Proper equipment is an essential part of any athlete’s performance arsenal. This statement is no less true for a runner who, in the grand scheme of sport athletes, has very little equipment to contend with. A runner’s shoes, however, are an integral part of their success and consistency capabilities for running. No matter what your distance as a runner from 100 meters to 100 miles, your shoe is the only buffer your body has with the ground besides the natural impact reduction capabilities of your body. Your body is designed to disperse the stresses of impact with every step and you need to make sure you have a shoe which encourages and even assists this dispersal rather than hinders it.
The first thing a runner needs to know about shoes is that only designated running shoes are actually designed for running. There is quite a bit of biomechanical engineering that goes into the design of any shoe and running shoes receive perhaps the most technical attention due to the brevity of their use. If you run on a track frequently, you should own track shoes, if you run long distances, you should own distance running shoes. Not doing so is just offering your body up to injury for an entirely fixable reason.
The body is actually designed to run without shoes and a some cultures in the world still operate almost entirely in this manner. If a developing child never wears shoes, their feet will become externally tough yet internally extremely mobile allowing for that proper absorption of the forces of walking and running. Shoes were originally designed and are still necessary for foot protection in a modern world. They protect from the elements, from objects on the ground, and from impact with external structures (no stubbed toes). Since your body was designed to run without shoes, shoes which you do wear should impede this design as little as possible. The first thing to remember when you look for running shoes is - you should never have to “break in” running shoes. They should be instantly comfortable and impede your movement minimally. If you so much as feel a chafing of your ankle or your toes occasionally touch the sides or end of the shoe upper, you need a different pair of shoes.
Because of aesthetics, many people make poor decisions when purchasing new shoes. There are types of shoes, like high heels, which our bodies were never meant to wear. Heels are unfortunately societally attractive, but extremely detrimental to the body of the wearer. In the same vain, people will sometimes buy running shoes for their appearance rather than their fit. Just because you like the look of a shoe doesn’t mean that shoe is good for you! Buying shoes that are too small or have awkward stability is a bad idea if you actually want to wear them frequently or during activity. Make sure none of your toes touch the end of your shoe. If they do, this restriction will impede the ability of your foot to properly propel you forward and absorb the shock of impact with the ground - whether you are running or walking.
Be careful of arch support. Depending on your foot structure, too little arch support will force your foot to flatten out too much and you will strain structures of the foot and lower leg. Too much arch support my restrict the ability of your foot to flatten properly and thereby causing the opposite problem of the former situation. Again, the shoe should feel immediately comfortable when you put it on. You shouldn’t feel like you have an arch support lump in the middle of your foot, nor should the shoe sag to the inside because of too little support.
The final thing to keep in mind about running shoes is that they need to be replaced. If you are going to use your shoes for impact exercise like running on a regular basis, you will need to replace your shoes at least once a year. If you have high mileage goals in your running routine you will need to replace your shoes much more often, perhaps as frequently as every three months. The reason for this is simple physics. The material that is used to make the soles of running shoes starts as a liquid. Over time, liquid evaporates and becomes more solid. In the case of running shoe soles, this means the cushion part of the shoe becomes harder and harder over their life span. For this reason it is also not a good idea to buy shoes that have been sitting on a shelf for more than a year. Try to buy current models of shoe. These shoes are generally more expensive but the cost of the shoe will outweigh the cost of recovery from an overuse injury you will most likely incur as a result of poor equipment.
Probably the best way to select running shoes is to go to a premium store where the staff members can do a custom gate fitting for your body. These professionals fit shoes every day and take a lot of time matching different body types and foot configurations to different types of shoes. This kind of service is expensive, but if you are a serious runner, it is extremely important. If you are simply running for recreation you still need properly fitting shoes and you should follow the guidelines of size and comfort I have mentioned previously. When making your purchase, consider how you plan on using these new shoes. If you are only wearing them to walk around a gym and perhaps do some strength training, you shoes won’t affect your performance too much and a cheaper option is viable. If, however, you are planning to wear the shoe frequently and get a lot of use out of it for cross-training or running, it is in your interest to spend a little more to get the proper fit and remove yourself from the possibility of equipment injury.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Friday, January 11, 2008
Defining PAIN
Pain. Nearly everyone has it at some point in their life. (There is a medical condition with which a person cannot feel physical pain but this is very rare). Whether that pain is from over activity or lack of activity, pain is the tactile response the body gives your brain to signify when something is amiss. Although it is uncomfortable, the existence of pain is usually a good thing. Pain signifies that your body is functioning properly and it knows when it has worked too much or too little. If part of your body is in pain, it is not the end of the world, and rather than be avoided, pain should be embraced as a signal from your body to change something. Not that one should try to induce pain upon themselves! Pain is still a signal that something is wrong or was wrong with the body and needs attention, not exacerbation.
Pain comes in many different forms that we can describe in different ways. The feel of different types of pain often signify different things. If you pinch yourself, you receive one kind of pain, if you get your hand caught in a door, you feel a different kind of pain, if you get hit or scraped or burned - all of these induce slightly different negative feelings which we can categorize as pain. Usually when we have pain from an external wound, we can identify the source and the reason for the pain - we can see it. The hard part is taking this understanding of pain and recognizing signals of internal pain as well.
Pain on your skin and pain within your body is actually very similar. In both cases, you can feel burning, tingling, pressure, sharpness, and nagging ache. We can see the source of any one of these pains on the surface, but it is much more difficult to identify the sources inside your body. So lets go through some types of pain and what these various pains could mean. NOTE!!!! If you are injured and any kind of pain persists beyond your control, you should not try to self-diagnose any malady you may have. Defining pain doesn’t mean you can cure it! You should seek professional assistance for any pain you cannot safely manage yourself but by defining the pain, you can give that medical or health professional a better understanding of what may be going on in your body.
The most common source of pain at any point in the body from arthritis to tendonitis to heart attack is swelling. Swelling is just an increase in blood flow and fluid movement within a certain area. All of the pain signals described above can be the result of some sort of swelling or inflammation. When your body is injured it will try to send more blood and healing fluids to that injured site to help in the repair process. The collection of fluid hurts - sometimes a little or sometimes a lot, but it will always hurt. Medical jargon defines swelling in confusing ways - edema, any word that ends in “-itis” - but ultimately it is all swelling and can be treated to some extent through simple maintenance procedures.
Now that we understand there are different types of pain, the next step is to understand what different types of pain may mean. Again, all pains could ultimately be the result of inflammation, but some locations of inflammation is more dangerous than others (like in the heart). Here, I’ll describe the different types of pain you could experience from physical activity as in a fitness gym.
D.O.M.S. - DOMS, or Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness is actually one type of pain that doesn’t necessarily come from inflammation, however you experience it quite frequently after periods of high activity. DOMS is the normal result of a workout in the gym, shoveling snow, doing a difficult hike, or any other activity you haven’t engaged in for a while. DOMS occurs within the belly of the muscles, that is, not in and around joints, and not near internal organs. You don’t get DOMS in your elbow, nor would you experience DOMS in your pancreas. To be honest, the health industry is still not sure exactly what the direct cause of DOMS is, other than to recognize that the pain experienced from DOMS is not an indication of injury, merely an indication of fatigue. If you don’t feel DOMS once in a while in the day or two after your workout, you may not be working quite hard enough. On the other hand, if you experience this type of soreness for five days or more, you may have overdone it a little bit.
Ache - The word ache is almost synonymous with soreness. Ache is essentially the feeling one would use to describe the feeling of DOMS within the muscle. Ache is also frequently associated with conditions like tendonitis, arthritis, fasciitis ... notice all the “-itises”. NOTE: a headache is not usually a condition of physical strain and should be considered differently than other aches in the body. A headache may, however, evolve from other aches within the neck, back or shoulders. Ache is often the result of simple lack of movement or over movement of a particular structure. Aches are usually most evident when the body is or has been at rest for an extended period of time like after sitting or sleeping. Aches are often affected greatly by weather conditions and barometric pressures. The “ache” pain can frequently be alleviated with mild movement of the afflicted area. General simple activity which increases blood flow and allows tissues to move properly like taking a walk or doing some other mild exercise for over 5 or 10 minutes time will often help relieve the ache feeling. The ache will return, however, when the body has cooled and slowed its metabolic processes. Ache in organs should not be overlooked for more than a few days as it could be indication of a greater problem. Aches which occur in joints and other parts of the extremities shouldn’t last much more than a week or two. Again if they continue, seek professional examination.
Burning - Burning is kind of an odd pain. Burning feeling can result from both the feeling of too hot, but can also be the result of feeling too cold. Anyone who has been skiing in thin socks knows this. The sensation of burning isn’t necessarily a heat related response (although it is frequently) but rather another indication of something wrong with your body. If you touch something too hot or too cold for long enough you will feel burning, but the same kind of sensation can occur on the inside of your body as well. Unless you have a fever, your internal temperature doesn’t rise or fall much past the well known 98.6°F, so burning isn’t usually in response to a major temperature change. Rather burning is usually inflammation again often caused by chafing. Not so much the type of chafing you would experience from sitting on a horse saddle too long, but rather the chafing of one structure (like a tendon) over another (like a bone). NOTE: Persistent burning in and around your chest cavity or stomach can be indication of a serious problem! Contact emergency personnel immediately if this type of burning reaches and unbearable state or doesn’t diminish within a few hours! Burning in and around your joints is more common after exercise. Burning in your muscles is common during exercise. The burning in your muscles is actually necessary and is cause by acid which your body creates in response to using energy. If you are trying to strengthen muscles and they don’t burn, they aren’t being strengthened. Burning in and around joints is often related to another -itis. Usually an -itis like burn is not exclusive, however and will be accompanied by other sensations like tingling or numbness which we will discuss later.
Pressure - This is an odd sensation. Pressure doesn’t necessarily always hurt. Sometimes more serious injuries such as a broken bone or impaling will initially feel like pure pressure for a moment before other pain receptors alert you to the fact there is something really wrong. Pressure is often associated with aching when it does start to hurt but can lead to a very intense pain if the pressure persists and grows. Pressure, of course, can also be a sign of inflammation due to an excess of fluid in a certain area, but if a pressure sensation does persist and increase to unbearable levels, seek emergency help immediately! Pressure isn’t usually used to describe injuries unless they are injuries of inactivity. Someone may feel a pressure or stiffness in certain areas due to a lack of movement as opposed to excessive movement. This sort of pressure, like aching, may be alleviated with mild repetitive movement or stretching, but is not usually detrimental to the structure feeling the pressure. Rather it is another one of your bodies indicators that something is amiss.
Sharpness - Sharpness is the most cut and dry kind of pain. If you feel sharp pain, usually your body will react without your conscious control to alleviate that pain as quickly as possible. Sharp pains are rarely indications of minor maladies and should not be overlooked. Rather than “-itis”, sharp pain is more often associated with words like tear, break, or rupture. Much more gruesome sounding words for much more serious injuries. Sometimes sharp pains happen within a very specific range of movement and can be avoided, but unfortunately, the body can rarely heal the cause of a sharp pain without some kind of medical help. Sharp pains frequently require minor surgery to remove and can be the cause of greater problems if they are not addressed promptly. Your body will compensate to avoid the sharp pain, thereby creating some other imbalance in your structure which will most likely initiate a whole new pain in time.
Tingling or Numbness - Tingling or numbness are probably the most fickle of all pain feelings mostly because they don’t actually hurt. Tingling is not usually excruciating and numbness simply means lack of feeling period so there is no pain associated. These two sensations are, however, indicative of the most potentially dangerous conditions. All pain is a recognition and response of the nervous system. Tingling or numbness, on the other hand, frequently means that the nervous capability of the associated part is being restricted or completely cut off. Numbness should never be overlooked - even if it afflicts only a few fingers or toes because this could be a strong indication that something is wrong in some other part of your body - not necessarily the finger or toe that feels nothing. Tingling is more like a severe warning. If you feel tingling doing a certain activity and continue with that activity, there is a good chance you can do irreparable damage to some part of your body. Tingling is often felt in tendonitis in the knee or foot from activities like heavy weight lifting or running. If you persist with the activity that causes this tingling, the sensation will never go away and eventually the structure causing the sensation will break down and cease to function properly. If you have persistent numbness or tingling of any part of your body over a few weeks, seek medical advice.
No pain should be taken lightly. That being said, not all pains are an indication that something is injured. The muscle burning found in exercise is actually a good pain and one that should be sought during training activity. Burning in joints is a different circumstance, though, and must be addressed. If you have pain, pay attention to it. Thats what it is there for. Some part of your body is uncomfortable for some reason and wants to be noticed. Take note of how the pain started: What you were doing? What time of day? Was it consistently before or after a particular activity? Did it persist? Does it increase or decrease with activity? How bad is the pain? Can I make it worse? Can I make it better? These are all questions to ask yourself and tell your health professional the answers to these questions if you happen to seek ones advice. Most minor pains can be reduced and sometimes removed with the help of anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprophen or Aspirin and application of ice to the afflicted area. Major or consistent pains should not be overlooked and need to be addressed before irreparable damage is incurred. Most of all, listen to your body - pain is it’s way of talking to you!
Pain comes in many different forms that we can describe in different ways. The feel of different types of pain often signify different things. If you pinch yourself, you receive one kind of pain, if you get your hand caught in a door, you feel a different kind of pain, if you get hit or scraped or burned - all of these induce slightly different negative feelings which we can categorize as pain. Usually when we have pain from an external wound, we can identify the source and the reason for the pain - we can see it. The hard part is taking this understanding of pain and recognizing signals of internal pain as well.
Pain on your skin and pain within your body is actually very similar. In both cases, you can feel burning, tingling, pressure, sharpness, and nagging ache. We can see the source of any one of these pains on the surface, but it is much more difficult to identify the sources inside your body. So lets go through some types of pain and what these various pains could mean. NOTE!!!! If you are injured and any kind of pain persists beyond your control, you should not try to self-diagnose any malady you may have. Defining pain doesn’t mean you can cure it! You should seek professional assistance for any pain you cannot safely manage yourself but by defining the pain, you can give that medical or health professional a better understanding of what may be going on in your body.
The most common source of pain at any point in the body from arthritis to tendonitis to heart attack is swelling. Swelling is just an increase in blood flow and fluid movement within a certain area. All of the pain signals described above can be the result of some sort of swelling or inflammation. When your body is injured it will try to send more blood and healing fluids to that injured site to help in the repair process. The collection of fluid hurts - sometimes a little or sometimes a lot, but it will always hurt. Medical jargon defines swelling in confusing ways - edema, any word that ends in “-itis” - but ultimately it is all swelling and can be treated to some extent through simple maintenance procedures.
Now that we understand there are different types of pain, the next step is to understand what different types of pain may mean. Again, all pains could ultimately be the result of inflammation, but some locations of inflammation is more dangerous than others (like in the heart). Here, I’ll describe the different types of pain you could experience from physical activity as in a fitness gym.
D.O.M.S. - DOMS, or Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness is actually one type of pain that doesn’t necessarily come from inflammation, however you experience it quite frequently after periods of high activity. DOMS is the normal result of a workout in the gym, shoveling snow, doing a difficult hike, or any other activity you haven’t engaged in for a while. DOMS occurs within the belly of the muscles, that is, not in and around joints, and not near internal organs. You don’t get DOMS in your elbow, nor would you experience DOMS in your pancreas. To be honest, the health industry is still not sure exactly what the direct cause of DOMS is, other than to recognize that the pain experienced from DOMS is not an indication of injury, merely an indication of fatigue. If you don’t feel DOMS once in a while in the day or two after your workout, you may not be working quite hard enough. On the other hand, if you experience this type of soreness for five days or more, you may have overdone it a little bit.
Ache - The word ache is almost synonymous with soreness. Ache is essentially the feeling one would use to describe the feeling of DOMS within the muscle. Ache is also frequently associated with conditions like tendonitis, arthritis, fasciitis ... notice all the “-itises”. NOTE: a headache is not usually a condition of physical strain and should be considered differently than other aches in the body. A headache may, however, evolve from other aches within the neck, back or shoulders. Ache is often the result of simple lack of movement or over movement of a particular structure. Aches are usually most evident when the body is or has been at rest for an extended period of time like after sitting or sleeping. Aches are often affected greatly by weather conditions and barometric pressures. The “ache” pain can frequently be alleviated with mild movement of the afflicted area. General simple activity which increases blood flow and allows tissues to move properly like taking a walk or doing some other mild exercise for over 5 or 10 minutes time will often help relieve the ache feeling. The ache will return, however, when the body has cooled and slowed its metabolic processes. Ache in organs should not be overlooked for more than a few days as it could be indication of a greater problem. Aches which occur in joints and other parts of the extremities shouldn’t last much more than a week or two. Again if they continue, seek professional examination.
Burning - Burning is kind of an odd pain. Burning feeling can result from both the feeling of too hot, but can also be the result of feeling too cold. Anyone who has been skiing in thin socks knows this. The sensation of burning isn’t necessarily a heat related response (although it is frequently) but rather another indication of something wrong with your body. If you touch something too hot or too cold for long enough you will feel burning, but the same kind of sensation can occur on the inside of your body as well. Unless you have a fever, your internal temperature doesn’t rise or fall much past the well known 98.6°F, so burning isn’t usually in response to a major temperature change. Rather burning is usually inflammation again often caused by chafing. Not so much the type of chafing you would experience from sitting on a horse saddle too long, but rather the chafing of one structure (like a tendon) over another (like a bone). NOTE: Persistent burning in and around your chest cavity or stomach can be indication of a serious problem! Contact emergency personnel immediately if this type of burning reaches and unbearable state or doesn’t diminish within a few hours! Burning in and around your joints is more common after exercise. Burning in your muscles is common during exercise. The burning in your muscles is actually necessary and is cause by acid which your body creates in response to using energy. If you are trying to strengthen muscles and they don’t burn, they aren’t being strengthened. Burning in and around joints is often related to another -itis. Usually an -itis like burn is not exclusive, however and will be accompanied by other sensations like tingling or numbness which we will discuss later.
Pressure - This is an odd sensation. Pressure doesn’t necessarily always hurt. Sometimes more serious injuries such as a broken bone or impaling will initially feel like pure pressure for a moment before other pain receptors alert you to the fact there is something really wrong. Pressure is often associated with aching when it does start to hurt but can lead to a very intense pain if the pressure persists and grows. Pressure, of course, can also be a sign of inflammation due to an excess of fluid in a certain area, but if a pressure sensation does persist and increase to unbearable levels, seek emergency help immediately! Pressure isn’t usually used to describe injuries unless they are injuries of inactivity. Someone may feel a pressure or stiffness in certain areas due to a lack of movement as opposed to excessive movement. This sort of pressure, like aching, may be alleviated with mild repetitive movement or stretching, but is not usually detrimental to the structure feeling the pressure. Rather it is another one of your bodies indicators that something is amiss.
Sharpness - Sharpness is the most cut and dry kind of pain. If you feel sharp pain, usually your body will react without your conscious control to alleviate that pain as quickly as possible. Sharp pains are rarely indications of minor maladies and should not be overlooked. Rather than “-itis”, sharp pain is more often associated with words like tear, break, or rupture. Much more gruesome sounding words for much more serious injuries. Sometimes sharp pains happen within a very specific range of movement and can be avoided, but unfortunately, the body can rarely heal the cause of a sharp pain without some kind of medical help. Sharp pains frequently require minor surgery to remove and can be the cause of greater problems if they are not addressed promptly. Your body will compensate to avoid the sharp pain, thereby creating some other imbalance in your structure which will most likely initiate a whole new pain in time.
Tingling or Numbness - Tingling or numbness are probably the most fickle of all pain feelings mostly because they don’t actually hurt. Tingling is not usually excruciating and numbness simply means lack of feeling period so there is no pain associated. These two sensations are, however, indicative of the most potentially dangerous conditions. All pain is a recognition and response of the nervous system. Tingling or numbness, on the other hand, frequently means that the nervous capability of the associated part is being restricted or completely cut off. Numbness should never be overlooked - even if it afflicts only a few fingers or toes because this could be a strong indication that something is wrong in some other part of your body - not necessarily the finger or toe that feels nothing. Tingling is more like a severe warning. If you feel tingling doing a certain activity and continue with that activity, there is a good chance you can do irreparable damage to some part of your body. Tingling is often felt in tendonitis in the knee or foot from activities like heavy weight lifting or running. If you persist with the activity that causes this tingling, the sensation will never go away and eventually the structure causing the sensation will break down and cease to function properly. If you have persistent numbness or tingling of any part of your body over a few weeks, seek medical advice.
No pain should be taken lightly. That being said, not all pains are an indication that something is injured. The muscle burning found in exercise is actually a good pain and one that should be sought during training activity. Burning in joints is a different circumstance, though, and must be addressed. If you have pain, pay attention to it. Thats what it is there for. Some part of your body is uncomfortable for some reason and wants to be noticed. Take note of how the pain started: What you were doing? What time of day? Was it consistently before or after a particular activity? Did it persist? Does it increase or decrease with activity? How bad is the pain? Can I make it worse? Can I make it better? These are all questions to ask yourself and tell your health professional the answers to these questions if you happen to seek ones advice. Most minor pains can be reduced and sometimes removed with the help of anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprophen or Aspirin and application of ice to the afflicted area. Major or consistent pains should not be overlooked and need to be addressed before irreparable damage is incurred. Most of all, listen to your body - pain is it’s way of talking to you!
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Basic Lower Body Power Movements
A “power movement” is any movement of the body which can be accomplished with the addition of external weight above and beyond body weight. Power movements are the basic form of exercise used for weigh lifting both on machines and with free weights. Because the resistance of free weights is in the direction of gravity rather than the pre-positioned direction of an weight machine, free weights do resemble real life situations outside of the gym more directly. Almost every object we move outside of the gym exerts its resistance on our body through the weight of gravity and is therefore a free weight.
Power movements of the lower body are slightly more complicated than power movements of the upper body because they rarely occur in isolation in real life. Power movements of the lower body only apply loosely to the regular motion of our body. The power movements of the lower body include, bending the leg at the knee, straightening the leg at the knee, pointing the foot at the ankle, raising the foot at the ankle and lifting the entire upper body to a standing position from a leaning forward position at the waist.
Standing the body from a leaning position at the waist - This is the least obvious power movement of the lower body. Generally if we think of standing up from a leaning position at the waist we envision our back doing most of the work. This is not the case, however, because muscles of the back don’t cross the line of the hips into the legs. Therefore, they mostly offer support to the spine during this movement rather than exerting much of the power to lift the body. The muscles that actually raise the torso from a leaning position are primarily in your rear end and in the back of your thigh - your hamstrings. These muscles right the pelvis which is attached to the spine, and through the use of those back muscles, the body straightens up. To picture this, imagine a bath tub lying on it’s side. The bath tub is your pelvis. Now picture several people trying to right the tub by pulling on the high edge of the tub. These several people would represent the major muscles of your lower body trying to turn the tub upright - which would right your pelvis, and in turn raise the rest of your upper body. These movements are most commonly practiced with dead lift or occasionally good morning exercises. They require extreme attention to proper technique to avoid injury.
Bending the leg at the Knee - The back of your leg, your hamstrings, have another function - lifting the lower leg off the ground. Any time you pull your heel upward or backward toward your rear end, you are contracting the hamstring muscles. A basic hamstring or leg curl machine forces this motion under stress. If you think about this movement, however, you’ll have trouble finding an activity which would mimic this type of strength outside of the gym. Leg curls are designed to make the backs of the legs larger and stronger.
Straightening the leg at the Knee - This is the opposite movement of bending the leg at the knee. In this circumstance, the muscles in the front of your thigh, your quadriceps lift the lower leg from a bent position to a straight one. This movement is similar to kicking as in sports like soccer or martial arts but again is not something we would naturally engage in while in a seated position (as most leg straightening or leg extension exercises position us). This motion is designed to strengthen and increase the size of the front of your thigh.
Pointing the foot at the ankle - If you point your toe, straightening out your foot, you are pointing the foot at the ankle. There are some tendonous muscles at the bottom of your foot which help do this movement but most of it is a function of the powerful muscles in your calf. In regular movement, this pointing of the toe will often happen in conjunction with a bending of the leg at the knee - allowing processes like walking or running. Restricted to weight bearing isolation in the gym, we strengthen the calf by using calf raises, donkey calf, or heel raise exercises. Although it is possible to gain size in the calf it is rather difficult because of the tendonous nature of these muscles.
Raising the foot at the ankle - This is the least utilized motion in traditional strength exercise. The muscles which allow you to keep your heel planted on the floor but lift the ball of your foot off the floor are actually located in the front of your lower leg next to and around your shin bone. This movement of the leg is much less significant in regular mobility of the body, so the muscles are much smaller than the contrasting calf and, though they can be strengthened and size gained, they will not have nearly the pure strength of the calf muscles on the back of the leg. They should not be neglected, however, as they are an integral part of balancing the joints in the foot, ankle, and knee.
Truly, the lower body is active in almost any movement we make unless we are sitting or lying down. Even under those circumstances, our legs and rear may counter balance movement of the torso and arms. Properly isolating the lower body is somewhat precarious and easily offers one up to injury. This is not to say that lower body isolation is wrong - just difficult. Care must be taken to perform power movements of the lower body with precision and as full a range as can be stably maintained. Our bodies were certainly meant to do lower body power moves - every time we sit down, we both squat and dead lift our own body weight. So go ahead, make your lower half stronger, just make sure you know what you are trying to do before you undertake the challenge!
Power movements of the lower body are slightly more complicated than power movements of the upper body because they rarely occur in isolation in real life. Power movements of the lower body only apply loosely to the regular motion of our body. The power movements of the lower body include, bending the leg at the knee, straightening the leg at the knee, pointing the foot at the ankle, raising the foot at the ankle and lifting the entire upper body to a standing position from a leaning forward position at the waist.
Standing the body from a leaning position at the waist - This is the least obvious power movement of the lower body. Generally if we think of standing up from a leaning position at the waist we envision our back doing most of the work. This is not the case, however, because muscles of the back don’t cross the line of the hips into the legs. Therefore, they mostly offer support to the spine during this movement rather than exerting much of the power to lift the body. The muscles that actually raise the torso from a leaning position are primarily in your rear end and in the back of your thigh - your hamstrings. These muscles right the pelvis which is attached to the spine, and through the use of those back muscles, the body straightens up. To picture this, imagine a bath tub lying on it’s side. The bath tub is your pelvis. Now picture several people trying to right the tub by pulling on the high edge of the tub. These several people would represent the major muscles of your lower body trying to turn the tub upright - which would right your pelvis, and in turn raise the rest of your upper body. These movements are most commonly practiced with dead lift or occasionally good morning exercises. They require extreme attention to proper technique to avoid injury.
Bending the leg at the Knee - The back of your leg, your hamstrings, have another function - lifting the lower leg off the ground. Any time you pull your heel upward or backward toward your rear end, you are contracting the hamstring muscles. A basic hamstring or leg curl machine forces this motion under stress. If you think about this movement, however, you’ll have trouble finding an activity which would mimic this type of strength outside of the gym. Leg curls are designed to make the backs of the legs larger and stronger.
Straightening the leg at the Knee - This is the opposite movement of bending the leg at the knee. In this circumstance, the muscles in the front of your thigh, your quadriceps lift the lower leg from a bent position to a straight one. This movement is similar to kicking as in sports like soccer or martial arts but again is not something we would naturally engage in while in a seated position (as most leg straightening or leg extension exercises position us). This motion is designed to strengthen and increase the size of the front of your thigh.
Pointing the foot at the ankle - If you point your toe, straightening out your foot, you are pointing the foot at the ankle. There are some tendonous muscles at the bottom of your foot which help do this movement but most of it is a function of the powerful muscles in your calf. In regular movement, this pointing of the toe will often happen in conjunction with a bending of the leg at the knee - allowing processes like walking or running. Restricted to weight bearing isolation in the gym, we strengthen the calf by using calf raises, donkey calf, or heel raise exercises. Although it is possible to gain size in the calf it is rather difficult because of the tendonous nature of these muscles.
Raising the foot at the ankle - This is the least utilized motion in traditional strength exercise. The muscles which allow you to keep your heel planted on the floor but lift the ball of your foot off the floor are actually located in the front of your lower leg next to and around your shin bone. This movement of the leg is much less significant in regular mobility of the body, so the muscles are much smaller than the contrasting calf and, though they can be strengthened and size gained, they will not have nearly the pure strength of the calf muscles on the back of the leg. They should not be neglected, however, as they are an integral part of balancing the joints in the foot, ankle, and knee.
Truly, the lower body is active in almost any movement we make unless we are sitting or lying down. Even under those circumstances, our legs and rear may counter balance movement of the torso and arms. Properly isolating the lower body is somewhat precarious and easily offers one up to injury. This is not to say that lower body isolation is wrong - just difficult. Care must be taken to perform power movements of the lower body with precision and as full a range as can be stably maintained. Our bodies were certainly meant to do lower body power moves - every time we sit down, we both squat and dead lift our own body weight. So go ahead, make your lower half stronger, just make sure you know what you are trying to do before you undertake the challenge!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
