Strong from Head to Toe

Last blog you saw this video of some amazingly fit young English guys doing some very unconventional, non-gym strength training. This TOJ suggested that much of it would look like the familiar stuff, e.g., push-ups and pull-ups, but to watch for differences. Those differences are the reason they're much stronger and fit than most guys their age.

So why would TOJs care about this? They're young, right? Yes, but they demonstrate some "secrets" that are really important to a TOJ because they promote physical resilience.  

The more experts understand human movement the more they are beginning to understand that it's not just muscle and bones that enable us to perform the range of motion we enjoy. Your entire body is is linked together by connective tissue (myofascia) that transmits dynamic energy from head to toe. This tissue, just like every other in your body, is constantly renewing itself - or not, if it's inactive.  

So here are a few of the secrets the English parkour artists revealed to us in the video.

Periodic Asymmetry - Notice how they shifted sideways during their push-ups, pull ups, and still ring exercises. They get slightly off-center. This places unusual stresses on the muscles and myofascial tissue because they must respond to additional gravitational forces as they  move away from their center of gravity. The guy presses a rock, not perfectly shaped, hard to grip.

Multi-Directional - They don't just move forward, they also move backwards and sideways. They don't just work on a flat surface, they climb and descend. All this multi-directional movement engages the muscles and anatomy trains in new and challenges ways. These guys aren't building isolated muscles like the guy in front of the mirror at the gym doing biceps curls, but building total body strength - the most useful strength there is that enables the body to safely perform a variety of tasks and adapt to unexpected forces, like breaking a fall on ice .

Non-Repetitive & Adaptive  - Their bodies, whether hands or feet, must adapt to a broad variety of surfaces, textures, and planes. They are developing incredible kinesthetic awareness of what their world feels like and how to adapt to it.

Whole-Body - They recruiting multiple muscles and anatomy chains by constant, variegated movement from head to toe, as opposed to sitting on a weight machine doing isolated calf presses. Nothing is more important than what you can do (or not) with your own body weight.

Bounce - One interesting discovery is that connective tissue is elastic. Much of our power results from loading and releasing energy stored in connective tissue, including ligaments and tendons, not just muscle. In the video, you see principle at work in the burpees and when the guy in a push up (plank) position climbs the steps doing a rapid downward then upward movement that "bounces" him from one step to another.

So here are some ways TOJs can start incorporating myofascial training into their exercise.
- When you do push-ups, slightly lean toward the right and go down, then repeat with the left.
- Stand with your feet flat on the ground and lightly spring up and down, keeping the ball of your foot in touch with the ground. Progress to jump roping off the balls of your feet.
- Do single arm swings with the kettlebell.
- Do push-ups with one hand or both hands on a medicine ball.
- Spider walk (crawl face down on hands and feet only) in all directions, sometimes lifting up onto a small step, box, Bosu, or sturdy coffee table.
- Crab walk, on hands and feet, facing up. Forwards and backwards.
- Hold a medicine ball with both hands and bend back (like a soccer throw-in) then slam the ball into the ground as hard as you can (you can also do this with a sledge hammer into the dirt).
- Hang from a bar and lift your knees towards your right shoulder, then your left. Repeat.

By incorporating some unusual movements, you literally strengthen your myofascial tissue. You get "bouncier" and less vulnerable to injury. Read this excellent article by Divo Muller and Robert Schleip about remodeling and rebuilding myofascial tissue. Note the importance of good hydration!

It only takes a few minutes of this a couple of times a week to get results, but because connective tissue develops more slowly than muscle, you need to be patient and persistent.

At first as you ad these elements to your exercise, you'll feel weaker and awkward. But not for long. Pretty soon, like they say in the TV ads for fancy men's clothes, "You'll like the way your feel. I guarantee it."

Web of Power

This TOJ, who studied English a long time ago, thinks that when Shakespeare had Hamlet say, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy" that one of the "things" he was referring to was myofascia, the connective tissue which is like a whitish web that weaves throughout the entire body, holding muscles and organs in place. And, as scientists over the past twenty years are figuring out, much, much more.

The myofascia plays a bigger role in movement and athletic performance than ever dreamt of in the conventional fitness paradigms focused on muscular strength and cardiovascular conditioning. While those are still important, the discovery of the role of connective tissue in enabling movement, in particular quick, powerful movements, is rapidly changing things.

For centuries, anatomists, kinesiologists, and coaches focused on the structure and function of isolated muscles, like the biceps, or muscles groups, like the shoulders. Connective tissue was a passive presence, designed by nature to support organs sort of like the asphalt road is held aloft by the spans on the Golden Gate Bridge.

However, as science probed the source of injuries, it became clear that the actual site of non-fractures is in the connective tissues, which also include ligaments and tendons. Of course the next question was why to the injuries occur and what can be done to make these tissues more resilient. Why are they so painful? Obviously they were being pushed beyond their capacity. But how?

This is where it gets really interesting. It has always been right in front of our eyes watching sports on TV, but invisible to the naked eye. Ever notice how home run hitters slightly turn their bodies counter to the direction of the ball then rapidly rotate their bodies towards it? Ever noticed how basketball players preparing for a dunk make a slight dip with their ankles, hips and knees before soaring towards the basket? The home run and dunk both start in the foot which is flexed hen unflexed (dorsiflexed then plantarflexed) unleashing a cascade of anatomy trains to generate force.

These powerful athletic movements are chosen for examples because what nobody had realized until relatively recently is that power is transmitted through connective tissue, just like a locomotive speeding down the tracks. In fact, one of the pioneers in this area is an integrative manual therapist named Tom Meyers who wrote a book about Anatomy Trains to identify the interplay of connective tissue with muscles and bones to enable movement and has even mapped them. If you want to feel an anatomy train as you're sitting reading this, hold your right palm on your back just above your hip bone. Lift your left knee slightly off the ground. Feel the contraction in the right side of your body?  

So why should a TOJ care?

Connective tissue is just like muscle - you either use it or lose it. For many people, their trains are sound asleep from under-use. Even for athletes, they can be underdeveloped if they are not routinely used in multi-planes of motion. Yeah, a person may be able to curl a lot of weight or run a marathon but can they (you) do what's in this video.

Meyers cites Parkour, basically urban gymnastics in which athletes turn everyday structures into tools for exercise and physical challenges, as an example of movements that maintain and develop your power trains. Check out this video:

Obviously, most of us, especially TOJs, will never have this level of body mastery. In physcial prowess, these English men rank with any elite athlete.

You probably noticed many of the Parkour training exercises are very familiar, yet there's something different and unusual. In my next blog, we'll explore just what's different in more detail, and how to tame these down so they are safe and doable.

TOJs, too, must maintain their web of power.