Abgnostics: the secret secrets of ab secrets

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This is for those in pursuit of a solid mid section, wondering what secret knowledge lies hidden behind the ab ads floating all over the place. Or maybe you've considered the numerous benefits of physical training and figure that while you're at it, you may as well do something for your core.

Maybe you could care less, and that's perfectly fine too, so long as you're active and healthy. But I still do receive a lot of questions and see much misinformation pertaining to ab secrets. I've had a fun time doing this before, trying to explain that Abs Are Not The Core, but here's the lean (not skinny) on what all the secrets are trying (or should be trying) to tell you.

                                                     Kung Fu Panda opens the secret scroll.
                                                         "It's you. The secret is you."

exercise

It's that simple. You can run, bike, swim, zoomba, scoot, crab walk, shuffleboard, rake, chase puppies, throw children, and so on. You can even do some crunches and leg raises if you like. Whatever you do to huff and puff and burn calories is fine as long as you also do some total body resistance exercise.

You could save a lot of time by simply challenging yourself with progressive resistance training. That would mean fairly high reps and fairly heavy resistance (relative for you) in variations of the big movements like squats and lunges, presses, push-ups and dips, pull-ups and rowing. A few sets of 10 on the seated leg extensions, bicep curls and the shake weight are not going to cut it - your abs. Neither will 1-rep max bench press or 1-rep power cleans.

It's muscle that sticks out - in a good way - in your midsection and other sections. It's the loaded resistance exercises that cause all your trunk muscles to work hard in a functional manner. You don't get that from just running, or swimming, or zoomba, or crab walk, or so on. Plus, muscle is functional, like totally good for doing things, athletics and otherwise; bigger and better, safer and more awesome. But oh, all those injury prevention and functional benefits are mere side effects of being ripped.

Please don't worry about 7 minute abs, 4 minute abs, or any other minute abs. Sure, you should try to include a few "core exercise" variations after or as part of your real training. And yes, Hershel Walker and so-and-so do 15,000 sit-ups each and every night. How dumb! Doing that much of anything does risk developing imbalance and later injury. Far more than that, it's a completely unnecessary waste of time.

On the other hand, gradually, systematically getting to the point where you can dead lift double your body weight for 6 reps and make it look easy...again, the resistance used is relative, but THAT'S what I'm talking about:

                                            Ben C pulling 335 for 6 reps. No wraps or belts. Only
                                            The Hawthorne Effect to prop him up.

eat

This side of the issue is complex because so many factors enter in to what and why we eat. The specifics probably vary and are highly dependent upon your starting point; whether you're already relatively thin or 15 or 100 pounds overweight. Here are a few things to consider no matter where you stand.

No amount of training will make up for a crappy diet. The perfect diet cannot do for your body and mind what intelligent training can.

If you feel like you don't have time to be at the gym 6 days per week and prepare and tolerate broccoli and chicken every day, good because you don't have to. You do not have to eat like a typical bodybuilder. On the other hand, you cannot eat like a "typical" American.

Start with this: give up fried foods, limit sweets to about once per week, and attempt to limit (but don't overly restrict) healthy carbs. Try to find a weekly cycle of a few meals/foods that work well for you and just stick to it, no questions. You WANT to be bored with your food most of the time, but NOT hungry. Nobody said it would always be fun.

These secrets are all general, but I'd be happy to try and address any specific questions or concerns. Just please don't ask about breakthrough supplements or ab machines unless you've tried at least 3 to 6 months of consistent total body resistance training along with boring, non extreme dieting with moderate amounts of mostly non-processed foods ; ) .

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perspective for pushing sports

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The boy, twelve years old, appears about fourteen. Loves baseball. Pitched quite well for the team during the playoffs, which also earned him severe shoulder pain.

In the clinic, the boy rolls his head and drops his shoulders when I ask him to complete a second circuit of light scapula stabilization exercise. But he's willing. Dramatically drags himself back toward the weights. It's not that the exercises cause shoulder pain. He's already tired from swimming poolside horseplay in the heat all day. That, and he's twelve. 

His dad, standing by, rolls his head and drops his shoulders.

"See? He has to understand that if he wants to stay healthy and improve, he's going to have to work at it. I just don't know how much to push a twelve year-old."

Dad is right to say that at some point, a young man absolutely must decide for himself if he wants to be the best player he can or just have fun. Either choice is definitely fine, but one requires enormous sacrifice and effort. For most children, 12 years of age is far too soon to face that decision.

How much should a parent push a twelve year old? In most sports like baseball, not much. People of all ages do benefit greatly from some structure and direction. But there's a fine line between inspiring our children to adapt an active lifestyle and dragging him or her half way across the state for their club team. So long that a boy is not sitting around all the time, there's very little room to push at all.

Dad, you have to make him want it.

Inspiring my daughter on the joys (and pains) of an active lifestyle

Which is impossible, of course. I don't think we can make a child passionately driven to high level athletic (or any type of) success any more than we can make him have a favorite food. On the other hand, the formula for burn-out is pretty simple. One great way to make a kid hate pizza is to start him early on pizza and push pizza every day and always talk about pizza.  

How much should this father challenge this son to excel in athletics? Who am I to say? It probably depends on both the father and the son. It probably changes from month to month. To the fathers credit, he knows his son well. Clearly loves him. Shares loads of time with him.

Later, over some hands-on shoulder work, I told them that they both love baseball, and I think that's a great start. I reminded the boy that as he gets older and the competition improves, he will probably suffer a few more defeats than he's use to right now. That's when he'll learn some things about what he wants to do with his time.

Either choice really is okay. Lord willing, the boy will find passion for something. He'll need a father who challenges him and supports him. He'll need some time to horseplay in the pool. These are all good things.

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A Season for Disclosure

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Patients often ask if my work varies during certain times of the year. The truth is that I've been unable to observe consistent seasonal patterns in the number or type of injuries treated in my office.

January rarely brings an immediate influx of people suffering strains from skiing and snow shoveling. Knee pains born of a New Year's fitness resolution may not reach maturity until July. The spring and fall are quite similar in terms of shoulder pain related to activities like pitching (baseball) and cleaning windows.

These issues are my typical labor and may be rooted in seasonal interests. But many factors obscure the effects of latitude on the yield of injuries, such as individual pain tolerance, patience (or stubbornness), job status, insurance deductibles, and backlogs in the schedules of orthopedic surgeons.

Whatever the season, people with various aches and issues continue to trickle into the office, and I'm thankful for that.

[Wait. Did he just compare pain to a crop and say he's grateful for injuries?]

What I mean is that gratitude through all seasons is critical to my work. This certainly applies to other professions and may seem obvious given a physical therapists calling and place in the entire realm of health care. But in my experience, some models of outpatient rehabilitation serve patients and therapists better than others.

Of course it's rewarding for a physical therapist to help clients regain a portion of their lives, their ability to work, play, or simply care for themselves. But quite honestly, those rewards do have their limits, especially during busy seasons. While all health care providers want to be busy, the art of providing excellent care during busy seasons is not for rookies.

If you or someone you know is in need of outpatient rehabilitation, there are a few things you should know.

It is good when a physical therapists livelihood depends primarily upon the quality of work that they do, and not upon affiliations with health care networks, contractual obligations, or creative lease arrangements.

It is good when the natural checks and balances of free enterprise can quickly dry up the trickle of patients where a therapist fails to deliver outstanding care.

It is good when important business concerns like medical necessity, proficiency, scheduling, and balancing efficiency with quality of care have the chance to take care of themselves instead of being mandated by out of touch administrators.

To list these strengths of small, independent physical therapy practice is not to say that other models cannot provide high quality care. But I've worked in settings where a constant swell of patients presses against you whether or not you take the time to pay attention to the details. I know what it is like to be busy on a beautiful Thursday afternoon when someone needs a lot of reassurance and a little specific guidance beyond the general exercise protocol for their diagnosis.

While there are no substitutes for clinical competency, I’m sure that both patients and providers could stand to benefit from an honest appraisal and disclosure of the season they are in.

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training the "core" - an example

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Check the vid of Kyle. We did three rounds of this circuit after some traditional heavy lifts. Done.

"oohhhhh"



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20 Rep Squats (are not for everyone)

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If your employment required you to load far more than your body weight onto your shoulders and repeatedly lift it, you would be moaning and griping, soliciting the services of Metzger Wickersham.


There would be a TV news hard-luck segment about what a person will go through to provide for their family. Those watching would feel both pity and admiration for your miserable lot in life. Some might even ask how they can help you evade all that weight in favor of something more sensible.

But once every week or so in my basement, a few lunatics line up to willingly experience a misery that defies sensibility. We don't get paid a cent, though the payoff per unit of time is enormous.

I can’t wait to dread it. Under the bar is a deep place of meditation, with "twenty” my mantra.

-------- -------- --------
Is everybody in? 
The ceremony is about to begin. 
WAKE UP.

     -The Doors

Wake up. Your head must be ready for this. 
 
Stand with your arms draped across the barbell set to chest level, loaded with a weight that's a struggle to handle for one good squat. You're going for twenty. Doing twenty. Just go.

[Disclaimer - barbell squats are an awesome exercise that make you awesome. Yet most individuals could use a few days, weeks, or even months of corrective exercise and work on precise form before challenging themselves. Squats don't hurt people. People hurt people.]

Injured? Heck no. You may fail, but you probably won't get injured. It's only 1 or 2 percent more resistance than what you attempted just 6 or 7 days ago.

So get in there. Step under the bar and lock it into the groove across your scapula. Breath deeply and brace your entire upper body for one punishing isometric. In the last moment before the first and possibly worst descent, you must see yourself hitting that first rep, feel the joints loaded, digging out of the bottom position.

It’s time. 

Descend smoothly, see white as you brake and accelerating the weight upward.

1
 
Damn, that’s heavy. You’re crazy for lifting it once, much less twenty times.
 
2
 
The sooner you move on, the sooner you’re finished. This will end.
 
3

A little winded, hearts racing. Nothing exists except the task at hand. Nice.
 
4
 
Somewhere in here, a rep or two actually feels pleasant. You’ve found the groove, firing on all cylinders.
 
5
 
6
 
You're in plenty deep enough to experience the misery. This is not joint pain, but the ache of every muscle ablaze from the mental effort required to maintain form.
 
7

8


Few hard-core gym-rats squat, and most that do have racked the weight by now. They're sitting on the leg extension machine drinking bottled water.

9

The whole idea of 20 reps squats is pointless stupidity made up by some idiot.

10
 
Yes, half way! Ugh, half way.

11

You embrace the sting and throbbing as evidence of pushing your limits. Yeah, you went there.
 
12
 
When everything tells you to quit, you decide not to. 

13

You’re an unfeeling machine executing pre-programmed instruction. There's no choice in the matter.
 
14
 
You will never look at a barbell again, much less lift one. 

15

It’s down to five. Right about now is why you don’t train on a full stomach.

16

The bar heaves, climbs upward so slowly. You thought you saw a splinter of light. Is that the end of the tunnel?
  
17
 
No. That thought helped you for one rep, but you’re heading into the valley now. The dark pit of hell, the physical and mental test that's the point of all this. [Whether you're fighting against 40 or 400 pounds is not the least bit important, as long as it drags you through the valley.]




 

18




 

19

Each and every time you make it through the valley, you really do come out as a different person.


No. Nobody. No one fails at 19.


You explode, throwing the weight through the roof. Did gravity lessen? No, the bar still sank and then barely ascended at all.
 
20

You stagger and lean forward to rack the beast. Unload. Unwind. Finally. Careful now. You should sit down or hold onto something for at least a minute or so. The world will return in a moment.



You did something…strange and extraordinary. Your potential is not unplumbed. You didn't need 26 miles to find a test. You didn't need a surfboard and a tsunami to get you adrenaline pumping. You didn't need to have your face turned inside out to get something you can feel.

Squats are easier on your face than Fight Club

 

 

Cholesterol, blood pressure, hormone regulation, blah blah blah. Yeah, I'm sure you can - next week, move the resistance up just 1 or 2 percent. That's not very much more. That's not for everyone.

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fitness guys have issues

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Adult fitness dude, trying to buck the trend of sick, soft, and slow:

You probably grew up in a good home, playing the days away. There were no hardships or rash demands. You had it a lot better than you could know. You were an active little guy. Probably excelled in sports at that level. Rocketed a hand overhead to lead gym class. Cared who banged out the fastest 10 push-ups in the whole entire classroom.

You probably ran, "worked," biked, and played into the night. Baths and restaurants were a chore. Until about the age of 12, when you slowed down from hummingbird to sparrow pace. You were expected to sit and not fidget once in a while. Sports practices left you slightly tired and sore, in the mood for a nice video game "sesh."

Google search: ~1992 stacked athlete. Yep.

Then one day you heard you are what you eat. A realization hit you, about the gallons of Hi-C and tubs of Planter's cheese balls, dinners of entirely chicken nugget, and post-game feasts of pudding and ham cubes at the Rax buffet.

By 15 or so you managed to get slightly soft. Or if that wasn't reality, you started noticing that your coltish body didn't exactly look like a pro athlete or the guys on TV and magazines. It was still mostly all fun and games and sprinkles maxed out on ice cream cones.

At school you were repeatedly barraged with the idea of discipline and dedication, strive, effort, and work ethic. So. Much. Work ethic. You needed to hear those things, yes. But with little counter perspective, it's no wonder that during the most arduous period of gaining independence and finding identity, the accelerator started to stick.

I’m guessing that you suddenly started keeping an orderly (or more orderly) bedroom and your grade point average jumped. You decided that the National Honor Society and being huge and ripped for sports and for the ladies was...well there just wasn't anything else. And all that wasn't going to happen from living like any sort of a human being. Certainly not from eating grandmas stew and those damned pumpkin cookies.

The discipline schtick worked pretty well in some ways, for 6 months or so. You saw progress in the classroom and gym. You enjoyed the consistency, the illusion of control, the clear results of living out your philosophical modernism. There were good points, for sure. There were certainly worse ways for knucklehead teenagers to error.

But error you did. Your imbalanced, self-absorbed life caught up with you. Knotted you like the hair of a mopey Seattle grunge band. You had almost no fun and were less fun company. Ladies learned not to care about your cut bi's because you were a 160-pound zero.

Clever marketing misinformation. 
I mean, he's lifting supplements out of
the ocean with a fish net??

Nine months of nearly perfect discipline started to show. Your family knew nothing about anything, and you taught them lessons about control. People worried, seeing what happens when a young man makes good on two workouts/practices every day coupled with the dietary advice good for mostly sedentary, middle-aged bodybuilders.

All this, of course, meant that you weren't training enough or eating right, according to the gospels of Joe (Weider) and Bill (Phillips). Is it any wonder that you now have a chip on your shoulder about stupid supplements and worse than useless over-training practices?

Dialing UP the discipline and grit pretty much ruined your chances of being a friend, much less a collegiate athlete. You wanted to blame it on illness, honestly not knowing how being frankly messed up in the head creates dysfunction somewhere in the body.

You didn't learn fast, but you did learn. At the bottom you said "This isn’t working very well, and it sucks.” Even more determined, you devoured books and journals, learned plenty, transformed your love of knowledge. But of course knowledge alone didn't immediately advance you toward a strong mind and body, much less joy.

A tight grip through college had its benefits. Like no "Bs" in class or STDs or trouble with the law. Somewhere you heard that over 2 BILLION people have no toilets much less one pound of protein per pound of bodyweight. Put old Joe and Bill right in their place.

The grip gradually loosened as you became stronger, with graduate school, a marriage, a regular job, and children. You had way...more fun...with all that responsibility pressing on you.

Weird.

One day you woke up to see that you were actually getting somewhere. Training was important and the results were kind of a side effect. Not that you were the epitome of awesomeness and wisdom. But you realized the ebb and flow of a balanced life, of work and recovery. You knew the MIRACLE of flexibility within a framework of disciplined consistency.

first tree flip

Now you notice when other young men seem to be spinning their wheels. You try not to project your issues onto them, but you see it a mile away. You want them to learn from your mistakes. You pull your net of training and living wisdom from the ocean of possibilities, display it lightly. You hope some aren't so knuckleheaded, having humility to forge ahead of you instead of digging a rut of their own.

Were you lucky to have found your way? I don’t believe in luck, not at all. And who has arrived? I certainly haven’t. But I believe in a God of freedom who seems to help at least two at a time, who weaves paths together through seasons and situations.

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don't train like it's 1985 [please]

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a question

 
Since ranting against long drawn out cardiovascular exercise (L-doc) may not be the best way to inspire change, my serious question is this: can you afford to spend that much of your valuable time and energy doing L-doc?

The repetitive, mind-numbing exercises like jogging or that elliptical thing at 60 to 80% of your maximal heart rate for at least 40 minutes costs you something. There are many factors, but you must consider the possibility that random cardio is easily and often over done.

But first the disclaimer.

Who am I to tell someone not to engage in physical activity that they enjoy? When well below 40% of adults exercise at all? Whatever the age, if you're up and moving away from the work desk, TV, and computer, great for you.  I'll admit that L-doc does have some value as a component of many athletic and fitness goals, though less than you would think. If cardio workouts are compatible toward your sport- or activity-specific training goals, then certainly, have at it.

split squats - always worthwhile

But with your hectic work week, your limited days of summer break, your finite physiological ability to adapt, can you afford to devote the majority of your training time to random cardio? Are you stuck in the 1980s cardio overkill mindset where if a little is good, then a whole lot must me better for all things?

what say you?

You, 160-pound forward who wants dunk by next basketball season? You, middle aged mom, hoping to avoid achilles tears and rotator cuff impingement while playing softball, tennis, or freeze tag with the kids? You, old timer, wielding exercise in the fight against the many tired heads of frailty?

And you...YOU coach or parent of a female athlete? My next exhibit in the case for less L-doc is a lunge for the jugular. I must drag out the dreaded anterior cruciate ligament because women suffer about 8 times more ACL tears than men, and about 1 in 100 high school and 1 in 10 collegiate female athletes tear an ACL.

that moment

Imagine that it's the fourth quarter of an intense soccer match-up. Every player on the field is suffering some degree of neuromuscular fatigue (certainly not for lack of cardiovascular conditioning). Our female athlete lunges off her left leg to avoid a defender, recovers with the right leg, redirects her body, accelerating to the ball.

What happens internally at the knee in that moment ? Do the quadriceps have enough power to decelerate the forward glide of the femur on the tibia? Do the hip and trunk muscles sufficiently hold the femur from buckling and twisting into the knock-kneed position? Has the athlete ingrained correct movement patterns beyond consciousness; summer time training memories of how the hips, knees, and feet should feel and react during leaps and cuts?

An off season 7-mile jog does virtually nothing to address the neuromuscular and biomechanical patterns of an at-risk female athlete caught in that moment. (I also suspect that various balance exercises on unstable surfaces do little to prevent ACL tears, though the literature is mixed, and that can of worms is hereby reserved for another writing.)

how now shall we train?

ACL and weekend warrior sprain/strain prevention is simply just    plain   smart   training.

The details depend upon the individual, but the weekly routine should include a day or two of plyos and/or form sprints. A day or two of full body resistance training with emphasis on the legs and "core." Maybe a day or two of L-doc for some, but certainly not all athletes.

And of course, intervals for a relatively healthy grandma look a lot different than our teenage soccer player. 

Intelligent training is structured with a few individualized goals in mind; goals beyond "stay toned" or "maintain an 8-minute pace over 5 miles." Even if distance running is your main end, rather than thousands upon thousands of linear, mid-range ploddings, why not mix it up with just a little whole body, multidirectional movements that address aspects of both strength and coordination?

Swap a day or two of the same old thing for something different now and again. Emphasize power over efficiency as the brain is tuned into a progression of pre-stretch/counter-movements. Do it now, before I'm tempted to bust out some Jane Fonda lyrics.

sprinters aren't happy about all that L-doc

Evidence that a little less L-doc does help endurance athletes, especially from an injury-prevention perspective:

Improvement in Running Economy After 6 Weeks of Plyometric Training

TURNER, AMANDA M.; OWINGS, MATT; SCHWANE, JAMES A.

Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research. 17(1):60-67, February 2003.

Maximal Strength Training Improves Cycling Economy in Competitive Cyclists

Just a few of many other sources that support my rant   question.

 

Sunde, Arnstein; Støren, Øyvind; Bjerkaas, Marius; Larsen, Morten H; Hoff, Jan; Helgerud, Jan

Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research. 24(8):2157-2165, August 2010.

Hewett GD, Myer TD, Ford KR, et al. Biomechanical measures of neuromuscular control predict anterior cruciate injury risk in female athletes: a prospective study. Am J Sports Med. 2005;33:492-501.

Meeuwisse WH, Tyreman H, Hagel BD, Emery C. A dynamic model of etiology in sports injury: the recursive nature of risk and causation. Clin J Sport Med. 2007;17:215-219.

Ekegran CL, Miller CM, Celebrini RG, Eng JJ. Reliability and validity of observational risk screening in evaluating dynamic knee valgus. J Ortho Sports Phys Ther. 2009;39:665-674.

Myer GD, Brent JL, Ford KR, Real-time assessment and neuromuscular training feedback techniques to prevent anterior cruciate ligament injury in female athletes. J Strength Cond Res 2011;33:21-35.

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