Tag Archive for: soft tissue

Key Components to Early Season Fitness and Speed

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In an attempt to make up for the lost time associated with winter, motocross riders and other athletes have a tendency to get a little overzealous during early season workouts, which frequently results in injuries and/or performance frustrations. By implementing these four strategies, you will make early season training both productive and injury free.

Establishing Your Physical Weakness Profile – Maximize Your Training Efforts

“Strengthen your weaknesses and race your strengths” is the motto that I say to all of my clients, because as humans, we spend the majority of our time doing things that we like and that we are good at. To make the greatest progress within your training program, you must identify what you are not good at and start there. Establish where you are lacking muscular strength, endurance, lactate tolerance, and don’t forget the non-sweating disciplines of flexibility, plus consider nutrition and realistic goal setting. Begin where you are the weakest or have room for the most improvement (relevant to your personal goals). Early season baseline testing will help pinpoint your weaknesses as well as capture your current maximum heart rate for that specific discipline.

Establishing Heart Rate Zones – Avoid Injury and Burnout

By not knowing how hard you are actually training (versus perceived exertion), athletes and riders run the risk of injury and burnout. Actual intensity levels need to be monitored with a heart rate monitor to ensure you are training within your aerobic zone for the majority (not all) of your early season efforts. Please note that you must establish your heart rate training zones for each discipline that you train. For example, if you use the Concept 2 rower as a cross training tool for motocross, you cannot use your heart rate zone from the bicycle; more muscles are engaged during rowing than cycling which results in a different max heart rate number and associated heart rate zones. Over my last 37 years of coaching, I have seen the use of generic formulas (i.e., 220-age) have a margin of error as high as 30%. The assessment of your pre-season max heart rate can be captured with a simple pre-season max heart rate assessment.

Establishing A Personalized Eating Plan – Determining What Works and What Doesn’t

The food you eat has both a long- and short-term effect on your body. An immediate influence of food is reflected in your energy levels and mood. A long-term influence includes the building and repairing of lean muscle tissue and bones. Research has validated that the muscles, bones, connective tissue, and skin that is on you now is the result of your food intake over the last six months. By keeping a detailed food log and comparing it to your training log, you can get feedback on what is working immediately (i.e., energy levels to complete a high-quality workout or early season race), as well as the long-term (i.e., body measurements indicating increased muscle and decreased body fat). Don’t be intimidated by this process. Humans tend to eat 15-20% of the same products each day. By following a consistent eating plan, you can determine the positive or negative effects of a new food item added to your eating plan.

Establishing A Soft Tissue Maintenance Plan – Maximizing Power and Endurance

Chiropractic and massage are two modalities that should be a part of every athlete’s routine for one simple reason: tight muscles pull bone out of alignment, and misaligned bones keep muscles tight. It is the same as if you pulled the ends of a rubber band far part. No matter how much you rub the center, the band is still tight. You have to get the attachments of the muscles to the correct position before you will get the tension out of the muscle. The reverse is true as well. If you get an adjustment and the muscles are tight, the muscles will simply pull the bone back out of alignment. Lining up the spine and removing tension within the muscles will result in better strength and improved endurance.

 

This article first published in Issue #75 of Endurance News, June/July 2011

 

How to Stretch for Improved Speed & Endurance

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Stretching, when implemented correctly is an actual preventive tool – it reduces the risk of injury by increasing the circulation to your muscles and joints, relaxing your muscles and allowing for greater range of motion.

Soft Tissue Maintenance

As stated by Michael Boyle, soft tissue goes by many names depending who you are speaking with. Physical therapists use the term soft tissue mobilization; chiropractors use the term Active Release Technique; and massage therapists call it deep tissue work. Regardless of what you want to call soft tissue, the common factor is the goal of optimizing the range of motion within the muscle and surrounding joint(s). Though beyond the scope of this article, soft tissue manipulation is actually an irritating stimulus manually created which produces a chemical response within the soft tissue. The chemicals produced are what actual begins the healing processes and a cellular level. This is why soft tissue work is often painful during treatment and can leave you sore and achy for a couple days following treatment.

Stretch Reflex

Your body is equipped with a stretch reflex know as the myotatic stretch reflex which prevents a muscle from stretching too far and/or too fast, this mechanism protects the surrounding joint from becoming injured.  This stretch reflex is mediated through the muscle spindle cells and is constantly evaluating both the speed and length that muscle is going through.  When a muscle lengthens either too far or quickly, the spindle cell is stimulated and reflexively causes the muscle to contract, resisting the lengthening and preventing overstretching of the joint.

An additional component to the stretch reflex is a concept known as the Inverse Stretch Reflex.  This reflex engages the golgi tendon organ which monitors the amount of stress being placed on the tendon at the attachment.  It is the combination of the myotatic stretch reflex and the inverse stretch reflex that causes the muscle to relax, lengthen and ultimately increase your range of motion.

Trigger Points

When you picture a muscle, small dense areas develop within the muscle tissue creating small “knots.” Visualize a rope with small knots in it, if you pull on each end hard, then knots get tighter – this is exactly what happens when you try to stretch without untying the knots – you only make the trigger points “tighter” which results in a reduced range of motion (i.e. flexibility).

Pain-Spasm-Pain Cycle

When a muscle develops a “knot”, it falls into a Pain-Spasm-Pain cycle. The muscle begins to get tight, the tightness creates pain (usually at the attachments) and because of repetitive use, becomes progressively tighter which eventually resulting in a limited range of motion or ultimately a locked position where it hurts to move at all (and keeps you from maintaining optimum biomechanics and efficiency).

Proper Warm Up

Step 1: Roll your major muscle groups – click here for a series of foam rolling videos for your lower body.

Step 2: Sport specific activity at a low heart rate (until the body is sweating and the muscle temperature is optimized).

Step 3: Isolate and stretch your primary and secondary muscles – click here for a series of videos for isolating & stretching your lower body muscles

Step 4: Implement dynamic movements to optimize your range of motion before adding the velocity of the bike

Step 5: Begin your sport specific workouts to improve your strength, endurance and/or lactate tolerance.