. If he can get to his feet, and Royce is in line with him, he need only assume the proper head-up posture for a deadlift or squat in order to easily lift Royce's body.
The second reason has to do with the strength of Royce's choke in this position. With his body in line with Burk's, his right leg is internally rotated, which makes squeezing inward about half hamstrings, half adductor group (inner thigh). However, refer to my article about reciprocal inhibition. Anytime a muscle is working, its partner somewhere on the body is being sent signals to relax. The hamstrings and adductors, the muscles that you're trying to squeeze with, are all main players in EXTERNAL rotation of the flexed knee, which is the opposite movement. so if you're in line with the person you're choking, forcing you to internally rotate your leg, all the muscles you're trying to squeeze with are being sent signals by the brain to relax and lengthen, which means the strength of your choke is being halved without you even realizing it. By switching up the position attack from the side, you're making it a more direct hamstring effort, with much less interference from the brain.
Finally, the finished choke position. Not much to say about this, besides the actual location of the artery you're attacking. The mechanics of any choke with the arm inside is to bring the acromio-clavicular joint (bump about halfway between your neck and shoulder) into the common carotid artery, or one of its branches, on the side of the neck, just in front of the cervical spine, shown here:
If that artery isn't being pressured, the choke isn't working, so if he's been hanging out in your triangle choke for 30 seconds, look at his ear, then track straight down the neck from the ear. About halfway down the neck, in line with the ear, is your target, so shift around until his shoulder is there and then try squeezing again. Hope you guys found this useful, make sure to leave me some comments whether you did or not!
Friday, 2 August 2013
Dave Tate: The Void
This is a motivational video featuring video and audio clips of Dave Tate, head of EliteFTS and a huge inspirational figure for me. If you lift weights, I think you'd be hard pressed to watch this video and not have it hit a few nerves.
Beyond 5/3/1 Close-Grip Bench August 2
My two current upper body days for Beyond 5/3/1 are CG bench and normal bench - for a couple of reasons. I have a hard time with standing presses using an olympic bar, especially lately because of my neck. I tried 5/3/1 press with kettlebells for a while once, but because the kettlebells only go up in increments of 4KG it was a bit redundant - the way I've got my excel set up it would be a couple of full cycles before any numbers would change. I still do kettlebell pressing as assistance work, though. The other reason is that for a 6-month stretch I was using the Patrick Nyman bench program and got fantastic results from it - hard triples at 255 to easy triples at 280! The program alternates CG and normal grip each week and it felt really good - plus tricep strength/stability is super important for BJJ.
I'm planning on investing in a strongman log and switching out CG bench for log pressing. I'm hoping that the log pressing will be easier on my joints, plus log pressing is badass and should have great carryover to the mats.
Anyway, this was today's training. I'm still being careful with my neck - jamming it into the bench when I arch is doable but not comfortable. Usually I stop my sets when the reps start to get ugly, but right now I'm stopping 1-2 reps short of that point.
Warm-ups - Triples at 45, 95, 115, 135, 155
3 @ 175
3 @ 200
10 @ 225 (Projected PR of 299.9)
These felt surprisingly good, actually. I took the tenth a bit high on my chest and felt my elbows flare, making for an awkward groove on the concentric phase. It still went up nice and fast once I got it off my chest and tucked my elbows, but I didn't want to be too greedy. One of the great things about any version of 5/3/1 is that it's all designed around building momentum over the long term. You try your best to set PR's every workout, but even if you're training around an injury or just having a shitty high-gravity day in general, you can stay on schedule and keep grinding.
Joker Sets:
3 @ 240
3 @ 250
1 @ 260
The first rep at 260 felt good, but arching hard was starting to take its toll.
Back-off Sets - 1-2 second pause on the chest
3 x 8 @ 175
Did some pull-aparts and pressdowns when I got to work but too many things on my plate to get any real assistance work done.
I'm planning on investing in a strongman log and switching out CG bench for log pressing. I'm hoping that the log pressing will be easier on my joints, plus log pressing is badass and should have great carryover to the mats.
Anyway, this was today's training. I'm still being careful with my neck - jamming it into the bench when I arch is doable but not comfortable. Usually I stop my sets when the reps start to get ugly, but right now I'm stopping 1-2 reps short of that point.
Warm-ups - Triples at 45, 95, 115, 135, 155
3 @ 175
3 @ 200
10 @ 225 (Projected PR of 299.9)
These felt surprisingly good, actually. I took the tenth a bit high on my chest and felt my elbows flare, making for an awkward groove on the concentric phase. It still went up nice and fast once I got it off my chest and tucked my elbows, but I didn't want to be too greedy. One of the great things about any version of 5/3/1 is that it's all designed around building momentum over the long term. You try your best to set PR's every workout, but even if you're training around an injury or just having a shitty high-gravity day in general, you can stay on schedule and keep grinding.
Joker Sets:
3 @ 240
3 @ 250
1 @ 260
The first rep at 260 felt good, but arching hard was starting to take its toll.
Back-off Sets - 1-2 second pause on the chest
3 x 8 @ 175
Did some pull-aparts and pressdowns when I got to work but too many things on my plate to get any real assistance work done.
Thursday, 1 August 2013
Leg Training Mountain Dog Style - August 1, 2013
Typically my lower body Beyond 5/3/1 days are Box Squats or Deadlifts, but I've been dealing with a neck injury since last Monday. It presents as a pinched nerve, but I've also had symptoms like these from a thoracic rib being out of place. My chiro/ART guy is on vacation right now, and he's the only one I trust for upper cervical adjustment so I'm having to train around it right now. I love mountain dog style training for assistance work, so today Brandon and I decided we'd have some fun and blast the legs without having to load the spine.
Seated Hamstring Curls - Pause at the bottom
I did five or six warm-up sets of 10, then two sets of 12 at 160lbs.
Leg Press - After I warmed up, I added 0.5 inch strength bands doubled up around the safety spotter handles of the leg press. The press itself is a Precor Icarian on about a 45 degree slant. These bands are equivalent to elitefts pro minis, and based on how I've calibrated them on reverse band pins I figure they probably add about 150lbs at the top of the movement when they're doubled up. Not nearly as much of a difference on a leg press as on a squat, but it definitely does force me to be more explosive which is why I add them.
Sets of 8 with slow negatives
@ 90, 180, 270, 360, 450, 540
Added Bands, Sets of 10 with Fast Tempo
540, 630, 720
Back down to 540, did 10 with very slow negatives
Strip Set - 10 Reps as fast as possible with 360, 270, 180, and 90
All I had time for before I had to head to work.
Seated Hamstring Curls - Pause at the bottom
I did five or six warm-up sets of 10, then two sets of 12 at 160lbs.
Leg Press - After I warmed up, I added 0.5 inch strength bands doubled up around the safety spotter handles of the leg press. The press itself is a Precor Icarian on about a 45 degree slant. These bands are equivalent to elitefts pro minis, and based on how I've calibrated them on reverse band pins I figure they probably add about 150lbs at the top of the movement when they're doubled up. Not nearly as much of a difference on a leg press as on a squat, but it definitely does force me to be more explosive which is why I add them.
Sets of 8 with slow negatives
@ 90, 180, 270, 360, 450, 540
Added Bands, Sets of 10 with Fast Tempo
540, 630, 720
Back down to 540, did 10 with very slow negatives
Strip Set - 10 Reps as fast as possible with 360, 270, 180, and 90
All I had time for before I had to head to work.
Welcome
Welcome, and thank you for checking out my blog. My name is Tyson LaRone, and this is what originally started as a simple online workout log for Beyond 5/3/1, a strength training program by Jim Wendler that I use to supplement BJJ. I'm now planning to use it as an outlet for any of my ramblings concerning my lifting, BJJ, general health and wellness and life in general. Hopefully you'll find it informative if you're into any of these topics!
A little about me:
BJJ: I am a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, training and teaching at Arashi-Do Martial Arts in Edmonton, Alberta under Professor Mike Yackulic. We're part of Equipe Behring International, under Mestre Sylvio Behring in Rio De Janeiro. We're fortunate enough to host him twice a year for seminars, privates and grading. I've been training under Prof. Mike and Mestre Behring for about seven and a half years now.
Lifting: I started lifting weights when I was quite young as a part of training for competitive swimming, which I did at a national level until about 11 years ago, when I was 15. That's when I started training with kettlebells and training in Ketto Ryu Ju-Jutsu. I now work for the Agatsu Organization as an SAKC, teaching kettlebell instructor certifications. I started doing the original 5/3/1 and eating my face off when I was 21, in an attempt to move up a few weight divisions but fell in love with powerlifting. Two years ago, I became a Speed and Agility Specialist through the IYCA.
Professional Life: I manage the south Edmonton location of a nationwide company called Fitness Depot, selling fitness equipment. I also teach a fitness class, Kids BJJ and Advanced No-Gi at Arashi-Do. I went to a private college for Massage Therapy and worked as an RMT for a couple of years, but ultimately decided that massage therapy was much better as a friend than a roommate. I still get to use my education every day for strength/conditioning and BJJ, so I don't regret it at all.
Personal Life: I have a wonderful wife named Stephanie, and two cats named Batman and D'Artagnan. When I'm not selling, lifting or rolling, I'm reading sci fi or fantasy novels, watching movies or doing anything to do with cars or racing.
A little about me:
BJJ: I am a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, training and teaching at Arashi-Do Martial Arts in Edmonton, Alberta under Professor Mike Yackulic. We're part of Equipe Behring International, under Mestre Sylvio Behring in Rio De Janeiro. We're fortunate enough to host him twice a year for seminars, privates and grading. I've been training under Prof. Mike and Mestre Behring for about seven and a half years now.
Lifting: I started lifting weights when I was quite young as a part of training for competitive swimming, which I did at a national level until about 11 years ago, when I was 15. That's when I started training with kettlebells and training in Ketto Ryu Ju-Jutsu. I now work for the Agatsu Organization as an SAKC, teaching kettlebell instructor certifications. I started doing the original 5/3/1 and eating my face off when I was 21, in an attempt to move up a few weight divisions but fell in love with powerlifting. Two years ago, I became a Speed and Agility Specialist through the IYCA.
Professional Life: I manage the south Edmonton location of a nationwide company called Fitness Depot, selling fitness equipment. I also teach a fitness class, Kids BJJ and Advanced No-Gi at Arashi-Do. I went to a private college for Massage Therapy and worked as an RMT for a couple of years, but ultimately decided that massage therapy was much better as a friend than a roommate. I still get to use my education every day for strength/conditioning and BJJ, so I don't regret it at all.
Personal Life: I have a wonderful wife named Stephanie, and two cats named Batman and D'Artagnan. When I'm not selling, lifting or rolling, I'm reading sci fi or fantasy novels, watching movies or doing anything to do with cars or racing.
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