Also check my other blog at Conditioning Research where I post interesting research, news and inspiration about health and fitness.

The interview focuses on my bookHillfit:Strength and it was good to have a chance to explain more about the philosophy and the rationale behind the programme and the exercises that were chosen.

Slimkicker have been pullig together interviews with some great guys so I am in good company!   Appearing in the Nutrition section immediately after Paul Jaminet is an honour!

Anyway, please check out the interview and have a look round the rest of Slimkicker too – it looks like a fun community and useful approach to tracking your diet.

Strengths is addressed in my book Hillfit:Strength but  What can we do to improve balance?

What is balance anyway?

 To keep you balanced, your centre of gravity over your base of support, your brain brings together information from three different systems:

• The visual system – you see the position of your body in relation to your surroundings;
• The vestibular system – your inner ear detects movement in different planes;
• The proprioceptive system – sensors in your muscles and ligaments (“proprioceptors”) plot the position of your body in space.

If the brain senses that you are overbalancing, corrective action is taken: muscles unconsciously contract or relax until balance is restored.

Plotting Brain Maps

Neuroscientists explain that the proprioceptive system supplies the brain with data to plot a “movement map” of the body’s position in space.  With correct information from the sensors in your skin, joints and muscles, that map is clear and you will move and balance well.  If the data is not accurate, that map is “fuzzy” and your movement will not be good.

Are Ankles your Achilles heel?

One consequence of poor balance is ankle sprains.  Acute ankle sprains account for 3-5% of all UK A&E attendances, ~1.5 million each year¹.  As you walk the foot is supposed to roll slightly inwards as it hits the ground.  If you don’t balance properly as you step forward, the foot rolls outwards stretching the ligament on the outside of the ankle; if this happens with enough force, a sprain occurs.

If you have had an ankle sprain, you are more likely to suffer another.  Researchers have shown that previously injured ankles produce worse balance, leading  to more injured ankles, not just due to weak muscles but those brain maps.  “Once someone has sprained an ankle, the sensory receptors in the ligament are also damaged,” says Dr. Jay Hertel, Professor of Kinesiology at the University of Virginia².  Thus, when those neural receptors are damaged, the brain no longer receives reliable signals about how your foot and ankle are positioned relative to the ground.

Better Navigation with Brain Maps

 How can we get clearer maps to aid our balance?  One “low-tech” tactic, tested by scientists², showed that ankle sprains can be avoided with a simple exercise: stand on one leg; don’t wobble; hold for a minute; repeat.  This is not primarily strengthening the muscles of the ankle, important as that is, but stimulating the neural receptors to give accurate information to the brain.  Researchers also recommend building this training into everyday life:  “One of the exercises we give people is to stand on one leg while brushing your teeth, and to close the eyes, if it’s too easy,” Hertel says. “Do that for two or three minutes a day and you’re working your balance really well”³.

Standing on one leg for a while each day might not seem like cutting edge sports science, but try it and see how your balance and movement improve.

References 1-4 are available on my website: http://bit.ly/qJnt9B

 Single Leg Balance Exercise

Barefoot, to maximise the sense data you provide to the brain, stand with hands on your hips.  Lift one foot off the ground.  Practice until you can stand for one minute without putting your foot down or removing your hands from your hips.

To make the exercise harder, close your eyes.  This removes the visual element of the sensory input, forcing the proprioceptive system to work harder.  Do the same with the other leg and try to work this into your everyday life as suggested above, perhaps by cleaning your teeth on one leg.

This post begins to look at one of the key ideas in my book Hillfit:Strength

He’s there in the car park, suited and booted in the latest kit, ready for a day on in the mountains hill.  His shiny, clean fashions and serious demeanour make you feel slightly inadequate in your old, reliable clothes and familiar rucksack.  To emphasise his superiority he starts stretching: thighs, hamstrings, calves, looking like he really knows what he’s doing.  He is obviously much more serious and well prepared than you.  But is that true?

Stretching – magic movements?

People think that stretching before activity is good and hillwalkers and hikers are as prone to this assumption as other athletes.  Surely it prevents soreness, avoids injury and prepares muscles for the rigors of exercise? Strangely enough, while people are busy stretching, sports scientists have published studies showing that static stretching before exercise does not prevent injuries, will not reduce soreness and, in many cases, will actually make you slower and weaker!  (for example the latest one: Does pre-exercise static stretching inhibit maximal muscular performance?)

Injury, soreness and performance

 Static stretching is where you hold a position at the very edge of your muscles’ range of motion. There is evidence that this increases the muscle’s range of motion, but why is this good? Studies have found no proof that stretching prevents injury¹.

Despite what you might read, there is also no evidence that stretching stops muscle pain after exercise.  One review found “very consistent” evidence that post-exercise stretching has “minimal or no effect on the muscle soreness experienced 1-3 days after [exercise]².”  A recent article in the British Journal of Sports Medicine commented on an update of this research³ with a title that said it all: “Stretching before or after exercise does not reduce delayed-onset muscle soreness.”

Other studies have indicated that stretching before exercise may make you slower, weaker and less efficient⁴, not something that you want for a day on the hill!  This phenomenon is not yet fully understood, but there are possible explanations:

i) static stretching of the legs’ spring-like muscles and tendons makes them less able to store energy so that they get “loose” when you walk and so become less efficient;

ii) stretching may have a “neuromuscular” effect by disrupting the signal between brain and muscle.

It is probably a combination of these factors, but whatever the cause, stretched muscles tend to be weaker.  Interestingly, some studies have indicated that flexible runners are less efficient than those that are not as supple.

So how do you warm up?

 If stretching is not good, what should you do to warm up? Feel free to stretch at other times, but not before you exercise.

A good way to prepare for hillwalking and other activities is with “dynamic stretches”, moves that put your muscles through the range of motion required for walking, without the extreme reach-and-hold poses that can cause problems.

Begin to walk slowly, gradually getting to your pace and then introduce some dynamic drills:  march for 10 steps, lifting your knees high with each step; then kick your heels up behind you for a few steps so they almost touch your buttocks; swing your arms back and forth; finally take a some long, lunging steps.  These moves will prepare your muscles, increase heart rate, body temperature and blood flow, helping you walk efficiently without damaging your performance.

You can read more about preparation for hiking and backpacking in my book Hillfit: Strength  which gives a simple approach to developing the most important element of your fitness as a hiker, backpacker or hillwalker….strength

References

1. THACKER, S. B., J. GILCHRIST, D. F. STROUP, and C. D. KIMSEY, JR. The Impact of Stretching on Sports Injury Risk: A Systematic Review of the Literature. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc., Vol. 36, No. 3, pp. 371-378, 2004.

2. Herbert RD, de Noronha M, Kamper SJ. Stretching to prevent or reduce muscle soreness after exercise. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2011, Issue 7. Art. No.: CD004577. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD004577.pub3
3. Stretching before or after exercise does not reduce delayed-onset muscle soreness Br J Sports Med bjsports-2011-090599Published Online First: 17 October 2011
4. Jason Winchester et al. Static Stretching Impairs Sprint Performance in Collegiate Track and Field Athletes Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research: January 2008 – Volume 22 – Issue 1 – pp 13-19 doi: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e31815ef202

There is good commentary on all this at Sweat Science  or elsewhere on my other blog under stretching

Get in shape for hiking – get strong!

This post begins to look at one of the key ideas in my book Hillfit:Strength

What attributes come to mind when you think about a “fit” hiker or backpacker – agility, flexibility, stamina?  “Strong” is probably not on your list!  However, improving basic strength will benefit both conditioning for hiking and overall health.  Too often people shy away from resistance training, thinking it means “bodybuilding” sessions in a gym but it doesn’t have to be like that!

This post looks at the benefits of strength training for hiking and how it is fundamental to conditioning for fitness for backpacking.

 Stronger muscles are more efficient

It is easier for stronger muscles to do the same tasks.  Imagine that you have 20 units of strength per muscle fibre; your weaker pal only has 10 units.  If it takes 2000 units of “strength” to climb a hill, your cardiovascular system will only have to support 100 fibres to get to the top, whereas your friend will need 200.

You get to the top feeling fine; he is out of breath because his cardiovascular system had to provide oxygen to fuel twice the number of muscle fibres.  When you are stronger, your heart and lungs don’t need to toil as hard to support the same amount of muscle-work: that hill will be less effort!

Stronger muscles protect you from injury. 

There is another benefit.  Colin Gordon of Edinburgh Deep Tissue Massage  says that

“Lack of strength is a major contributing factor to the problems I see in many clients.  Lack of strength makes it difficult to maintain good posture, you tire more quickly, resulting in compensatory movements that put strain on other areas and increase the likelihood of injury; a stronger athlete is more injury-resistant.”

For example, balance is more than something in your inner ear: if your ankle muscles are weak and tire quickly then you will wobble! Your balance will be poor and an  injury more likely.

Getting Stronger – overload, adaptation and safe exercise

So how do we get stronger?  Two principles of exercise science apply: adaptation and overload.  Adaptation: muscles react to training loads imposed on them, by increasing their ability to cope.  Overload: muscles will increase in strength by working against gradually increased loads.

What exercises do we use?  We do not need to mimic the motion of hillwalking to improve the strength to walk.  Exercise choice should be based on safe movement, strengthening muscle without over-stressing the joints, and using exercises specifically to strengthen the areas most often injured, to minimize the chance or severity of an injury.

All these ideas are explained further in my book on getting in shape for hiking: Hillfit: Strength - Fitness for Hillwalking, Hiking and Backpacking

UPDATE Now available!  Learn more here
 Click here to download the booklet.