Congruent Exercise - Wisdom from Bill DeSimone 3

Ok the next instalment of my thoughts on Bill's book.  (The series started here)

Summary of Chapter 2.  "Full Range of Motion" : Biomechanics or Buzzword

Fibre recruitment is not based on range of motion.  Rather fibre recruitment is proportional to the load and/or the speed .  It is not related to the joint angle! Thinking about how muscles contract, they are weaker at the extremes of the motion where there is either active or passive insufficiency.  It it through the middle of a muscle's contraction that it is strongest. 

We need to train the strongest range of the muscle, which will also mean avoiding lockout where the muscle is under no stress - there is zero lever and the bones take the strain.

We look to work the biomechanically strongest range, the joint angle for peak muscle torque;  we want to match the muscle's strongest postion with the most challenging part of the exercise, usually the sticking point or position of maximum moment arm, where the weight is at the further horizontal distance from the joint.

We also look to eliminate the lockout position and the end ranges of the muscle where there are either active or passive insufficiencies.

In addition, we need to avoid movements which create or pass through joint obstructions - that will only promote excess wear and tear and strain.

We should not seek a full range of motion but a full safe and appropriate range of motion!

So pick moves where the muscles are strongest at the point when the motion is hardest!

 

Quote from Bill

"Full range of motion", while a well-intentioned piece of instruction, was really a product of its time.  In the context of bodybuilders doing short pumping motions, and piling on weight for partial lockout reps it was a step in the right direction  But once it got taken out fo context, it went too far in unproductive ways and created a need for more precise instruction.  

Congruent Exercise - Wisdom from Bill DeSimone 2

Ok the next instalment of my thoughts on Bill's book.  (The series started here)

Summary of Chapter1 - Avoiding the Tragic Accident: Biomechanics you need to know

• You need to avoid injury.  Some exercises, even those promoted in magazines, books and website make injury almost inevitable.  There are basic rules that need to be recognised
• Free weights get heavier as you bend - this is basic mechanics and leverage.  When the lever arm is longest - the maximum moment arm - it will feel the heaviest....so get into that hard position to start the movement;  go from hard to easy or else you may go from easy to hard and never get out of that position
• You can lower more than you can lift - so start with the positive movement not the negative.  Lift first, don't lower.  If you lower first you might be handlin a weight that you will not be able to lift.
• The spine is not designed to support top heavy loads - the bones of the spine are set up as a pyramid, the whole design is for stability.  The lumbar spine is made for stability, the thoracic for some mobility and the cervical for great mobility.  The muscles are built in layers, the rotatores, multifidis, erectors.  The whole set up is for stability vertebrae to vertebrae, not overall movement.  These small muscles are about posture and holding the spine stable, it is the big muscles of the hip that move weight.   When you pile a weight on top of all this, the bones and muscles are loaded in a way that they were never intended to cope with.
• Balance - on one leg the small muscles of the hip and spine are at work.  The glute medius for example has a primary role of pulling the pelvis down to maintain the centre of gravity ove the grounded foot when you are on one leg.  The spine follows this motion.  In bodyweight moves it is all about stabilisation.  Add weight and you are forcing motion and loading that is inappropriate.  So keep added weight near your centre so that the prime mover move you while the stabilisers stabilise....
• Weights Load Limbs, while the deep muscles stabilise joints....to allow the superficial muscles to move those loaded limbs.  Don't confuse the two.
• Adopt proper function with respect to bones, muscles and joints and you will avoid catastrophe, reduce strain and more effectively load the muscles.

The take away:

• Start motions with a positive / concentric motion, from the position of maximum moment arm. 
• Don't load the spine with weight on your shoulders
• Let the postural muscles stabilise, not act as prime movers 

Quote from Bill

There's no magic attached to one technique or tool vs the other.  There are however, specific, documented ways that muscles and joints are supposed to function, and walking into a gym doesn't change that.

Congruent Exercise - Wisdom from Bill DeSimone 1

I have been meaning to write a long review of Bill's book - Congruent Exercise (now on Amazon).  I have already done something short, but it deserves something longer and more detailed.  However I am struggling for time at the moment. 

What I might do is a series of short posts.  Pulling out some of the profound wisdom from the book.  However, I'd still recommend that you buy and read the thing, both to support Bill and to make your training safer and more effective.  It is certainly something that I have tried to apply in my book Hillfit on fitness training for hiking.

Summary of the introduction

The book is about delivering the benefits of weight-training without the risk of ether acute or chronic injury.  This risk can be minimised by applying the most appropriate joint movements, posture and leverage (moment arm) in other words, biomechanics.  This approach is not specific to any equipment - it is a filter through which to shape exercise with bodyweight, free weights or machines.

Quote from Bill:

The one constant is your body and biomechanics.

Congruent Exercise 3: Injuries are to be avoided

One of the basic precepts in Bill DeSimone's Congruent Exercise (I'd encourage everyone to get a copy) is that :

"The absolute first priority for anyone training with weights should be to avoid a catastrophic injury."

Bill notes that this should be obvious, but points to a series of tragic and disabling accidents that have left people dead or disabled.

I thought this when reading some on the weird thing that is T Nation the other day.  It is a set of tales of catastrophic injuries including a powerlifter who shatters his spine while his pals laugh and triceps torn while benching, trying to present these dangers as acceptable, things to be overcome in a macho drive to success.    Actually it comes across as stupid.  Why the hell glory in disabling movements?

strange.


As I have said before:  KEEP IT SAFE

Congruent Exercise 2: Just because you can doesn't mean you should

I'm still planning my full review of Bill DeSimone's excellent new book Congruent Exercise, but I saw a video the other day that made me think of one of the things he says in the book:

"Just because you can move a limb in a certain way, doesn't mean that you should, and it certainly doesn't mean you should move it that way with extra weight."

Bill talking about safe exercise choice but his words came back to me when I saw this.  Surely this guy shouldn't keep doing this!

Congruent Exercise - Part 1

It is rare that I am truly excited by a book, that writing will really stimulate me intellectually, with sets of ideas that connect and make sense.  I like it when that happens, when you find something "new" but which makes so much sense because it is not really new, it is obvious when you put the pieces together.  It is the logic of it I like, when things hold together in consistent ways.

Bill DeSimone's new book, Congruent Exercise, is exciting me!  I will put up a proper review in a few days, but I am really savouring it at the moment.  As I read each page there is a pencil in my hand and I am marking up key paragraphs.....then I find that I am marking the whole thing!

In this new book, Bill is covering much of the same material that was in his first book - Moment Arm Exercise - but he has refined his presentation and the whole argument is very clearly presented.

Moment Arm Exercise fascinated me and I used to study it like a text book, I still dig it out to check out the worth of different movements.  Congruent Exercise is more like a manifesto, a simple pulling together of premises to give a clear and logical prescription for exercise.  Safety is key to all this, designing movements that reflect proper joint and muscle function, informed not by "feel" or dogma, but anatomy and mechanics.

As I say, I'll put up a proper review in a few days, but for now suffice to say that this is the best book I've read this year.  You can get a copy at Bill's eBay store here, or read about the book on its Facebook Page.

I intereviewed Bill way back here and it is  interesting to see that some of the things we touched on in that interview are developed a bit in the new book - such as the role of postural muscles.


You can see some of his videos here.