Stabilisation Before Lifting - Part Two

A Guide To Injury Prevention

In case you have gone through my last two articles, you must have figured that I used to be a basket of injuries. When my son, Raghav, was about 8 months old, there was a day when I came back from the gym, showered and came to the living room to join everyone for dinner. As I took my chair, to my surprise, an acute pain shot up my hip as it came in contact with the chair. I couldn’t sit without extreme discomfort. I had no recollection of falling down or hurting myself which could lead to this. I was in for a big surprise and not a good one.

To reiterate, I had no memory of getting hurt or falling down. Also, I don’t sit for long periods of time. I had no clue how this had happened. For days, I could not sit down - I had to lie stand or lie down.

I bought a coccyx relief sitting cushion to cope with the situation. And from then on, I carried my ‘doughnut pillow’ to sit on with me everywhere I went.

So much so , it went with me to Paris - my first trip with my partner, Anoop. I needed it to sit on through the flight. The pain was bad enough for me, to contemplate carrying it around while I roamed the city on foot. The though was such a killjoy. Imagine exploring the most romantic city in the world with the love of your life with a potty seat in hand.

In reality, I managed by not sitting for long periods of time and coming back to to hotel to rest in the middle of the day and looking for cushy seats as often as I could. Not the most comfortable option but something I could live with unlike the former one. This went on for almost half a year.

Currently, the pain does not trouble me anymore . As of now, I can sit on an kinds of surface for any amount of time. I am thankful, in this moment, that my bum can comfortably hold the weight of my of my upper body, pain free, while I type this story. AMEN

Looking back, I now know that on that particular day, when I felt the pain first, I had performed a movement during my workout wherein I hurled my whole body onto an elevated platform and them landed with high impact on my knee and hip joint, forced my hip muscles to pull at my coccyx hard enough for it to snap.

It didn’t take an instance or a day for me to get hurt. My recovery wasn’t short either. It wasn’t one day or one movement that cured me. It took about four months before I could sit on a hard surface for more than a minute or two without any discomfort. I had to work consistently for the timing to keep increasing. Through building enough recovery work into my workouts now and following periodisation I minimised injury-risk for myself. This was the stabilisation part of my training program.

In part one of this article we discussed the first three steps - Self Myo-Fascial Release, Flexibility and Mobility. Let’s now take a look at the remaining three steps.

STEP FOUR - MUSCLE ACTIVATION

Muscle Activation solidifies the work done in the last three steps of SMFR, flexibility and mobility. Consider it to be like pouring cement on all the bricks that have been laid down.

Especially, for those of you who suffer from pain due to pattern overload like wearing dress shoes with heels (can lead to plater fasciitis) or working on a screen in office all day (rounded shoulders).

Muscle activation sends the signal to the right muscles to perform the desired action. We kind of ask them to get to work. Here is what happens. When a particular muscle is weak, the other muscle around it start doing the work that the weak muscle is supposed to and not upto performing. This results in some muscles working overtime and the others doing very little work. This is known as Synergistic Dominance.

Through muscle activation, we get the right muscles fired up for the right job. A bit of strength work also comes into play from hereon. Apart from reducing pain and lowering the risk of injury, muscle activation also improves coordination and helps you establish that important muscle mind connection.

‘Clams with a band’ a great way to lighten up the hip muscle called gluteus medius which is responsible for stabilising your pelvic. Similarly ‘YTWs’ fire up your rotator cuff muscles that are imperative in facilitating proper shoulder movement.

STEP FIVE - CORE STRENGTH

If not more, at least every week I get asked most popular question - “How do I lose my belly fat?” Or “I am slim everywhere except my tummy, tell me how to get rid of my paunch?”

My answer is always the same. I just tweak it and respond by relating it to the individuals experiences and sensibilities. But the crux is always the same -

I have witnessed people executing hundreds of crunches to POP THE ABS that they desire.

The point that I’m trying to make is that, the objective of core training is not to lose belly fat, rather it is to uniformly stabilise the deep and superficial muscle that stabilise, align and move the trunk of the body. Especially the abdominal muscles and the muscle of the back.

Let’s stick to the basics some more. What comprises of THE CORE?

The core is defined by the structures that make up the lumbo-pelvic-hip complex (LPHC), including the lumbar spine, the pelvic girdle, abdomen and the hip-joint. The core is where the body’s centre of gravity’s located and where all movement originates.

Remember the building we spoke about?

This is about making sure we have the right support and foundation. If the core musculature is weak, the forces that we generate while lifting or moving may not get transferred and lead to muscle imbalances. Also, eventually the ABS will POP OUT.

STEP 6 - BALANCE TRAINING

I truly believe that balance is not something you find in yourself. It is something you create. And in the area of fitness, it is the key to all functional movement. Poor balance is of course, associated with injury risk.

I have a 70 year old aunt who broke her hip bone right as she stepped outside her front door and fell down. She was barefoot. Her family said that age is catching up and all I saw was loss of ‘PROPRIOCEPTION”.

(NASM) defines proprioception as “the cumulative sensory input to the central nervous system from all mechanoreceptors that sense body position and limb movement.”

Basically, the nerves in her foot could not sense the change in surface outside the the threshold and there was no signal sent to her brain to indicate she had to walk more carefully on the rougher plane.

Balance training is known to significantly improve proprioception. Whether you are running down a basketball court, walking down the stairs or exercising on a stability ball, balance is the key to your movements. A balance training program can be static or dynamic and must always be progressive.

These are the six key steps to minimise injury risk. In our objective to keep you guys safe on the floor, we include these as part of each program we build.

Moreover, the starting point is none of these steps. but unlearning what you know. I still have to forget what I know on many days and then, try to imbibe it into making, what I already know better. By committing to follow this process, I have, in turn, decided to be a student all my life.

We all face a time crunch most days. I would personally want less fatigue at the few more hours at the end of the day. No one wants to spend hours and hours in the gym. It’s not possible for most people to spend more than an hour working out in a day. Experts also recommend a training session to last a maximum of ninety minutes lest catabolism sets in.

It is quite a challenge to fit all these elements including strength training into an hour but it is possible. It takes learning and practise and there can be iterations depending on your lifestyle and goals. However, there is absolutely no substitute for consistency and discipline. After all, we get what we give.

“How long do we keep at it ?” is what I get asked too often. Well, I am a Potterhead and here is what Dumbledore said,

It is not so tough though. It’s a lesser evil. Get the gist, eh?

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