Indestructible knees

So in the end you want indestructible knees. If you haven't figured how to this yet then here you go.

1)Make your post chain strong like bull
Get your glutes and hamstrings very very strong. Doing this will not only make you perform better in competition but it will also drastically decrease your risk of injury.

2)Mobility
Work on changing levels and increasing range of motion in different planes at different velocities (especially in regards to the hip). Many many mobility drills in both the sagital and the frontal plane (transverse is important as well but you'll see that you naturally go through these with many mobility drills).

3)Get the knots out
Myofascial release through ART, foam rollers, tennis balls w/e. These tools are friends and can keep you healthy for a very long time. Working on the glutes (especially glute medius), IT Band, hip flexors, quads, gastrocnemius, soleous, and achilles will help immensely.

4)Work on Dorsiflexion and ankle mobility
It may seem like not a big deal, but it take 1-2 minutes and could make or break your career.

Top 10 Programming pitfalls for ACL's

Recently I've been talking about programming nightmares in regards to the ACL and how common they are. Many athletes reading this will probably be able to empathize with some of these types of training. Programs right now should be better than they were 10-20 years ago and really they should be vastly better than they were 3-5 years ago. Yet I still see coaches and parents and even other athletes trying to implement these same type of programs. It makes sense though, they are just doing what they were taught in the endless circle of training under unqualified instructors. I realize most people mean the best but almost all the time it's better to leave it to a specialist (though some of those 'specialists' are still doing some of this stuff). Each of these could be books just within themselves, which is why I'm going to devote a full article on these later. So for now, I'll save you some reading time, but don't be afraid to ask questions.

1)Plyometric programs without a solid strength base
I probably see this one more than any other, and it amazes me. I still see way to many contacts, coaches having kids with close to zero training age doing Touches and even depth jumps. Over doing plyos is the quickest way to overtraining and injury. Plyometric or reactive type exercises like jumps, hops, box jumps, squat jumps, depth jumps etc. are all very very hard on your body, especially your nervous system. Your nervous system works everything, it is the strongest and most stable system in our bodies, if it is off we are off. But also if the body does not have enough strength and intra + intermuscular coordination your athletes are going to have some big problems.
If an athlete does not have enough strength than doing plyometrics will not lead to any gains, will most likely produce poor movement patterns and can be very harmful to his/her body.

2)Poor warm up, stretching and muscular activation techniques
-You are still the dumbass static stretching before training and competition. Wake up! You are literally weakening your athletes as well as dramatically increasing their risk for injury.

-You're the person that has athletes jog/bike for 10 minutes pre workout. Again, this significantly hampers an athletes ability to perform in training and competition. (I'll explain this further in the article.)

-You're not doing anything to active the muscles your athletes need, lengthen the others that are inhibiting them, or increase their efficiency before hand.

-You haven't figure out that your athletes cannot be leading their own warm-up

-You have no understanding of lung volumes, breathing, heart rates, and/or core temperature. You need a rise in core temp, the lungs need to expand by working, and the body needs to feel like it has already played for at least two minutes.

-And now for the worst one, You DON'T EVEN WARM UP!!
I should not need to say anything here, but coaches STILL DO IT. Ridiculous.

3)Low-No glute/hip dominant exercises
Your glutes have the ability to make you faster, stronger, larger, healthier and decrease your risk of injury. If you haven't figured this out yet it is time to either get out of training or open a book because you are either an idiot or you just have not applied yourself in too long. Either way, not good.

4)Too much static stretching of the hamstring
One of the functions of your hamstring works on the knee in almost the same way as your ACL does. To static stretch the hamstring you are decreasing it's ability to contract, and therefore decreasing its strength. For now, just stop stretching it all the time. Especially with female athletes.

5)Too much hamstring flexibility.
I know this is similar to four but they are different even though they run across each other.Too much length of the hamstring causes a decrease in function and can help your athletes go further into anterior pelvic tilt. Instead of working on flexibility of the hamstring work on it's strength but only in a functional way. ABSOLUTELY NO LEG CURLS.

6)Training in the same way you play. With ankles taped, knee sleeves on, while wearing high tops Bad Bad Bad.
During training is the most controlled environment you are going to experience. Take this time to strengthen the areas that are weak by not using these supportive cruches.

7)Too much attention to the knee itself. Look above and below the joint.

8)The VMO is not everything.
A program full of TKE's are not going to solve a knee problem.

9)Get off the isolated leg exercises

-Leg Curls: the hamstrings never work independently of the glutes in movement, so why would you train them that way. You also do not want to deal with hamstring dominance.

-Leg Ext's: I shouldn't need to explain this. How about, if you want knee and all other kinds of injuries keep doing non functional idiot exercises like these.

10) Not enough work on Dorsiflexion.
If the lower half of the leg cannot dorsiflex enough the rest of the chain will make up for it somehow, and many times it will result in the knee.


These are not all specific to just the ACL. They affect all kinds of things. More important is: Are you still doing stupid stuff? One weak link can damage the entire body through injuries and compensation patterns. Look at your programs, you might find some flaws. Replacing these flaws with good things can make a huge difference in your athletes success.

The ACL injurty epidemic II

I told you I'd tackle the problems with programming, but I think it's possible I left some very important stuff out of the last couple of these. So before we get into the programming mistakes that I see all the time let's try and make up some ground.

The glutes extend as well as abduct and externally rotate the femur and therefore stabilize the knee as well as the hip itself. They are also the strongest most explosive muscle in the body so why wouldn't you train them.

Most ACL injuries occur when the the femur internally rotates and adducts, like when you see an athlete land after a jump and the knees go inward towards eachother (anyone see a correlation here???). This is about what it looks like. I see this happen when athletes jump and land, when they change direction and decelerate and obviously when they post up against another player.

Notice the knee, this is where most ACL injuries happen. Not good. See how the hip could pull the femur into correct position to avoid this. 

Just to complete this moment of randomness lets go over the difference between girls and guys when it come to the knee.

Knee issues are a huge problem for girls. For one, girls are typically more valgus than guys which puts them at an increased risk for knee issues since their knees are already closer to that dreaded internally rotated and adducted position where the injury most often occurs. But girls are also typically more quad dominant and don't have as much hamstring strength as males putting them at an even higher risk. And not to dig on girls, but to make sure you know that girls and guys cannot be trained the same, but girls typically have more flexibility in the hamstring, sometimes too much in fact and that leads to an increase risk of ACL injury as well.  

Hopefully that cleared up some issues. 

The ACL injury epidemic, Why???

Alright, What's really going on here? ACL's are popping all across the nation.



The ACL is the Anterior Cruciate Ligament and what it does is keep the femur (thigh bone) from sliding opposite of the tibia (larger lower leg bone). This is the reason you see most injuries to this area during deceleration, like landing after jumping or slowing down when sprinting. These are the most common factors I see leading to this injury epidemic. (for now I'm not going to differentiate between male and females, but there is a definite difference and is obvious in the rate of injuries in each.)

1) Weak or inhibited glutes, either way its bad. If the hip flexors are too tight, they will pull the hips into anterior pelvic tilt and inhibit the glutes from firing. The glutes are quite possibly the most important muscle in the whole body, if they are not firing you've got some MAJOR problems.
This is most often the most missed and under appreciated area I've had to deal with coaches on. If this muscle is weak or inhibited you are asking for all kinds of injuries and a huge decrease in potential for performance.

Following the striations gives you a good clue as to which way the muscle pulls.

2) To go along with #1 is a weak posterior chain. I already briefly hit the glutes, so lets go to the hamstrings. Your hamstrings perform an action on the knee very similar to the ACL. It is also a major stabilizer for the knee.



3) Bracing. Somethings gotta give and if its not where the brace is it'll happen somewhere else. Ever wonder why all those basketball players where pateller wraps?


How much dorsiflexion do you think this athlete will be able to get with this wrap??

If you are wearing an ankle brace, taping your ankles, or wearing high top shoes you are decreasing the mobility and range of motion of the ankle. Now, like I said before, something has to give. If the ankle is not able to move enough, then the knee or the foot is going to have to make up for that deficiency. So the reason many basketball players need to wear the patellar wraps is because their patella has had to take over for the lack of mobility of the ankle, especially when landing or absorbing force.

4) Footwear. Basketball (in the case of high tops) shoes are heavy, decrease mobility of the ankle joint to extremes and are usually accompanied by athletes that wear nothing but all year long. Same problem as above. Something is going to give and this is why many times you see basketball players with dropped arches or even flat feet and tons of ankle and knee problems.
The feet are not supported in a fashion that promotes health or performance. Most athletes would be better going barefoot everywhere.

5) Quad dominance. I forgot to mention this before. I thought it would be self explanatory but to make sure everyone knows, quad dominance is a huge problem as well. If you move everywhere with your quads you will not perform well and will dramatically increase your risk of injury. Not like the quads are not a great muscle but they can be a problem when the dominate the post chain. So, pretty much I'm saying that do nothing but TKE's to work on the VMO is pretty pointless, actually is pretty dumb, but I'll get more into that next time.


6) Programming. The last, most preventative, and sad to say but quite possibly the most common one I see is absolutely terrible programming. Now this is a whole topic in itself. I'm gonna save it for tomorrow.

Duke vs. NC Basketball, is basketball worth it??

Alright, I apologize for the hiatus from writing. At the moment I've decided to make time instead of taking a some moments to myself in order to watch Dude play North Carolina. I am not really a fan of either and as a wrestler I am not really even a fan of the sport in general. Now before I hear an uproar about this let me explain.



For one, the game of basketball has more gray area than any other sport there is. It's is a very judgmental game. For instance, a post can push his opponent around, BUT not too much!! and you can set a screen and about knock a guy on his arse but then its a foul to lightly touch his wrist while he's dribbling or shooting. Seems like too much to me. I guess I'm too much of an all or nothing kind of guy.

Then the idea of strategy that actually involves certain players not moving or working for a better position seems wrong to me. Seems like each player should be moving and working a grunting with everything they've got for their position. Football and wrestling there is no stop, it is all go. Yeah Yeah I played baseball and as it seems there is much standing around, if played properly every single player should move a fair amount on every single play. Even outfielders should moving on simple hit ground balls, actually they should be running there butts off. But what do I know I'm just a big dumb jock that used to be some kind of an athlete. (Maybe it is the old wrestler in me calling out all the pumpkin pushing skinny sissies that played where I was from.)


See how it fits right in??

Also on a less opinionated note, there are more ACL tears (I'd say almost 100% due to poor training habits, improper footwear, and/or bracing techniques) in basketball than any other sport. Now why is that???? What's the matter with bracing?? And they're all wearing 'basketball' shoes, that's what they're made for how can that be wrong?


Check out this knee in action


Note the sleeve/brace on the right knee of arguable the best overall player in the nation this year.

I'm gonna tackle this tomorrow then this weekend I'll get into what we can do to prevent this kind of crap from happening so much. Really its not even that complicated. Talk with you all soon.

7pm rule=BUNK!!!

I've heard it too many times before, and I'm sure I'll hear it again, but this is getting beyond old. On top of that, people are really hurting their bodies and their chances for nutritional success by following this simple age old rule as if it came straight from "the book" itself.

It seems to be that most people are accepting the idea of eating frequently for good health and fat loss, which is great. But, for some reason, this stupid 7pm rule is still sticking around. Some people don't necessarily follow this rule but most people are still not getting food after they eat supper (or w/e you call your evening meal).

We know now that eating every 2-4 hours (and I like every 2-3 hours even better) is the best way to eat for health, fat loss, and for building muscle (funny how those all work together huh?). The theories make good sense, and it has been proven over and over again. (theories would include topics of metabolism, nutrient absorption, insulin sensitivity and other hormone regulations, along with others.)

Okay, so how does that connect with the 7pm rule? Well, lets do it the easy way.
Example: Lets say you eat at 6:30pm, go to bed at 10pm, wake up the next morning at 6pm and get breakfast right away. You are supposed to eat every 2-4 hours, but you have just gone 11 hours without food. In that eleven hours your body's metabolism slowed to a screeching halt, used up all its glycogen stores and then started breaking down your muscle for energy to stay alive. You also just told your body to get ready for the next time you decide to starve and so it responds by turning more of your food into fat to get ready for next time.

All that is just the short term. You also lost some muscle mass, which means your metabolism is lower and you are less able to deal with your normal calorie intake, in turn you eat more calories than you need and guess what, you got skinnier while you also gained fat. Not so cool. (Ever seen an overweight guy with hardly any muscle on his arms? That could be you if you like.)

What's the anwer?
Eat before you go to bed. Yes I know, I said it. Crazy huh? You are right, there is plenty of crazy here. Not saying I'm Galileo or anything close, or that I came up with these theories of eating, but you get what I'm saying. Everyone thought Galileo was crazy too.


What you eat is important. I am not saying eat pasta before bed, or any other form of high glycemic carbohydrate either. You cannot do that, it will be very very bad. You should be eating complete protein and vegetables that is as simple as I can get. Do this within an hour of sleep.


High glycemic carbs good before workouts, but BAD before bed


Complete protein and vegetables great before bed.


In the end all forms of 7pm rule suck. Try eating before bed for a week, I think you will like it, and I know your body will love it.

Till next time.

-Adam Rees

"Life is 10% what happens to you, 90% how you respond to it."

PS. By the way, for those with acid reflux issues, I know people that have had good success with alka seltzer and other forms similar. Good luck.

What are you doin "outside" of training?

So you've got an athlete, he looks great, works hard, has passion, and you're trying your hardest to make sure his training is going as well as it can. You're doing things right. Your implementing myofascial release, dynamic mobility, and muscular activation into the warmups. You're keeping push/pull ratios even, and incorporating unilateral work. Great! You are on the right track, we need more people like you. (Especially coaches. The more I teach and the more new people I meet the more I realize how much misinformation is out there and that is why this blog exists.)

Now, even if you have the best program in the world for this athlete, it wont matter if you are not taking into account what he/she is doing outside of training.

There are 168 hours in the week and maybe 2-4 of those hours are with you. This athlete could be completely sabotaging everything you've been working for and they don't even know it. Sad huh? But it is your responsibility to teach and make sure they DO know.

How are they 'completely sabotaging' their effort you may ask?

Posture is one of the most overlooked aspects that I see. They may move well when someone is watching but what about the rest of the day. How much activity are they getting? How much are they sitting, driving, on a computer? These types of things wreak havoc on an athletes ability to move and improve.

I see improper footwear all the time. I see all kinds of elevated heels, high tops and stiff soled shoes. If you are wearing high tops all the time you are asking for flat feet and knee problems. The ankle joint should be very mobile and if it is restricted (as with high tops, or taped ankles) the body will find another area for the movement to take place. Why do you think basketball players have so many knee problems (high tops reinforced with taped ankles=no good).
Also, elevated heels like shox, most basketball shoes, and dress shoes cause just as many issues. You want your athlete to perform well then get them in some shoes that are actually good for their feet.

Good
Vs.
Atrocious

Diet is obvious but its necessary to cover, and absolutely pivotal for the athlete's health, recovery and performance during training and competition. Michael Phelps is a very famous athlete with incredible coaches. Even they were not aware of the diet plan he was using (at least I hope they weren't otherwise he needs a new nutritionist.)

Sorry Phelps, those trans fats and the poor nutrient timing are gonna catch up with you sometime.

Are those love handles I see above Phelps non existant posterior chain? (aka, he has much room for improvement.)

These are only three, there are tons to look into. Now, I really don't think that you need to go probing into your athlete's lives too much, but the athletes need to be beat over the head with information (not literally). Teach good posture and let them know the benefits. Same with footwear and diet. If you don't know, refer out, find some good resources.

Go here. John Berardi is the best nutrition guy I know of.
http://precisionnutrition.com/cmd.php?pageid=778229

This is a starter course that most anyone can learn from. (Especially those of you out there that are reading this and think you already know everything, someone is always going to know more, put the ego aside for two seconds and realize it only makes you an intolerable @$$ that wont be able to learn or teach anything well.)
http://precisionnutrition.com/cmd.php?pageid=778229&u=c

Okay, That is all for today.

"The man who thinks he can, and the man who thinks he can't are both right."

Videos: one wicked, one hilarious, and one awesome

Today is my off day from training. Sounds like a vacation right, well actually all I do is study and work anyway. For some reason I'm feeling pretty blog happy. New ah-ha! moment is probably helping with that as I found out I can embed vide0s from pretty much anywhere into this blog. So I figured I'd give you One wicked, one hilarious, and one awesome video that I can't wait for. 

First off. Wicked. Not like any high school athlete or coach should be implementing this or anything, but it's a pretty cool trick.

2) I think I've seen it about fifty times now, and I am still LMAO. No need to explain just watch the video. 

3) And lastly, it's and understatement to say I'm excited for this movie. Can't wait. 

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE HD

Yeah, I want to be Wolverine. It would be nice to have that kind of recovery time. 

Sup? Supplements: Vitamins

Today I was asked a few times about supplements, and as I am now realizing how foolish I've been for not devoting some time to articles on the subject I do believe its time to start going over some of them with all of you. 

First thing, supplements are not all harmful, some are actually very beneficial, though which ones you take and and how are huge players in that game. With that said not all supplements are right for you eitehr. The trick is to get ahold of someone who has already done the leg work for you (in this case yours truly), ask questions (sound familiar?) and go from there. 

Second, supplements are not all steroids, they are not performance enhancement drugs, and they are by no means cheating (unless they are banned by your sport of course). Most supplements are made to improve health, making your body operate more efficiently therefore making you able to perform better in your sport and daily life. They are made to improve upon (or 'supplement') your diet. This may seem like a pretty ridiculous statement but you would not believe the number of clueless people I hear talking about this stuff, of which many are very highly educated, some even doctors and physicians. Yeah, completely ridiculous isn't it? 

Another thing I run into alot is quote "Oh, I'm getting all my supplements at my local coop." As if the "all healthy coop" is the overseer of all that is good for you. I also hear Walgreens, Walmart, grocery stores and even gas stations. When was the last time gas stations had healthy stuff!?!? And yes, it is all I can take to not just about go bizerk (unsure of spelling) and start ripping heads off, but I try to remind myself that its okay they just don't know. 

Just to let everyone know I have broken down countless vitamins and mineral supplements and explored too many proteins, PWO's (pre+post workout drinks), amino acids, and fish oils to remember. In my findings there were very few supplements worth ingesting.

I have a gauntlet of tests that supplements have to go through before entering High Impact Training's line. One of the vitamin and mineral tests is putting the vitamin in a solution of water and vinegar, and another one is baking the vitamin in the oven. I found that out of all the different vitamins not one tablet was even close to being worth ingesting. Even top brands like Metagenics (a vitamin you can only get from physicians). Actually OneADay and Centrum were a couple of the worst. Crazy huh? Especially since these have been by far the highest selling vitamins in america for the last few years.

So what was so bad about them? Well, the majority of them didn't break down enough in the water solution which shows that they wouldn't even get a chance to be digested, and on top of that I don't remember having one that got close to passing the Oven test. Try it out, put one of your vitamins in the oven and turn it up to 400 and come back in about 15-25 minutes. You'll be able to see all the gunk come out of it that is holding it together. Know what that is? It's a bunch of glue and tar. MMMM, Right?

There are tons of different vitamins and minerals but your are quite literally flushing your money down the toilet when your taking most vitamins. There were bunches of vitamins that went through High Impact's process and there were only two that really stood out. I have no problem suggesting that everyone get on our Vital Core supplement. This is one that everyone can and should be taking. 

Expect some more information on supplements in the future. Vital core is not the only staple supplement that everyone should be taking, so you can bet I'll have a follow up here pretty soon. Until next time. 

Go hard or go home! 

Back Pain

Around the holidays my brother Joe returned home from Montana. I hadn't seen him in a few months and it was nice to catch up, at the same time its kind of like he was never gone. I actually got him to workout with some kettlebells for the first time.

From left to right: Julia, Maggie, Joe, and Mom. Yep my mother is not only rough enough to have kids like us, but also throws around some pretty respectable weights as well. 

It was good but what concerned me was that he had back pain that I did not know about. At some point out in Montana he'd developed some problems with his back, which many of you out there can empathize with. I'm his brother and doing what I do I should be able to help him out but I had no idea. So now this blog is kind of devoted to him. 

Now Joe's problem is multifaceted, like most back pain really is and it is fairly rare to see this but Joe actually has posterior pelvic tilt. And yes I did say pelvic which would mean that I'm saying there is absolutely nothing wrong with his back muscles or spine. It is all due to his hip alignment. The pelvis should be sitting level instead it is being pulled downward on the posterior (or back side) by some ridiculously tight hamstrings, which is misaligning the natural curve of the lumbar spine making it too flat and causing some big problems. 

Joe is also out in Montana where everyone seems to wear cowboy boots all day. Now I'm with him, if I were out there I'd probably wear cowboy boots too but in this case Joe's GastroSoleus region (or the large muscles that make up your calves) is also really really tight, and this is causing problems up the chain as well. Take this even further, he has some pretty tight hip flexors as well. Sorry Joe your getting it from every angle.

So big problems because Joe's hamstrings, calves, and hip flexors are so tight that even if he wanted to he couldn't get close to getting into a good squat position without some major compensations. On top of that he cannot recruit his glutes to do any work for him because they are being inhibited by the tightness. That means every time he sits in or gets up from a chair, ties his shows, takes out the trash he's creating new poor movement patterns. Okay check that he is in Montana, so every time he rides a horse, puts on his cowboy boots, and brands a calf. 

What does Joe need to do? I wish I had some good pictures for you, I will work on that in the future. 

First, Joe needs to get some soft tissue with a foam roller or tennis ball work in on his calves, hamstrings, hip flexors, and quads, but it would be beneficial to work on the upper back, lats, and chest also. 

Second, Do some glute activation stuff, or even just some simple hip mobility drills. shoulder bridge would be great, but a few lunges every morning would work wonders as well. 

Third, Stretch. Lengthen out those muscles, especially if each of these are done consecutively. When stretching the hamstrings keep the back as straight as possible. I like to use a belt and lay on the floor pulling my toes back towards my face with my leg straight doing one leg at a time and then go out to the left and the right hold each position for about 30-60 seconds. In my humble opinion this is the best hamstring and hip stretch for this type of scenario as it works on dorsiflexion and the hamstrings and calves are in a relaxed position while the spine remains neutral (see perfect). 

Now I dont know how much Joe works out in Lewistown, Montana, but even if not he could really help himself with about 10 minutes of this a day. Actually most people could get about the same. Now most people don't need to and many should not stretch out their hamstrings constantly, most of the time back pain is a matter of tight hip flexors and weak glutes. So I'd work on that first.  

"Life is 10% what happens to you, 90% how you respond to it."