Issue 26
www.grrlAthlete.com – Your guide to a fit and athletic lifestyle.
Content
• The Best Diet for Maintaining Muscle
• Putting Your Body in Balance – Part III: Movement Management
Free Audio Interview: Training Young Female Athletes
Here’s your chance to hear how we at grrlAthlete.com use bodyweight strength training for young athletes. It doesn’t cost you anything to listen to the 25 minute interview! Here’s a direct link to the interview:
http://www.TrainingYoungAthletes.com/craigb.wma
Note: You will need Windows Media Player Version 8 or higher to listen to this audio. You can download a free player at:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...ad/default.asp
Thanks to Chris Scarborough of
www.trainingyoungathletes.com for the interview.
1 – The Best Diet for Maintaining Muscle
Recently, grrlAthlete.com was asked what was the best diet was for maintaining muscle while losing weight.
Knowing full well that the desired answer was something along the lines of 'The Atkins Diet®' or 'The South Beach® Diet', it must have been quite a shock when we responded, 'weight training'.
While many diets claim that they increase fat burning while minimizing muscle loss, (usually based on the amount of protein intake required in the diet), the most effective way to ensure that your body preserves your muscle while you are attempting to lose weight is by letting it know that the muscle is being used.
In order to accomplish this, you must stress your muscles by lifting moderately-heavy to heavy weights. This means using a weight that you can only lift for 3 to 8 reps with good form. Remember that research has shown over and over that to improve your body composition, the best approach is to use low reps rather than the traditional approach of high reps (i.e. 15 repetitions per set).
There is no diet that can replace the benefits of proper strength training. Also, everyone must remember that the best results are achieved through a combination of effective eating and proper training.
One of the biggest mistakes a woman can make is neglecting weight training as part of her weight loss plan. No matter which diet is being used, if the muscles are not being stressed, then muscle will be lost as part of the weight loss.
Putting Your Body in Balance – Part III
For parts I & II of our interview with Gray Cook, please see Issues 24 & 25. Gray Cook, author of the book, “Athletic Body in Balance”, has been a physical therapist and certified strength and conditioning specialist since 1990.
GA: How do you deal with dominant-side athletes like a golfer? What do you recommend to these athletes to balance the strength between sides?
GC:
I do not judge it by the sport. I judge it by the individual, the way their movement patterns look, and then I consider the sport. Many individuals do not develop asymmetry and then many individuals develop far greater asymmetry than their sport could possibly cause. Therefore, it is still not individualized enough to sports-specifically train an individual. You need to know what their movement patterns are and then consider the sport they are returning to or consider the sport they are playing. However, it is all based on the individual movement patterns – not so much the sport that they are playing.
GA: ACL injuries occur far too often in female athletes. Do these have any connection to a weak core?
GC:
I feel that the higher incidence of ACL injuries in the female athlete is directly related to biomechanics, core stability and poor movement patterns.
Many theories have been thrown out including the Q angle which is the differing hip angle between the male and female athlete as well as hormones present in the female athlete that are not present in the male athlete. I prefer to discuss things that I am willing to change and I do not feel that manipulating the angle of the hip in a female athlete or the hormone level in a female athlete is an effective way to reduce biomechanical injuries.
It has been shown many, many times that the female athlete has completely different landing mechanics than the male athlete and I think if we go one step further, one of the reasons that these landing mechanics are significantly different is due to poor stability through the core, poor ankle mobility and poor hip mobility. This causes a greater amount of torsional stress to the knee that incidentally stresses the ACL and increases the incidence for injury.
GA: Does the lack of strength in women have any effect on their injury rate? Do female athletes have more upper or lower body weakness & injury?
GC:
Once again, I do not think it is as much about weakness as I do stability or movement patterns.
I find that in taking a female basketball team at the collegiate level through a movement screen compared to the male basketball team the females are highly skilled in basketball but in many cases not as well conditioned. Maybe they do not pull as much time in the weight room or whatever, but their movement patterns are at a far less degree from being proficient than the male movement patterns. This includes deep squatting, lunging correctly, balancing on one leg and rotating the torso.
I think that when we condition the female athlete we sometimes worry more about strength and muscle development than actually focusing on movement management. It’s not so much about adding bulk. It’s about adding quickness, speed, power and agility to the female athlete and sometimes I feel that we shy away from that kind of conditioning and go to the conventional weight training that may make muscles look a little bit better but has very little effect on overall movement patterns.
GA: Do injury rates differing between sports in female athletes?
GC:
I think there is a higher incidence of injuries in female soccer and basketball simply because of the opportunities given them in collegiate athletics whereas a far greater number of female athletes are now competing under scholarship but at the same time maybe not having access to some of the strength and conditioning practices that their male counterparts possess.
The key is deceleration whether it be landing in basketball or volleyball or whether it be cutting in soccer, field hockey or softball.
The cutting and landing movements seem to be the ones that place the female athlete at greatest risk. If we consider this, we will obviously realize that there is a greater need for movement screening and also programs that look more toward plyometrics than raw strength development. It’s the reaction time and reflexes that are trained in plyometrics that will help us avoid some of these deceleration injuries in the female population.
GA: You mentioned in running-type sports that runners have strong quads and that these muscles fire first in abdominal movements even if the hamstrings are strong. What does this mean in terms of performance and injury prevention? What is the next step for the athlete in getting the hamstrings stronger?
GC:
It’s not simply a hamstring weakness problem.
If the quads are actually tight, the hamstrings are neurologically inhibited. That means that when there is greater tension in the hamstrings and greater tone in the quads, the hamstrings are not just necessarily weak. They are working against that tone in the quads and the neurological system does not like the muscles to battle it out. Thus, it will actually reduce the strength in the hamstrings in the presence of quadriceps tightness and increased tone.
Therefore, stretching and strengthening go hand-in-hand. Just strengthening the hamstrings is not the solution. Effectively stretching the quads and then effectively using the quads in different movement patterns like squatting, lunging and stepping will first of all break the vicious cycle of quad dominance. Then supplementary work can be done on the hamstrings if it is even needed at that point.
GA: Let’s end with an argument for training movements and not muscles. How does this fit into the big picture and how do you get your athletes to understand this philosophy?
GC:
That’s a hard concept. I have done videos, lectures and have written a complete book directly to the athlete on this specific phenomenon.
In the first part of my book I go into great detail explaining that it is simply the best investment of time. Looking at your movements, which are the fundamental base of your sport, makes a lot more sense than looking at your muscles. We have seen great athletes that did not have excellent muscle development do amazing things on the basketball court, tennis court, volleyball court, track and field and so on.
Athletes that worry about the way they move seem to excel and always know where their weakest leak is and know where to focus their training. But if you simply stand in front of a mirror and analyze your body as a statue as a bodybuilder would, you may have good symmetry and proportions when it comes to developing your musculature but does that really influence the way you move?
Athletics is about the way you move – not the way you look. Most of the time, however, if an athlete trains the movements, stays lean, eats right and stays flexible, their body develops fine and their symmetry is in proportion. But ultimately it is their movements that should dictate the way they train – not the arbitrary way their muscles look.
GA: Thanks Gray!
The information on grrlAthlete.com is for education purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to replace the advice or attention of health-care professionals. Consult your physician before beginning or making changes in your diet or exercise program, for diagnosis and treatment of illness and injuries, and for advice regarding medications.
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