Visiting R-phase

Z Health just wrapped up its R-phase in Sunnyvale CA where new trainers were introduced to the concepts of neuroplasticity and its practical application in a training environment. This application covered mobility drills, movement assessment, and an understanding of the truth; the truth being that your Nervous System controls everything and it's only until you address it that you can expect the positive results you desire, regardless of your goal. That, in brief, is what Z Health is all about: Communicating with the Nervous system to improve movement. At the end of the day, every problem is a movement problem.

This was my third round of R-phase. Most trainers would ask, "Why would you attend a certification three times?" If you can take someone's pain away, most likely in the first session, make them move better so they don't want to quit working towards their goal, and reduce their stress, then you not only have a new client but a long-term client.  Business-wise this is a tool you should not only own but sharpen as often as possible. How many trainers discontinue training? A lot. I've worked in several gyms and studios, and used to manage. I have seen them come and go. Why? There is no belief system in place for that trainer. In other words, these trainers don't fully believe in themselves because they struggle to make considerable change in those they work with. Z Health provides a simple template based on science that guides trainers in the process of helping people change, and because of its fail-proof results Z Health Trainers are in the top 1% in their field.

I always learn more or reshape what I have learned when I re-attend one of these certifications. I had a few great take a ways this time around. Mounting threats that clients face are numerous. These threats range from stress, movement problems, pain, etc. and can cause major detriments in performance or trigger an action signal (pain) therefore you have more then one target to aim at. We often get sucked into a localized system of addressing pain and movement but it is the sum of nociceptive signals (pain or threat signals) that present the problem. As I watch the Master Trainers and Dr. Cobb work I am reminded about what R-phase is about. Knowing the ABC’s of movement, everyone is wired for survival; every rep counts are all needed for success but it is also about the attention to detail. The efficiency at which a Z health trainer will hit his or her target is based on their attention to detail.  The ability to assess movement to identify the brains lack of map clarity is the key to applying all the principles, science, and hard work of Z Health.

I am in the process of organizing several workshops in local bay area locations. If you are interested in learning more about Z-Health you can contact me via email at Patrick@ironbodysystem.com

3 Action Steps to Becoming a Stronger Vegetarian

The other day I meet a vegetarian at a speaking event and afterwards he approached me to ask, “How do I get arms like you?”  Jokingly, I responded, “Ignore pain and eat small children.”  After he humored me with my horrible joke I asked him what he eats.  Usually people go straight to asking “what exercise is good for this part of my body?” which is important, but if you don’t have a foundation to build on it’s all in vain, my little muscle heads. He replied, “I’m a vegetarian.” Damn, I thought.  I’m not going to blog about why I think all people should be eating meat (yes, everyone), I will save that for another time. But I will say regardless of the reason you are a vegetarian, you have to do a bit more work than the rest of us carnivores when it comes to retaining lean body composition.  He and I had a great conversation about how our agriculture system is going to hell, and I gave him 3 action steps to become a stronger vegetarian. 

Step 1.

Stop Eating Soy!

Seriously, get that out of your house immediately. At the beginning of my career I was nice about soy. Later I began to advise against it. Now I call it poison. The more I read and study, and the more clients I teach the more I dissuade people from ingesting soy. For me personally it tears up my stomach, and let me just say you would rather not be in the same room as me when I have had a heavy serving of soy.  Next, it’s fake. Yep.  More than 95% of soy is genetically engineered, according to the Robert Kenner, maker of “Food Inc.”, and other sources.  Genetically engineered food has harsh effects on the body, to say the least. Monsanto is evil. According to the Institute for Functional Medicine, soy contains protease inhibitors that bind with proteolytic enzymes that help in digestion and inhibit their job, which may explain why I can clear out a room after drinking a glass of Silk. Gah….

Also concerning is the presence of Phytic acid, which can bind with minerals in the gastrointestinal tract and dramatically decrease their absorption rate. I haven’t gotten around to reading any studies about how it may affect men’s testosterone, but I do know that they have studied menopausal women adding it to their diet and leveling their estrogenic-dependent conditions out. In other words, they gained estrogen levels, which means your arms probably won’t be getting any bigger.

Step 2

Understand Protein

When I say vegetarians have more work than carnivores I mean that meat is so dense with protein that getting your daily needs is easy to accomplish. Now, I never judge anyone’s moral beliefs when it comes to meat.  But if you don’t have any moral objections to eating meat, and you just think or heard it was healthy to avoid it, then I would strongly recommend you add it back into your diet. If you are going to eliminate meat from your diet, then you have to be sure to seek out “complete proteins.” You see, protein is made of smaller components called amino acids, 12 of which are manufactured by the human body. Another 9, called essential amino acids, must be obtained from food. Vegetarians will be happy to know that complete proteins can also be found in certain plants, such as spirulina, hemp seed, amaranth, buckwheat, and quinoa. That’s the good news. The bad news is you have to eat a ton of those things to get the protein your body needs.  Your jaw is probably going to cramp up by the time you’ve hit your recommended daily allowance. How much protien you need depends on your age, weight and how active you are. There are a lot of free references online you can check out. This one is extremely comprehensive:

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/the-protein-book

Step 3

Think about energy

This last step has to do with that awesome hot topic everyone likes to put in the headlines: Stimulating the metabolism. Okay, whatever.  Let’s boil this down. If you’re eating 1200 calories a day and you eat 3 times, you are eating 400 calories every time you eat. If you eat 6 times a day you are now eating 200 calories every time you eat. Taking in fewer calories per meal means you are less likely to convert blood sugar (from carbs you ate) into fat. If you are consistent with this way of eating, you will teach your body to use the energy you are taking in, rather than storing it, you will shift your metabolism, and will get leaner and have more energy.

For vegetarians fat is often lost.  Because they are not getting animal fats or because they may be neglecting other sources of fat, they miss this important macronutrient. Fat is the bodies’ main energy source and is important when it comes to energy. First, it is the main macronutrient that satiates us (makes us feel full). This is important because if you feel full you’re not producing insulin, and if you’re not producing insulin you are less likely to store fat. Lastly, fats are important when it comes to endocrine functioning, and if you’re concerned with gaining a little size in your guns, fat will help.

Well I hope that helps all you green folks. It takes a little work to get your diet right, and reassessing how you feel on a monthly or bimonthly basis is a good idea to get you adjusted. Everyone is different so there is no ‘plan’ or template you should go off of. Trial and error with intelligent measuring can yield good results.

Traveling Workout

            Recently I had a good friend ask about what she and her boyfriend could do with limited equipment in a hotel room to get a good workout. I know there is an obvious inappropriate answer you’re just dying to blurt out. I’ll give you a moment…. Good? OK, let’s move on. She has available to her a TRX and a medicine ball. If you’re unfamiliar with a TRX, it’s basically straps with handles you connect to and external anchor. It’s a great tool to have traveling if you need to work out. If you don’t know what a med ball is you probably don’t workout, go to gyms, and have probably already navigated away from my blog. What to do for exercise while traveling is actually a cool question because it requires a bit of imagination.

            So before launching in on this one I am going to say, personally I would rather workout outside. If you’re a desk athlete and you have the option to go outside, take it. Generally speaking, most of these desk athletes are deficient in Vitamin D, being inside all day, and all one has to do is go outside and enjoy the rays, but not too much. You are also going to perform better if you get exposure to the sun and are in an open area. I’m sure there is a study somewhere but I’m too busy with lifting heavy things and catching up on episodes of Fringe to find it. All this to consider, I will take it from both sides: Working outside and getting some light on that vampire skin and working in your hotel room like Sarah O’Conner in Terminator 2.

TRX pistol

    

        Inside:

            If you and your boyfriend have a med ball and a TRX you are going to have to super set, that is doing your exercises back to back. For the unequipped people reading this, know that you can create a makeshift TRX by taking a sheet and tying a knot on both cattycorner ends then putting it on top of the bathroom or entrance door and just closing the door, making sure one knot in the sheet is on the other side of the closed door (on top).

So while one person is working on strength, the other is doing conditioning. For example: Round 1 would be one of you doing rows on the TRX while the other is doing squat presses with the med ball. The row is strength and the med is considered conditioning. Here is what the parameters look like: 1-minute of each exercise, 3 times. Then move on to the next superset. Now you both have iPhones so you can time it or even download an app (sorry, I’m not plugging any apps) but, for anyone who doesn’t, figure, for example, if one row takes 2 seconds then, that’s right! You’re doing 30 reps in 60 seconds. Damn you’re smart.  And sweaty in a hotel room… gross.  I will attach some ideas in PDF form. This is a thank you to you for all the awesome BBQ’s you guys have invited me to. And no, it wasn’t me who made the mess in the bathroom. I swear.

High School Kids doing side flows

            

 Outside:

            When I have the opportunity, I love working outside. Just creating a different stimulus in your workout will make you push harder. Attach your TRX to a tree or whatever you can find and grab your med ball. The parameters for this one are a bit different: 1 minute rounds with a conditioning set in between. Both of you will superset a strength exercise while sprinkling in sprinting and side flows. The idea here is that one of you is hitting upper body while the other is hitting lower body. For example: One of you is doing alternating TRX pistols while the other is doing body weight push-ups. You switch after one minute and complete one more minute of work, then sprint. I would recommend only 50 meters for all the conditioning work.

All right, so I will attach a few ideas as a PDF you can download if you like. Lastly, let me say when on the road and away from iron, having a decent knowledge and/or guide to body weight exercises is crucial to getting a great workout. I would highly recommend “The Naked Warrior” by Pavel, and “Convict Conditioning” by Paul Wade.

            Good luck on your training on-the-road and let me know if you have any questions.  Here is the link: http://ironbodysystem.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Traveling-Workout.xls

Also, please know that you can get creative and these are just ideas. HAVE FUN!

A 3D lens of Pain, performance, and proprioception- A brief look the central nervous systems relationship with the body.

One afternoon in my studio my client looked up at me through her foggy glasses and asked “why is it that the body all of the sudden starts having problems”. This particular client had been suffering from a severe adhesion in the capsule of her knee and had the other common symptoms of “getting old”. I smiled as I helped her up from stretching and asked, “what is the difference between a young child and an older adult?” As we age two main changes happen in the body: certain hormones, depending upon sex, will drop considerably and the tissues in our body become more fibrous. These facts don’t help the situation but that isn’t why the body experiences pain and limited range of motion. That animated and energetic child that is in a constant state of exploration is moving. I’m not concerned with calories or activity here but the simple movement of all joints in the body.
The ability to move a joint is called mobility. Mobility is the most underrated practice that people can do to improve their quality of life by affecting something that exists in the brain called proprioception. If you have ever watched and elderly person doing Tai Chi with complete grace and balance you are witnessing proprioception at it’s finest. This person has been practicing quality movement throughout there life and has kept their proprioception ‘in tune’. So what is the big deal about proprioception you ask?

You can think of the proprioception as a 3D map of the body in time and space, which the brain can see. The street names and notable landmarks on this map are joints. If the body moves it’s joints in all ranges of motion in which they where intended to then this map of the body stays very clear and the brain can see it perfectly. When your brain has a clear two-way connection with the body great things happen. Pain is reduced or eliminated all together. Force production and balance is increased radically due to efficient firing of the Central nervous system. The practice is simplistic but specific and the results are dramatic.
When we surrender to the scientific proven fact that the central nervous system is responsible for all of the complicated tasks that happen in the body we can begin to change the quality of live dramatically. Your brains job is to keep you alive by predicting what scenarios life will through at you. If proprioception is not working well or off line all together then movement prediction is a threat and your brain will command you to discontinue movement to that area through the signal of pain. Think about a beautiful picture maybe one that is awe inspiring with beautiful strokes and detail where every thing is differentiated, or separate from it’s counter parts, and the idea of the painting is easy to interpret. If your brain map, the way your brain views your body, is similar to this than movement is efficient, your central nervous system fires correctly making you stronger and your brain is comfortable to predict movement without having to continuously ask you to stop.
Now painting that beautiful picture is done with a special brush of movement. These brush strokes must be efficiency and have to be practiced with accuracy and control.
Once you focus in on quality movement your central nervous system re tunes itself and the brain builds new movement programs transforming what was once a confusing picture into a masterpiece. These new programs reduce threat in the CNS and movement becomes seamless what was once hard becomes autonomous. The technique I use with my clients and myself is Z-Health. It is extremely important to incorporate this practice into any exercise program for maximum performance. The effects of movement are lightning fast, 300 miles an hour to be exact. Of course there are contraindications for use of this technique but most people are able to start with the principles used wisely. Meeting with a Z-health practitioner is key to being properly assessed and understanding how to use this method correctly. Movement is medicine and once habituated life hands you less resistance.

The Shoemaker’s secret - The dysfunctional truth behind the shoes you wear daily

Being a Kettlebell instructor I have explained to a lot of my clients what effects their shoes have on specific lifts and kettlebell movements. I would also briefly explain the effect on posture and hand out soft suggestions to what they should wear or instruct them barefoot if need be. It wasn’t until meeting the Z-health team, who specialize in neurological based training, that I had seen enough and started to actively educate my clients and people about their shoes. Everything and I mean everything about the body changes when shoes and mobility is taken into consideration. You may be thinking, “Well I need that support”. I’m guessing the guy wearing a referee shirt at footlocker that told you that isn’t a doctor and if you need support there are groups for that. I was among the many who truly believed support was needed. Where did we get this information and how accurate is it?

Let me first start by saying I don’t have anything to sell you. I am a Personal Trainer and I use and teach principles that change the way people move, feel, and perform. So let’s get back to that fancy shoe of yours. We can’t help it can we? We turn on the T.V. or our computer and we see the new shinny toy that promises to make us an incredibly better human being. Logically, how can we argue? You put new tires on the car it runs better right? Well, not in this case. In fact the body has never been running worse. I typically use a computer to describe what is going on with the shoe you are wearing. You don’t have to be Bill Gates to know that there are two components to your computer: your hardware and your software. If your monitor is cracked well looks like your not watching YouTube when you should be studying, you know who you are. If you software doesn’t work well forget about going on Facebook during work hours. Bummer.

The hardware of you body is your myofacia. Myo what? The words Myo -meaning muscle and facia -meaning connective tissue. In Thomas W. Myers book, “Anatomy Trains” he describes 12 myofacia meridians that run though the body which dictate how we move. Stay with me. I will briefly discus two. So look at your running shoe / cross trainer or if your in your office just look at the picture I posted. Notice the toes are in extension (pointing up towards the face) and the heel is above the ground. Now if your bare foot is that the way you stand? Not if you’re normal. Because of this design a few things are happening to the body. First your Anterior Superficial Line (front line) is being shortened as well as your Posterior Superficial Line (back line). Both of these lines run from your feet to your head. Pretty cool right! What this means is when these lines get short they get tight and when they get tight they are weak. This leads to a ton of postural deviations and reprogramming of the way we move through our natural gait cycle (the way you walk and run). Got pain?!  You can ice your shins as much as you want but that’s not going to change the problem ask my marathoners. The second big thing is the heel to toe striking that the design promotes. Now there are a million arguments for this on both styles. Look, I don’t want any trouble. I’m not hear to argue but, what I do know is the anatomy of the foot. In the foot you have more than 30 joints and most of them are located in the ball of the foot (near the toes). That being said joints serve two purposes impact and mobility so you can be the judge. Also, the best runners in the world run this way so if you want to emulate the best then the typical shoe will stand directly in your way.

Next is the software and by software I mean the Central Nervous System. OK, so maybe you weren’t paying attention during this part of class, in your defense some teachers can induce comas. Your CNS is responsible for everything that happens in your body. Really? Yes! This is critical when it comes to a complex movement such as your gait. Pain, force production, body awareness are all controlled by the CNS. Now let’s talk about body awareness or proprioception. Here he goes again with those big words. If you have ever been pulled over by an officer of the law and asked to close your eyes and touch your nose you were displaying proprioception. I hope you passed next time blame your shoes. I will discuss Proprioception in more detail in another blog but, this is important because the better your body awareness is the better overall function you will have. Proprioception is sharpened my moving the body’s joints in their full intended range of motion. When done properly it clears the body brain connection and overall function is increased. Most all shoes on the market provide a generous buffer of material protecting your from the ground but at the same time these shoes immobilize your foot. This puts a blindfold on your brain blurring your body awareness leading to pain, poor balance, and a central nervous system which fires poorly. The take home message on this is immobile joints create weak muscles. This is real bad when it comes to moving around.

            Step outside and look in on what is happening here. We are being sold support everywhere. But needing support would infer that we were born with faulty equipment. Are you really buying that? So if this is all true why isn’t this all over the place? Is there any money in it? Perhaps they haven’t found a way to market healthy habits like mobility and simple designs for shoes that don’t cause pain. I hope this finds you out there that are trying to perform better because you will have tremendous progress when accepting this information. There are shoes that I and other Z practicing trainers recommend. I will cover that in another blog but basically you want them to be flexible on the bottom and they should be able to collapse when bending them.

IB system Q & A : Exersice and Vomiting

IB system Q & A

            The question posed this week is an odd one from a Personal Trainer in San Mateo. Figures…

Question: Physiologically, why do people vomit during an intense workout when they haven't eaten?

Answer: So when it comes to physiology there is a lot of gray and less black and white. The more specific the question and subject in hand the more the answer becomes black and white. But we will cover two reasons why people toss their cookies during an intense workout and then you can go back to making people puke. First is the most obvious and that’s the CV system. Your cardiovascular system’s health can be measured by taking a VO2 measurement. This number correlates with how efficiently you take in and utilize oxygen. The more conditioned you are the better the number, and the better the number the more you can show off in the gym. WINNING! Now when it comes to your stomach or any tissue in the body oxygen is going to be the main fuel for getting things accomplished. The stomach is one of the few organs that actually contracts and contorts through what is known as segmentations. On top of that it has a complex function of using enzymes and strong acids to break food down. This takes a massive amount of oxygen for food to be digested. If you have the VO2 of Lance Arm Strong then puking only happens after the Tour de France victory party. If the poor client is has a low VO2 then watch your shoes. In fact digestion in phase 1 and 2 can happen during exercise if the person is well conditioned. If you read “Ultra Marathon Man” by Dean Karnazes you will find a specific log on what he actually ate during intense running events. That guy is a beast.

Although the question was if the person hasn’t eaten we have to consider that the stomach is autonomic so realize that regardless of what is in the stomach, even if it’s just mucus, when oxygen is not available then the stomach takes a coffee break.  My stomach loves coffee. Now there is one other factor that may cause vomiting and that is the lack of nutrients in the body. More specifically when they body’s serum, several components grouped in the blood, has a low sodium amount it can cause what is called hypernatremia. Sodium is essential nutrient meaning it has to be ingested for proper physiological function. There are several occurrences but for the one we are discussing now would be Hypovolemic hyponatremia. In a nutshell the body loses a lot of moisture through sleep and if the subject in question has not eaten all day or for quite some time they undoubtedly have low sodium levels and may be dehydrated as well. Hyponatremia regardless of the class looks like the person just got worked by a rabid eyed spin instructor and has the symptoms of nausea and vomiting, headache, confusion, lethargy, fatigue, appetite loss, restlessness and irritability, muscle weakness, spasms, or cramps, seizures, and decreased consciousness or coma… Good times. Those are two common causes but like mentioned before there is most likely a few others to consider. Well I hope this shed some light on why some people hurl when you make them do burpies. Thanks for the Q and your welcome for the A.

Fueling your Goals – The mind set of proper nutrition

 If you owned a shinny red new Ferrari would you put regular gas in it? Not if you want to sleep at night. I often talk about food in terms of fuel. I like this approach because it allows you to change the way you think about food. The public’s obsession with food has reached extremes on both ends of the spectrum. People have stopped thinking about longevity with there relationship with food and bought into the quick fix mentalities of ‘diets’. I had a client ask me if the chocolate and avocado diet works. I said, “Absolutely, It works like every other diet does”. I define diets of small windows of time that often get results by finally making the participant conscience of what they are consuming while dramatically effecting there metabolism for the worse. Unfortunately when the participant returns to their former habits they gain even more of the weight back due to the taxed metabolism. The public has been grossly miss educated when it comes to nutrition. I have worked with a nutrionist and through my experience I can honestly say that it is continually evolving science. I only teach and reference data that has been measured in correlation with performance and development.

First you should know a few popular misconceptions and put them to bed before you start to change the way you think about food. Poor misunderstood and prejudged carbohydrate. Carbs where only try to do there job when Dr. Atkins came along with his ‘skinny fat’ people posse and almost tarnished Carbohydrates’ reputation forever. Carbs are not evil in fact without them you can’t really move. No gas no road trip, sorry. Carbohydrate is the main energy substrate in the body, fueling roughly 97% of the body’s energy. If you don’t eat carbs you will not reach your goal regardless of  what they are. I have assessed someone on a carb free diet. It was like sitting across the desk from a zombie with ADD where English was their second language.  Curbing or eliminating carbs can cause damage to your body through what we call acidosis when the blood stream turns acidic because of the prolong lack of glucose in the body. Sounds like fun, right!?

Most people think on a linear and reasonable path. OK, I said most. It is very common for people to think along the lines of less is more when it comes to losing weight and the slashing of calories starts. Lets do some quick math shall we? Times your weight by 100. What you are looking at is your resting metabolic rate (RMR), this is the amount of calories it takes to keep your metabolism purring like a happy cheetah. Now this is not including movement so if you want to get out a bed and move around the world you have to add more calories. You may find that you are below your RMR which means is your metabolism will suffer and your body will not respond to any attempt at losing weight.

            Changing the associations we make with food is more powerful then you think. Habits are created in the deep in the mind by a innate reward system usually with a chemical called dopamine. You take a bite of your favorite desert and your brain tells you, “eat this and you will feel good”. And dopamine does what it was designed to do every time you eat the same treat by reinforcing that reward and making that path or habit stronger in your brain. It’s no wonder that large majority of people are rendered helpless by the temptation of unhealthy choices. The good news is that this reward system can be used to create good habits. When you realize the misconceptions of nutrition and begin to consider your diet as fueling daily needs to execute life effectively then you will begin to see the results you want. Changing prior poor habits and replacing them with good ones takes patience and gradual steps. Ultimately, becoming conscience of the positive effects that good nutritional choices have on your body and emotions will create longevity and solidify the mind set of proper nutrition.