Message from the CEO

  

Recovery techniques, such as foam rolling (pictured: foam rolling muscle groups critical for athletic performance), are even more important than workout regimens in improving performance and reducing the risk of over-training and injury. Photo: Healthy Running Step by Step.

Recovery Techniques Are More Important Than Your Workouts

This is the time each summer that active people start to experience symptoms of over-doing their activities. If you want to gain the health and fitness benefits from your workouts -- and avoid injury -- you need to focus on recovery techniques with the same zeal you bring to your training. Whether you work out year-round or got your fitness program started this spring, whether you train daily or just a few hours per week, your fitness program can leave you over-trained very easily, even if you don't think you are doing all that much.

Competitive athletes know that recovery is king. For instance, after each stage of the Tour de France (and they average over 100 miles per stage), the riders spend another 1-2 hours in the saddle on a stationery wind trainer to flush out waste products, relax their muscles, and reduce the levels of stress hormones that build up over the course of these arduous stages. However, even if you only run, bike, or lift weights three days per week, you too can get become over-trained very quickly. This week's feature article offers some of the most common causes of over-training in an excerpt from my new book, Healthy Running, Step by Step, available in stores and online this September.

Pre-order Healthy Running, Step by Step now and enter to win a free Phase IV Video Run Gait Analysis! Simply send us a copy of your pre-order receipt and you can have your running gait analyzed by our expert staff.

 

 

>> Read each week's CEO Message here 

Special Offer: Pre-Order your copy of Robert Forster's new book, Healthy Running Step by Step, due out this Summer by Fairwinds Press, and receive a free signed copy of the best seller, The Complete Water Power Workout Book by Robert Forster, PT and Lynda Huey. Bring in your online pre-order receipt to Forster Physical Therapy or Phase IV and receive a free, signed copy of the water book ($24 value), a must-read for runners and anyone who wants a great workout that's easy on your joints!

The Big Three Recovery Killers

 

In this excerpt from Healthy Running Step by Step, Robert Forster, PT discusses common pitfalls of workout recovery efforts.

   

Book Excerpt from Healthy Running Step by Step

Recovery is the great missing link in most training plans. The Eastern European Training guru Tudor Bompa famously said, "Recovery should be so well understood and actively enhanced that it becomes a fixed component of your training." That's because recovery-which, on the macro level, includes taking it easy the day after a hard workout or taking the day off altogether, and on the micro level includes paying more attention to your cool down, stretching, and post workout nutrition and hydration-is the crucial low-intensity time that your body needs to heal and rebuild itself so that it's better than before. Recovery is when your body actually grows stronger and more efficient. It is when the benefits of your hard training are realized.

"Working hard is easy-everyone knows how to work hard. But those who know how to work hard at recovery are the ones who win," says my friend and mentor, Coach Bob Kersee, the most successful track and field coach of all time. Fact: Athletes by nature know how to push it, but the ones who know when to throttle back perform the best. Therefore, to make sure you recover, it should not be left to chance. It must be programmed into your workout schedule and rigorously observed. Overtraining syndrome and lack of recovery are two sides of the same coin, and unfortunately, the rule rather than the exception. Stop them by guarding against slipping into three bad training habits:

1) Falling into a Rut. Beware of doing the same thing, such as running your standard 6-mile loop, every day, over and over and over. Your body adapts to the stress of a particular workout to the point where it is hardly stressful anymore. As a result, your workouts will no longer elicit a strong hormonal response; your hormones just say "ho-hum" and fade or leave.  To keep improving, you need to keep changing the stress.

2) Doing Too Much Too Soon. Although your breathing and organs-heart and lungs-adapt rapidly to the stress of increased exercise, your infrastructure-bones, joints, and muscles-do not. So you need the discipline to keep from going as fast as your breathing will let you; otherwise, your body won't know how to deal with the stress. In periodization terms, you don't want to rush the base building phase. Don't do any hard workouts-such as intervals, hills-on a too-shallow base.

3) Going Too Hard All the Time. Some people never stop, never give themselves recovery time, and it eventually comes back to hurt them. Too much intensity-hard running, biking, skiing, you name it, sometimes on the same day-will negatively impact your health. Do not violate the hard-easy paradigm of periodization. 

 

 

Next Week: Read all about the recovery techniques that will optimize your fitness gains. And feel free to discuss your recovery issue with Robert Forster, PT. He can be reached at forsterpt@aol.com.

 

>> Pre-order Healthy Running Step by Step here

Special Offer: Bring in your online pre-order receipt to Forster Physical Therapy and receive a free, signed copy of my first book, The Complete Waterpower Workout Book. 

Lower Back Pain Guide

The forces that are generated within the spine when we bend, twist, lift, and sit in poor posture are damaging to the structures of the spine. The most commonly injured spine structures include the intervertebral disc (the shock absorber between the bony segments, or vertebrae, of the spine), the facet joints (where the vertebrae articulate with those above and below it), and the sacroiliac joints (where the spinal column articulates with the pelvis). These are relatively fragile structures that can be easily damaged in a traumatic fall, motor vehicle accident, and by wear and tear from daily activities, poor sitting postures, and faulty body mechanics.

While a strong and flexible musculoskeletal system can help avoid debilitating damage to the spine, unfortunately many spinal injuries occur in the gym as a result of poorly-conceived yet popular "core" exercises. When it comes to exercise and the spine, it is imperative that every position and motion be spine protected. At Phase IV, we have proven that there is a safe and effective way to create core stability while avoiding wear and tear on the very structures we set out to protect. You don't need leg lifts, "V" sits, or to stand on a ball while performing a bicep curl and a squat in order to have a strong core and protect your spine against injury.

To help you discern serious back pain from common aches and pains, please consider these three pain patterns:

Central low back pain that is worse after exertion and lifting activities but does not radiate into the gluteal muscles or down one leg or the other can be as simple as a strained muscle. However, if the pain increases with extended sitting and/or it is difficult to stand up straight after a period of sitting, this may be the signs of a disc bulge. Contrary to public belief, disc injuries do not translate into a lifetime of low back pain. Disc bulges can be corrected with the right exercise program.

Physial Therapists to Gold Medalists >> NBC4 Los Angeles

NBC4's Dr. Bruce Hensel discusses the training and rehabilitation of Olympians and London 2012 gold medalists Allyson Felix and Kim Rhode at Forster Physical Therapy.

Dawn Harper-Nelson isn't the only Olympian to come through and benefit from Forster Physical Therapy. Olympic skeet shooter and London gold medalist Kim Rhode, and 200 meter sprinter and fellow London gold medallist Allyson Felix, have both conquered their own injuries and setbacks through Forster PT.

 

NBC4 Los Angeles' Dr. Bruce Hensel delves into the training and rehabilitation of these two Olympians -- just a small sample of the more than 40 whom Forster has treated -- at Forster Physical Therapy and Phase IV Health and Performance Center.

 

>> Watch the video here

Pre-Order Healthy Running Step by Step

Pre-order Healthy Running Step by Step before its arrival in stores and online in August.

Click here to pre-order Healthy Running Step by Step, the new book by Robert Forster, PT, and Roy M. Wallack, due out this August from Fairwinds Press, and gain automatic entry into a raffle for a free VO2 test!

 

(Click here for more information on VO2 testing.)

 

Don't let an old injury keep you from enjoying races, morning runs, or attaining fitness goals. In the first part of Healthy Running Step by Step, authors Robert Forster, PT and Roy M. Wallack recommend the best training based on your fitness goals, including strength training, cross training, sprints, yoga, and plenty of rest. Part two goes a step further from other books by addressing the most modern methods of treatment -- including current studies on the amount of rest required, new and controversial surgical operations and injections, the newest and most effective gear, and barefoot/minimalist running as a form of healing. If you are recovering from an injury or want to prevent becoming injured in the first place, Healthy Running Step by Step is a must-have guide.

 

Available in stores and at Phase IV and Forster Physical Therapy this Fall!

 

• Format: Paperback
• Publication: August 2014
• Pre-Order Price: $24.99

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