There have been quite a few good articles and blog posts I’ve come across this week, too many to cover here but if you keep an eye on our Facebook page you can see them all there.
First of all there was an interesting one by The Gait Guys, here, on how we require a stiff torso to generate power from our hips and shoulders. If we aren’t stiff through the torso and try to develop our power there then we can expect problems at some point. The point is made well in the video below by Dr Stuart McGill.
Following on from this Todd Hargrove talks about how there is little or no correlation between posture and back pain. Having said this he talks about how that this applies more to sitting about at work or at home rather than doing anything strenuous and I agree. Todd uses the example of lifting something heavy, running or jumping and in these examples posture does matter so that we spread the load as evenly as possible, reduce the chances of injury and, in sport, allow us to maximise performance.
Finally Mike Reinhold looks at how easing off in both general training and rehab can aid our progress. By taking time to ease off we allow for fuller recovery from the training or rehab sessions we’ve done to that point allowing adaptation to occur and thus progress to be made. How you do this can be accomplished in a number of ways and Mike mentions a couple. For general training if I’m interested in working hard I find that a 2 week on 1 week off program works well, This allows you to work very hard over the two weeks and then back off on the third week in both number and intensity of sessions you might do. You can also change the exercise selection during the easy week to further ease things up.
