Heroes, Pain & Simone Biles

We start today's email with a bit of a story coming in from one of my online clients:

"OK a quick addition to the last email...I watched the Simone Biles documentary series, Rising, last night on Netflix (I admire her so much as an athlete and an example of mental strength) ................

........in the qualifiers for the finals at the Olympics, she tore her calf on the first day. And it was clearly sore because she was CRAWLING back from her first vault and then was hopping on one leg so she didn't have to put weight on it. And they talked to her medical team and they strapped her up and her coach said to her,

"Well, you know, you have the pain and the pain is there but you also have the readiness, you are ready, you know this so you can still do it".

And she KEPT GOING and did that fierce run up they do to do her second vault and SPRUNG on that sore leg on the platform and did her vault, and did it perfectly. reach."

I haven't watched the series yet, it is on my watchlist and I will get to it, especially after the above email (the full email is longer, I cut it down for privacy and brevity)

This raises a number of points.

Pain does not necessarily mean injury

Injury does not always bring pain

Pain is extremely personal

A person has a degree of choice as to how much they listen to pain

Ignoring pain is the right thing to do sometimes, and very wrong other times.

We all need heroes to look up to, but not necessarily emulate

Lets start with the last one, as that's the easiest.

As a man of a certain age, I grew up through the 80's an 90's, it was the golden era of action heroes on screen and in real life.

We has Arnie, Stallone, Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, Jackie Chan, Hulk Hogan, Big Daddy, the recently deceased Geoff Capes, the original series of Gladiators (Wolf, Jet etc) and so many more huge characters, with huge muscles doing larger than life magic on the TV screens.

Yeah, some were actors acting, others were sports stars, and they were all heroes.

In fact, I'd been on a binge of martial arts flicks, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and the Karate Kid just before I took up Karate myself.

I related to the Karate kid, so that got me going.

Watching these on screen heroes helps shape you, helps you develop your psyche, your drive. Helps you figure out what you will and will not accept about yourself in your own life.

And the training montages.

If you're of a certain age and your hair doesn't stand up on the back of your neck whenever you hear "Heart on Fire"........

Modern heroes are the likes of Biles.

This unique little powerhouse of a human being has earned her legendary status.

And the struggle pointed out in the paragraphs above show just how much a hero has to push themselves to achieve legendary status.

One of my all time heroes is Steve Redgrave, the rower. His autobiography is almost frightening reading about how much he putt himself through in the face of the chronic illnesses he had to battle.

It shows how much real strength is a in between the ears.

It's not the size of the muscles, but the heart, the spirit.

So what about pain?

All these heroes, fictional or real, show us how we can push through pain. We can choose to let pain take control, or we can take control of the pain.

Is what Biles did healthy?

Is it something we ought to look to replicate?

That is totally contextual.

Biles was at the Olympics, so yeah, it's all out, no holding back. As her coach pointed out, she was ready,

She also, and don't misinterpret this, does a power sport where most of the activities last seconds. As opposed to hours. Duration matters.

What we do learn from our heroes is that we have agency over our bodies.

We know that we can work through pain so long as we perceive benefit.

When I have athletes and clients coming to me for injury rehab, we have to find context, we have to work out how the pain is perceived and how much the person will or will not tolerate pain.

Some, especially those of us with traditional martial arts backgrounds, will almost tolerate too much.

Others, will stop at the first twinge.

And while pain is incredibly complex, I do like helping people try to understand that is merely a warning (it's way more than that, but it's a good start point)

A warning to stop doing something, or to move away from something.

Pain in the calf will send your weight over to the other leg and you'll limp. Pain in the shoulder will stop you lifting your arm.

But to get back to centre

To get back to performance

To get back to a body that moves well and is pain free, we may have to work into the pain somewhat, to reduce the perceived need for a warning.

Assuming any structural damage is healed, the calf tear has resolved, then any pain is now just a warning signal that serves no further purpose.

Now that is a big assumption, but bones heal in around 6 weeks, muscle faster, ligaments slower, but once healed, pain should no longer be needed.

Now we very often need to work on movement and how the body perceives safety.

This may involve a little pain.

But we have agency.

We can listen to the body, we can decide of the pain is just pain or if there is an injury present.

We can choose to lie down and stop

Or we can become our own hero and get out and work on the things we can still work on, while getting on with our rehab.

It's simple, but not easy

But it's why I'm here, I will help you.

It's a line I've walked many times myself and many times with clients.

--

Regards

Dave Hedges

www.DaveHedges.net

www.WG-Fit.com

The Value of Doing Something Unusual

I went to a Yoga class yesterday.

Big Dave, who lifts stuff and hits things went to Yoga.

It was a charity fundraising class by one of the yoga instructors my wife goes to at the Torrent Centre just outside of Dungannon.

She is a good instructor.

So why am I telling you this?

Two points really.

First, Mobility.

Yoga is probably the worlds most popular mobility system, and who knows, maybe it’s oldest.

My first introduction to it was way back in my teenage yeats when Jack Parker, my Karate Instructor had been to a few classes and implemented it into our training for parts of the warm up and cool down.

He even arranged for the Yoga teacher to come in and run occasional workshops for us.

As kids I have to say we were extremely fortunate to train under Jack as he was always looking for better ways to train us.

And while Jack knew we had to stretch to get our kicks up, something in him, either knowledge, experience, possibly intuition, he knew simply holding a stretch for time was inefficient.

Jack had us move into and out of stretch positions, often under load. This seemed echoed by Yoga.

Postures were never held more than a few seconds, and a lot of emphasis seemed to be placed on how to enter and exit a position, which required strength and control.

Yesterday's Yoga session was no different. And even though I was in the gym the day before, I do have some DOMS from the class, which is kinda cool.

While Yoga will not develop high levels of strength, it will certainly help coordinate your strength and maybe even demonstrate strength more effectively.

With this history in mind, and the influences I’ve had from Jack and the other coaches I’ve been exposed to since, my own views on mobility are influenced by Yoga. Anyone who’s trained with me, especially in a group setting will remember the Sun Salutation based “Quick Yoga” 

Now, you don’t need to be a student of Yoga or Martial Arts to deveop better mobility, but take heed of their teachings.

Find your tight lines and move into and out of it with care.

The actual shpe you make with your body isn’t as important as what you feel in your body.

Which, I suppose, is why so many movement styles and systems have so many positions in common.

Even the Anatomy in Motion methods I employ with injured clients revolves around 6 “stretches” that while based on identifiable phases of the gait cycle, still have a passing resemblance to the classic Yoga poses.

They’re just precise, as they are incredibly regress-able and can be broken down into smaller and more specific parts based on individual assessments.

Now, point 2

Doing something different.

We all get into our thing.

Sometimes our thing becomes the only thing we do.

And this is folly.

This is where training scars arise.

Or where overuse injuries happen.

Cross training is, in my mind essential.

At least some of the year, we must step outside our favourite training methodology and do something different and expose ourselves to different stimuli and discover where the holes in our armour may be.

Taking a Yoga class will show you areas of neglect in your mobility, maybe you don’t rotate a certain way out of habit, maybe you’ll find a tightness that will hint as to why the knees may hurt and so on.

Of course it doesn't have to be Yoga, that’s simply in my head and the inspiration of this email.

You could take any sort of class or challenge or event on. So long as it’s different from your norm.

We gain experience and learn about our bodies by exposure to different stimuli, so make a point of getting out and trying something different from time to time.

If you play a seasonal sport, utilise to off season to “cross train”

If your sport is all year round, look for periods of lull where you can put energy elsewhere for a few sessions.

Your health, and therefore your performance will likely improve and you may learn a few things that will help you in the long term.

And may keep you from booking in with me because you’ve injured yourself …..again!

Regards

Dave Hedges

www.davehedges.net

Don't Allow Your Athletic Posture Become Your Daily Living Posture

There is a quote that has been rattling around in my head for a while,

so long in fact I have it a little mixed up and am no longer even

convinced of the source.

However, it's a quote I have paraphrased a lot, especially these last

couple of weeks with a number of clients.

"Do not allow your athletic posture become your everyday posture" -

possibly from Grey Cook and butchered by Dave Hedges.....

If someone has heard this and has confirmation of both the source and

correct wording, I'd be grateful if you'd pass it on, google has come up

short so far.

Anyhow, sources and diction aside, what does it mean and why is it

important?

In short, all sports have strengths and weaknesses.

Some sports are one sided

Some sports favour certain positions

For example, if you're a Golfist, you'll likely always swing the club in

the same direction, usually left to right

If you're a Tennis player, you strike the ball with the right hand (yes,

I'm generalising for right handed folk simply because there are more of

you, doesn't mean I don't know about you lefties)

Striking martial arts folk tend to favour a particular leg forward

Grapplers live in scapula protraction

And we could go on.

These positions and movements mentioned are perfect for the activity,

but may not be ideal for outside of said activity.

Many is the time I would have a Muay Thai fighter come to me with a sore

shoulder or knee.

It would plague them all day, even affect their sleep.

These flare ups usually happened in the lead up to a fight when the

training became more voluminous and more intense

Yet, they mostly didn't notice it in training.

And when I asked them to take a fighting stance, they suddenly looked

relaxed and comfortable, pain no longer felt

This athletic posture had become their default position

The exact same thing happened when a young Olympic Lifter was brought to

me for back pain.

This lad was a horse of a man, dwarfing me. But had back pain on one

side that he just couldn't shift no matter who he saw, and he'd been to

every therapist in his area.

I checked his posture and noticed his pelvis sat a bit shifted and bit

hiked on one side.

No matter what we looked at, it wouldn't come level.

Until I asked him to show me his catch position on the Jerk.

And this lad could Jerk my Deadlift, he was a big boy.

So he got into the catch, essentially a lunge position, and I checked him.

Plumbline.

Hips level, spine straight, pain not present.

This position was his place of safety. This is where he was used to

catching massive amounts of force.

His nervous system wanted him here as it's likely where it felt the most

safe.

Lifting posture became living posture, it became a "training scar"

Stories like these fascinate me and I could go on.

I had a hockey player the other day, similar story

Hurler, similar story

Each person may receive their own individual interventions, as their

body and symptoms require, but the nature of the issue was always the same.

This is why we do supplemental training in the gym.

It's why we do mobility and things like the 100 Rep Warm up

(https://youtu.be/HrgizUMCY0A?si=Sp80CkD0DKs-abyR) to remind the body to

move in all manner of ways.

To remind the "somatosensory cortex" that joints can and should access

both ends of their movement spectrum

And then adding load by way of lifting weights, well that ought to

strengthen all these movement patterns.

For our Olympic Lifting kid, who's sport IS lifting weights, I advised

him to spend some time lifting "goofy" ie opposite foot forward. Of

course this is to be done during off-season or well away from

competition times.

As a basic rule, keep the gym training as general as possible, forget

this idea of sports specific training, it's nonsense.

The sport specific training is the training for the sport.

The gym is about strength, mobility and endurance.

It's as much about filling the gaps left by the sport as it is prepping

you for the sport

And the prep is mostly done by way of ensuring good movement mechanics,

good force production and good energy system development.

Skills are not improved in the gym, that done out in the arena,

Now, as always this is your newsletter, for you, so have your say.

Hit reply and send in your questions, your comments.

Hit forward and share it with someone who you think may benefit from

this information

And I'll chat soon

Oh, and before I forget, all Online Training clients should be getting

an invite to an Online Meet Up to get together and discuss who the

training is going. I have promised this in the past but not followed

through, but as several folk have asked for better accountability, this

is how we're doing it.

What I want is for this to become a peer support call, yes, I'll do the

expert bit, but you checking in and and chatting with fellow trainees is

where the gold lies.

You can have the craic, brag about PR's, ask questions about your

program and much more.

I don't expect everyone to show up every week, maybe only show up if you

have things to say or ask, but it would be great to see you there.

Non Online training folk, I may allow you lot to all join in maybe once

per month as an open forum chat. What do you think?

Chat soon

--

Regards

Dave Hedges

www.DaveHedges.net

Box 7, The Cube, 2 Coalisland Road · Dungannon, Co Tyrone BT71 6JT · United Kingdom