Personal Training is not Exercise Science

What is the difference?

The difference is in the substance.

Personal Training courses are of varying standards. Some courses last for 18 months, are tafe run, and lecturers are exercise physiologists teaching a well-rounded approach to training. The lecturers touch on the components that make up safe and effective training and forewarn the soon to be personal trainers of their limitations. The entry standards are unfortunately low; the pass requirements are based on attendance.

Other courses are based over 9 weeks they are costly and teach a very basic training methodology to apply to the general population. The trainers are pumped out with the belief that they know what is required to achieve results with anyone and everyone and any other knowledge is surplus to requirements. Again the pass requirements are low but expensive.

So the result here can go one of two ways. One is the trainer gets out there into the wide world of exercise and picks up a few clients with general fitness needs and the relationship works well. The trainer is aware of limitations and happily refers clients on when they show signs of conditions beyond their scope of learning. The second is the trainer gets stuck into training a few clients, gleefully applying the newly learnt knowledge to all in range. Before long some serious difficulties occur, not initially but some time down the track due to the mismatch between what the trainer knows and what the client needs. The trainer becomes disheartened wondering why people aren’t moving forward as expected and why long-term injuries seem to be appearing.

Why is this?

Well its simple, training is a simple discipline. People however are complex. People have a plethora of needs when it comes to training. Rarely in my 10 years of training people have I found people that need ‘general training’ of any sort. Most people have risks, concerns, constraints, conditions or tough objectives. Unfortunately I don’t believe the training courses that personal trainers go through are adequate to deal with all of these issues. Maybe it’s 50:50. 50% of people, the ones in gyms etc don’t need specialist advice, they just need direction on how to get moving; great see a personal trainer. But the other 50 %, which I would say is a conservative estimate, needs more, and what’s more if they don’t receive the attention they require the results could be negative.

With the aging population and the baby boomer generation looking for ways to improve their health in a society that is not designed for health unlike the times they grew up in, this specialist advice is becoming more and more important. This specialist advice goes under the name of Exercise Science.

Exercise Science is an allied health discipline. It is a degree at most universities that consists of biomechanics, biochemistry, exercise physiology, human movements, behavioural analysis, exercise and nutrition, social and political implications of exercise to name a few. The degree programs usually cover 4 years and involve practical work in hospitals and clinics.

The application of this is seen in professional sports, elite performance and clinical settings for rehabilitation. Exercise Science and Exercise Physiologists are relatively new to the world, but the timing could not have been better. With the population suffering from the complications of inactivity, injury and illness Exercise Physiologists hold the in depth knowledge of the complexities of the human being to help overcome some if the most challenging of cases. Exercise Physiologists understand the health system and fit snugly in with physiotherapists, dieticians and psychologists assisting general practice and the population with exercise related health concerns.

So what’ the difference between Personal Training and Exercise Science? Well, its the substance.

More on what makes up Exercise Science to follow in the next Article.

Musicians don’t prepare their bodies, they just practise their technique. It’s as if a gymnast only practised spinning somersaults but didn’t do any weights or other training.

Treating Physician clinic at London College of Music

A common analogy seems to be highlighted regularly between professional Musicians and Athletes, as an Exercise Physiologist this interests me. The question I have is:

How accurate is this analogy? Are professional Musicians like Athletes?

Well they practice all the time, they have high performance expectations, they have definite benchmarks for success and failure and they are subject to high physical demands for set periods of time with a limited amount of time for rest and recovery.

The obvious comparisons are there; yes Musicians are required to perform like Athletes. The difference is Musicians have not had the same opportunities to learn about optimal performance like many Athletes have. Musicians practice does not contain the same vital and varied ingredients that Athletes training has involved for some time.

Athletes have been educated and developed by various professionals for many years. Hence Athletes have been taught that optimal performance requires a vast amount of training and preparation across a number of areas and not simply technique.

Athletes do not simply practice their skill, their technique. Athletes train their bodies to be fit, their minds to be positive and ready, and learn to effectively use rest and recovery to ensure that training and performance is optimised every time. Athletes have a very thorough understanding of how the fitness of their body relates to the strength of their performance. They have learned body awareness, recognising problems as they occur. Importantly many Athletes understand when something needs to be done in order to correct a problem and avoid injury. Coaches work to develop this understanding and awareness in Athletes throughout their career.

Finally the schedule of Athletes is carefully planned. An Athlete is not going to physically train during a competition. An Athlete will work up to a competition or performance, aiming to be in good condition when the competition starts. From that point on the Athlete will focus on performance (concentrating on technique), maintenance and recovery.

Can Musicians be like Athletes?

Absolutely and they should be. The first step for Musicians is the athletic mindset. Like Athletes, Musicians need to develop their body awareness. Through working on weaknesses, relieving tension, focusing on physical recovery, Musicians could improve their response to practice and performance. The opportunity through development and support, is that Musicians could in-deed, be like Athletes.

It is worthy of note that Athletes often have a relatively short career due to the physical demands of their sport compared with Musicians. This doesn’t change the point however, in fact it reinforces that Musicians must maintain and preserve a healthy body in order to withstand the long duress of top level orchestral music and not neglect these aspects.

The aim for Musicians is to experience a far more consistent state of optimal performance with less effort and pain and more enjoyment. It all comes down to recognising that performance relies on some fundamental building blocks of fitness and recovery and not just rehearsal.

Alex Cox-Taylor

Exercise Physiologist

Flexibility Training

Flexibility is one of the most important areas of fitness for injury prevention, yet for most people it is the area neglected most. Flexibility refers to the range of movement round a particular joint.

If a person is lacking in flexibility due to unnecessary tension the range of movement can be restricted which in turn would impair that persons function. Secondly as that persons moves they are will more then likely, feel tension and restriction around the joint as an uncomfortable sensation or pain. In many instances this situation is the beginning of a spiral which causes pain, more muscle tension, impaired movement, more pain, weakness and ultimately break down.

Tension is a caused by a number of factors which most people can relate to:

Stress will cause tension in a muscle, next time you are in a traffic jam or are late for an appointment just take a fleeting second to check in with what your body is doing. There is a high chance you will be clenching your teeth, hunching your shoulders and possibly even tightening your chest.

Weakness will cause tension, your body requires movement, you will need to move and carry things of various weights at various speeds each day, if you are weak in any one area, another area will need to compensate and carry more than its fair share of load, resulting in overloading and tension.

Repetitive movement will cause tension, if there are any movements in your daily routine that you perform over and over again the chances are, you have experienced muscle tension. By moving repetitively you are using the same muscles over and over again, this obviously is going to cause them to strengthen and tighten, if you do not balance this movement with a stretch plan.

Finally poor posture will predispose you to any of the above situations. Poor posture will result in overuse and miss positioning of certain muscles, causing tension. Poor posture will cause weakness in certain muscles resulting in compensation and eventually yes you guessed it, tension.

So taking musicians as an example the box can be ticked for each:

Stress can be high, the show must go on! Need anymore be said?

Certain muscles will be weak due to underuse, a musician is unlikely to use all muscles in a balance fashion, only certain muscles are required to perform most instruments, and often asymmetrically.

Repetitive movement, well not many activities are as repetitive in movement as playing an instrument.

Finally posture, lets take a violinist, sitting upright, legs off in one angle and together, upper body turned in other direction towards music and audience, arms up, instrument trapped between chin and shoulder. Ideal? Well no.

So what is the answer?

Flexibility training is the key. A specific stretching and massage plan that is designed to relive the build up of tension as a result of your lifestyle or musical instrument. Flexibility training involves regular morning and evening stretching plans, maybe even intermittently through the day depending on what your activity is.

The following is a list of tips when stretching

1. Do not bounce, move the muscle being stretched to a point where tension is felt and gently hold. You do not what your muscle reacting against you.
2. Hold for around 25 seconds. There is very little point in stretching a muscle for a nano second, it will not respond.
3. Do not stretch when cold, think of a rubber band, the warmer it is the more likely it is to stretch and actually expand.
4. Repeat your stretches at least 3 times over in any one day. You are trying to counterbalance your daily movements, you need to stretch plenty of times. In reality depending on what you are doing you may need to stretch a muscle up to five times per day
5. Relax into the stretch and breath. Holding your breath and feeling stressed causes tension!
6. Be careful to get the correct advice as to what muscle should be stretched and how to do it, stretching can be very complex and dangerous if done incorrectly. Your Exercise Physiologist should be able to help.
7. Enjoy! Stretching should feel relieving, de-stressing and pleasant. Enjoy your stretch routine as a way of maintaining your body, mind and everything you expect of it.

Q : What Next ?  A : Strength Training

Ok so now you are aware of your tension issues and you are working on your flexibility to help relieve tension and improve muscle balancing around your joints. Is this providing you with all the skills you need to remain relaxed and injury free? Well… no, but it is a great start!

Another important part of this whole topic is Strength Training and we don’t mean Arnie style. As mentioned in the previous article; one of the major underlying causes of tension issues around a joint is weakness of key stabilizing muscles. When stabilizing muscles get tired from continual activity or repetitious movement other muscles in the surrounding area are forced to pick up the slack. As these muscles become more and more active they further inhibit the stabilizing muscles which leads to more weakness (in the stabilizers) AND more tension (in the surrounding muscles). In this situation, combining strength and flexibility training would be useful for restoring balance to the injured joint.

Targeted and specific strength training can be used to help the weak stabilizing muscles become strong and supportive, as they are meant to be. Flexibility training helps to reduce the tension in the surrounding muscles, further restoring the balance between all the muscles around the joint. When both strength and Flexibility are combined as a treatment strategy they have a much greater effect of balancing a joint than when they are used on their own.

As exercise physiologists we are able to identify areas of weakness and tightness and develop appropriate exercise strategies to bring the balance back to your unstable joints. Furthermore, we can continue with more targeted and specific strengthening to help ensure that your body stays balanced and you can achieve optimal physical performance you need.

We hope you have enjoyed our article series on Exercise Rehabilitation and performance. We have enjoyed writing it for you. We will be developing a workshop for the members of the Queensland Orchestra that extends on the information presented in the articles, so stay tuned for more information on this. In the meantime, move well.

Exercise Science : A Typical Case Study

In this article we would like to give you a scenario that we see quite a lot at The Lab regarding exercise and weight loss. A client of the centre has been seeing us with the aim of losing weight and toning up. Upon the initial consultation and testing session it was clear that there were some other issues that had to be addressed aside from the weight loss and toning. Flexibility and core stability were areas that needed a lot of initial work to provide us with the stable platform to do more vigorous fat burning activities. The client made significant gains in flexibility and core stability and commented that a lot of daily and leisure activities were becoming easier to manage, however weight loss was not coming as quick as expected.

After a period of higher intensity training it was evident that there were other factors that needed consideration to help our client with their initial goals. Factors such as diet, rest, recovery and the big one, STRESS. This is an area that we are seeing more and more in today’s society and it can have a negative affect on our physical state and the ability to change. We are currently working at ways of getting the body into a more stress free state so that it will respond favorably to exercise and healthy eating.

Exercise Science is a course of study that looks into all the sub disciplines of exercise and how it affects human performance. These sub-disciplines include biomechanics, biochemistry, nutrition & exercise, motor control, exercise physiology, health promotion musculoskeletal rehabilitation. As Exercise Scientists we are able to draw on experience and all of these disciplines to help clients overcome the various barriers that may be preventing them from enjoying the full benefits from their efforts with exercise. This enables our clients to enjoy a heightened level of health and vitality, not just fitness.

Breaking News. Exercise is good for you!!!

Ok, so its no secret, exercise is a vital component of healthy living. The general rule is, try to do something on most days of the week and aim to keep your heart rate elevated for 30mins +.
So walk, jog, cycle, do the gardening or get to yoga. Doesn’t matter JUST MOVE!

Did you need an exercise physiologist to tell you that?..Well no…probably not. Is this kind of activity going to help you play your instrument better and help you avoid injury? Well no…probably not.

Obviously there will be some benefits, but they will not be specific to being a musician.
Specific is the key word when it comes to functional training. If your function, your sport, or your job is specific then so should your exercise be.

The problem for professional musicians seems to be the build up of unwanted tension, causing all magnitude of injuries and pain. This build up of tension is due to the repetitive, fast, high stress nature of playing an instrument in postures that are challenging or unnatural but necessary for performance.

So what can be done?

Through carefully conducted stretching and massage these tension patterns can be relieved. The problem however is, the tension is likely to return very soon if something isn’t done to address the cause of the tension.

Obviously changing playing style is often not possible, particularly when dealing with specialists in a certain field, international athletes, surgeons and professional musicians alike. The style is a key component of why they are specialists. Therefore in conjunction with massage and physiotherapy, specific stretches can and should be done regularly to keep control of unwanted tension.

Secondly carefully controlled exercise will help strengthen the areas that are week due to overuse of other areas. Real problems arise when muscle imbalances appear. So by addressing muscle balancing before, during and after busy performance periods, the likelihood and severity of injuries can be reduced.

Why do you think athletes exercise , for the same reason, to be fit to perform.
So why wait until an injury is so severe you need help and exercises from a physiotherapist and you can’t play?

Stay aware of your body and its requirements seek advice from an Exercise Physiologist in advance to prevent injuries/tension occurring. Prevention is better then cure.

Alex Cox-Taylor MAAESS AEP

Injury management - It all starts with Awareness

Could you feel tension in your head or neck the last time you were working or playing your instrument? What about your shoulders or other parts of your body? Are you sitting in a way that leads to tension build-up? If you don’t have an answer for these questions, or you have to think really hard to find one, then you may be lacking Body Awareness. Body awareness is simply the body’s awareness about itself and its positioning in space.

Your body gives you millions of messages a day about how it is physically feeling and how it is positioned in space. Most times these messages are in response to a stress that has been placed on your body. For example; when you sit with poor posture your muscles get tired and weak. Your body sends you messages saying that your back is tired and you are uncomfortable, you then respond by changing your position to sit back in your chair so that you give your tired muscles a rest. Unfortunately some messages aren’t as clear cut as this example and they can go by unnoticed or even ignored by us. This is undesirable and can lead to a build up of unnecessary muscle tension in the body.

Muscles tense naturally as a part of movement, however to much tension or a constant build up over time can have negative effects on your physical state. Sitting in poor positions can force muscles to work harder than they need to leading to a tension build up. This is where your body awareness can help you. Take the example from the last paragraph. Your body eventually told you that it was uncomfortable but the message could have come earlier. If you were more aware of your poor posture, you would be able to adjust and relieve your tiring muscles before they developed to much undue tension. Less tension = less potential for injury or discomfort.

You can start improving your body awareness by asking yourself more questions that relate to how you are feeling and how your body is positioned in space. Are you sitting in a position right now that is causing discomfort or undue tension? What is this position? How do you sit when you are not playing? Does this cause tension? What postures cause the most tension or discomfort for you? Can you avoid these postures, at least for some of the time?

This all sounds quite simple but some poor postures are hard to avoid, especially considering the technique and positioning required to play musical instruments. What you need to ask yourself is am I sitting in a position that is causing undue tension? And if so, can I adjust? By improving your awareness you start to build a healthier message system which will enhance your ability to identify and relieve the unnecessary tension in your muscles.

We hope you have found this article relevant and informative. Stay tuned for our next article on flexibility and strength

Management of Non-specific (Chronic) Back Pain South East Alliance of
General Practice Newsletter 2006

When managing non-specific long term back pain, it can be difficult to decide what additional effective options to offer a patient. Often chronic back pain has its origins in weak spinal musculature, poor posture and incorrect use of muscles in day to day activities and often times is precipitated by a minor injury. If left unattended, these can frequently lead to muscle imbalances which cause pain and dysfunction.
An effective treatment option for these problems is functional exercise through a professionally guided exercise program. A functional exercise program draws on the
Specificity Principle of training. It is based around the day to day activities of the person, developing exercises specifically to support what the person does each day of their life.

While the overall focus is on education and developing body awareness, the core strategies of this type of program are to work on the flexibility of over-tight muscles, balance the strength of individual muscles and develop core stability.

Assessing and developing the flexibility of the muscles that are involved is the first aim of a functional exercise program, looking at how the tension in these muscles corresponds to the tension in other related muscles. Inadequate or inappropriate (out of proportion) strength in certain musculature is often an underlying cause of tension or of a flexibility issue in a muscle. Education, training and body awareness results in correct activation, timing and strength, balancing the muscle groups involved. As the patient develops and improves awareness and control, the correct movements are reinforced and strengthened through the training process.

An important component is the development of core stability, through strengthening of the Transversus Abdominis, Multifidus and Inner Obliques. These muscles provide vital support for the spine. They are underdeveloped in many people and often neglected in exercise programs.

Functional exercise intervention provided by an experienced Exercise Physiologist will improve core stability and muscle flexibility and strength. Whether the underlying cause of non-specific back pain is injury or degenerative or age related changes, any form of treatment will be of limited value without correcting existing underlying musculature problems.

Alex Cox Taylor,
Exercise Physiologist
and Judy Baker, Director,
Essents Whole Body Centre.