What I Learned At: The CanFitPro Conference 2013

It’s that time of year again.  Last weekend, I attended the Canfitpro International Fitness and Club Business Conference.  It was their 20th anniversary, and it was massive.  Allegedly, there were 15,000 people through the doors for the conference and trade show.  I am inclined to believe it after some of the lines, and the sardine can like lecture rooms.  All in all, a pretty decent weekend – I’ve tried to highlight my big take-aways from the event, and put them into real world (derby) application.

Todd Durkin: You are only as strong as your weakest link, as efficient as your worst movement. 

My conference started with a great Todd Durkin session.  I’ve heard Todd speak before, he’s an awesome presenter, and he’s always a high-energy way to start the day.  This year’s session was “Core and Cuff”.  He focused on the pelvis, shoulder girdle, and varying your training approaches – this was a recurring theme in the sessions I went to: Don’t get so locked in to a particular hand or foot position within an exercise, but rather experiment and try new things.  Todd said not to forget the importance of breath work. And, as per usual, had the life advice that you should be regret-less, not fearless.  Feel the fear, do it anyway.

Derby Application:  There are a few derby applications here.  Absolutely that the things that scare you, both on and off the track, are often the most worth doing.  Also, as far as self-improvement and team-building goes – you are only as strong as your weak link.  That skill you hate, you should probably work on it more than any others.  That teammate who’s lagging behind, spend more time figuring out what she needs.  If you do, you’ll become a more efficient athlete, and your team will tighten up.

The opening ceremony keynote speaker was, wait for it… Jillian Michaels.  Hm.  Not going to lie, almost skipped this, but the trade show wasn’t open yet.  Here’s the funny part – I didn’t totally hate her.  And when I find myself parroting the things I learned, some of the insights are hers.

Where she went right was talking about being in the right place at the right time, knowing the right people and taking the risk.  she didn’t try to convince us that she was a brilliant trainer, she didn’t talk much about her training methods at all.  She mostly talked about identity.  She spoke about trying too hard to present the image that we think people will respond to (in auditions, in training, in life), mostly because we don’t think who we really are is good enough.  Yep, I can relate to that.  She said that her biggest challenge with a lot of the Biggest Loser clients is not getting them to exercise or eat right, since they’re essentially in a bubble that looks after that for them.  The challenge is to get them to believe that they are people who can exercise and eat right.  When all of your internal messaging says, “I’m lazy”, “I can’t eat the right things”, “I’m just not a motivated person”, “I don’t follow-through”, “I’m a failure”, those messages become your identity.  And questioning those statements feels like a challenge of self.  Sound familiar?  It did to me.  So the trick is to make small changes that don’t seem like a shock to the concept of self.  Sure, a lazy person might not go for a 10k run, but they could probably walk the dog around the block each night.  And thus, habits are built and changes in the messages begin to take shape.  So, Jillian, I’m actually glad I didn’t bail on your talk.

Paul Chek: I’ve never seen Paul Chek present before.  I think, like sky-diving or going to Vegas, you have to do it once.  It was a 3 hour lecture on core function and assessment.  Paul had only expected a 90-minute talk, so he went a little, um, off-notes.

Some key takeaways from Mr. Chek – Don’t eat gluten.  Don’t smoke – vaporize. Your organs are alive and moving just like plants in your body, realize that what you do with your muscular system affects the organs too.  Adrenal fatigue (caused by stress) will shut down your hip flexors and low back, really compromising your movement – the body does this on purpose to get you to slow the heck down.  Proper tongue position is pressed into the roof of the mouth behind the front teeth – if your mouth is open and your tongue is out, you are likely being chased, and are not stable.  Holding your breath usually comes from a fear pattern – teach yourself the importance of connecting to breath.

Derby application: Breathe.  Especially when you’re scared.  It will loosen up your skating, and help you to engage your whole body fully.  Also, try to keep your tongue behind your teeth.

Ajamu Bernard, KBell Jam: This was an awesome session to wake up for.  Kettlebells!  Bright and early in the morning!  KBell Jam was a pretty cool diversion from the strictness of SFG training.  There was a lot more emphasis on flow and fun.  While I won’t be trading styles any time soon, KBell Jam was a interesting look into what others are doing with kbs and how the modality is evolving and growing.

Chuck Wolf: The site of the injury should be the last place you look – the body doesn’t work in isolation.  Your proprioceptors are activated by lengthening, so don’t overlook dedicated flexibility work.

I didn’t get a chance to go to any of Chuck Wolf’s classes at last year’s Perform Better, and when I heard him in the PB panel, I regretted missing him.  His sessions were a big reason that I signed up for CanFitPro this year.  His Highways in Flexibility presentations were a conference highlight for sure.  Regret – not going to more/all of his sessions.

Chuck took an exploratory approach to flexibility and taught some really helpful movements that can be incorporated as stretch or strengthen.  He talked a lot about the fascial lines (still working my way through Myers’ Anatomy trains), saying that collagen favours mobility.  Our joints don’t touch, they float around in a network of fascia, so we need to take care of that tissue and work along the whole chain.  Seeing the lines in real-life movement, along with his guidance helped some of the ideas in the book to gel.  After attending both his lecture and hands-on, I’m committed to really learning about fascia, how it works, and how we can work with it.  He drove home that as trainers, we need to nail the big rocks – foot and ankle complex, hip and knee.  Those areas are where most pain can be found (knees, hips, low backs, shoulders), so let’s make sure that mobility in those areas is optimal.  He too advised not to be married one foot or hand position, height, angle, side, etc., but to vary as individual needs do.

Derby Application:  Vary your approach to learning skills.  Try different sides, different weight transfers, use different levels.  You might find that by making little tweaks to your body placement, you make a big improvement to your overall movement quality.

Chris Lopez: Okay, time to come clean.  I totally snuck out on Saturday afternoon, and went to Bang Fitness for an SFG prep session with the wonderful Chris Lopez.  This was the second prep session before the SFG in November.  Every time I come to see Chris and the guys at Bang, I leave feeling SO MUCH better about my training.  They give loads of feedback, great tips, and genuinely want to clean up your movement.  Also, Chris shared a quick Primal movement based warm-up that I’ve started doing in my own practice – feels great!  When I started into the new Brett Jones SFG prep program after returning from the weekend, I think I was able to synthesize some of the cues that I received at the workshop.  I did some heavy swings, really focusing on forcing the bell down, and finally feel like I got it.

Kevin Darby: We need mobility to move.  Mobility means independent living.  Personal trainers: Helping you to look good naked and poop efficiently.

Again, after having seen Kevin Darby in a panel last year, I was anxious to join one of his sessions.  This one didn’t disappoint.  I learned a ton about fascia (fascia was a big deal this year).  He described (the superficial layer) as a big jean tuxedo fresh out of the dryer – it needs movement and hydration to turn into a comfortable thing to move around in.  Without mobility and moisture, it’s like too-tight jeans, and it clamps down on your blood vessels, slows blood flow, sort of acting like a splint.  As fitness pros, we should aim to identify where in people’s day-to-day movement patterns to insult to their tissue is (where’s the energy leak, where do you move inefficiently, where are you making a compensation?) and correct it.  Without identifying the faulty patterns, we’re just going to be caught in a cycle of strengthening and resetting.  In a nutshell, doing exercise without setting the right environment (fascial, habitual, etc.) is basically dumb.

Terry Kane: I took a class on knee post-rehab with Dr. Kane.  Good stuff.  He broke down what is recommended with each type of knee injury, healing times, what will aggravate each injury, and so on.  He gave a handy tip about tissue colour relating to healing time – the redder the tissue, the faster it heals.  Also, he made the solid point that in a post-rehab situation the absence of pain does not equal complete healing.  He also had a pretty cool insight about how aging baby boomers set fitness trends (still!).  A few years ago, HIIT was all the rage, now as boomers are getting a little older, functional training, yoga, and zumba are more popular.  he posits that following that trend – aqua and cycling will be huge as the boomers age.

Derby Application: *THE ABSENCE OF PAIN DOES NOT EQUAL COMPLETE HEALING*  Do you hear me derby girls?  Because I think that’s maybe the most important thing that we need to learn as athletes.  Taking a game off to recover, even if you’re feeling better is a whole heck of a lot better than taking a season off to deal with a recurring issue.  Let yourself heal, listen to your medical professionals, be kind to your body.

Tosca Reno:  Tosca was the closing ceremonies keynote speaker and she was really engaging.  She spoke on clean eating, and told us all to eat more broccoli and coconut oil (which in some way will help you to get it on more).  The thing that resonated most was her encouragement to eat living foods rather than dead foods.  I think it’s an easy and illustrative way to describe clean eating.  She also advocated practicing gratitude every day.

I also took a session with Peter Twist addressing group sports conditioning.  We used some neat new toys, specifically the Surge (like a  big tube full of water).  The Surge was pretty cool, and pretty challenging, and I vowed to find a good way to incorporate more variable load work (sandbags, water, toddlers) into my training.  I also took a class with Dr. Mike Bracko that focused on innovative partner training – again, make it fun, think outside the box, vary your movement.  Dr. Kevin Jardine echoed the sentiment in his session on neuromuscular conditioning.  He said that it’s important to make exercise not only physically challenging, but cognitively engaging as well – ways to do this include variable loads, changing angles and directions, novel and unexpected movements.  I wish I’d had time to go to more nutritional sessions, but there are only so many things you can do in 3 days.

All in all, the conference and trade show were alright.  One of the gripes you can read about on CanFitPro’s facebook page is that the trade show was more geared to club managers than independents or home fitness users, hence WAY fewer free samples of stuff and not a ton of excellent deals.  Fair play, that’s where the big money comes from.  Was it a little lean on samples? Sure.  Were some of the conference sessions big pitches to spend money on the presenter’s products?  Yep (this was frustrating when the whole session was devoted to selling the product, instead of open exchange of helpful information).  I think as presenters mature, they realize that good information will sell itself.  If you help something become clear to someone else, they’ll want to buy your product, or attend your mentorship, or take your course.  If you’re closed off and say all the info is in the product, your chances of a sale plummet.  At least in my own experience, this is true of the fitness pro-client relationship too.  Just be the expert, and help people when they ask for it.  They’ll come respect your knowledge and when they’re ready for a trainer, you’ll be the guy.  And I guess the derby application would be to give away free tickets to folks who would never attend derby regularly.  You’ll make up the money in merch and beer, and you might gain some new fans.

The other lesson I learned?  Start saving now for next year’s Perform Better.

Bringing Up the Rear: How to Hone Your Assets

Sir MixaLot and I have a lot of things in common, well, maybe only this one thing: We like Big Butts.  And maybe even that isn’t completely true – what I like is STRONG butts.

In today’s day and age, we have a tendency to sit a lot, stand not much, and exercise even less.  This leads to what science-y folk call (not kidding) Gluteal Amnesia.  Dr. Stuart McGill explains it thusly: “People with troubled backs, generally walk, sit, stand and lift using mechanics that increase the back loads. They tend to have more motion in their back and less motion in their hips.  A common aberrant motor pattern known as gluteal amnesia ” in his article: “Core Training: Evidence Translating to Better Performance and Injury Prevention”, Strength and Conditioning Journal.  The hip flexors become tight from all of our time seated and/or from poor training and their antagonists, the glutes tend to get left out and become weak and inhibited.  So, we’re really overworked on one side of the joint, and really limited on the other – this does not sound like a plan for successful movement to me.  Ignoring our glutes forces other body parts to do the work that the glutes should be doing, which can often result in pain or injury, not to mention poor performance.  In layman’s terms, your ass is lazy.

Strong gluteal muscles are a huge benefit in derby.  Says Suzy Hotrod, “My leaguemate told me that getting hit with my ass hurt like being beaten with a rolling pin. I blushed.”  In the Bodies Issue of ESPN, she went on, “I like that I have a strong rear end — you can hit people with it, play defense with it, and you don’t hurt your tailbone when you fall. It’s really an “ass-et” in roller derby. It’s kind of like being tall in basketball.”

And, let’s be honest, we all appreciate a nice looking back end.

Ryan Kesler certainly has a strong posterior chain.
Courtesy of ESPN Bodies Issue 2011.

We have every reason to spend some time on our hind, so let’s get to it.

First, the anatomy.  The gluteal muscles are comprised of the gluteus maximus, gluteus medius and gluteus minimus.

Bret Contreras, The Glute Guy, might know more about your butt than anyone – here’s how he explains the mechanics: The gluteus maximus has the potential to be one of the most powerful muscles in the body.  It accelerates hip extension, hip external rotation, and hip abduction.  Eccentrically, it decelerates hip flexion, hip internal rotation, and hip adduction. Gluteus maximus also helps to stabilize the knee via the iliotibial (IT) band and the sacroiliac joint via the latissimus dorsi and sacrotuberous ligament.

Your main hip extensors are the gluteus maximus, the hamstring part of the adductor magnus, and the hamstrings.

The other gluteal muscles, glute med and glute min, abduct the thigh (pull it away from the midline of the body).    When you walk, they work with the TFL to keep the pelvis from dropping away to the opposite side.  Super important.  They also aid in hip rotation.

Blake Griffin’s gluteals seem to be in working order. From ESPN’s Bodies 2011.

Why do we forget our posterior chain?  And why does it forget about us?  Well, the body will strengthen the patterns it finds itself in most commonly.  Most of us who are desk-bound or driving all day, are sending signals to our body that say ‘this is where I want to be  – let’s load this pattern up’.  Our hip flexors tighten and our glutes turn off.

The best way to combat gluteal amnesia is with gluteal mindfulness – exercises targeted at strengthening the glutes and working on our daily movement patterns so that the glutes get involved.  Here’s how:

Your butt needs variety.  Hit it from a number of different angles, using different loading strategies.

First, relax those hip flexors, let the glutes do their job.  Foam Rolling will go a long way to help, it’ll improve your soft tissue quality and allow for improved flexiblity.  Do some static stretching, some dynamic mobility – looking at hips, ankles and thoracic spine, as well as some core stability work.  Don’t forget some glute activation drills like the glute bridge, quadruped hip extension, and side lying clam to make sure your butt is awake before you work it out.

As far as exercise selection goes, your best bet is to keep it simple and focus on form.  Make sure you are actually feeling your glutes – poke them, prod them, keep them turned on.  Start with bodyweight before progressing to loaded movements.  The drills that you use as activation can be powerful exercises too – add a band to the extension or clam, weight up the bridge or do it with one leg.    Here are some ideas to get you going:

Abduction, External Rotation: Standing Band External Rotation

Quad-Dominant Hip Extension: Box Squat

Hip-Dominant Hip Extension: Romanian Deadlift

Bent-Leg Hip Extension: Hip Thrust

Barbell Glute Bridge

Hybrid Exercises:  Sled Pushes (this lady is totally boss)

Monster Walks

If you want to put it all together, here’s my personal glute inspiration, Kellie Davis, showing us how it’s done – she does a circuit of  squats, deadlifts, high step ups, hip thrusts, barbell glute bridges, back extensions, pendulum quadruped hip extensions, and Skorcher single leg hip thrusts.

Not every training session has to be a glute session, but every session should include some mindfulness of what your glutes are doing.  Don’t neglect them, or they will get lazy and forget about you.  And nobody wants a lazy ass.

Tyson Chandler does not neglect his glutes, I do not neglect them either. ESPN Bodies Issue 2012

If you want to learn more, Bret will teach you more than you ever thought you needed to know about your butt:  Here and Here.

Roller Derby Saved My Soul (but hurt my knees, and back, and shoulder…)

Photo courtesy of David Crane. Me falling courtesy of sin-e-star, TCRG.

First, let’s get one thing out of the way – roller derby is awesome.  It brings together a super-cool community of skaters, refs, production staff, volunteers and fans.  It gives us new-found confidence, fitness, fearlessness and friends.  It is a great, great sport and I love it.

What I don’t love are the injuries.  Go to any derby game ever and you’ll see at least one benched player, maybe on crutches, maybe in a sling, watching her team from the sidelines.  Go to any derby practice and you’ll see at least one girl unable to continue.

Way back in 2007, the WFTDA conducted a survey looking at the incidence of injury in roller derby.  Some eye-opening stats:

• Of 1,070 respondents – 574 (46%) reported an injury that kept them from participation on one or more occasions
• Of those 574, 262 (46%) report a knee injury (far and away the most common)
• Of those 262, 36 (14%) specifically mention the PCL in their description of their injury. This does not count respondents (20) who did not specify which knee ligament they had injured or the many others who said they had injured their knee in some unspecified manner.
• 133 (12%) reported an injury that required either emergency hospitalization or prolonged physical therapy

There’s a fair bit of information out there about diagnosis and treatment (read Papa Doc’s posts about your back, shoulders, hips, knees, shins and ankles).  Derby Life even has an article on the psychology of derby injury.

So, why are we injuring ourselves so frequently?  There are a few possible reasons:

1) We play a full contact sport.  In sports, injuries happen.  When you become an athlete, you assume a certain amount of wear and tear on the body.  NFL football players, too, have a high incidence of PCL injuries (3.5-20% according to pre-draft physical exams), then again they also have 6-figure salaries and sports-medicine professionals on staff.

2) As female athletes, we’re biomechanically predisposed to knee injury.  Lots of current research suggests that female athletes are 2-8 times more likely to injure their ACL than their male counterparts.  Mostly the studies have looked at basketball and soccer, and have examined the differences in the way that men and women land jumps and change direction suddenly.  There are many potential factors in the increased rate of injury for women: wider pelvis, increased Q-angle, hamstring to quadriceps muscle imbalances, neuromuscular control,  and so on.  Whatever the reason, we can’t change our biology, so we need to strengthen our supporting muscles to compensate.

3) We under-prepare for the physical demands of the sport. A lot of fresh meat have no idea what sort of physical toll the sport will take on their bodies.  Too many veteran skaters are only active when they’re on their skates.  Without strength training and cross-training, proper nutrition and hydration, we’re asking for trouble.

4) We’re too eager to play.  The best predictor of future injury is prior injury.  We need to reinforce slow and steady progression of skills for our new girls.  They should always be ready for the next challenge that derby throws at them, both physically and mentally.  I’m not saying to go easy – I’m saying push them to the edge of their limits, but not over the edge.   For veterans, we need to encourage an atmosphere where injury rehab is an okay thing.  We need to be understanding and supportive, and let skaters take all the time they need to come back to the track.  If we don’t, we end up with an unending cycle of injury and more skaters benched longer.

We’re also too eager to practice.  Too often derby trainers (and I am totally guilty of this) cave into pressure (real or imagined) that we are paying for arena time so we should be using our practice to skate.  We all have real lives, so tacking on an extra 15 minutes to the start of a practice for offskates warm-up and another 15 at the end for cooldown and stretching just doesn’t seem practical.  However, spending the better part of your season on the bench isn’t very practical either.

This is where soccer leads the charge in injury prevention.  By participating in “prehabilitation” drills addressing mobility, stability, and power, women athletes were 9 times less likely to injure their ACL.  The two systems  getting the most press are:

• FIFA’s F-MARC 11+: A prevention program for amateur soccer players.  Teams that performed 11+ at least twice a week had 30 – 50% less injured players.

• Santa Monica Sports Medicine Foundation’s PEP Program: This prevention program consists of a warm-up, stretching, strengthening, plyometrics, and sport specific agilities to address potential deficits in the strength and coordination of the stabilizing muscles around the knee joint.   Yielded up to 83% ACL injury reduction.

Roller derby doesn’t (yet) have a comprehensive injury prevention program.  Perhaps it’s that we’re all a bit insular and like to keep our routines to ourselves.  Perhaps it’s that the sport is so new that there just isn’t enough demand or scientific research to devise and implement such a program.   I say, let’s get on it.

Skaters; follow a program that addresses your unique needs, your pre-existing injuries and your goals – remember your prehab as well as your cooldown.  Invest in a foam roller to look after your tissue.  Push yourself hard at practice, but listen to your body and don’t let your ego get in the way of your well-being.

Coaches; talk to your sports medicine people, bring them in for clinics.  Care for your injured skaters and give them time to heal.

Trainers; take the time to do off-skates conditioning, do it properly and often.  Don’t know where to start?  There are 2 great links just above, they might not be derby-specific, but they’re better than nothing.

Smarty-pants kinesiologists, physical therapists, strength coaches, and personal trainers;  reach out to your local derby league.  THEY NEED YOU.  Once we have some experts working on it, let’s come together and share what we know.  Knowledge is power, derby people.

Wanna read the research?  The articles below are just a start:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC522150/

http://ajs.sagepub.com/content/23/6/694.abstract

http://www.momsteam.com/health-safety/female-acl-injury-prevention-programs-work-despite-questions#ixzz0uGlxXngG

http://www.momsteam.com/health-safety/PEP-exercise-program-reduces-acl-injuries-in-female-soccer-players