Have you ever wondered why you can’t seem to break through those fitness barriers without picking up an injury or becoming unwell and simply knackered…? Have you ever wondered why you wake up in the morning and you would swear by the way your body feels you have put on 20kgs overnight.

Well here it is…

The average corporate or company worker in my opinion is like an athlete with excessive demands and little guidance.

And I’m not talking about exercise yet either!
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Work demands put strain on the body, long hours, and stress, sometimes physical, invariably mental. The effect of constant stress through work demands and mental energy expenditure is actually as demanding as physical stress from sports. In fact it is often more so.

In sport and exercise there are health benefits, pressure release through the cathartic effect of endorphins etc. In professional sports, there are coaches, carefully planned schedules and recovery periods.

In the business world, there is stress, pressure, performance requirements whilst being couped up in an office behind a desk for many hours.

There is nowhere to get an endorphin hit, the body is in an unnatural position and you are lucky if you have anything other then a demanding boss asking you why you look like you haven’t slept since last month.

Pressure Cooker

Stress starts to bounce around inside you like popping popcorn hammering at your insides as the temperature rises. Your body switches from its normal metabolising state and calm parasympathetic nervous system to the fight or flight sympathetic system. You get home and realise that you had promised yourself you would go for a long run. You force yourself into overdrive to hammer the pavement in the hope it will cure all.

Whereas actually the result is opposite

That’s right you will break down. The stress of work and the strain of exercise couples to reach your breaking point.

You wouldn’t expect an athlete of any standard to be able to perform without looking after their body, without thinking about nutrition or without planning their training. Why is work in a suit any different? It’s not.

The Ingredients of Sustainable Success

So to perform at your best consistently at work, reach your exercise goals and stay healthy you need to start thinking like the elite performers.

1. You need a trainer or coach to structure your program effectively. This may mean using periodisation it may mean cross training it may mean a combination of both.
2. You need to be consuming the right fuel. If you have not considered what fuel you are putting into your body then how can you expect to perform at high levels. Do you think a high performance car is going to be any better then a tractor if you feed it diesel well no you will be lucky if it functions at all.
3. Focus on recovery. If you have not thought about planned recovery time then you have no hope. Factor in some rest days, some stretching or meditation and even a holiday.

Poor Health = Poor Performance = Increased Costs

With poor performance costing companies billions of dollars per year it is about time we all realised the obvious; performance without adequate planning comes with a cost, a human cost.

So if you expect to be a high flyer and have health and fitness objectives, think about it, you are a corporate athlete with a profession as your event. Treat yourself like a high performance machine making sure you put in ALL the ingredients required and you will perform. Skip rest, nutrition, exercise or any of the ingredients and you can at best hope for 60% of what you are actually capable of and it won’t be enjoyable!

Keep an eye on The Lab for more performance tips!

Ever looked at your worn out trainers sitting in the corner and hated the thought of putting them on and going for a run. Ever wished you’d drown rather than look at that incessant black line on the bottom of the pool for one more second. Sounds like your suffering from a serious case of repetitive training.
Continuous training of one sort or another will inevitably become boring eventually resulting in us stopping that activity. The secret is to break up your exercise routine, and try something new that you enjoy. By doing this you will stay interested and break the monotonous cycle that often ends in dropout. Exercise is great for our health and well being, but only if it is continuous.
Summer is a great time to introduce a mix of exercises into your program; instead of jogging on your treadmill in front of the TV, get outdoors and experience some fresh air on one of the many running tracks. As a substitute for pounding the pavement for another 30km this week; take advantage of the improved weather and swim a few laps.
This system of including many different modes of exercise in your program is called Cross Training. The changes you make to your program could be day to day, or minute by minute; you could incorporate some short sprints into your endurance run to keep you on your toes; or do a cardio session instead of pumping iron. Cross Training also allows you to be flexible; if the pool is closed, go for a run.
Not only will Cross Training break the boredom and allow you to be more flexible, it also has its physiological benefits as well.

Cross Training -
Conditions the entire body, not just specific muscle groups.
Reduces the risk of acquiring an overuse injury.
Allows you to work some muscles while others rest and recover.
Allow you to continue training while injured.
Improves your skill, agility and balance.
When you continue exercising in one style your body becomes very efficient at this type of exercise; while this is good for specific competition, it limits just how conditioned you can become and may leave you susceptible to injuries of the joints, bones or muscles. By combining different types of exercise some of your muscles and joints can rest while the others are working.
Making the switch to new forms and intensities of training can be difficult, and the new muscles that are working are more vulnerable. So start out slowly and build into it. Keep the intensity lower and the time shorter for your new exercise than you would for your old one, and give yourself time to learn the new skills or techniques.
All exercises have their good and bad points, so when mixing it up it is important to chop and change your program to suit you at your specific point in time. For example cycling is a non weight bearing activity so it is easy on your joints; however we need weight bearing activities to help build the strength of our bones. Running on a treadmill is good for increasing cardiovascular fitness; but it doesn’t challenge our balance and kinesthetic awareness like running on an uneven path.
It is all well and good to be doing 30 different types of exercise every week, but the key is enjoyment. Try many, find the ones that you enjoy, and integrate these into your training. That way you will be looking forward to your workout every day. It may take some time to find and perfect the right mix, but the hard work will payoff in the form of increased enjoyment, less boredom and results.

Can you be sure you are getting the most out of your life and work?

How can you quantify the impact of poor health?

We have all been in the situation where we are either unwell, a health issue has distracted us from work or even prevented us from doing what we should or would like to be doing.

In Australia it is estimated that poor performance due to poor health will cost business $25.7bn annually in addition to absenteeism, which costs on average 7bn annually. (Medibank 2006)

The phenomenon of poor performance due to poor health is known as presenteeism. Basically the lights are on but nobody is home! On average each employee will lose 6 full working days per year to presenteeism.

The facts are astounding which is why a number of blue chip organisations have been investing in the health of their employees to negate the cost of poor health.

Firstly comes assessment. A number of studies have been conducted over recent years using thousands of employees, linking the cost of certain health conditions and risks with a decrease in worker happiness and productivity.

Through using these tools companies can assess what level of productivity loss they are suffering. Once assessed it is possible to specifically target these areas for attention and decrease the health risks. With a decrease in risk comes a decrease in presenteeism. Decreased presenteeism equals an increase in productivity.

The largest drivers of our medical costs and absenteeism rates are not occupational costs. They are conditions related to the health and wellbeing of the employees. (Adams report Intel 2007)

The biggest commodity is information and second to that is the talent to process the information, if companies want to become more competitive they will need to attract and develop talent combined with creating a culture of productivity.

Life around us is changing and we are changing with it. In the age of information sedentary behaviour is increasing. Sedentary behaviour = health risks. That’s right, sedentary behaviour = health risks. The jury is out on this one the hard facts are everywhere.

You simply can’t have your cake and eat it! With chronic disease growing exponentially in society, negatively impacting the lives of millions. The workplace, a microcosm of society, will almost certainly suffer the same consequences of poor health, unless proactive measures are taken.

Biggest untapped source of improved performance is better functional health (Sullivan 2007, IHPM)

The bottom line is, if you want to be productive, if you want your company to be productive, if you want those around you to be really present, You need good health.
Don’t waste resources, invest in health and make sure that when the light switches on, there is definitely someone home!

JOEM November 2003,The Relationship Between Health Promotion Program Participation and Medical Costs. A Dose Response
JOEM August 2005, Estimating The Return on Investment From Changes in Employee Health Risks on the Dow Chemical Company’s Health Care Costs
The Art of Health Promotion July/Aug 2005 Meta Evaluation of Worksite Health Promotion Economic Return Studies: 2005 Update By Larry S Chapmen

If you didn’t quite stick to your new years resolution and your weight has increased over the winter, it is time to do something about it. The right time to get fit and healthy isn’t next week or next month, it is NOW. We spend every hour of every day in our body; so why not feel good in it year round.

Many of us have tried and succeeded in getting in shape for summer in the past; before falling back to our old habits and repeating the cycle year after year. This article isn’t about trimming those extra kilos so that we look good on the beach this summer. It is about changing our daily habits, so that when bikini season does come around, it hasn’t snuck up on us; instead we have been ready for it all year.

Winter can be a time when we are spending large portions of our day indoors, and either consciously or unconsciously enjoying warm comfort food, often very high in energy. Because we are putting this extra fuel into our body yet staying inside and not burning it off, this fuel gets converted to extra padding around our stomach and hips. Remember, the aim is not to shed those extra pounds before Summer, just to have them return over the colder months. On the journey to achieving and maintaining your healthy lifestyle and body, often the first hurdle is the biggest. Starting.

Start slowly and ease your way into it. When starting or restarting a program you will pull up quite sore on the days following the first few sessions; don’t let this deter you, these aches will subside and the benefits will start to shine through.

It is important that your new program has a balance between the many forms of exercise.

Top 5 Things to Remember:

1. Your program should include:
   • Cardiorespiritory Training
   • Muscular strength, endurance and core stability work.
   • Flexibility Training
2. Try to get some form of exercise in for 30 minutes a day; most if not all days of the week. This can be in the form of walking or running, doing a resistance training program or exercise such as pilates or yoga.
3. If 30 minutes all at once seems to far away, recent research has shown that 3 x 10 minute or 2 x 15 minute sessions can be added together to achieve a similar result. You can start at this intensity and work towards and beyond a 30 minute session; remembering to stretch at the conclusion of each session.
4. Resistance training can be done with equipment such as free weights or using exercises that utilise your bodies own weight as resistance (if you are having trouble coming up with a safe resistance training program that is tailored to your needs, consult a health and fitness professional such as your exercise physiologist).
5. Remember when starting your program vary the exercises that you complete, and have fun with them. This will keep it interesting and improve the chances of adhering to your program in the long run.

Sticking to a simple program like this, as well as watching your diet will have you looking and feeling great this summer and many more to come.

Earlier this year I embarked on a goal to run the 2007 Gold Coast Marathon. ‘Why do you want to put yourself through that much pain?’ people would ask. My answer was simple; ’short term pain, long term gain.’

There were a few reasons why I wanted to run the marathon; curiosity, the enjoyment of running, improving fitness to name a few. However the main reason behind the goal was to experience a sense of achievement to the extent I had never experienced before. For me, this reason alone far outweighed the pain involved in achieving my goal, or at least I thought it would.

The journey started well but it wasn’t long before I encountered some road blocks. Time, sleep, work, nutrition, and injury were issues that presented challenges to my training. Each one took a little chunk out of my motivation as they appeared. I knew these issues would present at some stage but I underestimated the effect they would have. My goal was becoming a distant sight. At one stage my motivation and confidence got so low that I started to doubt myself. I had to do something.

It would have been easy for me to give up at that stage. After all, I did have plenty of excuses to fall back on. Instead I decided to give myself to the process for a few weeks. During this time I focused on the little things that were in my control and made sure I did them. I broke my goals down into smaller more manageable tasks. A run 4 times per week, eat 5 meals per day, get to bed at the same time every night were some of the goals that I set myself. I didn’t let myself get caught up in specifics and I didn’t let anything get in my way. I just did it. At the end of the week I noticed a significant shift in my thinking and motivation.

With each achievement of these smaller goals I could feel momentum gathering, and it felt good. I continued with the same method for the next few weeks. The momentum grew from week to week and I could feel my confidence and motivation growing with it. Before long I gained sight of my goal again, I felt in control once more. A few weeks later I crossed the finish line and experienced a sense of achievement like no other. My goal was complete.

No matter how big or small your goals are, you will always face challenges. Some you can prepare for whereas others can appear from nowhere, to sap your motivation and confidence. It is the way you respond to these challenges that will shape your experience and eventual outcome. Try being more mindful of the times when you are lacking motivation and focus on the small things to help pull you out of it. You’ll be amazed at how much your confidence can grow by taking small steps. If you can string enough small steps together, you too can run your marathon.

- by Alister Murray

Empowering life strategies.

Did you know that we all have neurologically programmed strategies for everything that we do?  These are particular patterns of thoughts and behaviours that produce particular (or predictable) results.  The question is - are you happy with your current results?  Do your current strategies empower or disempower you?

The other day I was relaying a story about when I was doing my NLP (Neuro Lingusitic Programming) training.  It was a session to learn how to elicit someone’ decision-making strategy.  My task was to sell my pen to another course participant.  My partner turned out to be a discerning, analytical, medical specialist.  Hmmm. This was going to be interesting.  How could I possibly entice this person to want my plain, old, ordinary, bic biro????

The first step was to determine his decision-making strategy for purchasing.  I did this by asking specific questions and by tracking his language patterns and the location and sequence of his eye movements as he responded. Once I felt confident that I had determined his current decision making strategy for purchasing, the next step was to entice him to buy my pen.  Firstly this was to be done by presenting an offer for him to purchase my pen in the opposite pattern to the elicited pattern.  When I did this it felt like we were from different planets and that there was absolutely no connection or understanding between us. On the second attempt I presented the pen to him in the exact same sequence to the original pattern that I had tracked.  Wow, what a difference!  He asked -Can I hold the pen?  At the end he really wanted my boring, old, blue bic biro!

What does this mean?  This means that if we present things in a way that matches the other person’s strategy we can communicate much more effectively with them.  Basically, we are stepping into their moccasins.  This also means that if someone wants to change a disempowering behaviour they can install a new strategy. For example, someone who is moving deeper and deeper into debt because of a faulty buying strategy may need to add a step into his current pattern to analyse whether he really needs to make the purchase.

A penny dropped for me when I learnt about the Love strategy.  There are three different ways that people associate feeling loved. One is visual. It feels like they are totally loved when they are shown with actions, like being taken out to dinner and bought things.  Other people feel totally loved when they are told so or when they hear a certain tone of voice (auditory).  Meanwhile, others feel loved when they are hugged or held tight (kinesthetic).  I have come to understand that my daughter has a visual strategy and don’t our wallets know it. $$$$$.

Once again, this highlights the importance of using the other person’s strategy which may not be the same as your own.  Furthermore, it is important to know how you feel loved, and to share this information with your loved ones.

We have neurologically programmed strategies for getting up in the morning, being late, being punctual, feeling confident, feeling depressed, for learning, and for sex. If you think about it what are the strategies that naturally thin people use?  They do things like: eating at regular times; they make good choices about what they eat; and they generally keep active and exercise.  How empowering are the current strategies that you are using?

Jane Buxton
Performance & Development Coach, NLP Practitioner, B. Psych.
M: 0403 056 241

Well the mercury has dropped and the colds and flu’s are getting around work, school and home. You body is constantly bombarded with viruses on a daily basis and your last line of defense against them is your immune system. So to give yourself the best chance of avoiding illness this winter here are 5 ways to boost your immune system.

1. Eat Well
Proper nutrition is an essential part of keeping your immune system running well. Consuming foods rich in vitamins and minerals is most important. Vitamin C helps to reduce severity and duration of colds and vitamin E has been shown to boost T-cell function which has important immune response implications. Other foods/nutrients that have been linked to improved immune function are garlic, zinc, ginger and echinachia. A varied diet with a high fruit, salad and vegetable component should cover your bases for these nutrients. Ask your EP for advice on the nutrient content of your diet.
2. Visit the Doc
There is still a chance that a flu vaccination will result in your body catching a minor strain of the influenza virus. However most studies indicate the vaccination is 70-90% effective in healthy people under the age of 65
3. Chill Out
Stress can make you physically sick. When under stress your body releases a variety of hormones that have a negative effect on your immune system. You can become more susceptible to viruses and take longer to recover from common colds. The best thing to do when sick is to rest and reduce the stress on your body as much as possible. This means lightening exercise loads and getting plenty of sleep. Regular massages and acupuncture can help a great deal. Ask reception or your EP for more info on the therapists upstairs at Essents.
4. Avoid Sick people like the plague
Remember this for when you are sick or have the flu - No one likes being near sick people, not even your boss. This is a battle you need to fight yourself so stay at home and don’t risk infecting the whole office. And for all you workaholics out there, if things are urgent and can’t possibly wait another second then try to work from home, your colleagues will thank you for it.
5. Get Regular Exercise
Countless studies have shown regular exercise helps boost your immune system. I mentioned in point 3 that when sick you have to lighten your exercise loads and that is due to the fact that higher intensity exercise lasting 90minutes or more can actually dull your immune response. Consider this when you are at the gym or pounding the pavement that after 90 minutes you could be doing yourself more harm than good. The key to healthy immunity through exercise is small, regular sessions of varying intensities.

Best of luck with staying healthy this winter. Practice these points and you will be giving yourself a fighting chance.

- by Alister Murray

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.