Random Thoughts on Gluten, Consistency, and Upper Back Health

May 24, 2012

in Strength Training

I’m currently experiencing another bout of writer’s block, so here are some random thoughts that aren’t yet ready for a dedicated post of their own.

By the way, my hat is off to professional columnists and writers. Trying to maintain a consistent flow of high quality writing is difficult. Speaking of consistency….

Consistency

Consistency can be the bane of our existence. It’s hard to be successful at anything without consistency. In very few instances does intermittent effort gets us anywhere.

The key to changing your body is consistency. I can teach a trainee everything they need to know about exercise technique, programming, and nutrition, but I can’t teach someone how to regularly show up at the gym or value their body more than the short term pleasure they get from overeating.

Consistency has to come from somewhere within and is probably the result of a complex brew of psychological and physiological factors. Getting in shape and staying in shape isn’t a destination, it needs to be a constant part of your ever-changing dynamic life.

If you have consistency with the Big 4, you’ll be successful.

The Big 4

Getting into great shape comes down to adhering to these four basic time-tested principles:

- Eat the proper amount of calories.
- Eat close to your body weight in protein.
- Incorporate a scheme of progressive overload into your strength training program.
- Do some type of cardio, if needed, a few times per week.

If you do those four things consistently, your body has no choice but to respond favorably. It’s so simple in theory, yet so hard because of all the behavioral changes that must occur to bring them about.

Gluten-Free?

In the previous few weeks I have been experiencing some stomach “discomfort”. Knowing it was due to something in my diet, I started keeping track of what I was eating. It seems that my discomfort was being caused by some wheat crackers that I previously had no problems eating. This lead me to do quite a bit of research into wheat and it’s place in nutrition.

Wheat and gluten sensitivity has been on the periphery of health information for a few years now. Fitness conscious individuals are probably aware of gluten to one degree or another. Most of America isn’t fitness conscious, however, and probably know nothing more about gluten than the fact they see labels saying “gluten free”.

Right now I’m experimenting with going gluten-free and I’ve also slightly altered my diet to try and obtain the majority of my carbs from fruit (one orange, one banana, and some blueberries), vegetables, dairy, and one potato a day. In addition, I still add a teaspoon of sugar to my small daily coffee and a little bit of gatorade that I add to my pre-workout drink. I’m also experimenting with going 100% natural whole foods, nothing processed or coming out of a box or package (besides the sugar for coffee and gatorade). Keep in mind that going gluten-free and eating 100% natural foods are not necessarily related. I’m just doing both for the heck of it, to see if it makes me feel any different.

Men, Thoracic Mobility, and Back Pain

At least half the men that I see at the gym have horrible thoracic mobility. Their upper backs are stuck hunched forward and have rounded shoulders. This is generally due to tight lats, tight pecs (especially the pec minor) and weak scapular muscles. I don’t know that there is any one “best” exercise to address thoracic mobility, but this one comes close:

Not only do you train your upper spine to get back into extension, many tight people will also feel a stretch in their chest.

Then follow up with some low-level scapular muscle exercises to strengthen your rhomboids and middle traps. Try band pull-aparts. Make sure you squeeze your shoulder blades together at the end of the range of motion.

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My Favorite Stretch: Hip Flexor-Lat Stretch Combo

May 7, 2012

in Fixing Your Body, Fixing Your Shoulders

This is my favorite stretch. It hits two problematic areas: the hip flexors and the lats.

Hip flexor and lat stretch

This stretch gets your hip flexors and lats

In order to do the stretch, I have to push my pelvis forward and then rotate in the direction of the front leg. You should feel a stretch in your lats and the front of the back leg.

I have documented the hip flexors and some common problems associated with them in older posts. You can find them in the “Fixing Your Hips” category.

While the hip flexors are well documented, the lats don’t get nearly as much attention.

Origins

The latissimus dorsi, colloquially known as the lats, are frequently overlooked in their role as postural distorters and associated aches and pains. The lats originate mainly on the lower six thoracic vertabrae (middle of the back), the lumbar vertabrae via the lumbar fascia (lower back), and some of the lower ribs. There is also an attachment at the bottom of the scapula and the illiac crest of the pelvis. It’s insertion point is your humerus (upper arm) right between the pec major and teres major.

With so many origins, the lats have a chance to exert a tremendous amount of influence on your shoulders (due to scapular attachment) middle and lower back (due to vertabral attachments) and even your pelvis.

The lats cover a large area

The Visual

Men want them bigger while women don’t pay much attention to them at all.

In purely aesthetic terms, good lat development makes you more physically impressive while makeing your waist look smaller by giving you the coveted “V” look. Besides drawing the arms back, like for rowing movements, and in towards your body, as in pull-ups, the lats also function to draw the arms across the front of the body.

Tightness

The lats are often found to be tight along with the pec major and minor. Tight lats are often exhibited by poor posture and the inability to raise the shoulders directly above the head. Testing shortness of the lats is better done laying flat on the floor to prevent a common compensation pattern of lifting the rib cage to get more range of motion.

Short lats

Shortened lats are often exhibited through poor posture and the inability to raise the shoulders straight up

Tight lats occur probably due to our proclivity for working the beach muscles: chest, shoulders, and arms. Our back muscles are generally worked as an afterthought, and when this afterthought actually occurs, it’s usually in the form of lat pull-downs and lat dominant rows. Unfortunately, this just leads to reinforce poor posture.

There is nothing wrong with lat-pull downs and rows, but they need to be balanced out with rowing variations that train pure scapular retraction, largely leaving the lats out of the equation. Exercises like band pull-aparts, face-pulls, and rear flies all work well. This will help pull the shoulder blades back and improve posture.

Focusing on scapular muscle strength (rhomboids, middle and lower traps) and stretching the lats and chest is one of the most important changes I make to people’s training when I first meet them. Not only will it make you stand up straighter, but it will also reduce the risk of rotator cuff injuries as poor scapular muscle strength correlates closely with shoulder dysfunction.

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6 Keys for an Effective Rack Pull Setup

April 24, 2012

Here is the starting position for the rack-pull, one of my favorite exercises. This exercise is great for developing muscle and strength in your legs, especially your hamstrings and glutes, lower back, core, middle and upper back, and your arms. A couple details to note: 1. The rack pull is the same movement as a [...]

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Jury Duty, Exercise Responsiveness, and The Silent Majority

April 20, 2012

If you consistently lift progressively heavier weights in the rep range of 5-12, get enough rest, eat enough protein, and consume the amount of calories that match your goals, your body will improve its appearance. It has to. It’s not a choice. Stimulus–response. Extract the key concepts: 1. Consistency 2. Progressively heavier weights over time [...]

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Lateral Pelvic Tilt and its Resolution

April 13, 2012

Since July, I’ve been struggling with a condition called lateral pelvic tilt. I get more in depth about LPT in this post. It’s hard to know the exact sequence of events, because my lateral tilt only became known to me after experiencing debilitating backs spasms. They were so bad that I couldn’t stand up straight [...]

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