Spring and Summer Are On The Way; Hello Exercise Injuries

Ahh spring.. Birds singing, fresh air that doesn't freeze your face off, the sweet sound of snapping tendons, and cry's of agony from athletes sustaining muscle injuries.

While most Canadians, in fact most people around the entire globe, don't exercise much, there is still a small steady growth in people who do exercise who are starting to get more interested in taking their fitness to a higher level.

Whether a high school or university athlete or a 30 to 60 something recreational athlete, more of the active crowd are taking part in more demanding exercises. Which is great.  It feels really rewarding to experience the fitness gains from high performance training.

For the general exerciser, spring and summer see more physical activity than winter.

In Canada leisure-time physical activity is 86% more likely in the summer than in the winter. (1)

My most difficult challenge as a coach is not getting sports enthusiasts and athletes to put time into training, the challenge is getting them to recognize when to go easier and placing importance on mastering the basics, avoiding overreaching, and injury prevention.

Here are some interesting stats:

• High school students who play sports all year long have a 42% increase risk of overuse injury, and potentially had the greatest reduction in injury risk by taking one season completely off from sports each year. (2)

• 1st year college/ university swimmers were more likely to become injured than later year college/ university swimmers. The reason is thought to be too rapid of a transition to more demanding training and competition. (3)

• Pro rugby players have significantly more injuries when they did more strength training or more field training. (4)

• Overuse (training too much) accounted for 68% of preseason and 78% of competition season injuries in triathletes (5), and a training volume of around 8-10 hours per week seemed to be associated with fewer injuries compared to greater or fewer training hours for triathletes (6). 

This spring, whatever activity you're into, put a lot of that enthusiasm into easy and progressive basic training.  It's a slow start, but if we can learn to associate the reward of greater future performance, we can really connect with the value of a progressive long term plan.  Go easy now so can you can go harder later, when it means more.

Muscle strength imbalances are very common, and cause plenty of performance and movement impairments.  These strength imbalances are insidious; we don't really feel them, and most people don't really know what they are and are aloof to these gremlins doing dirty deeds affecting hip mechanics, core stability, and muscle coordination.

The first step is getting assessed.  Look for a coach or trainer who knows how to do a movement screen or basic technique analyses.  They'll run you through a series of movement challenges to look for knees going the wrong way, lumbar and pelvis instability, and poor movement patterns due to either strength imbalances, old bad habits, old injuries, or insufficient range of motion (inflexibility).

Your exercise plan will then be built on the results of these tests with the goal of progressing you from the prehab/ rehab stage, to full on performance training.  Be ready to devote up to 8 months or more to this process before really hitting training hard on all cylinders.

Yes, 8 months or more.  I know.. I just lost 95% of people who may have been buying into this.

"I don't have 8 months.  The season starts in 8 weeks".  The only real response I can provide that has any resonance or reason are the research results I've linked here.  They all demonstrate that training too much too soon results in injury, and that more focus should be placed on building gradually as performance allows.

We've developed a consumer mentality towards increasing performance.  We think we can demand someone sell us a program that supplants the longer path to performance with a short cut.  We're so accustom to this we now think the short cuts are the real deal and the idea of long term gains is an uninformed concept.  The thing is we can't apply our consumer demands to our DNA or our cells biological processes that dictate adaptation to exercise.

We can use our consumer power to get a lower price for buying more volume, or even go high end and demand a product be custom made to our ideal demands. But that only works for things that can be easily formed the way we want.  Human biology on other hand is what it is.  You can't lay down $100.00 and expect muscle cells to absorb the money and subsequently get bigger or stronger.

You could argue that for dopers this is sort of how it works; they buy illegal drugs that do manipulate the natural response to exercise.  But for the rest of us it's up to us learn the natural capacity of our bodies to respond to exercise then model our exercise based on that understanding.  We have to be humble enough to accept that this is the way it is, and also disciplined and excited enough to reap the benefits of the long term approach.

There is a limited sweet spot for training intensity and progress that our cells can respond to.  Go beyond that, and we're simply exceeding our cells ability to adapt and no matter how loud a trainer yells at your muscles, or how much you paid for the latest training gimmick, it won't do a damn thing.

Let's step back from that and tune into how fit we really are or aren't, learn about our specific strengths and weaknesses, and follow a long term injury and overuse resistant program.

I've seen it over and over: six to eight months of correcting muscle imbalances and getting back to basics catapults a persons following seasons to a higher level of performance.  Nothing motivates like success and once we get passed this current trend of over-doing it and experience the success that comes with healthy long term exercise plans, more of us will be motivated to take it easy more often.

Taking it easy when it counts is what allows us to maximize performance when it counts.


1. Seasonal variation in leisure-time physical activi... [Can J Public Health. 2007 May-Jun] - PubMed result

2. Overuse injuries in high school athletes. [Clin Pediatr (Phila). 2010] - PubMed result

3. Injury patterns in Division I collegiate swimming. [Am J Sports Med. 2009] - PubMed result

4.  Relationship between training load and injury in p... [J Sci Med Sport. 2011] - PubMed result

5. Factors associated with triathlon-related overuse ... [J Orthop Sports Phys Ther. 2003] - PubMed result

6. Training patterns and sports injuries in triathlet... [J Sci Med Sport. 2004] - PubMed result

Obesity rates and life expectancy increase

Life expectancy has been increasing since about the 1400's when the average life expectancy was around 40 years.  Historically sanitation and medicine are two of the largest improvements that have increased human life span.

With medical advancements in treating cancer and other serious diseases, people are beating the odds or living longer with disease due to improvements in early detection and treatment regimens.

We've been hearing for the last two decades that we're becoming too overweight and out of shape, which will reduce our quality of life and ultimately shorten our lives.

It's true that being overweight and physically unfit increases your risk of developing illnesses that can reduce your life span, and it's true that every year more of the population is overweight and out of shape.

Despite this, life expectancy for the population as a whole continues to increase due to mostly to medical advancements, up to 2008.

For the first time since 1993, life expectancy in the US dropped by a couple months in the US, according to this press release from the CDC (average life expectancy was 77.8 in 2008 in the US):

CDC Media Relations - Press Release: December 9, 2010

In canada it looks like this:

So what does all this mean?  Not much to any individual.  Just a bunch of numbers. That's the problem with population averages; the average does not explain each individuals circumstances.  Those who smoke and drink daily and are overweight are less likely to see the endpoint of these life expectancy predictions or averages.

In reading reports on life expectancy I found that statisticians and medical researchers reported they don't always have precise explanations for fluctuations in trends. Some of the year to year changes are due to how data is collected and processed.  In general researchers are still predicting a drop in life expectancy if we continue to become more overweight and out of shape, but increases in medical care may offset this.

Being overweight as a population may compensate for the impact smoking had on our population; fewer people smoke now compared to the 40's through 60's so death rates due to smoking related illness is down, but more people are overweight so death rates due to complications from obesity are on the rise.

Let's make this practical.

Out of all I read on the subject here are the things that take years off your life:

• Smoking
• Excessive alcohol 
• Poor diet
• Being overweight or obese
• Physical inactivity
• Parents or grandparents died young from cancer or heart disease
• High stress
• Being bitter and angry most of the time
• Limited access to health care/ not getting regular medical check ups after age 40

Here are the things that add years to your life:

• Maintaining healthy body weight
• Daily exercise
• Good nutrition. Specifically, eating less
• Good sleep
• Low stress
• Having a positive outlook
• Close friends and family
• Access to healthcare over entire life

For smokers, the most significant improvement to health and life expectancy comes from quitting smoking.

An important detail; the last 20 years of your life are much higher quality, retaining a higher level of physical mobility, cognition, and fewer health complications, when you do the things in the second list.

That sounds pretty good!  Live healthy, and love it :-)

New Guidelines for Exercise

Canadian Physical Activity Guidelines Adults 18 - 64 years

Guidelines for youth, adults, and seniors

I blogged last week about these new guidelines being released.

Here they are, and the presentation is a little better than I anticipated.  I would still like to see more emphasis on how good being fit makes you feel today, instead of always focusing on future health benefits.

Yes, yes.. of course I completely support the promotion of exercise as a disease preventer.  Over a lifetime that is perhaps the greatest benefit.

But as factual as that may be, not many people in their teens through their 40's are making a big connection with how todays actions will affect their life 50 or 60 years from now.

I think benefits like feeling good right now, better cognition, feeling strong, flexible, alert, and energized (no I'm not plugging the latest super supplement, just exercise) are more immediately tangible.

Students can achieve higher test scores if they exercise before an exam.  That's an immediate benefit to exercise.

Stressed?  Who isn't?

Regular exercisers are less stressed.  A small amount of physical activity can immediately reduce stress levels, take the edge off, and invigorate you.  And at the same time you get a bunch of health benefits.

Knowing that future risk of illness is reduced has some appeal to it, but typically most people don't immediately associate value and benefit with exercise, so talking about a future benefit, which is abstract, does't have much punch to it.

Unless a person perceives benefit from exercise, they are unlikely to want to do it.

Just a thought..

Let's say there's a person handing out $100.00 bills for free, no strings.  It's a street corner lottery.  You have an option for prizes though:

$100.00 cash or, the feeling and the benefits of having done six months of regular exercise.

How many people will take the cash?

There's a good reason the cash is chosen.  We immediately understand the value and utility of money, nobody needs to explain the immediate or future benefits.. we get it.

Before I get emails saying that someone who has no food will have more immediate need for the $100.00, I'll agree that is undeniable.  However notwithstanding the obvious exceptions, most will still see no value in the free exercise benefits prize.

And that's my point.  The fitness gains one can make in six months is worth more than $100.00, but most will not perceive it that way.  Just the opposite is true, most will think that exercise is kooky, arduous, and interferes with more important things that have to get done.

If we had the ability to instantaneously make you as strong, flexible, alert and energized, compared to how week, out of energy, and stressed many people are, it would feel like you just popped a magic drug.  It would be a feeling that would be hard to give up, and that most would want back if taken away just as quickly.

The new guidelines for exercise let us know that Canadians are so out of shape that we'll benefit from very little exercise.  It doesn't take much to get going, and for the most part, adding more exercise and more vigorous exercise as you adapt, means more benefits.

Canadians to be told to exercise less

Chris Reid, host of Cityscape on UMFM wanted to talk to me about the latest buzz in health and fitness.  This week one of the top stories was about Canadians being told to exercise less.

We're not really going to be told to exercise less; CSEP (Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology), will, according to news releases this past week, be presenting their new recommendations for the minimum amount of exercise Canadians need to get a health benefit. Which isn't much.

Children 5 to 17 years old will be pared back from the current 90 minutes per day to 60 minutes of daily physical activity.

Adults 18 to 64 can feel good about only needing 150 minutes over an entire week compared to the current  60 minutes daily of light activity, or 30 minutes daily of moderate intensity activity.

The over age 64 changes are about the same for the 18 to 64 crowd.

The past Handbook for Canada's Physical Activity Guide suggests we don't need much activity to start realizing health benefits, and that starting with a mere 10 minutes walking is all it takes.  Which is right of course.

These official guidelines are already quite conservative, and achievable.

The problem is very few people like exercise or see any point to it, so it doesn't really matter how much we minimize the time recommendations for exercise, few will buy into a product that has a poor reputation.

The genius is supposed to be that we align Canadian recommendations with that of the World Health Organizations physical activity recommendations.  This should work really well because countries like the US, Australia, and UK, have adopted these lower guidelines, and we can see how well it's working as those countries clearly have the healthiest and fittest populations.

Oh wait, I lost my mind for a moment.  Actually those countries each are experiencing the same obesity and reduced physical activity trends we are, if not worse.

So maybe the genius is about putting into reach physical activity recommendations that can be achieved.  We've set the bar too high.  People are so far away from being physically active for 60 minutes a day that doing so seems like you might as be asked to swim the Channel.

We're better off lowering the bar to only 150 minutes over seven days.

Let me clear something up here.  These minutes of "activity" that are being referred to here.. we're not talking about slugging out a high intensity workout in the gym or running 10k up hill with a packsack full of bricks.  We're talking about walking.  Just walking.

On one hand that shows how dismal we're doing.. Canadians are so physically inactive that from the time we wake to the time we go to bed, most of us don't move our bodies for more than 60 minutes total.

Yikes.

The good news is that being so out of shape it doesn't take much physical activity to produce measurable health benefits.

The recommendations also include flexibility exercises and strengthening exercises.  Click on the link to the guide for more info.

I don't think this new deal will work. There should be emphasis on how good it feels to gain the benefits of strength, flexibility, and endurance.  Up front and centre we should talk about building excitement towards the rewards of getting more fit and little by little by gradually adding more exercise.

How about something simple like;

"Start easy, add more, feel great".

One phrase imparts the idea of not needing much to get going, but implies there's more to be done, and that it's rewarding to do so.

Already CSEP is fielding questions about the bar being lowered (read this CTV Calgary article in which Silken Laumann, former Olympic rower doesn't show much love for the new standards), which is certainly how this will be perceived by many.

I usually like what CSEP does.  I'm not in favour of this latest move though.  It's a retreat.