Some people just don’t get it

1. BMI
I read an article yesterday that discussed more people being obese than ever before. This seems like something we hear all the time in the News. My problem wasn’t the premise of the article. I know that Americans are heavier than ever. I also know that diabetes, heart disease, and cancer are at an all-time high. My problem was the fact that they had a picture of a young boy doing squats. After I read the article I saw that their main point was that the average BMI of Americans has increased by 3 pts in the last 15 years. Fpr those of you who do not know BMI is a formula that basically takes into account height and weight. It does not consider bone density, body-fat percentage, or Vo2 max as health indicators. Let me give you an example of how this can be a faulty way of determining healthy weight. Adrian Peterson, the all-pro running back from the Minnesota Vikings is 6 feet 1 inch and 217 pounds. Which put his BMI at what is considered overweight. He is in fact a small NFL running back. In doing a quick google search I fond that average NFL running back in 5’11 215. This puts the average NFL running back at a BMI that is in the obese category. How many of us would consider and NFL runing back obese? NFL running backs are the prime example of speed , power, and explosiveness. More Americans have gym memberships than at any other time in history. People lift weights which increases muscle size and bone density which can prevent osteoporosis. People don’t smoke or drink nearly as much as they did in the 1960’s and 70’s.

2. Old school coaches
Being a coach I have spoken with a lot of coaches in various sports. I am always amazed that in 2011 I hear them say things like this:
Lifting too much will make players inflexible.
Do you think he gets hurt because he lifts weights
How is lifting going to help him hit a baseball
I don’t want him to be too tight and hurt his performance.
I can go on and on and on. Most older coaches come from a time when some of these things were believed to be true. To date there has never been a study that has concluded that lifting weights decreases flexibility or hinders performance in any way. If lifting weights would hurt baseball players than why did the “steroid era” come with such an explosion of offense. It even came with middle relievers throwing 95 mph. If you look at the game now those guys have dissipated. While they were doing it illegally the point remains the same. Lifting weight can help you in every athletic endeavor. Distance runners lift weights for a kick at the end of a race. That was unheard of many years ago.

3. Combines.
One of the biggest events of the year is the NFL combine. I constantly hear people talking about what a waste of time it is. While it is very true that if a player can’t play in the game a coach probably wouldn’t draft him. However, how would you find the diamond in the rough. The guys who played at a lower level school but never got the chance to compete against the best. The combine evens the playing field. Stopwatches become our judges. There is a test for quickness, agility, strength, and explosiveness. If an athlete simply doesn’t measure up then how can he compete on a field. The coaches who don’t like the combine remind of the baseball coaches and scouts who want to rely on their own two eyes even when all the saber-metrics and statisticians disagree.

4. strength and flexibility.
One is not the enemy of the other. The two can go hand in hand. Movement prep is a term used by several strength and conditioning coaches for teaching the athlete to take their body through a full range of motion. Many strength coaches use movement prep instead of an old fashioned stretch to warm the body before competition. Many trainers also use a style of training called functional. Functional training means simply training movements rather than individual muscles. The athlete is coached to move a certain way which is more of a real world type of movement rather than completely isolating a specific muscle such as the bicep by doing a curl.

5. Conclusion
I wonder when we as trainer’s will stop fighting this battle of mis-information. Many people just don’t get it but there is a science to it. The science is there but it is also ever changing as new studies are done. If human’s are evolving then we need to change with the times. Being a member of the NSCA I get access to the largest database of studies regarding physical activity in the country. The NSCA is the National Strength and Conditioning Association. It is the official and only fitness trainer certification used by Major League Baseball. One of the great tools I have found for being healthy and training properly is Twitter. There are so many people and organizations that promote fitness on Twitter. Try following some of them and find the ones you like. I promise they will inspire you and give you credible information that you can use in your everyday life. Some of my favorite are MensHealth, Runners World, Erik Cressey, and of course myself. JoeLopez55@twitter.com. So in conclusion, our ever changing bodies need to be trained to adapt to modern times. But most importantly our mindsets need to change. And stop using BMI!

Mr. Universe doesn’t have a jump shot

Ever wonder why bodybuilders are never known for being great athletes? It’s because there is a difference in lifting for maximum definition and training for functional fitness. Sometimes athletes get so obsessed with their bodies looking good in the mirror they forget that rarely in sports and in life do muscles fire singularly. Not only do our muscles often work in groups but there is a thin layer of connective tissue called fascia. If you have ever cut into a piece of chicken just beneath the skin you may have seen this fascia. Until recently most scientists thought it was just another layer of gook that really served no major purpose when it comes to human performance and movement. In fact this connective tissue is interwoven throughout every major muscle in your body. It also helps connect each individual muscle fiber into bundles. It helps connect tendon to bone and bone to muscle. In fact the fascia is made of the same material as your skin and skeleton. It is just a different structure. Think ice to water. A study in 2008 found that the tissue even had conductive properties. When a trainer talks about muscles “firing” this fascia allows that to happen. This stuff almost wraps our bodies into one unit. Thus the reasons our bodies work as a unit instead of as individual muscles designed to flex and extend. Our bodies instead have what trainers refer to as a kinetic chain. For example, when a runner is having IT Band issues weak glutes are often the culprit. The glutes or in many runners cases the prirformis is a muscle running diagonally in the hip to but region. When this gets tight from running it can effect the IT Band and cause pain there. When the IT Band becomes inflamed the knee can start to hurt. So, if our bodies break down and feel pain as an overall unit then shouldn’t we train our bodies as an overall unit? Our bodies don’t recognize muscles, they recognize movement. Find a trainer who specializes in functional training and movement prep. Other than myself of course, I am a big fan of Core Performance. It is a website dedicated to athletic movement. It’s founder Mark Verstegen trains countless professional athletes for their sports and for combines and professional workouts. I would recommend the section called Movement Prep. It is a modern day version of stretching. A type of warmup that is designed to wake up the body’s fascia and release the tensions built up by the sport itself. If you are new to this I would recommend finding a trainer to help you execute these properly.