CLOSED TODAY DUE TO SNOW

While we are excited about our first snowfall of the season, we regret to inform you that we will be CLOSED today (Friday, 12/6) due to unsafe driving conditions. We will keep an eye out and let you know whether or not we will be open for our regular hours tomorrow (Saturday 12/7).
Have fun and be safe!

Pulling for Better Posture

Shoulders slumped, upper back rounded, neck tight… yes we have all been told to stand up straighter, but it’s not always that simple. Sitting too much, whether at a computer or on the couch, destroys posture. The muscles of the chest get tight and short. The upper traps and neck are just knots. Reaching the arm directly overhead is a challenge. These are the visible changes. The unseen are how the shoulder blades drift upwards because the muscles that attach them to the rib cage and mid-back are overstretched and so weak they can’t possibly resist the tightness of the traps and chest.

With the tightness in the neck, headaches are more common. The movement of the ribs and vertebrae are diminished making breathing harder.  And the strength imbalance between the chest and upper back leads to shoulder problems such as lack of range of motion or even tearing a rotator cuff playing softball for the company team.

We need the tight muscles to relax and to strengthen the weak muscles. This part is obvious, but how? Strain into good posture. There are two factors to consider, volume and intensity. Now, because the shoulder and neck muscles are always tight, we can’t match the volume, but we can use an intensity that brings the shoulders back.

Let’s define those terms. Volume is the total amount of work done in a specified period of time. Intensity is the percentage of the maximum force possible. Because those tight muscles are always on and creep into most movements, the volume of work they do is very large. However the intensity is relatively low.

This is why we “strain into good posture.” When the long and weak muscle start to get stronger they are better at providing a balancing force against the constant pull of the tight muscles. The exercises that we choose will depend on what caused the chronic tightness. But the general idea is to pull back and down.

Pulldowns can be great for this purpose. First we are working on overhead range of motion. The bottom position is sitting tall with shoulders down. However, often people try to go too low with the bar turning the last couple inches into a strange ab crunch movement. The exercise should end when the shoulders are down and elbows are resting at the side. Usually there will be an inch between the bar and chest at this point. This is ok.

Horizontal pulling movements are very powerful at improving posture. The upper back gets stronger and the chest gets opened up. If coached to sit tall with a line of action perpendicular to the torso, the upper traps can be limited, allowing for the mid back to be effectively trained. Many people carry a lot of tension in their shoulders and neck, teaching them to put the strain of the exercise in the opposing muscles can help reduce that.

Horizontal pulling works across multiple joints which makes it more complicated. The elbows need to close, the upper arms are pulled to the body, and the shoulder blades are pulled to the spine. Often the arms are better developed than the rest of the system. It is visually noticeable when the arms are over-powering the movement and the upper back is not being used. The hands will be pulled towards the center of the chest.

So what does this look like as part of an exercise program?

• ·         Foam Roll or Lacrosse Ball on the upper back and chest – This will take some of the tension from the muscles of the shoulder girdle. Getting these to relax will allow for better performance in pulling exercises. It may also break up scar tissue or adhesion that are holding the shoulders forward and up.

• ·         Warm-ups that teach pulling the shoulder blades back and down. Often those with desk posture loose this ability. Performing simple holds or light movements are necessary to recover this ability.

• ·         Select the right pulling exercise. When things are very tight overhead movements such as pulldowns might be more than what the shoulder joint can handle. Being that range of motion may be nowhere close to overhead. If this is the case, using horizontal pulling exercises is a good starting point.

• ·         Increase volume before intensity. The lower traps and rhomboids are underdeveloped muscles and will get stronger from any new stress. Each workout add more reps, sets, and eventually weight. Even small increases will develop a lot of new strength.

• ·         Do more pulling than pushing. Exercises such as bench press often will maintain the tightness that is already there. Doing double the work with pulling exercises will be effective at counteracting this. Try doing pulldowns and cable rows in the same workout.

• ·         Don’t strain into bad posture. If already hunched over doing endless sets of crunches will exacerbate the situation.

If you need help with this please give us a call.

Chris Squires

Owner, Cascade Peak Performance

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What We're Reading 10/1/13

Who Says You Can't Get After It at 80?  Short and sweet article by Tony Gentilcore outlining an 80 year old's journey from "You want me to do what?" to Strong.

A Simple Technique for Beating Blisters Another short one for on how to treat blisters.  This one is by Rob Panariello and was posted on Bret Contreras' blog.

Are Bulgarian Split Squats Superior to Regular Squats? This is a longer article comparing the dreaded bulgarian split squat with the barbell squat in terms of strength development.  Ben Bruno starts by discussing generally accepted concepts relating to the subject and follows it up with his own "experiments" with clients getting incredibly strong with both movements.  As with all the longer reads, I highly recommend this one.

Aging and Functional Decline

I used to be able to…
 

While playing, kids run, jump, climb, crawl, throw, and perform hundreds of other actions for hours without planning or worrying about overtraining. The volume of exercise, while non-specific, is tremendous. Unfortunately, once we get jobs, cars and other responsibilities the amount of general activity decreases substantially. Going from high activity to low activity is detraining.

Use it or lose it. Maintaining muscle and bone density is metabolically expensive-- unless it is being used regularly the body will break it down to repurpose the stored energy. The extreme example of this is the rapid atrophy that astronauts experience from going into space. In a zero-gravity environment, there is no physical stress on the body. Some of the first astronauts on longer trips had problems walking when they returned to earth.

The same thing happens when someone has very little daily activity. Our bodies are built to be physical. Sit in the car to go to work. Sit at a desk all day. Sit in the car to go home. Sit in front of the TV until it is time for bed. This is common. This provides little to no positive physical stress to the body. On the flip side, tennis players are one of the only examples of major bilateral bone density differences- the dominant arm can often have up to 20% more bone density due to repeated training and constant bone remodeling.

Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands

 image credit vinelandheritagehealth.com

If you sit all day, and your body gets very good at sitting. You don’t need much muscle or strength to plop on a couch. Bone density? Nope let’s get rid of that too. Cardiovascular conditioning? Haha... right, those stairs look like Mt. Everest.

Even worse, when one spends most of their waking hours sitting down the body starts to mold itself to a seated position. Shoulders slump forward. Hip flexors shorten. Abs no longer fire to stabilize the spine. This is the all too common “desk guy” posture.

The poor posture coupled with sedentary lifestyle is worse than being simply deconditioned. The lack of joint alignment predisposes one to injury, making even simple, every day movements inefficient and sometimes painful, thus harder to perform. The normal reaction to something being hard/painful is to do less of it. Moving less leads to further detraining and the cycle continues.

Well Now What?

The longer the period of low to no activity, the simpler the exercise program needs to be. Usually there are many aches and pains with origins that can be traced to poor posture. Range of motion for most joint actions is limited (i.e., arms can’t be held above the head, hips only move a few inches downwards before people collapse into a chair). This can be from not having the strength to support that movement or something is so tight that it prevents a joint action.

At Cascade Peak Performance, we start with foam rollers, lacrosse balls, and other items that can be very effective at improving range of motion and decreasing general achiness. These self massage techniques - or properly referred to as self myofascial release (SMR) – work by releasing knots in muscles and loosening the facial sheath that surrounds each muscle.

Next specific stretching and activation exercises are selected for each member’s program. The goal in this phase is to improve posture and range of motion. Depending on a client’s conditioning level this may allow them to do normal physical activity, or if they have had a longer period of inactivity special programming might still be needed.

Finally exercises are chosen to develop strength over the new range of motion. If this is not done mobility is not improved. In fact, expanding range of motion but not developing strength to support it can lead to injuries.

Well What Does That Mean?

When someone wants to get back in shape but hasn’t been active in years it is still possible, it just requires a different approach. When someone is healthy and carrying a few extra pounds changes to food intake and activity levels can produce the desired weight loss. This is not the case with the deconditioned. They no longer have the ability to expend much energy (lack of muscle, and can’t do anything for more than a minute or two). They get injured very easily or are already injured. All this is very discouraging. They have to exercise, but jumping into any regular activity leaves them exhausted and broken.

Start Small

For some this might mean only doing a couple of workouts each week that focus on SMR, specific stretches and activation exercises (essentially come into the gym and warm-up), and only a few strength exercises. Over time the emphasis of the workout shifts from most of the hour dedicated to the warm-up to primarily strength exercises (40min warm-up:15min strength to 20min warm-up:35min strength). On non-gym days increasing daily activity level such as only sitting for 12 hours a day instead of 15 hours.

With range of motion increasing along with strength, the workouts can become more intense and more frequent. The body also becomes better at expending calories so the original weight loss goals are now more possible. Slow progressions in intensity and difficulty of exercise need to be observed. Continuous small improvements need to be the goal, not fixing everything at once.

It’s Not That You Are Getting Older

Recovery rates are slower. The tissues of the body become less pliable. But that’s not why you can’t move. Not moving took it away. With the correct exercise programing, virtually anyone can get stronger and move better regardless of age. At Cascade Peak Performance we have helped many people in their 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s do exactly that. Age is not the limiting factor some think that it is. Nor should it be used as an excuse for not living the active lifestyle that you want.

So you want to lose weight?

There is so much information on how to lose weight. Headlines from magazines, stories in the news all bombard us with magic pills at promises of effortless results. Most of it is junk. Some of it is just confusing. Follow this list to drop unwanted pounds and inches. Start from the top and work down. Missing one of the steps can slow or stop progress.

Stop eating junk

I know it tastes good, but this is an easy way to start. Dessert, fancy coffees, alcohol… whatever junk that you can drop, removing those calories (often sugar loaded) will drop a few pounds.

Want to drop a few more?

Add daily exercise. Whatever you enjoy and will do regularly without too much protest. Burn some calories, improve energy and mood. It will also keep you away from the fridge.

Not at your goal yet?

Cut calories. For most people, take goal weight and multiply by 10 (i.e. 140lbs * 10 = 1400cal) dropping below 10 calories per pound of goal weight isn’t sustainable. It can slow down your metabolism, and often leads to bingeing.

Next

Add 2-3 days of total body resistance training every week. This will support muscle (which burns more energy) helping you move better and tighten-up.

Want more?

Limit starchy carbs to a 1-2 hour window around harder workouts. The rest of the day, focus on quality proteins and veggies.

If you have time

Add interval based conditioning. This can be as simple as run a block, walk a block or a conditioning circuit in a gym.

Magic Pill

Let me know if you find one.

This is not a complete program, but it will work for most people most of the time. Often people do well at a few of the points, and awful with one or two. This situation can be frustrating. The person might just focus on the changes that have been made, ignore the limiting factors that still exist, then claim that what they are doing just doesn’t work or that they just can’t lose weight. Remove the limiting factors to remove the weight.

Please come see us at Cascade Peak Performance in Springfield if you need help with these or anything else regarding your fitness goals.

What We're Reading 9/7/13

Today we have a couple short ones and a long boring one!

 Easy Thai Chicken Meatballs - Easy recipe with just a few ingredients by Colin Richmond.

Cleaning Up Kettlebell Swing Technique -  Tony Gentilcore puts together a couple quick, easy to implement fixes for the kettlebell swing.

Research Review: Older and Inflamed? Try Exercise - This is a longer article with quite a bit of anatomy terminology, but of the three I chose this week, this one was easily my favorite.  The title of this article written by Helen Kollias as accurate of a synopsis as you're gonna get so I won't spoil anything else for you.  Read it!

Labor Day Hours

The gym will be open 8am-6pm tomorrow, 9/2/13, for Labor Day. Have a happy and safe holiday. Drop in and get a workout before the last barbeque of summer.

Articles for Thought 8/30/13

Part of our job here at Cascade Peak Performance is to sift through the vast amounts of health and fitness information that bombards us on a daily basis.  Here are a few articles that we have found particularly interesting.

Does Your Program Match Your Goals? Part 1 - In the first part of this article, Molly Galbraith explores the drawbacks a few popular programs people explore when starting on a fitness program to reach an aesthetic goal.

Does Your Program Match Your Goal? Part 2 - The second part of Molly Galbraith's article offers tips to guide those who are new to fitness in the right direction.

Expose Your Weaknesses to Get Strong! - Bret "the Glute Guy" Contreras writes about the benefits of focusing on your weaknesses.  Lifting weights isn't about moving as much weight as possible every time you're in the gym. Leaving your ego at the door, dropping the poundages, and hitting those movements you may not like can help you out quite a bit in the long run.

July 4th

We will be open from 9am to 2:30pm.

New Hours

Starting in July Cascade Peak Performance will be expanding our hours. The new hours are open at 6am and close at 8pm during the week, and Saturday we will be open from 8am to 1pm. Sunday will still be closed, which is alright cause you probably shouldn't workout everyday.

Daily Burn

We are doing something new at Cascade Peak Performance. Everyday there will be a conditioning workout on the board. The goal is to make it easier for CPP members to get workouts in on none lifting days. And of course non members are welcome to drop in for the Daily Burn.

Today's workout: 5 Sprints down and back, 10 medicine ball slams, 5 reps Lunge Matrix (forward lunge, side lunge, reverse lunge), 10 bodyweight rows, 10 Squat Thrusts..... This will be done for 5-10 rounds.

Exercising With Back Pain

Back pain is the worst. It’s the dead center of the body, truly un-escapable. Lying down, sitting, standing, usually all hurt. For any other body-part, there would still be a few comfortable positions. Even rolling over at night leaves it aching worse.

Because it hurts to do everything, most stop doing anything. Pain is demoralizing. Trading your favorite activities for struggling at simple tasks sucks. But if you don’t fight it’s only going to get worse.

What’s the Problem?

First get it checked out by a qualified medical professional. Understanding the problem is crucial for developing your path out of pain. Every injury is different.

Eat Better

Certainly there is the obvious fact that dropping weight takes pressure off the spine. There are other reasons to eat better.  Nutritious foods will help the body heal quicker. They also support a better energy level. Tired people are less motivated to get off the couch. Additionally, properly nourished tissues are better able to do what they are supposed to do (support your skeleton).

Avoid

Exercises that have jarring impacts, the body can’t absorb these very well. Running with heel strikes is a great example. When the heel hits the ground, the vibrations are sent into the skeleton. It has to end up somewhere. And if your back is already tight, this will only make it worse.

Bending and twisting the spine under load will often re-aggravate issues. Most classic sit-up variations fit this description. This puts uneven pressure on the disc (think squeezing one end of a ketchup packet).

Exercising too hard will restart the pain. Fatigue decreases quality of movement. The lower back will re-tighten. That exercise session now went from a positive to a negative.

What to Do

Maintain the natural curve of the spine while exercising. Whether standing or doing a push-up, this alignment will reduce the chance of irritation. Better yet, doing this regularly will make the muscles required to maintain this position stronger.

Get the hips and abs stronger. Any glute bridging or plank position can do this. Often times these areas are very weak in people with chronic back pain. The next step would do other exercises (pushing or pulling) in a half kneeling position. This will help the hips and abs work together, removing strain from the lower back.

A quality strength training program can help many people live with and possibly move past a back injury.

Memorial Day hours will be 8am to 5pm. The metabolic conditioning class will be moved fro 7pm to 4pm.

Heavy Bag is Up

New Squat Rack

Check it out HERE

Precision Nutrition Certification

I am always looking to get better at helping people achieve lasting results. This certification will add a great amount of depth to what we offer at Cascade Peak Performance. It will take me 2-3 months to finish the program, but there should be plenty that can be implemented at CPP right away.

From the Precision Nutrition's site:

The Certification Program: Nutrition Education for Elite Fitness Professionals.

The Precision Nutrition Certification Program trains you to change and improve the nutrition habits of any client with any goal — whether beginner or advanced. We've designed the certification's hands-on information, strategies, and tools for you to use immediately in your own personal training or strength coaching practice.

First, we teach you the essential science of sport and exercise nutrition: cellular biology, digestion, metabolism, macronutrients, micronutrients. If you need to know it as a coach, we teach it in the cert.

Then, we teach you exactly how to add nutrition coaching to your work in the gym to guide an exercising client to their optimal physique. You'll learn a system for influencing the nutrition habits of any client, with any goal, beginners and advanced alike.

Eugene Marathon 5K Program

Eugene Marathon 5K Program

               A six week program with weekly meetings designed to help runners and non-runners prepare for the 5k portion of the Eugene marathon.  Program starts Monday, March 18th at 5:30 pm. There will be a bonus meeting on the 11th for early enrollees.

When:  March 18^th- April 22^nd every Monday.

Cost: $30 signup by March 18^th

Time: 5:30 pm

Where: Meetings will be held at Cascade Peak Performance, 824 Q Street in Springfield.

What: 30 minute meetings discussing topics to and exercise (runs) with progressive intensities and durations to get you prepared for the 5k.

Who: Inexperienced and/or beginning runners who have or are thinking about signing up for the 5k. People who are unsure how to properly begin a training program and feel like a support program with proper coaching would help them. 

To reserve your spot call us at 541-636-5421 or send us an email to cascadepeakperformance@gmail.com

Special Offer: The first 5 people to share this blog post on Facebook will have their sign-up fee waived. (let us know that you shared it facebook privacy settings don't always show us who did)

We got a Landmine!

I've wanted one of these for years, and will be experimenting with the landmine for the next couple weeks. The landmine is a bar sleeve attached to a universal joint that allows for 3 dimensional movement with a fixed base. Without the landmine, the only way to simulate this is putting the end of the bar in a corner. This works ok, but usually damages the wall.

This new toy will be great for modified pressing variations that people with shoulder issues can do sooner in their programs. For the more athletic individuals we can do some advanced rotary training. Additionally, we can do heavy rows with experienced lifters. There is always something new at Cascade Peak Performance, come see us if your workouts are getting stale.

Nutrition Seminar Tuesday the 26th

Cascade Peak Performance will be hosting "Healthy Eating Made Simple" February 26th at 6pm. This free seminar will focus on clearing up myths and half-truths on clean eating. You will also learn easy ways to incorporate healthy choices into your daily routine. The presentation should be 20-30 minutes with a Q&A session to follow.

What Chris is Reading

 



I liked this book. It had many good, actionable points on why we fail to do what we intend to do. A few of my favorite were:

· Being able to forgive yourself after giving into temptation will help end the cycle of self-destruction much faster than beating yourself up about it.

· Understand the entire experience of cravings and urges to identify your triggers.

· When one person in a group makes a lifestyle change (positive or negative) others in the group are likely to follow.

Overall, a good, easily accessible read.

How to Move Better

Monday we do chest, Tuesday we train back, Wednesday its shoulders…

If you have built a solid base after years of training and your primary focus is looking good naked, this can be a reasonable lifting split. But what about everybody else? Could there be a more effective way to reach most fitness goals?

The lifting split above focuses on muscles. Many on this will train the upper body 3-4 times in a week, while only training the lower body 1-2 times each week. The greater amount of upper body training could make one the stereotype big guy with chicken legs. This split also doesn’t burn as much energy as total body training does.

For someone new to fitness it lacks something else that is important. It doesn’t do much to help you move better. Sure there are probably some good exercises in that plan, but what if we focused on moving better?

A movement pattern is a skill. It starts in the brain, and requires all the associated joints and muscles to do specific actions in proper order. Starting from this we can define a few general patterns that cover the majority of human movement:

·         Squat

·         Bend at the Waist

·         Push with the Arms

·         Pull with the Arms

·         Walking/Running

Children have these hard wired, and through play they get better at moving. Unfortunately, most of us stop playing and sit. Inactivity destroys these skills. Movement becomes harder. This negative cycle keeps us sitting.

Injuries or asking the body to do something that it is not capable of doing alters or destroys the correct patterns which are replaced with a dysfunctional pattern. In the short term this is great. If we break a leg normal walking isn’t going to happen. With enough motivation (perhaps a hungry bear chasing us) we can still find a way to move. This is called a compensation pattern. In the long term compensation patterns do harm.

The human body is meant to move in specific ways. When it doesn’t, pain and unnecessary wear and tear can happen. People that have had back problems understand this well, bending at the waist now hurts and can re-aggravate the injury.

When someone new comes into Cascade Peak Performance, we use the Functional Movement Screen to assess how they move. Any faulty movement patterns we find can now be addressed in that person’s program.

For example, a faulty squat pattern there is likely to be a combination of tightness and weakness issues. Improving the active range of motion of the hips and ankles will help. Limitations in both joints can have a large effect on squatting. Next we practice the movement or simpler versions of the movement. Using a supported or partial range of motion can make it easy enough for any trainee to preform correctly.

As the corrected movement pattern improves intensity can be increased. Bending at the waist highlights this. If in the gym we only used bodyweight exercises to retrain that movement, what would happen when picking up a box off the ground? Load has now been applied to bending at the waist, but the new correct pattern will fail because it has not been prepared for that intensity. Without being trained to handle any loading, the faulty pattern takes over and the problems that it caused return.

Ignoring the importance of movement patterns makes getting in shape much harder than it needs to be. Poor movement causes unnecessary strain, pain and fatigue. Exercise becomes a bad experience opposed to the uplifting and energizing activity that it should be. Avoid this by identifying problems at the start of a fitness program. Rebuild and retrain healthy movement. Then get as strong as possible.