Today, we will be wrapping up our training series. This week we will put it all together by discussing how we take the principles that we have discussed to this point and utilize them in developing a training program.
Our first step in developing a training program is to determine the areas of priority which may include mobility, stability, strength, power, conditioning and/or balance. The first step in this process is understanding our client’s goals. The next step in this process is our assessment which includes a Functional Movement Screen (FMS) and a Y-Balance Test. Once completed, we take all of this data and develop an individualized plan for our client.
The first block of our training focuses on warming up and preparing the body for a workout with soft tissue and mobility work. We begin this block with foam rolling and stick work. There are multiple purposes to foam rolling and using a stick, some of which may be obvious and others that probably are not:
- Helps to activate our nervous system – the applied pressure from the foam roller helps to provide a stimulus to our nervous system helping to provide a wake up in preparation for our workout
- Increases blood flow to our muscles – the movement of the roll (or stick) in combination with the pressure helps to get fluid moving in our muscles, which helps to initiate blood flow to our muscles in preparation for our workout
- Helps improve muscle flexibility – the improvement in blood flow along with the pressure created by the foam roll (or stick) helps reduce muscle tension, helping to improve flexibility, which helps to improve joint mobility
Once we have completed rolling, we will move on to mobility work which focuses primarily on stretching, both static and dynamic, along with joint mobility drills. The primary areas of focus with mobility will typically be ankles, hips, and the thoracic spine, as functionally these regions favor mobility. In addition, these are the areas that are most commonly restricted or show a limited range of motion. The restriction of motion in the hips and thoracic spine often results from postural stress and prolonged static positioning, especially sitting. Our ankles frequently become limited as a result of wearing shoes and from the compression forces in the ankle associated with standing, walking, and running. It is important that we work to improve flexibility and joint mobility, prior to our workout as to move effectively through our strength patterns requires good mobility. In addition, good joint mobility is vital to good joint stability as there is a feedback system in our joints, that is dependent upon mobility to activate receptors in our joints called mechanoreceptors. These receptors than feedback to our brain through our nervous system, which provides information for the brain to understand where our joint is in space and how to activate local musculature around the joint to help stabilize it through movement. In other words, good joint mobility is necessary for good joint stability.
Many people will place mobility work at the end of their workout. We prefer placing it at the beginning of our workout to help prepare the body to workout, if we improve flexibility and mobility prior to stability and strength work, we have a better opportunity of maintaining these changes long term as we are teaching the body how to control the improved mobility during our stability and strengthening portion of our program. In addition, preparing your body for a workout should always be a priority and completed with every workout and never omitted because of limited time or the thought that it is not necessary. As a result, we like it being placed in the beginning which assures that we are getting it completed and it we find it better suited as a warm up to working out instead of a cool down from working out.
Following this block of our program, our next block will be focused on stabilization-based exercises and helping to get our stabilization systems primed and active in preparation for our workout. The primary areas of stability that we will target will be core stabilization and shoulder stability. Focusing on stabilization at this phase of our workout also helps to maintain the mobility gains that we worked on in our previous block. Mobility and stability work together, as good mobility is necessary to have good stability as discussed above and stability helps to maintain mobility gains, think of stability as hitting “save” on the document of mobility. This is also a huge factor in why it is important to work on mobility prior to stability as if we have not improved any mobility limitations prior to training stability, we will be training to maintain those limited ranges of motion. This is also a great benefit to functional training as we are not just focused on making you strong, but improving strength through a solid foundation of mobility and stability that we will work to correct any underlying issues prior to moving on to strengthening. In fact, starting to work into strength training prior to working to improve underlying mobility issues could actually further restrict mobility as increasing tissue tone through a restricted joint could very well further limit mobility. Research has also shown that if we perform stabilization-based exercises prior to strength or power-based training, we will better activate and properly use our stabilizing muscles during these exercises.
Moving ahead, our next block of training will focus on dynamic warm up, plyometrics, and power-based exercises. This block of training will be focused on the client’s level of training as this is the first block that we will increase exercise intensity with a focus on elevating heart rate and getting our muscles and nervous system activated and introduced to load. We like to put power-based exercises in this block as they often require lighter loads as they also require velocity and tend to be more metabolically demanding, which helps to get our heart rate elevated. We want to elevate the heart rate at this point in the workout to help with improving blood flow to our muscles, helping to get oxygen to the muscle improving energy production and carrying away metabolic waste. In addition to power-based exercises, we also use ladders and plyometrics such as box jumps, hurdle jumps, bounds, and med ball tosses.
Once all the above are completed, we are ready to go into our resistance and strengthening-based block. As previously discussed in our strength posts, we focus on strengthening patterns over parts with our programs. Since our focus is to improve functional strength while maintaining good stability and mobility, we prefer to use patterns where we will need to navigate gravity, which has a better carryover effect to our daily lives and activities compared to just building isolated strength. We tend to prioritize pushes and pulls for the upper body along with hinges and squats for the lower body, understanding that we can often train upper and lower body simultaneously through these patterns as well. In addition to these 4 foundational patterns, we will also incorporate the lunge, rotation, and locomotion (gait) into our training plans to incorporate the frontal (side-to-side) and transverse (rotational) planes. We incorporate many different tools for resistance with our strength portion of our programs including barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, and sandbags allowing us to utilize the best tool for the job as each of these has advantages at certain times and for certain exercises in a program. Our primary goal with our strength portion of our program is to make our clients “strong for life outside the gym and not just gym strong”.
Once our strength block is completed, we will move into our final block which is conditioning. During this block, we will focus on improving cardiovascular fitness. We will utilize sled work, the assault bike, and/or running/sprinting drills. Our focus during this phase of our program will be to help improve the efficiency of the heart in helping to improve its ability to pump blood to our muscles to assist with supplying oxygen for energy production and carrying away metabolic waste. This will lead to improved efficiency of our muscles to work with less fatigue and cramping.
For our clients who we need to work with balance we will incorporate balance work into their training plans, as previously discussed in our last post on balance.
In review, our training programs will include:
- Warm Up – Soft Tissue (foam rolling) & Mobility (stretching, joint mobility work)
- Stabilization
- Dynamic Warm Up, Plyometrics, & Power
- Resistance & Strength
- Conditioning
Whatever your training goals may be, we have a plan to help you reach those goals taking into consideration how to most effectively help you to reach those goals while minimizing your risk to injury with training and also keeping our focus on helping you to improve your functional fitness in place of just building strength and muscle. Building strength and muscle is often an important aspect of any training program, especially considering that we lose 10% of strength and 17% of power for every decade beyond 40. However, building accessible strength on top of sound mobility and stability will always be a priority over just building strength. Strength that is placed on top of good mobility and stability lends itself to being more appropriate in its ability to be applicable to our daily lives and activities. This is a big reason why our programs do not follow the traditional dedicating separate parts on separate days such as back and biceps day, chest and triceps day, etc. Though these programs can be effective for those who are interested in body building they do not allow our body to train in the way that we use muscles functionally. Some might say that our programs do not offer enough volume or load to muscles to allow for muscle growth or hypertrophy. However, this overlooks the fact that training in patterns adds volume to our muscles as we incorporate full body work into each of our movement patterns, which helps to add volume while also reducing our risk of overworking or overstressing our muscles to allow for better recovery between workout as well. So, rather than working muscles out once per week we are actually working them out multiple times per week when training full body workouts through patterns, while at the same time providing enough load to allow for adequate recovery to train them multiple times per week.
Understanding how to train can often become overwhelming or intimidating. Here at ChiroFitt, we strive to help reduce the anxiety associated with training by providing you with a comfortable environment and a staff of professionals who are here to assist you in building a program fit for you. We are able to adapt and modify your training plan as necessary to help you have the best response to your plan in working to reach your goals. We firmly believe that a proper fitness assessment is vital to your safety and an effective training plan, because “if you are not assessing, you are guessing.” We want to take the guess work out of it for you and help you live your best life. If you would like to take the opportunity to experience how we train in person, take the opportunity to schedule a No-Stress Fitness Strategy Session where you can come in and meet with us and go through our fitness assessment without any obligation, we feel that you deserve this opportunity to see what we can do for you.
Till Next Time…
