Here's this week's list of random tips to make you a little more awesome with your nutrition and strength and conditioning programs, with contributions from Greg Robins.
1. Outsource your cooking innovation.
One of the reasons folks "cheat" on their diets is that they don't do a good job of incorporating variety in their healthy food choices. Unless you are one of the 1% of the population who has outstanding willpower, eating the same thing over and over again is a recipe for feeling deprived - and that can only lead to some less-than-quality time with Ben and Jerry.
If you're someone who isn't all that creative in the kitchen, consider allocating some funds to a cookbook that features healthy recipes. One of my favorites, Anabolic Cooking, is actually on sale for 52% off ($40 off) this week only.
2. Make roasted chicken breast with spinach and walnut stuffing.
Speaking of the cookbook; here's a great recipe from it.
Ingredients:
- 4 large fresh chicken breasts, boneless and skinless (average 8oz per breast)
- 4 cups fresh spinach
- 2 tbsp of garlic
- 1/4 cup walnuts crushed
- Salt
- Fresh ground black pepper
- Olive oil (not extra virgin)
Directions:
1. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Butterfly chicken breasts (cut along side and lay out flat leaving attached at one end like a book) and lay out flat on cutting board. You can pound it slightly to flatten a bit if you want.
2. Rub both sides with olive oil and season well with salt and pepper.
3. Lightly wilt spinach in non-stick pan, or if using frozen just thaw.
4. Spread roasted garlic paste onto one half on inside of chicken breasts.
5. Sprinkle with crushed walnuts.
6. Place spinach on top of walnuts.
7. Fold top over and place on a rack fitted inside a sheet pan or roasting pan.
8. Place chicken in oven and bake for 20 minutes on 400. Then reduce heat to 325 and roast for an additional 30 minutes, or until inside stuffing reaches 145 degrees.
9. Let rest for 15 minutes before slicing.
*A special thanks goes out to Anabolic Cooking author Dave Ruel for allowing me to reprint this recipe.
3. Consider using concentric-only exercises for "off-day" training.
The most stressful, and therefore demanding part of an exercise is actually the eccentric, or lowering phase. This is where the majority of muscle damage occurs, and the part that will elicit the most muscular soreness. If you're like me, you enjoy doing some kind of physical activity on a daily basis. Some people scoff at the idea of never taking a rest, but in reality, moving is good for you, and it can be done daily. If done incorrectly, it can interfere with recovery and lead to overtraining. If done correctly, it can keep you focused and actually speed up your recovery.
While there are multiple ways to go about off day exercise correctly, one option is to use mostly eccentric-free exercise choices. As examples, think of sled pushing, dragging, and towing. Additionally you can attach handles or a suspension trainer to your sled and do rows, presses, and pull-throughs. Another option is medicine ball exercises, which can be organized into complexes and circuits, or KB and sledgehammer swings, which all have minimal eccentric stress. These modalities will get blood flow to the appropriate areas and give you a training effect that won't leave you sore, or stimulated to an extent that mandates serious recovery time.
4. Keep track of more than your one-rep max.
The ultimate rookie mistake in strength training is going for a one-rep max too often. You rarely need to train at the 100% intensity in order to get stronger. The issue is that most people only have that number as a benchmark in their minds. Therefore, the only way they know to measure progress is to constantly test that number over. This has two major flaws.
First, they train at that intensity too often, and all too often miss repetitions, essentially training above 100%. This teaches their body to miss reps, and leaves them neurally fried and unable to perform. Second, they get impatient with their training because they don't realize new personal records throughout the training cycle. The consequence is that their impatience leads to unscheduled, and too frequent, attempts at new one-rep personal records, bringing us back to point number one. "What gets measured, gets managed,"so make a point of keeping track of repetition maxes. Testing your 3- and 5-rep maxes, for example, are also perfectly good ways to measure progress. Actually, they are better numbers to monitor as training those intensities is more repeatable.
5. Make your home a "safe house."
No, I am not talking about replacing the batteries in your smoke detectors, although that is certainly important. What I am referring to has to do with nutrition. Your home should be a place where you are unable to make poor nutritional choices. Discipline is a function of decision making, or making choices. Many people relate great discipline to an ability to say "yes" or "no" in response to a question - even if it comes from one's own mind ("Should I devour that box of donuts?").
The truth is most of us might not be disciplined enough to make great choices at the drop of a hat, but you can be disciplined enough to prepare yourself for those moments that test you. Instead of keeping unhealthy foods in your house, have the discipline to throw away excess desserts after a party, and not keep certain foods in your fridge or cabinets. You can set yourself up for success, or you can tempt yourself by continually trying to prove you have the incredible discipline to only eat these foods in moderation. You will find that when you limit the consumption of more "relaxed" foods to "outside venues," you will be eating them with other people, and therefore are more likely to eat less of them, enjoy them more, and have them less often; these are all good things!
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Here's this week's list of recommended strength and conditioning reading:
Elite Training Mentorship - The August update at Elite Training Mentorship included some great content from all four contributors. My in-services were "Shoulder Impingement: Internal vs. External" and "Preventing and Training Around Flexion-Intolerant Low Back Pain." I also had an article and two exercise demonstrations featured. If you haven't checked out ETM, definitely do so!
Do Eggs Cause Heart Disease? - In the past week, the "Eggs Are Worse than Cigarettes" shenanigans have gotten out of control. Fortunately, Adam Bornstein (with contributions from Dr. Chris Mohr, Alan Aragon, and Mike Roussell) gets to the bottom of some very flawed research and reporting that is misleading the public.
This morning, my good friend (and fellow baseball aficionado) Lou Schuler posted the link to an article that compared mortality rates in football players and baseball players. If you'd like to check it out, you can do so HERE.
One thing the article showed that I found very interesting was the rapid physical development of the average MLB player. In 1960, the average player was 72.6 inches and 186 pounds, which is actually surprisingly comparable to what one might expect of the prototype male model for a magazine (I'd call this a weighted average of the skinny Abercrombie types and the more athletically-built Men's Health guys). In 2010, however, those numbers had shifted to 73.7 inches and 208.9 pounds. For those curious about what it looks like in a jersey, this was right about the height/weight of CP athlete and Orioles utility man Ryan Flaherty when he got to spring training this year:
Height had increased relatively linearly over the course of the 40 years, presumably as teams scouted and selected taller players and the game increased in popularity, drawing better athletes to the sport. Weight, on the other hand, made a rapid surge (+18.5 pounds) in the fifteen years between 1995 and 2010 (and +20.9 pounds between 1990 and 2010). You'd expect a small increase alongside average height improvements, but this jump can only be explained by the increased emphasis on strength and conditioning (which was obviously aided by the steroid era for quite some time).
I don't think the results of this study are all that awe-inspiring - that is, until you look at them alongside some other numbers in baseball over the past decade. As Jayson Stark discussed in his outstanding article, The Age of the Pitcher and How We Got Here, pitchers have dominated more and more over the past ten years. Check out these 2000 vs. 2011 changes Stark highlighted in his article:
Runs Scored: 24,971 vs. 20,808
Home runs: 5,693 vs. 4,552
Then, between 2006 and 2011:
Average ERA: 4.53 vs. 3.94
Strikeouts Per 9 Innings: 6.6 vs. 7.1
Perhaps most telling is the fact that between 2007 and 2011, the number of MLB pitchers with an average fastball velocity of 95mph or higher increased from 11 to 35. When velocities are jumping like that, it's hard to say that the improved pitching performances are just due to the fact that guys are introducing better secondary pitches (most notably cutters), or that hitters are falling off because they're off the sauce. Pitchers are getting more dominant.
I understand Stark's point that hitting has declined considerably in recent years as strikeout totals have piled up and batting averages have plummeted. However, I'm not really interested in debating whether offense is falling off because pitchers are getting better or because hitters are getting worse, because it's obviously a combination of the two. However, what I think is a hugely valuable takeaway from this is that increased body weight is once again associated with increased pitching velocity.
Can you throw hard without being heavy? Absolutely; many guys do it. Would many of these already-elite slighter-framed MLB pitchers benefit from increases in body weight? In many cases, yes - assuming the changes in body weight are gradual, accompanied by strength/power gains, and properly integrated with their existing mechanics. While a gain of ten pounds seems like a huge deal to most pitchers, the truth is that it's actually a trivial amount of muscle mass over an entire body. Have a look at this picture of 5lbs of muscle vs. 5lbs of fat that's floated around the internet for a while now:
Now, imagine spreading two of the red masses on the right over the course of an entire body; you would barely notice they're there, especially on the average MLB player, who is almost 6-2. I guarantee you that if you hide one of those in each glute, you're going to see some big velocity gains, regardless of who you are.
Of course, every action has a reaction. While you'll be more successful if you throw harder, you'll also be more predisposed to arm injuries. It should come as no surprise that the number of Tommy John surgeries has gone sky-high as more and more guys have blown up radar guns (and scales). Run fast and you're more likely to pull a hamstring. Drive your car fast and you're more likely to crash.
Lots of people are quick to hop on board the "all injuries are due to bad mechanics" bandwagon, but the truth is that a lot of injuries are due in large part to the fact that a lot of guys are throwing really, really hard nowadays. And, taking it a step further, they were usually throwing pretty hard at a young age - and on five different teams, in front of 150 radar guns at each game, with absurd pitch counts, while jumping from showcase to showcase, while playing year-round without a quality baseball strength and conditioning program and arm care routine in place. The truth is that all injuries are multi-factorial, and we have to control what we can control with an athlete, especially when we first interact with that player after years of mismanagement.
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When it comes to strength and conditioning programs, I've long been a proponent of the phrase, "It's not just what you do; it's how you do it."
Whenever I visit a commercial gym, I'm reminded of just how badly most people butcher exercise technique. A lot of people get hurt with exercise, and it isn't necessarily because the exercise is inherently bad, but because their execution of that exercise (or their "intepretation" of it) is grossly flawed.
To that end, I thought it would be a good idea to kick off a new series about coaching cues we regularly use with our clients and athletes. Here are three to get the ball rolling:
1. "Make a double chin."
I'm a huge advocate of teaching the packed neck during strength exercises, as a lot of athletes have a tendency to slip into forward head posture the second they get under load. However, the common cue of "tuck the chin" really doesn't work, as a lot of athletes will simply open the mouth or take the chin to the sternum. Neither of these patterns are ideal. Simply telling someone to make a double chin usually fixes the problem instantly, as it's a pattern that is already in their existing schema; they've been making goofy faces every since they were kids.
This is, of course, a cue you might want to avoid if your client does, in fact, have many chins.
2. "Stare at your fists."
Prone bridges are a tremendously valuable anterior core stability exercise, especially for beginners. Unfortunately - and possibly because they're so common in group exercise settings - the technique gets butchered all the time, as folks make themselves "too long" with their set-up. When the hands are too far out in front of the body, the challenge improves considerably, and folks often drop into a forward head posture, "buffalo hump" at the thoracic spine, and lumbar hyperextension. Here's what the poor technique looks like; you'll see that the athlete is simply training in an excessively lordotic posture:
Here's how it looks when it's corrected:
3. "Work like a see-saw."
I'm a big fan of single-leg deadlifts, but the truth is that a lot of people struggle to master the hip hinge in unilateral stance. One of the quick and easy ways to correct this is to tell an athlete to "work like a see-saw." In other words, imagine the dumbbell in front as being one side of the see-saw, and your foot in the back as the other end. Since the foot weighs less than the dumbbell, you've got to get it further out on the see-saw to have the same counterbalancing effect.
The same is true in the warm-up period, even if you don't have weights in the hands:
Did you find these tips helpful? Looking for more coaching cues like these? In the comments section below, let me know what exercise technique gives you trouble and we'll cover it in a future installment!
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Babe Ruth hit a ton of homeruns in spite of being a seemingly out-of-shape fat guy. I've seen more than dozen pitchers throw well above 90 mph without even being able to vertical jump 23 inches.
What gives? Well, these athletes are just incredibly efficient – and powerful – in the transverse and frontal planes. Would being an elite sprinter make one a successful hitter or pitcher? Of course not, yet most strength and conditioning coaches train their rotational sport athletes as if they were trying to elevate them to elite status in a sagittal-plane dominant sport. They assume that general exercises like squats, deadlifts, and Olympic lifts will simply carry over once an athlete starts throwing or hitting.
And, to some degree, they do carry over because of the involved structures and systemic training effect, but I think that there's a way to tighten up the learning loop.
People think I'm crazy when I say that we don't Olympic lift our baseball players. We also don't do much vertical jumping. At the end of the day, jumping high doesn't really matter that much. Rotating fast and moving laterally quickly does, though, so we focus our power-oriented work on rotational medicine ball drills and lots of laterally-directed jumping/landing, and supplement it with lifting and sprinting.
I reiterated these thoughts a few weeks ago with my post, Why Baseball Players Shouldn't Olympic Lift. This kicked off some heated debates, so I thought I'd contact Graeme Lehman for an interview on the topic. As a brief background, back in 2010 - just a few months after I had the aforementioned article published - Graeme informed me that he was actually in the process of researching this very topic for his master's thesis. Today, we're fortunate to have him here to discuss his findings and their practical applications.
EC: Thanks for agreeing to do this interview, Graeme. Can you start off by telling me a bit about both your baseball and educational backgrounds?
GL: First of all, thank you for asking me to do this interview; it is an honor to be a guest on your site, which I have used as an educational resource for years.
Baseball has always been my sport of choice despite growing up in Edmonton, Alberta during the 80s with the best hockey team ever assembled playing in my back yard (five Stanley Cups in seven years). I was fortunate enough to secure a scholarship to play baseball in North Dakota, but the school I attended didn’t have a kinesiology program, so I chose the major that I thought would afford me the best chance of getting a job, a degree in business administration. Ironically, and perhaps fatefully, my business degree got me a job as the manager of a small personal training studio. One day a trainer didn’t show up and I was thrown into the fire.
This first experience in a strength coach setting fueled a new found desire to educate myself about the world of exercise science. I read everything I could get my hands on including all of the articles that guys like you, Mike Robertson, Chad Waterbury, Mike Boyle wrote for T-Nation. I was hooked, and in 2006, I became a CSCS, and just one year later I was enrolled in a graduate school at the Memorial University of Newfoundland in Dr. David Behm’s Kinesiology program.
Since my collegiate days in ND, I have been both a baseball coach and strength coach for various individuals and teams including two years as the S&C for the UBC Thunderbirds. I have also continued playing in various men’s leagues in order to test out my own theories and keep chasing the dream hoping to become the next Jim Morris.
In case you’re trying to follow along with the various places I lived, they were:
1- Edmonton, Alberta (cold)
2- Jamestown, North Dakota (cold & windy)
3- St. John’s, Newfoundland (cold, windy and wet)
4- Vancouver, British Columbia (wet)
Living in these less than ideal climates has really made me excited about the work you do and the results you get in snowy Hudson, Massachusetts.
EC: How did you wind up deciding to pursue this research study, and what was the hypothesis that you were testing?
GL: My initial reasoning was quite simple: I wanted to help baseball players throw harder. As a strength coach, I thought that improving lower body power would be one of the best ways to achieve this goal. This led me to question: “what kind of lower body power can be improved in order to have a better chance of carrying over from the weight room to the baseball diamond?”
In the past, scores from traditional tests like vertical jump, broad jump and 60-yard dash times have not had any significant correlation to throwing velocity (Spaniol 1997). This made some sense because I have known some guys that I wouldn’t call “athletic” but could still throw gas. Mechanics obviously play a huge roll, but there is some research that stress’ the importance of lower body power in creating throwing velocity.
MacWilllams et al. (1998) showed that higher levels of force production by the back leg in the direction towards the plate led to higher wrist/ball velocity. While Matsuo et al. (2001) showed that what happens to a pitchers front knee between the time the front foot hits the ground and the time the ball is released is the key differentiator between “low” and “high” velocity throwing groups. Those that had the ability to extend their knee rather than going into further flexion threw harder.
So, it’s pretty easy to see that each leg is performing independent actions in a number of planes which don’t carry over to traditional bi-lateral sagittal. Thus, the principal of specificity was not taken into account and I know from your research, Eric, that you hate it when this principal is ignored.
It became obvious that we should be including tests which look at independent leg action, different planes of motion along with different kinds of strength (concentric, isometric, isometric).
EC: What kind of subjects did you have participating in the study, and what challenges did you face in dealing with them?
GL: My subjects were all male college level baseball players from two different teams. In total, I had 42 subjects who were approximately 19.8 years old and 183.3 cm tall and weighed 83.1 kg.
The biggest challenge was to create a list of tests which covered a wide spectrum of lower body power qualities to complement traditional running and jumping tests, which I also included. Each test also had to be easily reproduced by any strength or baseball coach in order to make this information user-friendly.
EC: Please describe your methods and the results you attained.
GL: We split up the athletes into left and right handed subjects and we measured throwing velocity was in two ways:
(1) Stationary throwing - similar to a pitcher throwing from the stretch.
(2) Shuffle approach - similar to a third basemen making a strong throw across the diamond.
This gave us four different groups. The throwing velocities from each group were correlated against the results of each lower body power test along with height and weight, looking for any significance. While there were was some correlation to body weight and med ball throws in one or two of the groups, only one test batted 1.000: the lateral to medial jump. This was the only test that was performed in the frontal plane.
Here is what this test looks likes. Stand on one leg then jump towards your midline in the frontal plane. Land with both feet together at the same time and take the measurement from the closest body part (lateral edge of the inside foot) to the starting line.
Since the lateral to medial jump score of the same side leg to the throwing arm (right leg for righties) went 4 for 4 in showing a positive correlation in each group, we made the conclusion that power is plane specific.
This was one of these “duh” moments because it makes obvious sense. If I can have more energy going towards my target, I have a better chance to transferring more energy up the kinetic chain to my throwing arm. If the rules didn’t stop me I would crow hop every time I pitched (like a Trevor Bauer warm-up) pitch trying to get as much as energy as I can going towards my target.
The pitching coach in me wants to warn against the young pitcher reading this and going out and trying jump towards the plate in order to boost their fastball. While it is important to initiate energy towards your target you need to be strong enough to capture and transfer that energy towards. If you aren’t strong enough on the front side you will exhibit what we in the business call an energy leak, just like the “low throwing velocity group from Matsuo’s study.
EC: Okay, these are all well and good, but let’s talk practical applications. What can coaches take away from your research to immediately make their baseball strength and conditioning programs better?
GL: I think this helps us make smarter decisions in what we need to add/emphasize in our programs, and what we can subtract/deemphasize. Basically, we need to add more exercises that will improve frontal plane power and subtract some of the exercises that don’t. For example, hang cleans and drop jumps might help increase vertical jumping ability, but if goal is to throw 90mph these might not be the best use of our limited amount of time and energy.
The hard part about training the frontal plane is that your options are limited by traditional weight training. We need to think outside of the box like Bret Contreras did with his hip thrust in trying to improve running speed. Exercises that I would say to add or emphasis would be band resisted lateral jumps and lateral sled dragging since they are both performed in the frontal plane.
On the flip side, if we spend time working on creating more energy, we also have to think about how we can absorb it and ultimately transfer it to the baseball. This makes me think that single-leg training is very important, so we need to emphasize qualities like concentric strength for the back leg and eccentric strength for the lead leg.
EC: How about future research? What do we need to study next in order to build on these findings to continue to improve our understanding of long-term management of overhead throwing athletes, particularly pitchers?
GL: The next step would be to create a long-term study where a group of experienced baseball players train for 4-8 weeks. One group would include some frontal plane movements and the other wouldn’t. Test both pre and post throwing velocity and you’ve got another study. I wish I had the resources to do this, but I also don’t feel very ethical having some young baseball players not using these any frontal plane movements.
I think that these results also point to the fact that throwing a baseball is a full body movement. If we can get our pitchers throwing more like athletes and harness the power created by the lower body, we can eliminate some stress from the throwing arm keeping more baseball players in the game.
EC: Thank you very much for your great insights. Where can my readers find more from you?
GL: Thank you again for having me. I have a blog where I translate some of the geeky exercise science research related to baseball into Layman’s terms (cheesy use of my last name but it works). My goal there is to cover the gaps between the research lab, weight room and baseball field so that more players and coaches can benefit from all the information that is available.
You can also find me at Inside Performance, which is an awesome indoor baseball training facility in North Vancouver (possibly the rainiest place in the world) where I work as a S&C coach.
References
MacWilliams, B, Choi, T, Perezous, M, Chao, E, and McFarland, E. Characteristic ground reaction forces in baseball pitches. Am J Sports Med 26: 66-71, 1998.
Matsuo, T, Escamilla, R, Fleisig, G, Barrentine, S, and Andrews, J. Comparison of kinematic and temporal parameters between different pitch velocity groups. J Appl Biomech 17: 1-13, 2001.
Spaniol, FJ. Predicting throwing velocity in college baseball players. J Strength Cond Res 11: 286, 1997.
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As an interesting little aside to this, last week, I had a chance to preview the newest version of the Minimus (due out in December), and they're absolutely awesome. Cool colors, awesome design, super durability, and great fit. I'm excited to rock them.
The Most Overlooked Continuing Education Opportunity for Fitness Professionals - My experience out at the Area Code Games reminded me of this old post of mine, as I had an opportunity to interact with kids from all over the country on the baseball field. The athletes and clients you encounter can teach you a ton.
Glutes Gone Wild: Part 2 - Silly name, but good article from Ben Bruno nonetheless. There are some exercise variations in here that we use quite often at CP.
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Here's this week's list of quick tips you can put into action to improve your strength and conditioning and nutrition programs, courtesy of CP coach Greg Robins. This week, Greg focuses on improving your warm-ups.
1. Integrate new movements into your warm-up first.
A solid warm-up should do a few things for you; in a nutshell, it needs to prepare the body for the task at hand. At Cressey Performance, we do this via soft tissue work, mobility drills, and various low level activation exercises. Essentially, we are working on our weak points (from a movement standpoint), so that we can solidify these new ranges with our strength training. Therefore, the warm up itself is a great spot to work on any new movements we want to externally load down the road. As a believer in training efficiency, I would rather see more time spent loading what can be safely loaded, and not spending as much time in the "meat" of the training session working new movements. If you have movement patterns that need practice, do a few sets in the warm up. As an example, CP coach Chris Howard is currently working the steps of the Turkish get-up as part of his warm-up routine before he loads it up. Other options include: frontal plane exercises such as lateral lunge variations, squat variations, and lunge or split squat variations.
2. Put a time limit on you warm-up.
A thorough warm-up includes a lot, and each piece is important. That being said, it doesn't (nor should it need to) take more than 15 minutes. As I said before, the warm-up needs to prepare you for the task at hand, and that task includes crushing your training session. In order to make that happen, you want to leave the warm up area sweating, fired up, and ready to train. Too often, I see people allow the warm-up process to morph into a 30-minute affair. Not surprisingly, these are the same people who comment on the tediousness of the process, and the fact that their training sessions seem like two-hour affairs. Focus on what needs to get done, and get it done. Scrap the small talk, and get to work! I can properly do all my self massage and 10-12 warm up exercises in 15 minutes, and so can you. When I finish my shirt is damp, my adrenaline is pumping, and I am ready to do work. You need to do the same. Next time you get into the gym, set a timer and condense your 30-minute marathon of a warm-up into 15 minutes. The difference in training quality will be immediately noticeable, and your distaste for warming up will be a thing of the past.
3. "Floss" your joints during self-massage.
I picked this tip up awhile back from strength coach and physical therapist Kelly Starrett. It has made a huge difference in how my elbows, knees, and shoulders feel after warming up. When rolling out you will often find "knots" or areas that are noticeably more tender than others. Stop on these regions, keep constant pressure on the area, and take the nearest joint through some active ranges of motion while the implement used for massage is still applying pressure. I have found this to be especially helpful with a lacrosse ball placed just above the knee, just above the elbow, and under the shoulder. Other options include simply flexing and extending the knees, elbows, and shoulders while rolling across the IT bands / quadriceps (knee), upper and mid back (shoulders), and upper arms (elbows). Here are a few examples:
4. Mimic the day's big exercise with a lower load variation first.
As a powerlifter, my training sessions always begin with one of the tested lifts: squat, bench, or deadlift. While this may not be the case for the general population or athletes, more times than not they are still beginning with a big compound movement. Instead of diving right in to the lift at hand, consider doing a few light sets of a similar movement that will help ingrain proper technique and give you additional time to orient the body to the day’s main movement pattern. I have found the goblet squat to be a great way to set up for successful squatting. Band resisted good mornings or KB swings are good for the deadlift. Finally, something as easy as a few sets of pushups can help with the bench press.
Each of these options will help raise your core temperature, fire up the CNS, and give you some sensory feed back on how the lift should feel (or will feel) on the given day.
5. Consider using MCTs for pre workout nutrition.
I'll finish this warm-up edition with a suggestion on how to warm up your body from the inside out. Many people tend to fuel their body pre-workout with various supplements (mostly full of garbage), or with carbohydrate-rich concotions. Instead, consider using a healthy source of fat: Medium Chain Triglycerides (MCTs). The benefits are numerous, and especially advantageous for those looking to increase fat oxidation during the workout. This study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, showed that consumption of MCTs as part of a weight loss plan improved overall weight loss. After ingestion of MCTs, the free fatty acid levels are raised, and more available to be used as energy. Supplementing with MCTs pre workout is therefore a terrific option for those on low carbohydrate diets looking for pre-workout energy and increased fat loss. You can get your MCTs in via coconut oil, MCT oil supplements, or even quality coconut milk products. Add in a small amount of BCAAs or whey protein, and caffeine for a boost that will keep you fueled up while aiding you in staying lean.
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Today's guest blog comes from nutrition expert, Brian St. Pierre.
About three weeks ago, I broke part of my tibia while playing in a rugby tournament. Fortunately, my break isn’t too bad (though it is rather rare), as I only broke the bottom portion of the tibia, not the entire bone.
I got tackled on the final play of the game, and while we went on to score, giving us a chance to tie. Unfortunately, we missed the kick, and even more unfortunately, my ankle everted excessively. This eversion caused huge strain on my tibiocalcaneal ligament (the white one in the photo below), which is so damn strong that instead of spraining, it simply broke the bone where it attached to my tibia.
The worst part is that 1 in 6 of these breaks require surgery. I am young, fit and healthy, so I am hopefully not the “1,” but I still felt it was in my best interest to do everything I could to decrease the surgery odds.
Injuries are a part of the game; whether that game is rugby, baseball or just being a recreational exerciser – they can happen to all of us. While prevention is always the goal, once injury occurs, what can we do about it? A lot, actually.
You see, the body has a very organized recovery process. First is the coagulation phase which lasts 1-2 days. An inflammation phase follows, lasting up to 5 days post –injury. Third is the migration phase, which lasts from day 4 to 21 days post injury. Finally, the remodeling phase lasts from day 5 up to 2 years post injury.
With this in mind, we can use appropriate nutrition and supplement choices to improve the recovery process. The goal with an injury is to manage inflammation by controlling swelling and pain, and to assist with the remodeling phase to stimulate tissue growth (in my case, bone).
The trick is to not completely eliminate inflammation, as some is necessary for proper recovery, but too much can increase tissue damage and lengthen the recovery time. Here are some strategies for modulating inflammation:
1. Eating appropriate fat-dense foods.
Focusing consumption on plenty of extra virgin olive oil, various nuts, avocados, ground flax, chia seeds and wild fatty fish or fish oil. Fish oil is a must here, with a good goal being 3-9g of total fish oil per day.
In this same vein, it is even more important to minimize inflammatory promoters such as industrial vegetable oils – corn, cottonseed, safflower, soybean, sunflower, etc and especially trans fats.
2. Including specific foods and supplements.
Curcumin at 1-2g/day.
Garlic
Bromelain 500-1000mg/day or 1 cup pineapple/day
3. Using NSAIDs appropriately.
NSAIDs do help with managing inflammation, but they also can hinder appropriate healing, in addition to many other possible side effects such as GI distress, bleeding, etc. They are best reserved for the inflammation phase of recovery only.
In addition to managing inflammation, it is also important to note that injuries increase our resting metabolic rates by 15-50%. In my case it is probably closer to 15, in the case of severe burns covering large amounts of the body, then it approaches 50%. As such, we need to consider the extent of the injury when we decide how to plan out nutrition to optimize tissue repair.
While overall calories needs will be higher than your needs if you were not injured, they are not as high as your needs are if you are healthy and training hard. In my case I was still able to lift 4x/wk with some modifications, but I was no longer able to walk the dog everyday for two miles, and my overall movement decreased, so my intake reflected that.
In addition, having some vitamin or mineral deficiencies can also inhibit healing and recovery. These deficiencies include vitamins A, Bs, C, and D, as well as copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, zinc and calcium.
Additionally, some micronutrients may actually speed healing (though some are more specific to wounds than bone): vitamins A and C, copper and zinc are examples.
With all of that in mind, what did I actually do with my nutrition and supplementation to ensure a good recovery?
I actually increased my already substantial fruit and vegetable intake to help ensure adequate vitamin and mineral status, as well as providing anti-inflammatory phytonutrients and compounds.
I will also note that I have been experimenting with a BSP version of intermittent fasting (meaning I am not a slave to it, I do it on days when it fits my schedule, and don’t do it on days when it doesn’t, and I don’t worry if I only fast for 14 hours instead of 16 either).
Wake @ 5:30am – 12oz black coffee
7:00am – 12oz black coffee
7:30-8:30am – train
10:00am – Breakfast
• 5 whole pasture-raised eggs in 1 tsp grass-fed ghee
• ½ cup mixed peppers and onions
• large handful organic spinach
• salt and pepper to taste
• ½ cup old fashioned oats cooked with a little unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• 1 banana, sliced
• 1 tbsp organic milled flax
• cinnamon to taste
• 1 smoothie made of 2oz POM, 1 cup organic whole yogurt, ½ scoop vanilla protein, 5g creatine, bunch of blueberries and strawberries
2:00pm – Lunch
• 1 Ezekiel wrap
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil pesto
• large handful or two of organic spinach
• 1 chicken breast
• ½ 100cal pack wholly guacamole
• 12 baby carrots with other half of guac
• 1 organic apple
• (when uninjured I have another cup of yogurt, another half scoop of protein, a few slivered almonds, and some chopped strawberries here, but I intentionally dropped this knowing my needs were less)
6:00pm – Dinner
• 3 cups organic mixed greens
• 4 baby carrots
• ½ cucumber
• ¼ cup black beans
• ½ cup brown and wild rice
• a few croutons
• 2 tbsp expeller pressed canola oil ranch dressing
• 10oz grass-fed lean sirloin
• 1 glass wine or 1 Coors Light
• 3 squares Green & Black’s Organic 85% Cacao chocolate (1/4 serving)
• 1 serving mixed dried fruit
Supplements:
• Innate Response One Daily 2x/d
• 1g Curcumin 2x/d
• 500mg Vitamin C 2x/d
• 2000IU Vitamin D on weekdays
• 3g fish oil 2x/d (total of 3.6g EPA and DHA)
• 1 probiotic daily
• 3 ZMA 4x/wk
In advance, I’ll answer some of the questions I know will come up.:
1. I am only taking vitamin D on weekdays because I get plenty of sun on the weekends, and in fact I was only taking it a few days a week prior to the injury since I was walking the dog each afternoon and it has been a gorgeous summer.
2. I am taking the vitamin C merely because we had some kicking around the house; they were about to expire and I figured it wouldn’t hurt.
3. I don’t normally take ZMA, but I figured I would get a bottle for the extra zinc and magnesium, just for the next 5-6 weeks or until it runs out. I only take it on the nights before I train, as I tend to feel groggy if I take it every night.
4. I will only take the supplements in these amounts for four weeks. After that it returns to multi just once, 500mg curcumin, and 2g fish oil (1.2g EPA/DHA).
5. I will also not that I did take 800mg of ibuprofen 2x/d starting on day 3 of recovery, after the coagulation phase, and then only took for three more days, or until the inflammation phase was complete.
Conclusion
Don’t let an injury come between you and your health and fitness goals. As Eric has written, you can always train around an injury, and there are steps you can take to provide your body with the materials it needs to heal as rapidly and completely as possible.
Have you employed any nutritional or supplementation strategies to assist your recovery from an injury in the past? I’d love to hear your experiences in the comments section below.
About the Author
Brian St. Pierre is a Certified Sports Nutritionist (CISSN) and a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS). He received his degree in Food Science and Human Nutrition with a focus in Human Nutrition and Dietetics from the University of Maine, and he is currently pursuing his Master's degree in Human Nutrition and Dietetics from the same institution. He was the Nutritionist and a Strength and Conditioning Coach at Cressey Performance in Hudson, MA for three years, and is now a coach with Precision Nutrition. Brian authored the Show and Go Nutrition Guide, the accompanying nutrition manual to Eric Cressey’s Show and Go Training System.
With his passion for seeing his clients succeed, Brian is able to use his knowledge, experience, and energy to create highly effective training and nutrition programs for clients of any age and background. For more information, check out his website.
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As I type this, I'm out at the Area Code Games in Long Beach, CA with New Balance Baseball. For those who aren't familiar with Area Codes, it's a yearly event that brings the top high school players in the country together to showcase their skills in game play and batting practice in front of loads of professional scouts and college coaches. In all, about 230 of the top players in the country take part in the event, and they compete a representatives of their geographic regions. I've been doing arm care education and taking teams through pre-game warm-ups on the field.
It's been interesting for me to interact with kids from not only a variety of different parts of the country and get a feel for the coaching style to which they each respond. And, you can definitely tell who has been exposed to some quality strength and conditioning thus far, as well as who has had formal baseball-specific education to assist in their development. Along those lines, one of the the more prominent observations I've made in high level players at Cressey Performance has also proven to be present here:
Attention to detail makes a huge difference.
I often cite CP athlete and Royals pitcher Tim Collins as a great example of this. Tim is a gym rat in the off-season; he hangs out in the office and cracks jokes with our athletes all the time. However, the second he picks up a baseball or gets to lifting, he flips a switch and tunes the world out. This is true regardless of whether he's long tossing, deadlifting, or warming up. There is no joking around with buddies when he's trying to learn a new skill or repeat his mechanics.
Steve Cishek is the same way. He might coordinate the CP NHL League on X-Box, but the second he picks up a ball, he's all business. As a sidearm guy who used to throw from a higher arm slot, repeating his somewhat new delivery is super important, as it is easy to develop bad habits when you're inattentive.
With that in mind, there isn't a high school kid alive who repeats his mechanics at a big league level, yet most high school guys you encounter have no problem chatting and goofing around when they're playing catch. Kids would be much better off paying close attention to what they're doing on every throw, correcting as they go and using it as an opportunity to improve, not just warm-up.
The same goes for pre-game dynamic flexibility warm-ups. When you chat with buddies the whole time, it's easy to do fewer reps, hold positions for less time, or just forget to do drills altogether. And these are just a few of many examples; it's easy to get into bad habits and cut corners.
Maybe it's just the added scouting presence out here, but a lot of these highly ranked prospects really "get it" more than most of the other up-and-coming players I encounter. Most are the best players in the history of their towns, yet they still want to improve. When they pick up a ball, they throw with intent. When you coach them, they are more likely to look you in the eye to make sure they're doing things correctly. While there are examples of guys being successful in spite of what they do and not because of what they do, for the most part, you can learn a lot by watching what accomplished players do to be successful.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: small hinges swing big doors.
Pay attention to warm-ups. Focus when you're long tossing. Look coaches in the eyes. Get in that one lift at the end of a long day when other players are tapping out. Eat healthy when your teammates are just crushing pizza. Seek out expertise instead of waiting for it to fall into your lap. There are so many ways to improve - and do so today - that it's only your own fault if you aren't getting better.
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Dr. John Berardi has been one of the greatest influences in my career. He has been a friend for about a decade now, and in that time, he's had a positive impact on the way that I've written, presented, and structured my online and in-person businesses. In addition to being an accomplished researcher, writer, and pioneer in the world of nutrition coaching, Dr. Berardi wrote the forward to my first book with a publisher, and has been generous with his time whenever I've had a question for him. In short, I think the "good doctor" is everything that's right about our industry today.
To that end, I'd encourage you to check out some of his stuff for yourself today, as he's introducing a new free course called The Essentials of Nutrition Coaching. It's an outstanding resource that will teach you:
--> How to include nutrition in a training, coaching or therapeutic environment
--> How to quickly and accurately assess the nutritional needs of a new client
--> How to devise a nutrition plan based on that assessment
--> What stats to measure and how exactly to measure them
--> How to optimize a nutrition plan based on those stats
We've utilized Dr. Berardi's teachings extensively for our nutrition consultations at Cressey Performance with great results, and I'd encourage you to go through this course yourself to learn how you can benefit from these great ideas as well. Check it out for yourself; you won't regret it:
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