Exercise is good, no doubt. But is it ALL healthy and beneficial to the body's biomechanics and health? Well, from my point of view, NO. Most exercises do benefit the body in terms of health, primarily improving strength, energy levels, boosting hormones and neurotransmitters, stimulating metabolism, improving cardiovascular fitness, expressing genes, burning body fat, etc.
Exercise is just like food or people. There are healthy foods, and there are also toxic foods. Good people and also toxic people (remember the ones who often stress you out?). In terms of exercise, there is not much different, or at the very least, there are certain exercises which I think could harm the physical or physiological health.
We have been told that doing steady-state slow cardio on the treadmill or stationary bike is the way to go, in order to lose weight and be healthy. We are seeing more people participating in marathon training and competitions ever then before. Trialthon participants and enthusiasts have increased to record high in many countries including ASIA. Of course, Crossfit is huge, and the current trend of crossfit training is becoming arguably the most popular exercise regime globally. The question is, are these exercise or training regime healthy and ideal for human's biomechanics? How about certain specific exercises which almost everyone is doing at home or in the gym? Let's say conventional push up and sit up.
Let's talk about one of the most popular exercise in present day. "Cardio", particularly steady-state walking or jogging on a treadmill. I remember talking to some of my clients recently about wondering what on earth these folks are thinking, "Drive your car all the way to the gym to jog on the treadmill?". Seriously, this is totally silly and 'uncommon-sense'. I mean how much of brain damage or brain fog that can't let one think straight?
Imagine, you work all day stressed out in office, feeling exhausted and low in energy, had your 4th cup of coffee or tea of the day, and you are ready to hit the gym. Your body is telling you that it's tired and your adrenals are totally cranked up and fatigue by the amount of stress level initiated by the job your hate, and the late night sleep you suffered (the night before). The caffeine and sugars you consumed just made your adrenals hit rock bottom. You then thought that in order to lose weight and be healthy, you need to go to a gym and do "Cardio". You can't help but yawn while driving, your melatonin hormones start to secrete when the light exposure is decreased from sundown, and one would be lucky if the traffic is smooth before the treadmill session even starts. Before you step on that cardio machine, the time is 8pm, but for some people, they only get to the gym close to 9pm.
You press the START button, set the speed to slow, possibly walking or slow jog pace. You can't sprint nor fast run, because you are so darn exhausted and afraid the possibility of falling off from the machine and injured yourself. Conventional wisdom teaches all of us to do more long steady-state cardio, and using the stationary bike or treadmill is the way to go, remember?
Every single gym I entered, the treadmills are filled with members, the occupancy of stationary bikes are not far behind too. Now, let's see what happens to your body when you hop on that treadmill for a good 60 mins. First of all, you are barely even moving your lower body, and most people don't even realize it. Step away from the operating treadmill, and you will know what I meant. Are you really using your lower body to move, or being helped by the machine 'moving your lower extremity'? You barely even stimulate any fast twitch muscle fibers, and your adrenals release even more stress hormone cortisol, further exhausting the already fatigue hormones producing glands. With high amount of cortisol poured out into the bloodstream, insulin is triggered, and both of these are FAT-STORING hormones. Yes, read my sentence again carefully. Not only you lose muscle mass which further dampen your metabolism, if this vicious cycle is going on for months or years, sluggish metabolism is inevitable, and you are setting yourself up for a much more serious health problems, primarily hormonal dsyregulation, adrenal fatigue, impaired sleep quality, leaky gut, etc.
How about jogging outdoor at night after office hours? Or using eliptical machine or biking? Would it be any better? The answer is similiar to what I explained. Common sense tells you that you need to wind down at night as it approach your sleeping time, as your sleeping hormones melatonin is steadily releasing into your bloodstream and your para-sympathetic nervous system is trying to make you relax, digest and go to bed. Your cortisol level needs to be at its lowest, so you could enjoy quality sleep, giving chance for your adrenals to rest and recover and body to repair itself.
I remember when I did my American Council in Exercise certification, none of the trainers explain this to me, nor taught in its textbook. The question is, how many fitness certified professionals are aware of this vital piece of information? Wonder why some of you just can't lose body fat nor weight, after weeks and months of torturing yourself with long boring "Cardio"? You may lose a few pounds initially, but gained back those pounds after months later. Some of you may even look fatter then before you start the so called "Weight loss program", cutting out calories and exercise more.
In today's post, I would like to focus on 5 types of exercises or trainings, which may not be as good as what most people think. Although different people will have different opinions, do what you have to do, but don't allow your ego to destroy your health and biomechanics.
'Elbow Flared-Out' Push Up
This exercise is one of the basic bodyweight movement, which virtually everyone is doing it. We have been told that the conventional push up builds upper body strength and helps to shape up our triceps, shoulders, chest, and maybe abdominals too. This may be true, but how many people are doing the right form of push up exercise? Well, in my experience, not many.
With 'elbow-flared-out' positioning, the arm is out of the safely packed shoulder socket, risking shoulder impingement, and injuring tendons and muscles of the shoulders is very likely, if performed regularly for long period of time. Remember, shoulder is a very complex joint, and injuries as such is becoming more common amongst general population. You see tons of youtube videos demonstrating poor form of push up, bootcamp folks (mostly, but not all) destroying their shoulders performing high amount of repetitions doing poor form of this pushing exercise.
Conventional Sit Up
Oh yeah, six pack abs right? How many of us realize that all of us already have that six pack rectus abdominis muscles in your mid section area? Why most of us can't have that visible abdominal muscles seen by naked eyes? If you can think right, and if you don't have neurological disorder of some sort, common sense will tell you that it's that thick layer of fat covering your so called ' six pack abs'.
These group of muscles are primarily slow twitch muscle fibers, enabling us to stand up straight, holding our posture long enough, and it is the 'superstar' of all muscle groups. We have been told by so called fitness professionals and almost anyone you know, by doing conventional sit ups, is the way to build a 'six pack abs'.
As I've blogged about sit ups exercise previously, I explained why it is dangerous to the lower back, and causing further muscle imbalances to their core muscles. In fact, this exercise is ranked one of the least most effective in burning belly fat and building so called 'six pack abs'. Remember, your core muscles do not only move in flexion position, but all different planes of motion, including external rotation. Thus, crunching and flexing your anterior abdominal muscles high amount of reps day in day out (long period), will only make the entire core muscles out of balance, setting up lower back injury and hip dysfunction too.
Limited variety of exercises
Anyone been to commercial bootcamp or perhaps military training before? Or perhaps doing the same repeated exercises over and over again weeeks after weeks, months after months? There are certain benefits performing a specific group of exercises for a long period of time, one may be more efficient at those movements, being able to perform with improved endurance, particularly muscular endurance, at high rep range. One may also hit plateau and suffer from slow results and growth, but the main concern is RSI (repetitive strain injury). Imagine doing pushups, squats, burpees or any selected exercises for months and even years, almost everyday or your training regime. Besides, your training may get boring easily and higher risk of halting your training program
I know many male friends who are obsessed with doing chronic repetitive movements on selected muscle groups only. Remember the same faces in the gym who always reserved the bench performing crazy amount of repetitions doing bench press? Abs, chest, arms, the same exercise routines day in day out, for long period of time, what's going to happen to the biomechanics? Injuries and muscular imbalances.
'All-out' sagittal plane movements
This is going to be controversial. Many fitness enthusiasts will not be happy reading this, especially crossfitters. I am a huge fan of functional training, but, not to the extend of destroying or against human biomechanics, how we evolved to move, which is transverse plane, contra-lateral movements. Try walk slowly or naturally, and observe how your T-Spine movement, unless you walk like a robot, you will realize why chronic sagittal plane based exercises or training may not be ideal for human's biomechanics. In fact, these types of training drills will destroy our biomechanics, going against how we move, whether it is walking, running, throwing a ball, hitting a shot (tennis), kicking, throwing a punch, and almost every martial arts movements.
I'm not against sagittal plane exercises, but it is important to incorporate transverse plane drills to your training routine, else, injuries and compromised biomechanics is inevitable.
Muscle-Isolation training
This whole concept of single-muscle isolated training was commercialized since bodybuilding is becoming popular. It is a huge industry, a very profitable billion dollars business, brain-washing the fitness industry and all of us to believe in single muscle group exercises. Apart from 'aesthetics' display, there is nothing functional about it, and there is barely any real life situations or movements which we can apply from these sorts of exercises. Imagine doing bicep curls, tricep extension or hamstring seated curls. None of these will help in daily regular activities. In fact, it increased the risk of muscular imbalances and injuries. Besides, many fitness enthusiasts or bodybuilders wannabe invest a lot of money on these commercial bodybuilding supplements, making themselves more toxic and elevating health problems.
Chronic Endurance Training
Marathon and trialthon are becoming 'hot-cakes' training regime or sports in recent years, especially in developed countries. The sales of running shoes are higher then ever, and more people are competing in these events trying to achieve certain goals, be it losing weight, improve health or personal satisfaction in accomplishing such challenges.
From plantar faciitis to knee injuries, physical injury is the last thing one should worry. In my previous posts, I have wrote about the impact on cardiovascular health, how these chronic endurance type of training damage the heart, causing sluggish metabolism and even hormonal dsyregulation. Heart failure is becoming more prevalence amongst younger runners, and studies have shown the increased risks of heart disease from years of involving such trainings. Any participant collapsed and died of heart failure during marathon event?
Last but not least, I want to spare a moment and mention about the group classes such as RPM. Most people would think that these type of 'loud-music-banging' high intensity session is good and effective for fat burning and health. From my honest point of view, if one has a very low stress job, relationship and lifestyle combined with good diet, RPM training might be passable and acceptable if done maybe once a week. That is if it's done during daytime and at least 3 hours before bedtime (10pm).
It is very similar to my earlier explanation about evening cortisol secretion doing "Cardio" for long duration of time. In this case, 50-60 mins or continuous exercise drill is enough to further fatigue your adrenals. Remember, cortisol has a 'half-life' affect in the blood stream and autonomic nervous system. Meaning, if you are stressed out at work during lunch time, or maybe your last cup of coffee was 3pm, the secretion of cortisol stress hormones will pour out in your blood stream and circulate for approximately 4-6 hours, depending on the strength of the caffeine. If you do the math, by 9pm, the 'half-life' of cortisol will still affect your stress pathway, suppressing your 'rest and digest' night cycle, and it will take clear off most of the caffeine close to 12am midnight. Wonder why more and more people unable to have quality sleep? Less then 1% of population unable to sleep naturally (without help of medication or supplements) by 10pm.
So, let's connect the dots here. By 8pm you hit the strenuous Body Pump or RPM class. By 9pm, your blood is flooded with cortisol and glucocorticoids hormones. Let's assume you did not consume any caffeinated beverage during that day, and your stress levels is low, the evening group class you participated not only disrupt your crucial circadian rhythm, but it also triggers insulin (fat-storing hormone) and stimulate more catabolic response, meaning, loss of muscle mass, due to higher constant secretion of this primary stress hormone.
As light exposure decreases, sundown is a common sense indicator that we are suppose to wind down and not perform any strenuous or long period exercises close to our 10pm bedtime. There is nothing healthy about going against your autonomic nervous system regulation, and there are much more damage done to the body's physiology then reaping any benefits. Instead, you could meditate, perform simple relaxing yoga stretches, or myofascial release to fine tune your biomechanics in the evening, prior to bedtime.
