Contagion may have you freaked out. But there are lots of reasons to get/stay mobile and strong to improve your resilience against disease; and there are plenty more options than you may realize to keep mobile and strong in the face of a pandemic.
Regular exercisers are less prone to infection: https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/45/12/987.abstract?sid=e6594508-3aaa-4c61-99ba-4ea138580947. In fact, exercise and mindfulness is arguably more broadly effective than flu vaccines (which tend to only address one or a few strains) with regard to respiratory infections: http://www.annfammed.org/content/10/4/337.long Avoidance, cleanliness, and hygiene are incontestably necessary. However, there will likely come a time where you face some exposure to something at some point. Being healthier and more physically fit will be the only remaining defense. This is why infectious disease organizations like the World Health Organization make recommendations on activity, protein, and dietary intakes. Those fundamentals aid in our chances of survival. "How does one square the need for exercise with the risk reduction from avoidance?", you may be asking. You could be shocked to discover that most fundamental training can be done at home with limited or no equipment. Our company offers virtual coaching, in part, to address this type of need. In coaching calls and web conferences, we walk clients through wellness strategy, movement practices, and even workouts, specifically designed for that individual's ability and readiness. Even on site, a private training studio gets the grand advantage of PRIVATE space. Everyone takes cleanliness serious in a location like this. We don't even let shoes past the entry. Generically, people are going to want to practice: • some lower body push (ie - squat, lunge, wall sit, and variations) • some lower body pull (ie - bridge, deadlift, single leg rdl, good mornings, etc.) • some upper body push (ie - handstand, pushup variations, etc.) • some upper body pull (ie - cobras, TYIs, and movements like this: https://www.elev8wellness.com/wellblog_best_nutrition_training_coaching_experts/non-equipment-back-exercise) • a core component (ie - planks, crunches, etc.). With no equipment, every facet can and should be trained. With some equipment, variations are greater and some angles more accessible. With more equipment, the only thing that changes are the numbers of variations possible. Now, that all said, you may find yourself in the forthcoming weeks wrestling with a sense of needing to go to the gym versus risk management. That is, you may find yourself (once this threat has been abated) wanting to go in the future, but still a little freaked out about whatever remnant cases still linger months from now. All the hygiene rules which applied before this outbreak apply now and will still apply in the future: wipe down equipment; thoroughly wash your hands; don't touch your face. I have to add that some gym environments are safer than others, and some are safer on average than most anywhere else. Disinfecting surfaces is commonplace in most facilities; and fellow gym goers are more cognizant of this and other hygienic practices than average people. Viruses have shorter viability in dry environments. Thus, if you're performing heavy resistance training among other people who primarily perform resistance training, there is an incredibly shorter viability of viruses there than if you are sweating off your butt in cardio and WODs among other people who are there to sweat off their butts in cardio and WODs. Either way, you WILL touch surfaces. WASH YOUR HANDS. DON'T TOUCH YOUR FACE. Unlike the many, many online fitness celebrities, I have actually worked in real physical gyms, and I might add FOR THE BETTER PART OF TWO DECADES. And, unlike most of the popular voices within fitness, this isn't blowing smoke. I often spent far more than 60 hours a week there. Illness rates among staff and regular gym goers was consistently MUCH lower than the average populace. I know this is anecdotal, but it makes sense when reviewing the research included above. Additionally, people who feel a hint of illness are more likely to avoid the public place of a gym than people who feel incredibly ill are likely to avoid the public places to get food, supplies, and medications. Beware the risk when stocking up on toiletries at a place where sick people go (any place with a pharmacy nearby). Plus, do keep in mind that people avoid going to the gym EVEN WHEN THEY'RE PAID TO GO: https://www.nber.org/papers/w23567. That isn't the case for your local Walgreens, restaurants, Walmart, Target, grocery stores, and the like. Especially with the current panic ramping up to a fever pitch, commercial gym attendance is already down; and the typical yearly seasonal trends (80% of attendance drops off the second week of February anyway) will keep it that or lower going into the Summer and Fall. By the time infection rates peak in the US, the ghost town that is the gym will likely be among the least risky destinations (nevertheless, still wash your hands and don't touch your face). In the meantime, know that you can and should be making an effort at daily mobility and strengthening practices, even from the comfort of your own quarantine. Learn more about our virtual coaching programs here.
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‘99 to ‘19. 160lbs to 250lbs.
Age, injuries, Lyme disease, nerve damage, and piles of life challenges really helped to improve things. What isn’t so evident in these pictures is how much orthopedic pain I was in on the left and how I am totally pain free on the right. When I was running 60 miles per week (left) and eating low fat, not only was it impossible to get leaner (I never had visible abs then), but my hips and feet always killed me. Having worked diligently on strengthening and correcting mobility issues and muscle balances for 20 years, however, despite the glitches along the way (especially the nerve issues), I feel really great most days. That feeling of wellness can’t be captured in a photo. But you can get an idea of it. The time I spend weekly on workouts is a tiny fraction of what it used to be, by the way. No hips? No problem. She’s a nearly-80-year-old sweetheart and doing some of her physical therapy exercises after her 4th hip replacement (got both replacements replaced).
Prior to the therapy she’d done no real strength or corrective work (hence the replacements); but I gotta give her credit that she’s taking it seriously now. AND, therefore, I’d add that here’s proof positive you can always make progress. I made only minor input with regard to placing her center of gravity over mid-foot and utilizing the hip extensors some. However, what I want people to take away from this is prior to that cue (video here: https://www.instagram.com/p/B5XqoxTjGmn/), she could not stand up without holding onto something. A lot of what we think of as strength is skill. A lot of older people’s bad movement is mostly due to being under or unpracticed. Honesty first - build the skill of internal integrity (I.e. - when you say you will do something, you do it) first; then make resolutions: New Year's and otherwise.
If you are skilled at not listening to yourself, your brain doesn't care what you write down for goals. Start with something simple. Move to something still pretty easy, like getting up on time or early even. Build the skill of honesty with yourself. Then try stratospheric changes, like the total behavioral and belief system alteration that's involved in weight loss or fitness. Invariably, no matter how an exercise is performed, some "guru" comes along to critique. Sometimes it's well-intentioned, and sometimes it's warranted. Usually, however, it's simply evidence for how the critic is uneducated or so inexperienced that he or she doesn't understand the grand breadth of benefits gleaned from variations on a repetition.
Categorically, any movement can be altered, progressed or regressed by range of motion, resistance/loading, stability/balance and tempo. And even within these four categories there lie many subdivisions. That's to say nothing of rep, set, rest schemes, frequency of training, etc. All of these variables are subject to change based on client need, goals, ability and even mental or emotional state. The greatest all-time 200m sprinter never even dared to compete in 400m. That's how sport-specific training can become. After I completely tore my right pectoral tendon off of the bone and had it surgically reattached, no conventional or even well-accepted unconventional rep schemes or programming yielded consistent progress. The recovery had been stochastic at best, never linear, and painfully regressive at worst. Upon reflection, I realized that any "normal" smooth range of motion press allowed me to basically avoid the very angles where I'm most vulnerable, consequently never addressing the fundamental power leak. Thus entered a rest-pause scheme wherein I paused in the very spot where my injury felt most awkward or vulnerable. Subsequently I added partial range of motion "pump sets", again focusing on the most uncomfortable and weakest portion of my press, hoping to elicit reparative blood flow in the compromised tendon. That one single odd change, which would be missed by average people and was never recommended by my surgeon or therapists, yielded more reliable and faster improvement in one month than the prior year. I don’t dismiss the benefit of simply doing activity. Off the couch generally outweighs on the couch. But the wide array of human movement is as big or bigger than any advanced subject. It’s a massive fallacy to equate walking or raking leaves to targeted focused training. In this case, the difference between one version of chest press and another was an entire universe. This temple of ours requires thoughtfulness, variation, intentionality. But only because a rep isn't just a rep. Check out this November 2019 issue of Nature (there’s also a great piece on encouraging inquiry from students). An inhibition to (or absence of) something called PGRMC2 degrades the capacity to burn fat. Metabolism unwinds. Body temperature drops. Cells are inhibited at the mitochondrial level. That said, take note that the implications were only obvious as mice were overfed. The researchers reversed the condition with merely applying an PGRMC2 activator for already obese-diabetic mice.
Perhaps more interesting is that prior papers explored how exercise affects this very process (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1038/oby.2006.147). Therefore, although many readers may take this as yet another confirmation of the genetic expression excuse making, the reality is that tempering food intake and adding exercise is a form of genetic expression engineering. Would you invest in something that fails 92% of the time? Yes you would. At least, that’s your answer if you do New Year’s Resolutions or product goals. If it were anything else in life, stocks, a company, a job, a relationship, with a 92% fail rate, you’d at least think of some alternative route. But with resolutions, for some reason, people just keep lining up to invest in the exact same way over and over again.
Almost half of people run their lives with product goalsetting, while, OF those that do, about 8% achieve the product goal: https://thehiresolution.net/the-futility-of-most-new-years…/ . Think about that. Four percent or less of the populace gets outcomes by virtue of making product goals and resolutions. Clearly, with a percent that low, it isn't the goalsetting which causes the success at all. This statistic doesn’t include long term maintenance results, mind you. Those are simply arrivals. If we run the tape forward 2, 5, or 10 years, uglier numbers emerge. Are you paying attention yet? Classical New Year’s resolutions are a one-way ticket to Failsville. And I know you already booked your trip; but it‘s time to cancel. In fact, when we interview success stories, we find that the product goal was incidental. The successful person had immersed herself in a process, and that process happened to dovetail with the stated product. Thus, we discover that no one achieves via product goal-setting. No one. We only succeed through process goal-setting. So then, what’s the process you’re working? What allotments does it make for WHO you are? When you “messed up already,” how will you reorganize the process in order to improve outcomes? Or, you can go after something which works 8% of the time. That’s not an 8% return on investment, friends. That’s like if for every 100 times you had to drive some place, your car’s engine fired up 8 times and didn’t malfunction on the drive. That’s like if you showed up to work once every two weeks and didn’t last the whole day. That’s like if your spouse came home from work one week after not coming home from work for three months in a row. Pretty reliable system, right? Time to reform. Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist - I decided to take this exam a couple days prior to actually taking it. This cert is one which many people revere as having one of the more demanding tests in the fitness world. At around 5 hours of testing time, indeed, it’s no joke, and understandable why many practitioners insist on suffixing themselves CSCS thereafter.
The personal growth and education journey are an interesting one. When I first picked up an exercise science textbook over 30 years ago, I didn’t even realize this was a profession. When I started professionally in 2004, I felt I had a lot to overcome to gain “respect” in the community; so I added 5-10 workshops and certs to the roster every year, ACE, NASM, PES, CES, ISCA kickbox, PNF cert, corrective exercise and anatomy specialties, Active Isolated Mattes Method, Precision Nutrition, and many MANY more. In 2012 I memorized the entirety of the US medical lecture series. That was a big turning point for my approach, and changed the way I view credentialing forever. Every week that goes by I want to make sure I don't know the same things, I don't think the same things, I don't believe the same things I did in the prior week. It generates new weeks. It unfolds a new life. It enables me to solve new problems. It creates new ideas. This opens up new opportunities of all kinds, including prevention in the orthopedic arena, health troubleshooting, behavioral change strategies, and more. I worry about professionals who have the same approach or believe the same thing year over year. In the fitness industry, there are "experts" who use the same templates for workouts and nutrition for clients or programming forever. They never explore. They aren't searchers. They aren't curious. They shun learning. But I don't think that this is in the fitness industry alone. I see it in people's relationships, careers, investments, learning (or lack thereof), politics. Just. The. Same. Old. Crap. Every. Single. Day. For. Decades. No growth = no joy. Just because you found something effective doesn't mean other modalities aren't also effective, more effective, or more accessible to other people. The first month that anyone works as a legitimate certified trainer in a genuine professional environment, he will discover solid strategies, robust programming tools, and more. We all find tactics which work well. Some of us aren't satisfied with one or two or even a dozen. Some of us are searchers, because the beauty of the universe isn't just vast; it's endless. The fact of the matter is that even the same concept has to be communicated in different ways to different people at different junctures in their lives. Same tactics equals same successes. That's great and all. But it also means the same failures. It means the same amount of missed connections, missed growth opportunities, missed joy. Next week that could be different. But only if you know or believe something different. From the loftiest erudite scholar to the lowliest dropout panhandler, people struggle not to destroy themselves. People carry vices. People lose self-control. Regardless of consensus or logic, people mistreat themselves.
I heard a segment on NPR a while back that a study conducted by the Weight Watchers organization (they were trying to find why their company is dying, going from over 6 billion net at peak to under 1 billion projected gross) found people are burnt out hearing about dieting. No surprise. People are burnt out hearing about weight loss. And they should be. Because a temporary diet and a centerpiece goal of weight loss never worked for anyone ever anyway. Weight loss for weight loss’ sake is easy. I’ve posted about personal 10lb drops in a 24 hour period. I’ve had clients lose over 100lbs in 8 months. One of my distance coaching clients just logged a 14lb loss in 5 days. But then what? Even the preeminent cash cow Weight Watchers doesn’t have a long term leg to stand on. So what are we really after? CHANGE. Deep, visceral, irrevocable shifts in how we live, our state of interfacing with our landscape and surrounding environment. For fear of having my wisdom scorned, hear me out: don’t diet; don’t try to lose weight; don’t get pumped up about idealized monumental shifts in your life. BE EXACTLY THE SAME. Because, let’s be honest, that’s all anyone ever does once we get past 6-12 weeks... EXCEPT... this time, alter one tiny, little, infinitesimally almost-undetectable behavior. When you do, never go back. It has to be a shift that is easy, simple - you could almost trip over it. It must take up less than 5 minutes of your day, so compliance will be 100% forever. When you nail it down, pick the next one. Don’t change anything else. Don’t sacrifice. Don’t alter your grocery store. Don’t diet. Don’t lose weight. Just keep it ALMOST undetectable. Your mind is prepared to go full-on fool, and shoot you in both feet if you make a big change. So don’t. Just step. That’s it. That’s literally it. Steps. Simple steps. Don’t make a big change. Don’t set a goal. Don’t resolve. Just step. Work steps. Because steps are all that is, all there was, and all that ever will be. If you didn’t work the steps, don’t get on the scale. If you did, don’t get on the scale. Scale is not steps.
All of the daily practices and behaviors which benefit you are the steps. Work the steps. Or don’t work the steps. But do not expect to be atop a staircase if you didn’t climb the stairs. I know people who are upset or happy because of the "grade" they receive from a scale or a doctor's visit. That is precisely the most ineffective and immature manner to handle data. If you did everything "wrong" but receive a "good" grade, you are merely emboldened in your foolish behavior. If you did everything "right" and receive a "bad" grade, you are merely discouraged from doing the proper behaviors. I run into this a lot actually. Morbidly obese people proudly proclaim their "bill of good health." They'll say, "my blood pressure is consistently low," as if that's a good thing. Low blood pressure in an otherwise unhealthy person is not a magical mark of hidden healthiness. It is confirmation that their body systems and organs are so annihilated that they can't even muster the high blood pressure that they should have for a body mass that great. Or someone who has 150lbs to lose proudly proclaims his "rockstar A1C," as if that means he isn't diabetic. I have been warning people for over 10 years that a low A1C when you are extremely obese is merely confirmation that you are so unhealthy that hemoglobin are dying off faster than you can support the accumulation of higher count. Taking two post-meal glucose readings tells us far more about your insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance (you should be able to return to a glucose of 75-85 within 30-60 minutes after a peak) than the combined information we get from A1C, lab tests for insulin, AND repeated morning fasted glucoses. Moreover, people who are anemic also have a shortened red blood cell lifespan. So, generally, an anemic diabetic CANNOT pull a high A1C, because he can't accumulate enough living red blood cells to do so. Add to that, nowadays even mainstream medicine now recognizes that full-blown Type II diabetics can consistently pull 5.7 or lower A1Cs, even though the "official" diagnostic cut off is 6.5 or higher: https://www.endocrineweb.com/news/diabetes/61790-hemoglobin-a1c-not-reliable-diagnosing-type-2-diabetes. Or someone who can't make it up a single flight of stairs without gasping for breath will proudly proclaim that she has low cholesterol. Again, this is BECAUSE the body is so unhealthy it cannot synthesize the NECESSARY material to keep you alive. Cholesterol is the precursor to all vital hormones and is a building block in every single human cell. Low cholesterol is an exhausted body breathing its final breaths. Most heart attacks occur in people with normal cholesterol: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170412105837.htm. Or skinny people who have zero strength and athleticism proudly announce their "healthiness." Being a waif who will break her hip or get a concussion with the slightest little fall is not healthiness. That's frailty, which, by the by, is the leading risk factor for the elderly. That frailty which so many people have confused with "great bodies" is a strong indicator of a weak immune system, reduced bone density, endocrine disruption, cancer risk, and neurodegeneration. Being underweight assuredly compromises immunity (https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-weight/advice-for-underweight-adults/), which ought to give everyone pause in this era of freaking out about Covid-19 and other infections. Stop it with the patting yourself on the back or shaming yourself with scales and checkups. Work steps because it's the right thing to do. Get strong. Be active. Eat clean and light. Get nutrient dense food. Sleep, rest, and recover. |
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