Keeping the spine healthy

One of the most common problems in our world today, is a bad back.
This can have many causes but usually the cause is musculoskeletal.

Whether the cause be a muscle imbalances, strained ligaments or physical injury.
All of these can arise from lack of mobility and incorrect training methods.
The main problem is that people do not move their spine enough and have no awareness and knowledge of the spines mechanical and bio mechanical workings.

To move something you must first be able to feel it.
Therefore a program of spinal health should have a number of goals:

- Increase spinal mobility and flexibility and reduce overall spinal tension

- Increase awareness of the whole spine

- To strengthen the deep spinal and outer spinal muscles in a balanced way

- To eliminate any other muscular imbalances in the body.

Here are a few drills which cover all or most of the goals.

- Spinal rock - You start sitting down on the floor with legs held to your chest, now just rock backwards and forwards, Straight across your spine.
There is a certain point in the range that usually is bypassed and leads to a bump on the floor. This is the lower part of the lower back, Try and do this as slowly as possible and try to roll down every vertebrae for maximum benefit.

- Spinal stretch - Hang on to a pull up bar in pull up grip (wrists facing away) and now just hang there, now move your legs around underneath you. The object of this exercise is to extend the spine and separate the small facet joints to release synovial fluid and lubricate the joints.

- Google: Cobra stretch and downward dog

I highly recommend PAIN free by peter egoscue, for any musculoskeletal pain.

Have fun Training

Tom

Russian Systema Training ideas

Here are some fun training ideas that i have found:

- Pyramids - You can use this protocol for the core exercises - starting from 1, you do 1 pushup then you change the breathing pattern and do 2 all the way up to 8, 10 or 12 and then you come back down. All the while you stay in pushup position do not drop to your kness.

example - 1, 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1

- Core exercise flow - This teaches you to have adaptability and relaxation throughout all ranges and levels (low, mid, high).
Firstly you do 5 pushups, then you have to get into the situp position somehow, with a roll or a turn, twist or movement. You then do 5 situps and now you have to do a movement that puts you in the leg raise position, now do 5 legs raises, and then finally make your way into a squat position and do 5 squats. Repeat as desired. In this exercise really try and use your imagination and creativity to find new and interesting movements.

- 4 hold - Hold each one of the core exercises for 5 mins.

- Slow progression - do a slow pushup lasting one minute then do a 1 minute situp, leg raise and squat, then do a 30 second pushup, situp, leg raise and squat and then finally go onto a 15 second P-U, S-U, L-R and SQUAT

Enjoy

Tom

Rolling - learning how to swim on dry land

Rolling is a fundamental skill to any Systema trainee. Its uses are infinite and it is a highly practical, usable skill. There are many dimensions to a good roll,
which include:

- Proper balance of tension and relaxation
- Awareness throughout the entire movement
- Correct breathing and form

The basic Systema roll is as follows -
- Starting on your knees, extend one arm straight out to the side
- Place the other hand on the floor next to your shoulder and look under and through the space between your arm and the floor.
- Now continue rolling over from shoulder to the other shoulder and down to the opposite hip.
(For more information about rolling and for a greater and more precise description of how to roll see "Let Every Breath" by Vladimir Vasiliev and Scott Merideth

Note - In the movement this may become a shoulder to hip roll, but emphasizing the shoulder, shoulder, hip instead, gives overall better form and teaches you to have a greater degree of control over your own body.


Once you have evolved your roll into a fairly soft roll. Here are some challenging and interesting variations, Which help you gain more precision and control of your movement and breathing.

- Start the roll in different stages of the breath cycle , inhale , exhale , breath held on inhale, breath held on exhale.

- Using a stick hold it in different and uncomfortable positions Eg - On the shoulders which the hands draped over it.

- Blindfolded or with eyes closed

- With the whole body or specific parts tense

- With a stick down one trouser leg or tied to a leg

- Roll with any object held in your hands - a knife, a whip, a chain, a cap etc

- Roll over and on a stick or sticks -- ouch

- Roll towards an obstacle and change direction mid- roll to avoid it

Practice these drills they will take your rolls to the next level.

Have fun
Tom

Full body and segmented tension Futhur work

There is a Systema practice which involves consciously tensing different muscles or groups of muscles with different degrees of strength.
There is deeper work where you can tense the tendons, nerves and joints but this is beyond the scope of this post. I shall be primarily focusing on the muscular variations.

These can be as simple as tensing an arm of a leg or can be made much more challenging by incorporating motion and control into the practice.
These drills teach you to become more adaptable and free.

They help you recognize where in your body you have excess tension, due to past injury, incorrect posture or imbalances and help you to release that tension, through becoming aware of your own internal and external condition.

Here are a number of variations that i have found more challenging:

- Change the position: lay of your front/ side instead of your back, while sitting down, while against a wall, while halfway through a roll/ in the lowest or topmost position in any the core exercises

- Add motion: during walking, running, rolling or falling

- Add time: extend the length of time you hold the tension try 30 seconds or even a minute, extend the length of time after you have exhaled in the relaxed state (just hold your breath)

- Muscle group variations - just tense your arms and legs, the shoulders and buttocks, the top half/bottom half of body, hands and feet, the fingers, the jaw, shoulders and hands, thighs and feet.

Different degrees - See if you can tense the upper body 50% and the lower body 100% vice versa, hands and feet 100% and the rest of the body 50%, whole body 25%

There are many more variations and they really are only limited by your imagination. If you always give yourself a challenge, your body will respond with enhanced awareness, sensitivity and control.

Good luck
Tom

Systema - Foundation of movement

Foundation of movement

A few thoughts on movement, tension and techniques

In systema we do four main exercises the pushup, the situp , the leg raise and the squat. These exercises done in a relaxed way using only as much tension as we require allow the body to gain a fullness of breath and an awareness of every body part. They also distribute any tensions in our body over the whole body area allowing a sense of whole body relaxation or fullness, this is where the body only uses just the amount of tension required to move and when for example you are required to move an object you can do it by spreading the tension throughout your entire body or by only using the muscles that are required.

The core exercises provide a foundation for movement and these 4 exercises form the programs of movement in our body. These exercises are gross/large muscular movements which as opposed to smaller/fine muscular movements/ techniques do not limit us and allow our freedom and creativity to express itself.

Done for a long time they erode the old habital motor programs or patterns of tension (conscious or unconscious)

which have become ingrained over the years into our body eg bending down to pick up an object with a rounded back as opposed to squatting low and bending forward with the back straight.

The core exercises done slowly and relaxed using only the amount of tension required and no more excessive or unconscious tension load these gross movements into the muscles, tendons and ligaments as opposed to gym style pushups or situps with the breath held or creased, which increases the muscular and nervous tension.

Any technique is really an engrained pattern of tension that limits us to a particular response and causes us to be tense. If were are told for example to punch someone into the body in a specific way or direction then our mind focuses only on that and other options are not seen, so that however the person reacts to that punch we have a specific counter movement and are not flexible or fluid in our approach or further work. This is the same for the bodies senses when when we focus on one sense eg hearing our sight, smell, touch, the other senses are dulled.

Systema instead allows you to see what you can do and what needs to be done

Systema instead allows you to see what must be done and to do it.

In systema one approach is to use tension and the three main ways of doing this are to - make use of existing unconscious tension in the attacker eg - hitting towards a tense arms, shoulders or back.

- make use of the attackers use of conscious tension eg – a stance or a movement towards you which carries tension.

- To create tension in the attacker using your own movement, gestures, sound etc

Tension can be physiological and psychological and usually one leads to the other and they both influence each other.

Our ideal level of overall body tension must allow for maximum mobility and strength. Doing these exercises over a period of time creates a unique muscle tone, and connects all parts of the body with an overall awareness and strength

Stay healthy
Tom

Exercise 101

Over the years i have read hundreds of books on exercise, a lot of them were contradictory, but many provided simple effective advice. The books i recommend are:
Anything by Scott sonnon (a genius)
The Systema Breathing book and the old guidebook (now out of print) any systema clips or articles on youtube
Any articles on HIT training, or the tabata protocol
Pace by Al sears
Relax into stretch or Super joints by Pavel tsatsouline
Pain free by Peter Egoscue

There are a number of themes that run through many of these books
here are just few:

1- Body control - To enhance health and physical ability you need to have a high level of body control. You might have heard of hindu yogis who can stop there heart, or people who can walk barefoot on coals or drink hot oil. All of these feats are accomplished by the power of the mind over the body. Something a bit more relevant to us however is - muscular tension - excess tension is detrimental to performance in any sporting pursuit or just in our daily life. A few ideas to become aware of your own tension or unconscious baggage are as follows:

- Circle every joint in your body from your toes to your neck and become aware of where restrictions exist.

- lay on the floor face up and try to relax any obvious tension in your body, then breath in through your nose and tense every muscle in your body, hold it for a count of 7, then exhale through your mouth and relax all of your muscles, repeat this a number of times and you will notice that with repeated effort, the resulting relaxation is deeper.

- try to shake any muscles that feel tired or tense. imagine you have water on them and you are trying to shake it off. Do this with any part of your body.

2 - Include high intensity training such as HIT training or the tabata protocol.
More and more research is now being done to illustrate the importance of high intensity training over low intensity training and the benefits that are being discovered are incredible.
Some include:
- Higher testosterone production
- decreased insulin resistance
- Higher amount of fat loss
- Decreased triglycerides

Here are a few links that discuss more about this:
http://www.alsearsmd.com/content/index.php?id=ha_366_-_get_your_gr
http://www.honewatson.com/11/10/tabata-protocol/
http://www.rosstraining.com/articles/tabataintervals.html
http://brn.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/8/3/177
http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/75/1/157

3 - Body symmetry and unity
Your entire body has to be in a state of homeostasis or balance physically and psychologically.
For this post we will concentrate on the physical aspect namely - posture.
The spines "s" curve is the centerpiece of a geometric construction based on parallel vertical and horizontel lines and 90 degree angles. These lines intersect at the 8 load bearing joints of the body: the shoulders, hips, knees and ankles. When a misalignment occurs due to bad posture habits, or over/underdevelopment of some muscles then other muscles start to compensate and this can be the start of chronic pain and many other physical and mental disorders.
So the main thing is - BALANCE. Train both sides of your body equally and train your back, arms, and legs in an equal way. The best way i have found is calisthenics, as they recruit more muscles and work on the stabilizing and core muscles to create a more stable, balanced physique.


Until next time
Stay healthy

Tom