5 Rules Of Training Longevity

While walking and listening to my favourite podcast "Industrial Strength Show" by Coach Joe Defranco where he talked about stuff one can do to overload the muscles rather than the joints and keep training for the long term by avoiding injuries, aches and pains.

This had me write my own version of his conveyed pointers to enhance training longevity.

When it comes to joint integrity and centration – meaning each joint to work as it is supposed to, not compromising on its function and not taking some neighbor joint’s role, how you move and workout in the gym matter a lot.

Say for instance, if hips are meant to be mobile, one should be able to flex, extend and rotate the leg around the hip joint. There should not be too much restriction in movement causing tightness and loss of mobility. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to take care of these five major points to maintain joint centration and integrity:

1. Bodyweight before weights: Could be a cliched statement for a few, but it is very common to see newbie clients walking into a gym and loading themselves with external weights and moving with compromised form. Once should be able to check for any restrictions and free movement capacity esp. at the shoulder, hip and knee. Although dysfunctions do arise above the shoulders – neck and below the knees – ankles due to compensation. Movements like the bodyweight squat and overhead reach with both arms can give us a lot of clues on restrictions.

2. Maintain proper form when lifting weights: Easier said than done, when the ego is on the line! But many young trainees try to lift as heavy as possible to “test” their strengths compromising on exercise form and joint movements. Rather, once should look to build themselves gradually and not test their strength all the time. For intermediate to advanced people, their training weights should lie somewhere between 50-75% of their max weight and form should be perfect – meaning, the movements should be precisely as they are supposed to be. If it isn’t then maybe it’s time to load down and perfect the movement first.

3. Going too heavy for too long: There is a limited capacity in every individual, be it an average gym goer or an elite athlete. We all have limited nervous system capacity, limited time, limited equipment access and limited energy and we should always strive to achieve the best of all worlds. There is an inverse relation between load and volume. If someone lifts heavy – over and above 85% of their max capacity ot weight, they should lower down the training volume (sets and reps) to account for nervous system fatigue and rest and recovery. Alternately, if someone is working around 50-70% of their max, then they can up the volume and do more sets and reps. Either way, total work done (weight x sets x reps) remains roughly the same. However, most trainees go too long with heavy loads which leads them to compromise on neural capability and let go of joint centration just to get the set work done in a typical time frame. The popularity of heavy weights with high reps, crossfit or HIIT type training is one of the major reasons why.

4. Not working on mobility: Given the celebrated mentality of “go hard or go home”, thanks to social media, the influence on gym goers and even some trainers is that of going balls out and not really thinking about the “yin” part of fitness which is breathing and mobility. When you are only hitting the weights and pumping your heart, the body goes off balance with compromising on recovery and not really releasing the stiff fascia surrounding the muscles and joints with self -myofascial release techniques with the foam roller or lacrosse/tennis ball and stretching. The stiffness or tightness causes the mobile joints to lock and thus the chain of problems that occur.

5. There are no mandatory exercises: Again, like the go hard or go home mentality I wrote about in the last point, there are a set of exercises that are celebrated everywhere just because few celebrities or influencers do them and swear by them. The problem is that these set of exercises require certain mechanics and positions which aren’t attained by all of us. A few maybe very good at them, but majority of us don’t have to do them and rather find out what is best for us and not what the media feeds into us. For instance, the barbell bench press, barbell back squat and conventional off the floor deadlift are three of the most celebrated exercises. However, to be good at them and obtain their benefits, one must have the proper leverage from where they could apply force and lift the weight. But not all of us have the structures to do that. When I say structured, I am talking about your dimensions and bone structure, it is not always about how strong you are. Rather, few might be better off performing heavy dips, chin-ups or walking lunges or dumbbell presses, front squats, trap bar deadlift, you get the idea.