Great Legs!

By Gerard Bochese

When people think of training their legs in the gym they always look for the leg extension machine, the leg curl machine, and the leg press machine. The reason “in the gym” is such an appropriate line in the preceding sentence is because only on these machines in a gym would your lower body ever perform these types of movement patterns.

In real life your legs do not function as they do on these machines. These machines all isolate a body part and were designed with a body-building mentality. They are, therefore, only really good for building bigger muscles (hypertrophy) and can actually set us up for injury if they’re the only equipment we use to train the legs.

Having said that, it’s fine to mix in these machines with a lower body regimen that includes much more functional exercises such as squats, lunges, and step-ups. Remember, the nervous system stores movement patterns and therefore we do not want to store incorrect or non-functional movement patterns that will be useless to us in our everyday activities.

Let’s examine how the legs function in a real-life setting and compare it to the leg extension, leg curl, and leg press machines (we will call them the “gym 3”)

When we use our legs in real life (standing, climbing stairs, skiing, playing basketball, going for a run) our feet are in contact with the ground. On the gym 3 the feet are either dangling in space or on a platform above your head or directly in front of you. These exercises do not allow you to use ground reaction forces that you encounter everyday.

In real life we must deal with gravity at all times. This means that the direction of force and weight on your legs goes from your head down toward the ground. When you are carrying things (groceries, children, heavy lumber, backpacks, etc) the force is that much greater. On the gym 3 the weight is located at the bottom at your feet. Therefore, the normal forces of gravity and the body mechanics and postures needed for a downward force are not being taken into consideration.

When we use our legs in real life our hips and knees almost always flex and extend (bend) together. We don’t isolate bending only the knee or only the hips. Think of squatting down to pick something up, getting into a car, climbing stairs, walking, and running. On the leg extension and leg curl (not the leg press) we isolate the knee joint from the hip joint. Once again, we are not training proper movement patterns that we will need to call on in everyday activities. This could potentially set us up for injury because we train the muscle in a way that they will not be used and thus, even though the muscles look strong, they will be functionally weak.

One of the most important functions of our lower body is locomotion. When we walk, run, or go down stairs, we are forced to decelerate our body weight at some point then accelerate our body weight forward. Basically, the function of the lower body during locomotion is to stop the ankle, knee and hip from bending during foot contact so that we don’t fall to the ground. Once the foot is placed on the ground the next action of the lower body is to extend the ankle, knee, and hip to create forward movement. Machine training does not train this necessary stabilization and deceleration component, nor does it train the acceleration component in a functional way (ground contact) or with correct movement patterns.

It is, therefore, essential to train the lower body with functional movements such as squats and lunges. These exercises will not only create a more efficient and dynamically strong lower body but will certainly create the great looking muscles most people are going for.

Core Training

By Gerard Bochese

The big buzz in fitness is core training. The problem is, most people don’t know what the core truly is. Technically it is the pelvis, abdominal wall, spine, hip complex, and rib cage and all of the 29 muscles that attach to this complex. In other words, the core is your body minus your arms, legs and head – your trunk. The core’s purpose is to work as an integrated functional unit that accelerates, decelerates, and dynamically stabilizes the body during movement.

What is interesting about exercise is that all movement must pass through the core, so technically all exercises involve some kind of core involvement. This is why training the core correctly and knowing which muscles need to be trained as core muscles is so important.

From the above definition the core is much more than the “6 pack” and only doing crunches is a far cry from core training.

There are two systems to the core:
1) Stabilization system
2) Movement system

These two systems must work together. We must work from the inside (stabilization system) out (movement system) because the stabilization system, based on its location within the body, provides direct stabilization to our spine, pelvis, and hips and the movement system does not. Therefore, training the muscles of the movement system prior to the muscles of the stabilization system (which most people do by performing crunches, bicycles, etc.) does not make structural, biomechanical or logical sense. It’s like building a house—you must have a strong foundation (core) before you can put up the frame or the house will collapse.

The four (4) key core muscles in need of stability training are:
• Deep abdominals – transverse abdominus, internal obliques – these muscles act as an internal weight belt and connect the upper and lower body.
• Hip abductors and rotators – these muscles are the foundation for leg training
• Spine stabilizers – these muscles are directly opposite the deep abdominals and also connect the upper and lower body
• Scapula stabilizers – muscles between our shoulder blades that act as the foundation for arm training.

By training these muscles to be structurally strong and have a strong endurance capacity, one is creating a stable base or platform to perform everyday tasks as well as recreational and fitness activities. When we are pushing and pulling, carrying and lifting things in the gym or the real world with our arms and legs, we need our core to be the base of support that these extremities can work off of. If the core is weak there will be compensations, postural deviations and potential injury while performing these tasks.

Starting Point

By Gerard Bochese

With the myriad exercise equipment lined up in the gym and the plethora of exercises to choose from, where does one begin when designing an effective workout program?

Though designing an exercise program may seem complex and confusing, it can be broken down to fairly simple movement patterns. The human body has moved and performed the same way since its inception. The apparatus we use today may be very high tech but the movements are based on what we call Primal Movement Patterns:

1) We push
2) We pull
3) We level change
4) We flex and extend
5) We twist and rotate
6) We ambulate

If we include these movements in our exercise routine we will cover all aspects of our training and see positive results both aesthetically and functionally.

Each category holds a multitude of exercises and by simply choosing several from each category you can build a solid and complete routine that will both strengthen the individual muscle groups and, more importantly, balance the body so it will be equally strong in all movements and directions.

Balancing the body is extremely important in achieving optimal fitness and staying injury free. So often people only train the muscles they can see in the mirror or the muscles that are their favorite on the beach – chest, abs biceps. However, by overtraining certain muscle groups at the expense of other groups we create muscular imbalances in our bodies that will result in postural problems, chronic pain, and potential injury. Furthermore, if the body is not well balanced and certain muscles are noticeably weaker, this will affect your ability to strengthen and develop those muscles you really like – the body works as one unit and a weakness in one area will affect another area. Therefore, it becomes critical that you do an equal amount of exercises in each category (ex. If you do 5 push exercises you must do 5 pull exercises).

Here are some examples of exercises from each category:
1) Push – chest press, tricep extension
2) Pull – seated row, bicep curl
3) Level change – these make up our leg exercises – squats, lunges
4) Flex and extend – shortening and lengthening our core – crunches (shorten), hyperextensions (lengthen)
5) Twist and rotate – using cables, resistance bands or medicine balls we perform rotating motions through our core
6) Ambulate – jogging, sprinting, jumping forward

Aerobic vs. Anaerobic Exercise

By Gerard Bochese

If you’re interested in losing weight and have been doing a lot of cardio exercise to achieve your goals but have found you’re not achieving the results you want or have hit a plateau, then it’s time to switch from aerobic exercise to anaerobic exercise. Aerobic exercise is slow, steady state exercise that requires oxygen and can be done for long periods of time. Anaerobic exercise is short bursts of strength and power (weight training, plyometrics, high intensity running intervals) that last only 30-45 seconds and require a chemical in our body (ATP) to perform.

Why the switch? Aerobic exercise is designed to improve your heart and lungs (which is extremely important) but it is not efficient for fat loss. Aerobic exercise decreases the amount of muscle you have. The only tissue in your body that can burn fat is muscle; therefore, we want to have more of it in order to burn fat and increase our metabolism.

Aerobic exercises train your muscles to use fat more efficiently, which causes them to burn less of it. The more you train, the easier the exercises get, and your body burns even less fat.

Anaerobic training is more effective and efficient for weight loss. It’s still cardiovascular, but you’re working at a greater intensity than aerobic training. Your heart and lungs get a workout because of the demand from the muscular system, rather than the reverse—your muscles moving because of cardiovascular demand. Anaerobic training requires greater muscular demand than aerobic training, thus elevating your heart rate and building fat-burning lean muscle. A bout of high intensity anaerobic training will also allow you to burn more calories for a longer time following your workout—a definite bonus!