In our discussion with Dr. Tommy Martin, he tells us a little bit more about him and he shares his top 3 pieces of advice for people wanting to start or continue their fitness journey.
Point 1 is to always have long-term goals in mind.
Point 2 is utilize the application of progressive overload for all parts of your life.
Point 3 is to not be afraid of failure.
To hear us discuss these points in more detail and all of our other great content, click the link below and listen in!
In the Geriatric population, many people agree that physical exercise is a good thing and can be beneficial in increasing longevity and quality of life. However, there doesn’t seem to be a firm consensus of what type of physical activity is best.
Again, most people will agree that it is best to do a combination of all of these types of exercise, but it’s my opinion we should shift the focus more on resistance training. I think it is almost more beneficial for this age group to do resistance training than almost any other age category when you consider the benefits that they can get.
Let’s look at some of the reasons this population should be doing some sort of resistance training. First, just staying generally fit with relatively leaner body mass will aid in all sorts of organ and bodily function. This will give us less overall stress on load bearing joints such as the knees, hips, and feet. Being leaner and more fit will make it easier to get up and move around which can be an issue as people age. Second, overall bone density and muscle mass begin to decline as we age and resistance training can be a great way to help fight that. Falls are a big issue with older people and that is often in part to bone density. Sometimes a misstep or trip can cause a hip fracture which then causes a fall. Having strong robust bone structure is essential for this age group.
This brings me to my next point, which is a few points in one but I think it is one of the most important: Falls. Falls are a major risk factor for older people and if a person over the age of 65 has a fall they are almost worse off over the next few years than if they were to have a heart attack and have an increased risk of dying in the next 2 years following a hip fracture. Falls happen for a few reasons including decreased bone density balance, coordination, and overall strength. Even if one’s bone density is adequate, they might not have the strength or coordination to prevent a fall. Falls really are a big deal, and some sort of resistance training is a great way to try and prevent that from happening in the first place.
Quality of life also improves when you can add resistance training during this phase in your life. If you can physically walk on your own, have balance and coordination to get up and move around without the use of a walker or cane then you are probably going to be able to enjoy life more. You can go for a walk and see nature, you can play with grandkids without worrying if it is too much activity, you can pick things up without worrying about hurting yourself. All these things can be improved by simple resistance exercise a few times per week.
I think part of the reason we don’t see as many older people doing resistance training is because of the mental image we attach to it. If I were to suggest someone needed to do some sort of strength training they would probably imagine a powerlifter with a super heavy barbell and loud heavy metal music. That doesn’t have to be the case at all. Strength training can be many different things and although I think a barbell is a great way to go, you don’t have to use them to get strong. Machines can work just as well and you don’t need to do a 1 rep max to get strong either. As long as you regularly do some sort of resistance training for multiple body parts a few times a week that is all you need to get and maintain strength and bone density. Add in some exercises that incorporate single leg or single arm movements and now you get some added coordination benefits. Another note is we have to remember why you are doing resistance training, your goal is to improve overall strength and stability than the way you workout will be different from a person who has a goal of doing competitive powerlifting.
So if you or someone you know is getting older, please consider doing some sort of regular (2-3x / week) resistance training. It will be beneficial both short and long term and will add quality years to your life.
To set up a fitness consultation call the clinic at (785) 320-6868 and ask for a consultation with me. I can assess movement quality and fitness level and we can get you set up on a track to improve your strength.
Do you regularly do some sort of resistance training and use a belt with specific lifts? You may not be using the belt to get the most out of it.
I see people using belts in training all the time. I don’t see this as a bad thing by any means but I don’t know if people fully understand why or how to use the belt. In fact, I will often ask people why they are wearing a belt just to see what their response is. Typically they will respond with “it helps keep my low back stable” or something along those lines. This isn’t exactly wrong but when I see the way they use the belt I see that it isn’t exactly true.
To understand what the belt is for, first you need to understand few other topics:
Intra-abdominal pressure or IAP is what you are striving for. It is what it sounds like, being able to create pressure in your abdomen. This increase in pressure is what helps stabilize the spine. So being able to create increased IAP is the goal when you want to lift maximal loads with a stable midsection.
So how do you do this? Well creating increased IAP happens when you draw or breathe in air pressing your diaphragm muscle down which presses out against the rest of your abdomen. The more you can draw down the diaphragm the more pressure you can create in the abdomen (see image below).
A very simple analogy that I hear a lot and seems to make sense to people is the comparison of your abdomen to a pop can. Imagine an un-opened aluminum pop can, if you had it sitting in front of you, you could step on it without it bending or cracking. Now if you took that same pop can and opened just the top and stepped on it then it would likely crumble. And again if you took an empty pop can that had a dent in the side and you stepped on that, it would likely crumble even easier. (let’s be clear, your body is much more resilient than a pop can and you won’t “crumble” under minimal loads, this is simply a comparison so you can fully understand IAP).
When you are able to take a big breath of air in and drive your diaphragm down, this increases the IAP and your spine is able to handle much higher loads with less risk of shear forces (like an unopened pop can). Now imagine you could take that same unopened pop can and shrink it down just a little bit but keep the same amount of contents inside. This would increase the pressure inside the can making it harder for it to deform.
This is the exact mechanism of how the weightlifting belt should be viewed as. When you are ready to lift heavy you should be able to take a big breath in which lowers your diaphragm and presses out on your abdomen increasing the IAP. Then if you used a belt you could sinch down the size of our abdomen even more which increases the IAP (assuming you can get the same amount of breath in). This is often why you will hear people say “press out on the belt”. In my opinion, the way you should put on a belt is this: let as much air as you are comfortable without of your lungs, then strap the belt tight to your comfort level and then take a big deep breath to allow your belly to be pressing out against the belt. This will give you a higher IAP and like the analogy used earlier a more “stable” spine.
Caveat: I like to develop my ability to create as much IAP without a belt as possible. I typically don’t use a belt until I am very close to maxing out my squats and I rarely (almost never) use a belt for deadlifting. I think there is a time and place for a belt but especially when the athlete knows exactly how to use it. Thanks and I hope you enjoyed it!
By now I’m sure a lot of you know what blood flow restriction (BFR) training is, if not I’ll shortly explain. BFR training is exercise done while having venous blood from a limb occluded and arterial blood to a limb partially occluded. Nowadays this is typically done using a fancy pneumatic cuff of some kind, some even have the ability to check the percent of blood being occluded (ideally you want 80% of arterial blood occluded). These cuffs go around the arm or leg while the person does some sort of exercise using light resistance (typically 20-30% of 1RM).The rep scheme that is most often studied involves an initial set of 30 reps, followed by 3 more sets of 15 reps each.
Doesn’t sound too bad right? Well, the load used isn’t really an issue, but it burns, like really burns (at least if you do it right). Oh, and the pump you get from it is pretty unreal, so all you bodybuilders out there looking to supplement your accessory work, here you go!
So what is all the hype about BFR? Well as if you didn’t already know, this type of training allows people who physically can’t perform loaded exercises the ability to do some exercise with lighter loads or shortened range of motion but still achieve the results of lifting the heavy loads. That’s right, some studies have shown that BFR training around 20-30% 1RM can be similar to heavy load (70-80% 1RM) resistance training in terms of muscle strength and hypertrophy.
Since BFR training quickly gets rid of the oxygen in the muscle cells, there’s a high load of metabolic stress which gives us that burning sensation; much like doing high rep sets on a normal exercise except with BFR we can get there a lot faster.
Normally we stress muscle cells via mechanical load (ie heavy weights) or actual muscle damage (ie eccentric training). These are the typical training and adaptation methods used in training. These typical methods are great and I don’t think BFR should replace them by any means, but BFR does allow us to stress muscle cells for adaptation when we can’t do the previously mentioned methods.
The metabolic stress previously mentioned is enough to induce a high release of IGF-1 and other growth hormones shortly after the BFR training session. That being said, there is still debate on whether or not the muscle cells actually use those growth factors to adapt like they normally would.
Another important factor we get from performing BFR training is the physical cell swelling that results from blocking the venous return. This cell swelling has been shown to increase protein synthesis of local cells which might be one of the big mechanisms that BFR training utilizes to give us the strength and hypertrophy gains we continue to see in the research.
You’re probably thinking this sounds too good to be true, there has to be a catch and what are the risks? Well, in the research, there has been little to no reports of injury following BFR training. There have been a few case reports of individuals sustaining injuries but when you dig deeper there doesn’t seem to be a direct link to BFR being the culprit. There is a growing number of studies on BRF training with thousands of participants and no serious injury has been reported in the research I have read.
With that being said, the risk is minimal especially when you consider there are some obvious conditions that should be screened for and not allowed to utilize BFR training. Those conditions include but are not limited to hypertension, cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative diseases or any other neurovascular conditions. Checking with a local physician that is familiar with BFR would be your best bet before starting this type of training.
Ok, now that that’s out of the way, how do I think BFR should be used/applied? I see two major scenarios that BFR training will be best suited.
When an injured person needs to improve strength and hypertrophy or prevent atrophy during the early rehabilitation phases.
One of the best examples would be an athlete who tore their ACL. Typically athletes will be out for months at a time with an extensive rehab process. Imagine if you could minimize atrophy in the quad and hamstring groups after the injury or after surgery. With BFR training, we could start to load that leg in early rehab phases to rebuild strength and hypertrophy backup before the leg is physically able to load up to 70% of a 1RM.
This is obviously a generalization but adding BFR to the rehab process could increase the ability to normalize strength and hypertrophy after arm or leg injuries and it could minimize the time spent recovering from those injuries.
Another example of when BFR training would be very beneficial is in the case of strength athletes who already have a high level of training volume but want to add more to their programming.
There are many strength athletes (Powerlifters, Weightlifters, CrossFitters, etc.) who are maxing out the hours they are spending in the gym to get the results they are going for. That being said it is very difficult for those athletes to add more volume to their training if their goals are to get bigger and stronger. BFR training offers an alternative that minimally stresses the nervous system, causes minimal muscle damage and is easy to use in addition to your current training. This gives you the ability to increase the overall amount of stress we are putting the cell under which could give you a better chance of hitting strength and hypertrophy goals in training.
Final thoughts:
My bias is for BFR training in the previously listed scenarios. I like the training and think that it can be beneficial to many athletes. However, I don’t think BFR replaces higher resistance strength training. In fact, I think people should accumulate a lot of time strength training before even considering BFR.
BFR is safe and a very effective training method and can supplement both a rehab protocol or a strength program. I encourage people who are interested in this type of training to consult with a clinician or trainer in the area that is familiar with it and give it a try.
Lastly, I know I have made a few claims during this post that you might want more evidence to support. Although I didn’t reference any specific studies during my thoughts on BFR, I will link some of the studies below if you wish to filter through some of it yourself.
For more information about BFR training visit the links below.
Seth Myers, DC, MS, CSCS 