Injuries - take control

Since I’ve been working as a PT I’ve seen a lot of clients with long-term injuries. Some of them have been nursing injuries for years, the attitude being: “well, I’m getting old, what can I expect?”

It never ceases to surprise me that people will accept something that decreases their quality of life, disabling them for a lot of activities rather than finding out what they can do about it.

When I had cartilage removed from my knee about 17 months ago the first thing I wanted to know was how soon could I squat again. My surgeon, for all his awesomeness as a surgeon wasn’t great shakes as a weightlifting coach and told me “never”. Instead of following the advice of someone who had clearly never set foot in a gym before, much less  move a barbell around, I did as much research as I could within the weightlifting community: online, first-person and from a sports physiotherapist. I now squat as much as I did before the op, without pain.

If you have an injury, there’s no need to let it change your life forever. Speak to a professional. Find out what kind of training you should be doing to get back to your peak performance. Unless your doctor is a sporty type of person, I’d say ignore him or her and go straight to a physiotherapist for useful, realistic advice.

I like the people at Edinburgh University Centre of Sport and Exercise:

http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/sport-exercise/fasic/services/physiotherapy

 Expect to pay about £35 per session. Think about it: If you don’t look after your body - where are you going to live?

Mercy

Nothing new here

Getting strong and fit is no secret.  Your ancestors knew how to do it, but nowadays it's all smoke and mirrors, adverts, endorsements and false promises.  It's a billion dollar industry that consists of reinventing the wheel. Work hard, pick up heavy stuff and move it. That's what you need to do. Look at everything Arnie ever wrote - bench press, squat, overhead press and deadlift.  What tends to happen in traditional gyms is that most people feel the need to fill their workouts with stuff that won't yield results. Go to the gym, do some full depth, heavy squats and then guess what?  Get home, eat and sleep.  You don't need to be working calve raises or leg extensions yet.  Master the basic 'macro' strength moves before you try and specialise in the more localised areas of the body. Can you squat heavy? Are your legs bursting out their skin?  If the answer is no, and you aren't at that level, then you don't need to waste your time the other leg machines. Practice your squats. Get your form in order. Get to where you can do a full deep squat below parallel, then build up the weight slowly. For clarity here, you will know if this piece is aimed at you.  I know plenty of people that train who do need to do all the ancillary lifts to keep their already established physiques, but most gyms are bursting at the seams with people who don't.  

Health publications do little to help and educate.  If they did then they wouldn't really be in business. If you are looking for some advice on hard work then check out CT Fletcher on YouTube.  Check out his work ethic and what he says about training hard. You don't need fancy kit, you just need the basics.  Look at the CrossFit idea - squat, deadlift, press - it's all the same thing.  Now, if you want to add a conditioning element then CrossFit is good for you.  If you want to be a bodybuilder your conditioning will follow a different model.  Again, if you are a power lifter then is conditioning a massive part of what you need?  What you want to do is the see the commonalities and just work hard on the basics.  Build a solid foundation and you can't go wrong.  

Ripped is the new skinny

I’ve noticed lately that some of my Facebook friends like to post inspirational pics of fiercely ripped women lifting serious weights while wearing insufficiently supportive sports garments (see link). These pics are usually accompanied with bullying, if trite slogans: “Good things come to those who work their asses off”;  “If you’re tired of starting over, stop giving up”. Unlike said friends, I’ve never found those images particularly inspiring and frequently hide them so I can continue with my day, unirritated.

What’s my problem? Being strong may be better than striving to be simply skinny, but being fitness-model ripped isn’t necessarily the healthiest place to be either. 

My beef with fitness models is that they tout an impossible ideal. What isn’t clear from the photos is that they represent a moment in time which is completely unsustainable in the long term. To appear ripped you have to have less than 19 per cent body fat. To maintain a super low body fat percentage you probably aren’t going to be eating enough to feed your muscles and make gains.

For me, lifting is about challenging myself and understanding my body in a way that transcends all the patriarchal crap sent our way daily by way of advertising, and popular media. I don’t train to be bench Barbie, I train because it makes me feel invincible. The numbers that matter to me aren’t my chest, waist and hip measurements but my bench, squat, and deadlift kgs.

Mercy

http://www.dumpaday.com/random-pictures/the-best-motivational-fitness-quotes-28-pics/