The Most Functional Machine at the Gym: Your Body

I train clients around town at some of the "globo-gyms".  They serve a purpose for me and my clients quite well but still seem to irritate me.  My irritation lies in the fact that most of the useable floor space is eaten up by a plethora of weight machines, contraptions that lock an exerciser in very "artificial" body positions.  The machine manufacturers have done a good job marketing these products making everyone feel as if these are exactly what they need.  The exercise description is right there in front of your face somewhere on the machine, and heck, it even shows you what muscles you're working.  I get it.....It's a gym owner's dream, they are generally safe and easy to use if you can figure out how to sit in the damn thing (perfect for a minimally staffed 24 hour operation).

Here's the problem - their design does not replicate real world movement.  You are in a fixed position generally singling out one major muscle group. Paul Chek of the C.H.E.K. Institute in California has this to say about machines, "Machines in general are one-dimensional.  They guide movement such that the body need not stabilize its own joints.  This leads to over-development of prime movers relative to stabilizers." [I took that from his course, "Equal But Not the Same"].  He makes a great point here.  They are designed to primarily strengthen the prime mover muscle for the particular exercise.  The movement path is fixed by the machine's structure.  The body does not need to rely on what are known as the stabilizer muscles.  Personally, I got to know my shoulders stabilizer muscles real quick when I attempted my first overhead squat in a CrossFit Foundations Class.  The overhead squat depends greatly on shoulder girdle flexibility but you must also have strong stabilizer muscular recruitment to keep that bar solid and fixed in that overhead position.  If that bar wavers forward or backward even an inch, you have to bail.

Strengthening these stabilizer/"helper" muscles are a must.  When we get out recreationally or on the job in the real world, we use our bodies as a complete unit, muscles working synergistically together.  If I have weak stabilizers, I open up the potential for injury and that may hurt, and I don't like pain - I try to stay away from that.

I realize some machines allow more free motion than others, but speaking generally, machines are designed as a one size fits all.  And, we know that everyone is not the same size plus our bodies move in different ranges of motion.  The point here is to get you focusing on the machine that is your body and training it to move.  Here's an example:  you're a mom who is about to pick up your child from the stroller and place him in his car seat.  In this real world movement, you bend to deadlift the child out of the stroller, twist with the torso, and press the child into the fixed car seat.  These are functional movements that you can definitely strengthen in a gym setting so that they are strong and familiar in you real life.  
If you are able to, and most of you are unless you are rehabilitating an injury or a paid bodybuilder, ditch the machines and favor body-weight movements and multi-joint movements with weights.  These allow you to move the body in multiple planes of motion (just like real life!) and you burn more calories if you are trying to lose a few LBs.  As always, SAFETY FIRST..... If you don't know how to properly move your body through common exercises, hire a trainer or have a friend show you some basic movements.  Exercise is more fun with someone else anyways, and it will give you an accountability partner.  Have fun

Workouts are Hard, So are Your Bones - Hopefully!

A few years back the Dairy Council came out with a campaign touting milk as the key for strong healthy bones.  They told you and me to drink our milk.  This is not a post talking about the benefits or fallacies regarding the industrialized dairy practices that give us our milk products.  But I'll say this, the milk we drink today is not the secret to a lifetime of healthy bones.  Nutritionally, you can probably get more calcium from leafy greens.  We must eat foods that give us Vitamins C & D, calcium, magnesium, and potassium to help us keep our bones strong, but I'm here to tell you that nutrition is not the key component.  The secret to strong, healthy bones is Exercise, you moving your body.  Healthy nutrition is necessary, but you can't do that alone, and it's not the key factor.

I recently began working with a new client, one who deals with Osteopenia, a precursor to osteoporosis.  Losing bone density is an issue for her, and it became my job to help formulate a plan to allow her to not only keep what bone density she has but to also develop more.  Osteoblasts are bone building cells that replace lost bone tissue in the body.  You see, your bone tissue is not much different that the tissue in your heart, muscle, and lungs.  To remain healthy, these tissues need to be stressed/they need to be worked/they need to be EXERCISED. 

As I dug around looking for what I needed to do to train someone with bone density issues, I realized that there was not a lot of info out there specifically targeting that.  I found general stuff, and then it hit me....What these people need is no different than what anyone out there really needs when it comes to physical exercise, they need to move a load against gravity.  Weight-bearing exercise gives us the best bone building benefits (weight-bearing being bodyweight, dumbbells, a loaded barbell, whatever).  These osteoblasts (bone cells) are stimulated when the muscles pull around the bones to produce human movement.  Now, we are all unique on our fitness journey.  We start at the basics and as we progress, we have to turn up the intensity.  It doesn't matter if you're 18 or 80 years old, the body is smart and adapts quickly.  Our exercise should be intense and should have variety.  The body tires of the same routine over and over.  It yawns and asks what's next....the more stress you put on your bones, the stronger they will become.  We need to continuously challenge our osteoblasts to stay on the positive side of bone density.  We should be smart with our training, paying attention to any injury or limitations, but always remembering that hard work builds strong bones. 

I found that people with Osteopenia (really anyone with bone density issues) have 3 main areas on their body where the major concern lies:  spine, hips, and wrists.  With my client, we are focusing on lunges and step-ups for her hips, squats for her spine, and a variety of presses for her wrists.  We also are using torso rotational exercises to strengthen her core and other exercises to improve and strengthen her balance. 

With these weight-bearing exercises I should distinguish one major criteria involved.  These movements should involve the athlete/exerciser pushing into the ground.  There has to be IMPACT, pushing their weight into the earth.  Unfortunately, people who hit the ellipticals and bikes do not get the same bone building benefits as people who run or do weight-bearing exercise.  IMPACT increases bone density.  There is a time and place for all modalities of fitness; so, if you have your doctor's or your own consent, push into the earth whenever possible.  If you can jump, jump...if you can run or sprint, do it, it you can move around a barbell, get after it.
With my client, we have found by really slowing down the tempo of the exercise that it maximizes the time under tension of her muscle tissue.  The time under tension also causes those bones to be under impact for that longer duration too.  This is something that we feel is beneficial for stimulating the production of more bone density for her.

So, remember, exercise makes the outside of your body look really good, but it also strengthens the framework on the inside too (Your Bones). And, this is a major important thing.
Have fun, move your body, be consistent with your exercise and good nutrition, and squeeze the people you love.