London Kettlebells UK Kettlebells And Kettlebell Personal Training

NOTE:A special thanks to Dr. Stuart McGill for kindly allowing us to republish this article

Stuart McGill,
Professor of Spine Biomechanics, University of Waterloo

Many low back exercise programs through the continuum from rehabilitation to performance are based on the philosophy to enhance the range of motion and build strength. Yet performance often depends more on short range stiffness, rate of muscle activation/deactivation, and technique to minimize "energy leaks", and optimally "steer" strength. At the rehabilitation end of the spectrum, many of these programs fail - either more patients are created, or are exacerbated. Often the causes of the back troubles are replicated in the exercises! Unfortunately, while many exercises are promoted as stabilization exercises, and specific muscles are claimed to be the most important stabilizers - in fact these claims have been made without the quantification of stability. What is myth, and what is factual? While my textbook elucidates the mechanisms, buttressed with references and data, a few brief thoughts are provided here.

I had an immense response from last week's newsletter article on the "Secret connection between hormones and training." (See article here: http://www.londonkettlebells.com/node/577) It is a very exciting topic that I am super passionate about as optimizing hormones is critical to well being and reaching your strength and conditioning goals. To think otherwise is only to delude yourself. Think that you will feel strong, powerful, and confident with low Testosterone levels? Think again. Think you will recover from workouts and have a strong immune system with low Growth Hormone levels? You have another thing coming. I like the topic so much that I incorporated a one hour lecture on the topic at many of my kettlebell workshops. Just the lecture alone is worth the price of admission so click here to sign up today: http://www.mikemahler.com/workshops.html

I will get right to the point. If you do not have a high sex drive then you are not healthy and you are not maximizing the benefits of training. If you do not feel strong and powerful after workout then you probably did more damage than good with regards to your health. Instead of optimizing your anabolic hormones (also known as sex hormones) you have depleted them. Depleting your anabolic hormones places you in an aging state which is counter productive to recovery. Fail to recover several times and you will get weaker and weaker at each workout. While getting blood work is very important and I will cover what tests you should have done in this article, there are a few free ways to determine whether your training is optimizing anabolic hormones.

I walked into the local café to have my dinner one afternoon between clients, Jane the proprietor was in a bad mood. Being the nosey bastard that I am I asked what the problem was, she replied that she was having some back pain and it was going down her leg.

I told her that it wasn’t a problem that I would look at it and see what it was, I told her that if I couldn’t fix it I would know someone that could. It was then she explained that she was in the third year of remission from breast cancer that had spread into her lymphatic system.

I had a quick look and told her I thought it was her sacroiliac joint that was playing up and her right ankle was completely locked out. She replied that she was seeing her oncologist in a few days and he was concerned that the cancer may of spread to her bones and said she would speak to him first before undertaking any treatment, I agreed whole heartedly and said we would sort it out when he had given the all clear.