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Resistance Key: Ideas and Considerations from the EQUIVITA staff May 2020

6/8/2020

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Ayurvedic Seasonal Influence and Resistance Work
In the world of Ayurveda, the understanding is that the seasons have an influence on us that we do well to work with/respond to in some form of harmony. We see this in intuitive lifestyle ways, getting hygge and eating soups and stews in the winter, being outdoors and playful picnicking with salads and fruits in the summer. 

We can also respond to seasonal changes through our exercise, harnessing an aspect of our lifestyle in a way that helps us feel in the flow. 

In the spring, the primary (or loudest) elements in nature are water and earth. That combination gives us lush plants and juiciness in the body; it can also create mud. These elements, when balanced, provide us with cohesiveness and stability. And along the lines of mud, these elemental influences can also tend to get us a little bogged down. So, how do we communicate with these elements within ourselves to help keep dynamic balance? 

In the realm of resistance training, that might look like building a little extra heat, warming up a little longer. It might be more repetition, whether within a set of exercises or the number of sets themselves. Possibly adding some pulsing in your movements, to disrupt stagnation or congestion. It might be a booty shaking dance break between exercises. (<—- I’m a fan of this one) 

This is a small window into our empowered options in our resistance work, and there are lots of other practices (yoga, pranayama, nutritional choices) that can support us in the different seasons. If you’d like to know more, let us know, and of course let us know what questions you have!

Warmly,
Carla ​

Reconditioning Required: moving rubber CAN make you stronger!
​


​So maybe I was a little resistant to resistance bands. I’ve been lifting for over half of my life. This girl learned she could lift heavy free weights back in the late 90’s, and she still loves to lift heavy weights. I feel strong -- in part because I move big weights. Being separated from free weights, while I would not choose this, I enjoy the environment of adaptation, so I took a tour through a host of home training tools. On this tour, resistance bands seemed to dominate in the world of the home workout gear of choice. Huh...Is that really tough? Can you really drive your muscles to adapt to more strength moving RUBBER?!

Now even the sturdiest of us, every now and then, wind up in ‘required reconditioning’ (perhaps from trying to impersonate David Lee Roth, or Gabby Douglas, or Wonder Woman). It was in times of injury, and small muscle stability work (think shoulder external rotation) that I relate to resistance bands. A therapy tool, a stretch buddy, or better awareness (or ability to isolate) of the small boring muscles that support the stability of something bigger and cooler—that’s the rap I gave ‘resistance bands'. I did not categorize resistance bands as a way to put on much muscle, but rather as a way to keep my muscles...well groomed.

Reconditioning required.

To build modest to beastly-light muscle power you need to demand (overload) more of your muscles than your muscles are used to so that the body will adapt to your demands. To review: the realization made by me, was that resistance bands were a solid option to the goal of BUILDING muscle, not to rehab it or stretch it, but BUILD IT.

Whether a free weight, body weight, or elastic tension, you have to have the same components to build muscle: resistance and overload (create tension on your muscles they are not use to), recovery, and progressive challenge to the strength adaptations of your body. So we can stress the muscle using resistance with gravity, an added weight (free weights or machines) or elastic tension. Sufficiently overloaded muscles will adapt over time, so they can manage the added stress. Bam! You just got stronger!

Free weights use loads and gravity to provide tension. Free weights are SWEET and you have to obey the laws of gravity...what a downer (😬🙄). Body weight work follows similar rules. The force will always be downward, so you have to position your body in a way that allows you to target your muscles correctly.

With resistance bands, the force is caused by elastic tension—the more you stretch the band, the more tension is created. This means you can target your muscles from any direction. FREEDOM!!!💥🦸 ♀ 💥 The freedom of position of the body helps the individual isolate a muscle group much easier than always having to be beholden to the downward force of gravity. Finally, resistance bands match our muscles natural strength curve, in that the strength of the band varies with range (more stretch = more resistance).

Most muscles increase in strength up to a certain point during a movement, after which they become weaker. When you use free weights you are limited in that you can only use a weight which your muscles are capable of moving in their weakest position--usually at the beginning of the movement. This means that when they are in their strongest position, they are not receiving an adequate level of resistance.

With elastics, the movement is easy at the beginning and progressively becomes more difficult. You get the highest level of resistance exactly where you need it most – the point at which the muscles are in their strongest position.

Where to start?

There are essentially 4 types of bands:
● Tube bands (we have those at EQUIVITA), then in that group ‘braided tube' -- the very popular TRX system is in that classification I believe.
● Flat loop bands
● Flat bands (like Thera band that the PT’s provide for stretching)
● Superbands (we have these at EQUIVITA), are big loop bands that are thick layered
latex.

If you have questions or epiphanies please email me at [email protected]

In good health,
Tami

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Determine the goal. Design the plan

6/8/2020

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I credit Neil Degrasse Tyson for this fabulous statement, "An approximation of a deeper truth". It took me so many years in the industry to understand the importance of this tool. And the perspective that for much of the time, the short story is enough. 

As an example, one day I was in a gym and one of the gym’s personal trainers was working with a couple of clients close to where I was lifting. One of the clients asked the trainer why he was instructing them to turn the palm up when doing bicep curls with dumbbells. The trainer responded by saying that is how you can get a fuller contraction of the bicep. And that was enough for the client. Now, this might not seem a shocker to you but it certainly made me think about the way that I would answer the question. The bicep muscle’s primary job is supination of the forearm (turning the palm up and out, so the pinky finger is closest to the shoulder), not bending of the elbow. Actually, for the greatest contraction of the bicep, you would want to put the shoulder into a flexed position while you bend the elbow and supinate the forearm. You cannot effectively do this with dumbbells because the pull of gravity would then be more through the elbow joint….and somewhere, probably before this point, is where the client just stopped listening.

The point to this is not about the bicep nor about how much I continually have to learn. Rather, the point is that relevance matters more than fact. For instance, it is a fact that your muscles need a day of rest after lifting. But that rest is only to ensure the muscle will rebuild from an intense enough exercise that caused damage to the muscle. If, however, you are doing exercise for the purpose of correcting postural imbalances, retraining biomechanics or even just mitigating muscle loss then taking the day of rest could actually work against your goals. 

From rehab to function to performance, the specifics of how you train the muscle depends on the goals that you are trying to achieve. Amount of resistance, type of resistance, speed of repetition, number of reps, length of rest, number of sets and frequency of exercise bouts are all considerations relative to your program. And all of these fall lower in priority than how you move your body to perform the exercise. To simplify, your goal is to activate the muscle with the appropriate dose to stimulate the desired response. Without focus on ensuring you are using the muscles that you are trying to get the response from, then your muscles will not be stimulated to give you the response you want. 

For the biceps, this means that just rotating your hand while lifting will not give you the greatest contraction of the bicep. You actually have to focus on contracting the bicep to make that movement in the right position for that response. But, if you never knew that there was a deeper truth or in this case something that would be more effective, you might never think to ask more and go deeper.  

While I know that not everyone has the fascination with the body that I have, I do believe that a greater understanding can enable people to be far more effective with the results they can achieve with their body.  

Determine the goal. Design the plan. Focus on form. And, as alway, let me know how I can help.

Adam
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    EQUIVITA

    This blog is written and updated by the staff that support EQUIVITA. Individual blog posts are the thoughts of the staff member that submitted the post.  The content of these posts often support the thoughts and ideas of our organization, but do not always(and we scarcely use definitives) reflect the same thoughts or ideas of the organization as a whole.

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