This is one of my favorite boxes to stand on for a bit to provide the detail behind my theory of why with the increase of the fitness movement era, there has been such a surge in injuries pertaining, especially to the back, neck, shoulders, hips and knees, basically all of the joints. You can speak to any orthopedic doctor, and no, they will tell you your joints only have so many reps in a traditional weight training program. Muscles are isolated, such as chest and back day. Then the movements are repeated for three sets of 15 reps increasing weight. Not only is this dangerous, this is completely not functional and how we use our body. Most movements that happen in the gym outside of the squat or simple rotation movements never actually happen in real life. Take for example your average American who sits at their desk for eight hours a day then gets in their car, drives home and sits on the couch for the remaining hours of the day, then to lay down and curl up to sleep. Everything that we functionally do; to sit is done with drawing the feet closer together. This includes sitting in your chair at work sitting in your car, and even sitting on the toilet most gym squats are done with a heavy amount of weight on your back with your feet more than hip distance apart this causes extreme stress to the angles of the hips, knees, and ankles, I most honestly have never seen a squat done properly coming straight out of the gym. Most people think because they can lift a lot of weight. They are strong even at the cost Of their tissue joints and skeletal system. What happens when we age is the fascial system or the connective tissue not only is dehydrated, but often malnourished. Because of this the body’s healing time is much longer. If you notice most people that are heavy lifters cannot do this past their 40s. They will complain of hip back neck and shoulder pain to the point of enabling them to enjoy their normal life.
What I see is young kids can get away with it but only for so long, the misalignment patterns and compensation patterns that they create end up costing them and that is why in their 40s and 50s they start to have knee pain and be told that they’re going to have to have a hip knee or shoulder replacement along with back surgery. My question is why are the most fat and “healthy” having the most surgeries? Is it perhaps they are working too hard? The answer to that is yes.
In the professional world, you often hear work smarter, not harder. The same is true for your physical training outside of training for competitive sports in your youth, the Olympics, and perhaps specialized performance events. Most people cannot train to the same level as they did when they’re young. This is not because I’m getting old. In fact at 45 years old I feel and move stronger than I did even in high school and college when I was competing as a runner. You’re very specific and a high-level training that looks at alignment, coacts, ovation, and proper firing of muscles to create optimal movement patterns.
I have worked with multiple high-level professional athletes from Olympic training athletes, NFL players and PGA golfers and it’s always the same. While they are very strong in the global mold, mobilizers, which are the bigger muscles and can perform the high tactile moves for the sport, the slower and more whisper-like muscles that we call, the local stabilizers are often dormant or not even trained. These are the muscles inside that are responsible for joint integrity. What happens when people work out too hard is overtrained, the bigger muscle, such as the deltoid for the shoulder capsule in the smaller rotator muscles that only respond to low wait actually gets smaller and weaker, which basically causes the shoulder joint to rot from the inside out. The same is true for the hip joint. Well people will over Trina gluteus maximus doing heavy, loaded squads the deep six muscles that hold that joint together and allow the femur to withstand the constant, heavy loads and compressive forces. The joint literally disintegrates from the inside out, causing one to need a hip replacement. The solution to these joint replacements is low load and focused form that strengthens the joints and the internal skeletal frame from the inside out. I have had countless clients that have come to me in a last ditch effort to avoid surgery and heal their body to the point that not only do they not need to have surgery they have restored function and use and live pain-free.
