Limber 11

 

If you've followed this blog you'll know that I'm a fan of Joe DeFranco's work and utilise his Agile 8 to get my old bones moving and prevent injury.

Well, the man's just revealed his Limber 11, a longer prehab/mobility routine that adds to the Agile 8 and looks very interesting.

Few of us, particularly those of us who are getting on in years, do enough of this kind of stuff and I'll be trying this out, especially before training.

Check back for the results....

Coach Dan John

Seeking inspiration, I've been reading some of Dan John's articles from his site and T-Nation. Dan is a very well respected participant and coach in Olympic and highland games style throws and also the Olympic lifts. As such he has a wealth of knowledge and experience to impart and does so in a detailed and entertaining manner.

One of the ideas that Dan explores is that of 'Work, Rest, Play, Pray'. This is Dan's expansion of the idea of balance in life, developed from a combination of his own experience and something that a nun talked about in his youth(!). The article is well worth reading, but essentially it presents the four words as points on an alternative compass. Those involved with sports or physical training of any sort will be familiar with definitions of the first two – Work and Rest – but how many of us really give any thought to the latter pair?

Reading logs and blog posts you'd be forgiven for thinking that those writing them were sometimes forced to train, where has all the fun gone? This is the play part. Maybe we all need to re-connect occasionally with the reasons for which we started training, that we love the sports that we play, that we enjoy the feeling we get from lifting and sprinting, we've made some good friends through our love of sports. We need to enjoy what we do. There's no doubt in my mind that, particularly for the amateur, losing the 'enjoyment factor' is halfway down the road to burnout and at least two steps towards giving it (whatever 'it' is) up altogether.

Ok Coach Dan, I get Work, Rest and, now, Play, but what do you mean by Pray? Referring again to the article, Dan talks about taking time to just be alone for a few minutes although he also counters this by discussing his own penchant for too much training alone – it's all about balance see. For me the Pray part can be any number of things – walking the dog, Zen meditation working on my bonsai trees – and whilst I need alone time, I often need to tilt the balance the other way and spend more time with my family and friends. This for me is also Play.

I'd urge you to head on over to T-Nation or to his website to look up some of Dan John's articles, and to think about your own balance compass, like me, you might learn something.

Look after yourself.....

Injuries, injuries.....

Although it's not fun to admit, as a thirty-eight year old it takes longer and more effort to recover from strenuous training than it did when I was twenty-five or even thirty.

This was brought home to me in a serious way last weekend when twenty-four hours after a session of power-cleans and deadlifts I was struggling with fatigue, so much so that I decided to read up on it in order to prevent feeling so shitty again.

For about 36 – 48 hours after the lifting session I was experiencing all the hallmarks of central nervous system fatigue – tired, low mood, low motivation, low foolishness tolerance, reduced motor skills. It ruined a perfectly good weekend for me and made me difficult to be around for the family.

So how to prevent it?

1. Be aware of volume and intensity of training. I personally cannot train optimally if I'm lifting heavy and intensely three times a week.

2. Nutrition: Ensure that food and hydration are sorted. Last weekend I missed my whey shake post training and didn't eat well prior to training. Branch Chain Amino Acids are crucial for preventing fatigue.

3. Rest: I did not get to bed early enough or for long enough last week.

On to the physical plane..

Now, more than any other time in my life, warming up, stretching and foam rolling is a key part of not getting injured and not feeling like crap the day after training.

Before every session I warm up with shadow thai boxing, stretch (especially hip flexors, shoulders and hamstrings) and foam/hockey ball roll. Foam and ball rolling have been a revelation, helping with back tightness, shoulder pain and even sciatica. I strongly recommend checking out Joe De Franco's 'Agile 8' and 'Scarecrow' routines.

Another idea that I'm very keen on and feel to be important is active shoulder health. The bench press is well documented as leading to shoulder problems, particularly with the rotator cuff, and Jo DeFranco recently came out against the military/overhead press as an exercise that is in direct opposition to the structure of most trainees' shoulders. With this in mind I do ALL my main pressing movements with a swiss bar. This requires some adjustment and experimentation but I feel that it's worth it – since doing so I've had no shoulder problems. Add in to this full range dumbbell work and band work and I'm feeling good!

Here's to staying healthy.