Your Immune System & Nutrients That Support It!

In January of 2020, “A Review of Micronutrients and the Immune System—Working in Harmony to Reduce the Risk of Infection” was published in the online peer review journal Nutrients. How prophetic that such a review would turn out to be critical three months later, with the worldwide onset of the pandemic—Covid-19.

Researchers from the Linus Pauling Institute, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Oregon State University and Bayer Consumer Care AG in Switzerland, comment in the Review that, “immune support by micronutrients is historically based on vitamin C deficiency and supplementation in scurvy in early times.”

Scurvy, a disease caused by vitamin C deficiency, causes swollen, bleeding gums, opening of previously healed wounds, weakness, feeling tired, with sore arms and legs- along with decreased red blood cells, changes to hair, and bleeding from the skin may also occur.

In 1753, researcher James Lind used three different diet approaches with men suffering from scurvy to determine that citrus fruits—higher in vitamin C- provided a solution to this condition.

In addition to vitamin C, vitamins A, D, E, B6, B12, and folate, along with minerals zinc, iron, copper, selenium, and magnesium also play vital, synergistic roles at every stage of the immune response.

Our immune defense system is composed of elaborate components, which provide physical and biochemical barriers, specialized immune cells, and antibodies that challenge and attack an invading pathogen.

The first line of defense is called the innate immune response—characterized by a challenge by the skin, hair, and mucus membranes to provide a barrier into the body. In other words, limit access points of entry.

From there, it’s the job of biochemical attackers—leukocytes such as neutrophils, natural killer (NK) cells, and macrophages—to identify “non-self” molecules to open fire and destroy the invader, which is marked as an antigen. Cytokines (involved in cell signaling), then repair any damage.

That’s followed by a second wave of attackers, T & B cells, which is the phase of the immune response characterized as adaptive immunity—that remembers the invader and coordinates a joint response.

The researchers from Oregon State and Bayer AG provide an excellent overview, “of the known mechanisms of micronutrients that are fundamental to immune function,” and how inadequate intake might affect risk to infection. Here are few of the impacts of specific immune modulating nutrients.

Vitamin A—important for intestinal immune response, thus supporting the gut barrier; carotenoids (either provitamin A or non-provitamin A) have immunoregulatory actions.

Vitamin D—calcitriol (a form of vitamin D3) regulates antimicrobial proteins responsible for modifying intestinal microbiota to a healthier composition and supporting the gut barrier, as well as, protecting the lungs against infection.

Vitamin C—promotes collagen synthesis and protects cell membranes from damage caused by free radicals, thus supporting integrity of epithelial barriers.

Vitamin E—protects cell membranes from damage caused by free radicals and support the integrity of epithelial barriers.

Vitamins B6, B12, Folate—involved in intestinal immune regulation (e.g., by mediating lymphocyte migration into the intestine) in the case of vitamin B6, while folate is essential for the survival of regulatory T cells in the small intestine. Human gut microbes use vitamin B12, as a cofactor for metabolic pathways, thus supporting the gut barrier. Folate is also important for sufficient antibody response to antigens.

Iron—essential for differentiation and growth of epithelial tissue.

Zinc—helps maintain integrity of skin and mucosal membrane (e.g., cofactor for metalloenzymes required for cell membrane repair); important in maintaining immune tolerance (i.e., the ability to recognize “self” from “non-self”).

Copper—role in functions of macrophages, neutrophils, and monocytes; enhances NK cell activity.

Selenium—helps to maintain antibody levels.

Magnesium—cofactor of enzymes of nucleic acid metabolism and stabilizes structure of nucleic acids; involved in DNA replication and repair; roles in antigen binding to macrophages; regulates leukocyte activation; involved in the regulation of apoptosis (programed cell death).

Please keep in mind that each nutrient listed has additional immune support benefits, which are beyond the scope of this column. Nor are nutrient requirements listed, since that must depend on guidance from your physician.

What you can see, is the need to have a healthy eating plan and the support of a good multi-vitamin/mineral formula, as main components of your immune support plan—adding various forms of daily exercise to round out the mix.

Yours in health,
Greg
www.gregdirenzo.com

5 Good Foods for Getting Quality Protein

Proteins are among the key nutrients we need to survive and be healthy. They play an important role in the body’s metabolic and digestive processes. For one thing, during the metabolic process, they break down into essential amino acids which provide the body with the energy it needs to perform tasks and necessary functions. Protein is an important building block of bones, muscles, cartilage, skin, and blood. It also helps produce essential enzymes, hormones, and other body chemicals. Here is a list of five of the top foods for obtaining protein:

1. Chicken- Easily prepared by grilling or baking. Excellent source of protein, and low in fat
2. Salmon- Low in calories and saturated fat, yet high in protein, and the health-promoting fat, omega-3 essential fatty acids
3. Eggs- Cheap way to get lean protein. One egg contains 6 grams of high-quality protein and all 9 essential amino acids and only 1.5 grams of saturated fats. Contrary to previous belief, moderate consumption of eggs does not have a negative impact on cholesterol.
4. Yellow Tail - One four-ounce filet of this slightly oily fish has a potent 34 grams of protein for 212 calories. How does that compare to chicken breast? The same amount (4 oz) has 26 grams of protein and 110 calories.
5. Greek yogurt- Great for vegetarians with more protein than the average American yogurt. Since it is strained, the protein content is concentrated, providing an average of 20g per cup as opposed to 8g per cup for the American style.

Interested in a protein supplement? Check out our supplement partner - dotFIT! 

Yours in health,
Greg
www.gregdirenzo.com 

HIIT and Steady State Cardio

The Difference Between HIIT and Steady State Protocol

 
You’ve probably heard various terms for different types of exercise protocol.  In particular, the term HITT programming is prolific, yet, many don’t really understand what it is. 

And, there’s some confusion as to how it compares to regular aerobic “steady state” protocol. 

Let’s take a look at some of the scientific information as well as some “real world” application in comparing these two key types of exercise protocol:

●     High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) – which involves short bouts of intense exercise interspersed with recovery periods.

●     Moderate Intensity Continuous Training (MICT) – which involves a sustained effort of medium intensity exercise that is not broken up by recovery periods. This is sometimes also known as steady-state exercise.

NOTE: As with any kind of big “broad brush” description, most of the information will be cast as “generalities” with the assumption that almost any protocol can be broken out and designed to be more specific to your particular circumstances, physical attributes and current conditioning.
 
What is HIIT?
You’ve probably already heard of HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training).

It involves short (typically less than 4-min) spurts of highly intense exercise which are separated by periods of complete rest or less-intense active recovery.

A HIIT workout protocol using a stationary bike, for example, might include :30-second intervals of high intensity (fast cadence and high resistance) spinning, each followed by 1 minute of easy (low resistance) cycling.

But, what exactly do we mean by “high intensity” exercise?

Generally speaking, HIIT intervals involve “near maximal” efforts that we perform at over 80-85% of our maximum heart rate (HRmax).

Another way of classifying the intensity of exercise is by comparing it to our body’s maximum rate of oxygen consumption (or VO2 max). High intensity intervals generally push us to over 75-80% of our VO2max.
 
What is MICT?
Moderate-Intensity Continuous Training (MICT)(steady state) involves a sustained effort, with no intervening rest periods.

An example may be cycling on a stationary bike continuously at a constant pace for 20 minutes.
In contrast to HIIT, MICT workouts are much less intense, with exercise performed at a moderate intensity. This typically corresponds to 55-75% of maximum heart rate (HRmax) or 40-65% of maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max).
 
Weight Gain During Inactivity
During the Covid-19 lockdown, you may have gained a bit of weight. And, unfortunately it wasn’t lean muscle mass!

A reduction in total daily energy expenditure (through less movement) coupled with increased energy intake (as a result of prolonged close proximity to the fridge and snacking out of boredom) will invariably lead to fat deposition and an increase in body-fat percentage.

So, what type of workout is better for burning this newly accumulated fat: HIIT or MICT?

First things first: both HIIT and MICT are shown to elicit significant reductions in total body-fat percentages. It’s an obvious point, but if you’re looking to shed fat and improve your body composition, doing any exercise (either HIIT of MICT) is better than doing nothing at all (or relying on dietary changes alone).

Both Are Good Solutions
A meta-analysis published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM), which analyzed the data from 1,012 subjects across 36 studies, found that HIIT was associated with a 28.5% greater reduction in absolute fat mass compared to MICT.

People enrolled in HIIT programs lost 1.58 kg (3.5 lbs) of body fat on average, whereas those participating in MICT programs lost 1.13 kg (2.5 lbs)

Despite this finding, the meta-analysis found that, while both HIIT and MICT produce significant reductions in total body fat percentage, there was no significant difference between the groups.

When viewed in overall percentages, those performing HIIT dropped their body-fat percentage by 1.50% percentage points, which was similar to the 1.44% drop in those performing MICT.

Several other studies of overweight and obese subjects also report no significant difference between HIIT and MICT in terms of improving body composition.

For example, a meta-analysis published in Obesity Reviews reported a 3 cm reduction in waist circumference in both HIIT and MICT groups, with exercise programs involving 3 days per week of exercise and lasting for 10 weeks on average.
 
But, HIIT is the “TIME-EFFICIENCY” Winner
Interestingly, however, the evidence seems to be clear that despite similar outcomes on body composition, HIIT requires less time.

For instance, one meta-analysis of 22 studies found that MICT sessions lasted 40 minutes on average, compared to just 30 minutes for HIIT.

The BJSM meta-analysis crunched the numbers and concluded that while MICT gives you a 0.0026% reduction in body fat percentage per a minute of exercise, the equivalent figure for HIIT is 0.0050% per minute.

In other words, HIIT is a more time-efficient way of shedding fat.

There are good physiological reasons for this.

Higher intensity exercise generally stimulates greater production of hormones such as adrenaline, noradrenaline and growth hormone -- all of which promote fat-burning or fat oxidation.

Furthermore, HIIT causes more of something known as excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC). More commonly referred to as “afterburn,” EPOC occurs during recovery after exercise when oxygen consumption is elevated above baseline resting levels as the body restores various metabolic processes back to normal.

Such processes include the removal of lactate and H+ ions, rebuilding muscle glycogen stores and oxidation of fat for fuel for a longer period of time.

All in all, then, if you’ve only got a limited opportunity for exercise, say 30 minutes, and burning fat is your top priority, then HIIT represents a much better investment of your time.

Bear in mind, however, that by virtue of including high intensity, near-maximal efforts, HIIT workouts place more stress on your body.

As such, the risk of injury is higher and you may require greater recovery time between HIIT workouts.

HIIT or STEADY STATE - CONSULT A TRAINER
Regardless of whether you prefer HIIT or MICT (steady state), it is worth hiring a trainer to be certain that you are moving in a safe and effective way.

Taking the time to learn proper exercise technique can improve your results and help prevent injuries.
Plus, you’re unique.  Your body’s physical attributes, current conditioning, body mechanics, experience, and goals are unique to YOU. 

As a fitness professional, I can create a plan that is specific to you -- and your requirements.  With a program that fits, you are much more likely to achieve the results you seek.

Yours in health,
Greg

www.gregdirenzo.com

Why Girls Won’t (and don’t) Lift Weights!

For decades now there has been a discussion on why girls don't lift weights. I could retire, or at least get a new sweatshirt if I had a penny for every time one of my female clients or female friends has asked, “Won't it make me bulky?” There's a never-ending barrage of misinformation out there about how girls “should” approach our fitness—take a look at Instagram or the Health & Fitness section of Pinterest to see for yourself! You’ll see row after row of photos of thin girls looking happy, because that’s what our culture says fitness “should” mean for girls: looking thin.  When clients ask me these questions, it’s all I can do not to ask if their vegan tofu salad was delicious and then rant about the benefits of resistance training for women, the skewed cultural standards of the female physique, and the perpetuation of antiquated gender stereotypes in gym culture…but I’m getting ahead of myself. In my programs, I am ALL ABOUT girls in the weight room! So, here are some of the common reasons girls don’t want to lift weights—and then debunk them, one by one.

Girls, this post is for you—but if you’re a guy, DON’T STOP READING! Impress the ladies in your life by educating yourself on gym gender politics, and help set a well-informed example!

1. "I'll get bulky.”

False. The female body, magical and wonderful though it may be, simply doesn’t have the same testosterone profile as men! Testosterone is the primary hormone that promotes the development of muscle and bone growth. Although women secrete testosterone too, adult men produce about 20 times more than adult women. As a result, females simply cannot physiologically reach the same muscle hypertrophy (size) as guys.  (Unless you are doing some serious, illegal supplementation…but that’s another post for another day.) 

So this one is pretty simple: girls just don’t have as much testosterone as guys do. Female muscles DO respond to strength training stimuli by increasing in size—but simply won’t support huge, “bulky” musculature. It’s science!

2. “Strength training won’t burn as many calories as cardio does.”

(insert hysterical laugh!!!)

False again! Actually, if one of your goals is to lose non-lean body mass (body fat), strength training is your secret weapon! When you lift weights—heavy weights—your body signals to your brain that you are working overtime. This means that even when you put down the barbell, your body continues to work—and burn calories—to repair itself.  One of the best ways to understand this metabolic effect is to think about the different energy systems your body uses to fuel different types of activities.

“Cardio,” as in steady-state aerobic activity, burns calories from your body’s fat stores after about 30 minutes of movement. So if you jog on a treadmill at a medium-intensity pace for 60 minutes (yes, you need 60 minutes to get any benefit), you will burn fat in the scientific sense. However, as soon as you hit that stop button, your body will also stop using fat calories for energy, and thus stop burning calories altogether. This is in contrast to anaerobic activities, like strength training. Let’s say you strength train with heavy weights for 30 minutes—while your body is deriving much of its energy from glucose (carbohydrate) in your bloodstream DURING your workout, AFTER your workout is a different story. Because you tax your metabolic pathways more during a strength training session, your body continues to repair itself (and burn calories doing so) after you stop. So, while the total number of calories burned during an aerobic workout might be more, the total number of calories burned both during and AFTER a strength training workout is MUCH higher—making strength training an essential practice not just for athletes looking to get stronger, but also anyone looking to lose body fat.

3. “Lifting weights is for boys.”

OK, this one is true and false!  Historically, the realm of strength training has been presided over solely by men. Take a peek into a gym in the 1970’s and you’d probably see only dudes in the weight room. But times they are a-changing! Thanks in part to our culture’s recent movement for gender equality, the gym is becoming more and more a place for both guys AND girls. There is nothing centrally “masculine” about the weight room—those are just old perspectives about what being male or female actually meant in society. Heck, take a look at my group training sessions…… 90% female!  This had more to do with our sociological roles than our physical bodies. The weight room nowadays is just as “feminine” as it is “masculine”. 

So, even though this “weights are for dudes” misconception has been true in the past, this stereotype now false. Nobody bats an eye these days when they see a girl setting up her bar for power cleans, actually I walk over and hi-five her! And while there may be a remnant of this old-school thinking in the gym, ladies re chipping away at that remnant with every single back squat!

4. “I don’t know how to strength train!”

This one is the easiest reason of them all to debunk—because the answer is simple, get a trainer. Seriously though, sales pitch aside: one of the primary complaints I hear from girls who want to lift weights is that they don’t know how (which makes sense, because as we addressed in #3, the gym used to be considered just for guys). But now, thanks to the magic of the Internet, there is information galore available about ANYTHING you want to know about! And in fact, this is generally my mission: to make safe, effective strength training programs accessible to anyone and everyone. By using proper programming, my male and female clients and athletes get weekly workouts that specify exercises, rep counts, set counts, rest periods between exercises, and more. That’s why I’ve fortified my comprehensive online exercise library with detailed instructions, photos, and videos—to equip ALL athletes to learn how to lift weights. No more excuses, girls (and guys)!

I hope that this post has helped debunk some of these mythical reasons why girls don't strength train. (In fact, I almost hope you haven't made it to this final paragraph but instead got halfway through, put on your lifting shoes, and ran to the weight room!)

An accurate approach to Strength & Conditioning!

My approach……

Approach it with specifics…. No matter if I’m working with a Division 1 college team/athletes all the way down to a small high school team/athletes, specifics are vital!

A uniform approach to strength and conditioning simply isn’t the best way to help athletes perform better and stay healthy. So why do others do it?  CONVENIENCE, that’s why, it’s simple and easier!  S&C can’t be uniformed, because training must look different for different sports. After all, you wouldn’t train a tennis athlete — or a cross country runner — like a football player.

The safest and most effective way to prepare for a sport is to train appropriately and specifically for that sport. Here are 3 reasons why.

1. Different Performance Goals
The athletic performance traits that must be prioritized in one sport's strength and conditioning are different from those in other sports. With my program, as an example, we prioritize muscle mass (hypertrophy), maximal strength, and explosiveness as the primary performance goals for football. But softball players need to develop rotational power, and distance track runners need muscular endurance, and all these qualities are developed through different training protocols. All athletes benefit from building a foundation of general strength and work capacity, which is why you’ll see squats on the program for almost every sport. But when it comes to sport-specific strength and movement qualities, what works for one sport may not work for other sports.

This becomes especially clear when you look at the bioenergetic requirements from sport to sport. Just look at the duration and speed of play in a rugby sevens match compared to an 800m track race, or a baseball game compared to a 90-min soccer match, and you’ll see the unique energy system requirements that make an athlete successful in each sport or event. This is why we not only identify the three primary performance goals for each sport on a strength training level, but also constructs sport-specific conditioning programs that develop the proper energy systems utilized in every sport.

2. Different Movement Patterns
Each sport has it's own primary movement patterns. The primary movements you’ll see in a football game are sprinting, cutting, jumping, blocking, pushing, and tackling. In a properly designed football strength and conditioning program, exercises in the weight room are specifically chosen to first develop the general strength capabilities to tolerate those positions, and then the specific strength and power adaptations needed to execute those actions explosively.

But the movements in freestyle swimming, for example, could not be more different.
Good strength and conditioning must be targeted on the specific motor actions required in each sport. And again, while athletes across all sports benefit from developing a base of general physical strength and capability, a properly designed program will train sport-specific movement patterns. My programs, for example, examine the main movement patterns in each sport—like hip extension/flexion for track sprinters and scapular elevation/depression in swimming—to create training that emphasizes sport-specific strength qualities in those positions.

3. Different Injuries
Besides the idea of access for athletes across sports (and genders), this, for me, is the single biggest reason any type of uniform, sport-agnostic workout plan—doesn’t cut it for athletes in other sports. A strength and conditioning professional always considers vulnerable or frequently injured muscles and joints when designed sport-specific training (and, if possible, looks at the individual strengths and weaknesses of each athlete on the team). While football carries a lot of inherent injury risk to many different areas—hamstring, ACL, ankle, etc.—these are not necessarily the same areas at risk in other sports.

Golfers may need extra hip and low-back strengthening to avoid injuries. Tennis players need more elbow and wrist work. Failing to address joints and muscles that may be at risk of overuse (like the rotator cuff for baseball pitchers) or at risk of acute non-contact injuries (like the hamstrings for soccer players) is a failure to prepare athletes optimally for their sport. We incorporate targeted injury mitigation exercises in every sport program—from extra glute med strengthening for female soccer players, to isometric anti-rotation holds for baseball and softball players. This specificity in injury mitigation is something that a static 12-week training program simply cannot offer, and it can make or break the success (and health) of a team.

The Takeaway
We are specific!  The approach to strength and conditioning shouldn't be uniform for every sport—but it does need to be unified. The unique performance traits, motor patterns, and injury risks involved in different sports requires a sport-specific approach, but one that can also create a cohesive training methodology.  Remember, our job as a S&C coach isn’t to make the athlete a better football – baseball – softball – lacrosse – whatever sport player, it is to do two things, 1-obviously improve their S&C, 2-build durability in the athlete-so they can play longer, faster, quicker, stronger, with minimizing the potential for injury!

Some Basic Reasons Runners Should Start Strength Training, NOW!

For runners, "training" means running. And with all those miles logged each week, and all those hours of long runs and hill sprints and fartleks, it's easy to see why strength training isn't your first priority. But while runners have historically been anti-strength training ("It will make me bulky and slow!"), strength and conditioning science is finally catching up and more runners than ever are sprinting to the weight room to reap the many benefits strength training has to offer.

 

Here are reasons all runners—from elite marathoners to weekend stroller joggers—should start strength training NOW.

1. Run Faster

It may seem like a no-brainer, but strength training helps you run faster! Strength training places stress on your body in the form of resistance (weights), which prompts your body to adapt and make changes in order to increase its ability to withstand that stress. Over time, these physiological adaptations can have a huge impact on your running speed. This is why it’s important to train on a comprehensive program designed specifically for running performance—in other words, you can’t do a few random strength workouts and expect to see results.

 

Not only does strength training increase your body’s fat-free mass (bone and muscle mass) while decreasing your body fat %, it also increases the amount of force your muscles are able to exert into the ground with each step during your runs. This helps to make each stride more powerful, increasing your maximal speed and improving your ability to maintain high submaximal speeds for longer. Strength training also increases your muscular endurance and anaerobic power, making it easier to tackle that final kick in a race.

 

2. Stronger Bones, Tendons, Ligaments, Fascia, and Cartilage

Here’s an abbreviated table adapted from the 4th edition of the Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning detailing some of the performance benefits you’ll see from starting a strength training program:

 

The repetitive nature of running (“pounding the pavement”) leaves runners highly susceptible to injuries—especially overuse injuries. In addition to stronger muscles, strength training creates positive adaptations in your bones and connective tissues (tendons, ligaments, fascia, and cartilage) which can help mitigate and prevent overuse injuries like stress fractures.

 

A quick anatomy recap: muscles attach to bones through tendons (muscle tissue blends into tendon, so it’s all one continuous structure). Tendons have little blood flow, which is why they’re white in color illustrations of the musculoskeletal system. Ligaments connect bones together. Cartilage is a dense but flexible connective tissue that helps joints move smoothly and absorbs shock forces through joints. Fascia is a band or sheet of connective tissue that helps stabilize and separate muscles. All these connective tissues are made primarily of collagen, and all respond positively to strength training.

 

Just as your muscles respond to the stress of resistance by growing stronger, stronger muscles exert a greater pull on the bones they attach to, causing the bone and the structures around it to respond by grow stronger, too. Bigger and stronger bones, thicker cartilage, and sturdier and stiffer connective tissues help runners withstand and absorb more pavement pounding. The Achilles tendon in the heel and anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in the knee are prime examples of how important connective tissue strength is for runners.

 

3. Better Running Economy

You can measure a car’s fuel economy by how many miles it gets per gallon of gas—and you can measure your running economy (RE) by how much energy and oxygen you use to run at a given pace. The less energy and oxygen you need to sustain a pace (say a 6:30 pace in a 5k or 8:00 pace in a marathon), the better your RE. Your RE is a good indicator of how efficient and effective your body is at running, and can be improved through—you guessed it!—strength training.

 

Strength training helps perfect your running form (see reason #4), making your strides more efficient. And when you can run better, you can train harder—running more miles per week, or sustaining faster paces for longer durations. All this adds up to better running economy. Even better, improving your RE can also enhance your maximal aerobic capacity (VO2max) and lactate threshold, both measures of aerobic fitness and markers of endurance performance. In short, a better engine makes for a higher-performing car, and the same is true for running.

 

4. Better Running Form

The human body is a pretty amazing machine. Most of us have a dominant side that is more muscularly developed, and most of us have stronger anterior muscles (on the front of the body) and weaker posterior muscles (back of the body)—and these strength imbalances can create some imperfect movement patterns. Ever wonder why only one knee will hurt after a run, or one side of your back and not the other? It’s not hard to imagine that if your right glutes are twice as strong as your left glutes, it will alter the way you move. If you do have some funky movement patterns, your body—smart animal that it is—will use other muscles to help out, like recruiting your left lower back muscles to help your weak left glutes extend your hip.

 

This must have been especially helpful for our human ancestors’ survival. Imagine if instead of recruiting other muscles, your body just shut down the malfunctioning muscle—not good if you’re trying to run away from a sabretooth tiger. But these compensatory movement patterns, created by muscle imbalances, can lead to pain and injury over time, especially if you’re running mile after mile with subpar form.

 

A strength training program designed specifically for runners will focus on correcting the muscular strength imbalances that cause bad movement mechanics. This is especially important for your quadriceps and hamstrings—most runners have super strong quads (front of the body) and super weak hams (back of the body), which can alter your stride and cause injury. By evening out these imbalances, you can “turn any” any inhibited and weak muscles and achieve better, more efficient running form. Better form means less risk of overuse injury from bad movement patterns, and more effective running.

 

5. Prevent Injuries

For runners, all other benefits of strength training really add up to this: fewer injuries. Ever been sidelined by an injury halfway through training for a race? Ever had shin splints, tendonitis, IT band syndrome, plantar fasciitis, low-back pain, or other injuries that caused you to skip a run (or several)? A well-designed strength training plan for runners will help strengthen the muscle groups surrounding the most frequently injured joints (ankles, knees, hips, back, and [interestingly] wrists) and make you all-around stronger and more durable. When you’re stronger, your running mechanics naturally improve, helping avoid injury caused by poor running form. And when you’re more durable, you’re better able to withstand all the repetitive ground forces during your runs, without causing injury.

 

Improved durability also unlocks your capacity to run a bit more, a bit harder. Training at higher intensities—whether it’s a faster pace to hit a PR or longer distances to train for a half or full marathon—allows you to achieve new levels of performance previously unattainable. Being stronger, and staying injury-free, help you attack every track session, every tempo run, every long run with 100% effort. Higher quality training = better performance, plain and simple. And here’s the really important part: when you are able to run and train without injury, you actually enjoy running more! In this way, strength training helps you get the most out of your runs, both physically and mentally/emotionally. After all, it feels good to give your full effort!

“What is Sport-Specific Training?”

I get asked all the time, “What is Sport-Specific Training?”

First off, as you may or may not know, every set, weight, movement, and training session I design has a specific purpose, and I encourage you to take the same purposeful approach to fueling and recovery. As an athlete (everyone is an athlete), please make sure you have a practical, comprehensive nutrition and recovery program in place, if not, we can help you there as well.

“Sport-Specific” Training….Here ya go!

It’s no secret that an athlete who is serious about his/her sport needs to train differently than someone just looking to get a little healthier, or gain a little muscle. And no one is surprised when I say that a soccer player needs to train differently than a football player (American football). This all boils down to the fact that every sport has specific demands: both on movement (kicking a ball, swinging a bat/stick, blocking and tackling, jumping, etc.) and on the metabolic energy pathways used for that movement (explosive with lots of rest, varied sprinting and jogging, etc.). These specific movement and metabolic demands put muscles and joints at risk for overuse injuries, which a good training program strives to counter through exercises aimed at injury prevention. Soccer players don’t need to worry about overuse of the anterior shoulder like baseball pitchers do — so a specific training program for a soccer player looks quite different than one designed to decrease injuries for a baseball pitcher. “Sport-specific” training is how all these factors fit together to ensure the best transfer of performance in the weight room to performance on the field. If your strength and conditioning program doesn’t help performance or reduce injuries, then you’re just spinning your wheels in the weight room. Unfortunately, there is a ton of misinformation about what an athlete needs floating around out there—but, I believe the answer is simpler than you think.

Let’s start by defining what ISN'T Sport-Specific Training?

The term “Sport-Specific” has become a pretty ubiquitous, and sadly ambiguous, term in today’s age, and one common misunderstanding is that it means simply adding resistance to a specific skill set. While it might be enticing to think that a golfer can use a piece of rotational exercise equipment to add resistance and give him or her a stronger swing, it just doesn’t work that way, or by having a baseball player use a heavy “bat type” implement in training or even having a basketball player shoot a 20 pound medicine ball for training. In reality, adding resistance to specific skill patterns can be/most often is detrimental to the development of their ACTUAL swing. The same goes for throwing, swinging a bat, and kicking. Adding heavier resistance to these movements changes the biomechanical demand, and increases the likelihood of overuse. If you want to train in a method 100%-specific to your sport, you need to just go out and play the sport. Let skill development take place on the field or on the court, and use the weight room as a place to develop foundational movements, structural integrity, and explosive power. Increasing these performance measures gives the athlete more to utilize during skill work, and can keep him or her healthier throughout the competitive season. Building a strength and conditioning program around a sport is meant to improve performance of specific skills—and reduce the risk of injury from the repetitive practice of those skills. Use the “weight room” as a tool for your sport, not as the sport!

We want/need to train to meet the demands of the sport!

Each sport is different, however there are similarities in fundamental principles that apply to most, such as Rotational Power, Strength, Lateral Quickness, Stamina, Max Strength, Explosive Power, and Linear Speed to name a few. The key is to identify the ones that are key and crucial to continued success in the specific sport. Once they are identified, the key is to not develop a training program that continually adds new “cool, trendy, fashionably neat, and sometimes dangerous stuff/exercises”, it simply is more about simplifying what makes that sport unique and making those fundamental principles better.

The first step in improving the athlete is to identify what movement patterns are used within the sport. Training these movement principles and improving their quality is how to make the time in the weight room worthwhile. Using soccer as an example, athletes need not only to pass and shoot accurately, but also to win challenges, shield the ball, and tackle effectively. Soccer players also need the ability to sprint, and change direction and pace quickly for the full 90 minutes. This means strength training should focus on the development of bilateral (two-leg) and unilateral (one-leg) leg strength, speed and power, and developing aerobic and anaerobic energy systems. These demands are met through correctly programmed strength and power movements. Properly progressed training of compound multi-joint structural movements like squats and deadlifts lay the framework for more explosive and challenging movements, like single-leg box jumps and Olympic weightlifting variations. Simply put, if you want to be training effectively for a sport, you need quality programming and quality progression.

What else is involved Sport-Specific training?
Injury Prevention, that’s vital!

Many sports have skill patterns that endlessly repeat themselves or continuously stress the athlete asymmetrically. Think of how many times a baseball player throws a ball. How about the catcher? How many times does he throw back to the pitcher? Generally he throws more in a game than all others combined (besides the pitcher)! Now we not only have “Sport-Specific” training, but we also need “Position-Specific” training. The body becomes "unbalanced" from all of this specific movement, which can lead to a higher risk of injury. For this baseball player’s program, we wouldn't want to add resistance to an already overloaded movement pattern, since that could only further any imbalances and increase injury risk. Instead, we program a high volume of movement patterns opposite to those typically under continual stress. The aim is to bring the anatomical structures back to a state of symmetry, and regain the neutral positions the body was meant to be in.

Every training day in my program offers injury prevention movements and methods to assist in keeping athletes healthy and mobile. Like with baseball, every sport program comes with its own injury prevention methods that take into account the movement patterns overused throughout the season.

What else is vital to “Sport-Specific training?
Foundational Movements!!!!

Sport-specific training is less about adding something new to the game, and more about simplifying what makes that sport unique. It's important to remember that all athletes benefit from getting stronger and MOVING BETTER. Training compound, multi-joint movement stress the body to produce force in efficient patterns rather than isolating them, thus removing the proprioceptive control associated with a barbell. Foundational movements like squatting, deadlifting, and pressing lay the framework for how the body moves and produces force. Likewise, consistent practice of explosive bodyweight and progressive Olympic variations add to any program to help build efficient recruitment of fast-twitch muscle fibers and a well-functioning neuromuscular system. Practicing these patterns correctly helps to keep every athlete in a healthier state, and allow them the baseline strength and function to take their training further.

“Sport-Specific” training is a science, but applying simple fundamental systems and applicable processes are where the science comes into play. Our job as a Strength Coach/Train is to help keep the athlete in the game/playing, as well as physically progressing, that involves a lot more than just picking things up and putting them down.

Regards,
Greg