February Question and Answer

Weight training over 40....

There are a few things to consider with any weight training system as we age:

• Does the program allow you to recover well enough to make progress while minimizing the risk of injury? Simply, a good program is one that does not rely on one training style, but utilizes periods of high volume mixed with varying intensities and tempos. It will also allow adequate rest and recovery as well as provide guidance for stretching and conditioning.
• Are you truly taking care of trouble spots or are you just plodding ahead? When we're young and dumb, we choose to ignore the signs that something is wrong (sore joints, nagging aches, etc) and push through. Unfortunately as we age, our body can't recover as quickly and the nagging injuries soon become injuries that take us out of action for extended periods of time. Something as simple as stretching, foam rolling, and using a proper warm-up can alleviate a lot of these problems. There was a huge push for "functional movement" over the last few years, and as we age, I believe the principles of functional movement can benefit aging populations.
• Are you supplementing with the things you need? Fish oil, Glucosamine, Zinc, DHEA, and a good multivitamin like ON's Opti-men are all part of a good supplement regimen to keep you healthy, joints happy, and take care of other aspects of training beyond the years of high testosterone production. Can I say scientifically that these supplements are all valid? No, but I know I feel like I train better when I do take them.

How do I create a program that includes all major muscles while taking care of both a bad knee and bad shoulder?

The first part of this is choosing the number of days you want to train, whether it's 3, 4, or 5. Sorry, the days of training hard 6 and 7 days per week are done and being healthy means getting enough time to heal. Even at 37, if I train too many days in a row with not enough days off, the nagging injury rears its head and sits me down for a few weeks.

Once you identify the number of days, we can take the injuries into consideration. With a bad shoulder, rotating the strain on the shoulder is crucial. With the knee, choosing exercises that effectively train the quads, hams, glutes, and calves while keeping the loading on the knees from exacerbating the pain. For the best bang I would cycle my main lifts like this:

Week 1 - Heavy Chest, Volume Legs, Heavy Back with Deadlifts, Volume Shoulders
Week 2 - Volume Chest, Heavy Legs, Volume Back without Deadlifts, Heavy Shoulders
Week 3 - Volume DB Chest, Volume Legs, Volume Back with Deadlifts, Volume DB Shoulders
Week 4 - Heavy DB Chest, Heavy Legs, Heavy Back without Deadlifts, Volume Shoulders

By attacking each muscle with the variety of volume and intensity along with DB's and traditional barbell work, you can strengthen the tissue, train hard, and stay healthy. Also, deadlifting every other week allows your body to recover while still using one of the best whole body lifts.

In terms of choosing exercises, again, this will be based on what you can train without pain, or at the least, rotating exercises each week, for example leg pressing in week 1, squatting in week 2, leg accessory work in week 3, and single leg work in week 4. Selecting accessories and maintaining the volume aspect for accessories (no less than 3x10) will help with the blood flow and muscle mass to protect those bad areas.

How to self diagnose muscle imbalances or where to find help with this?

The simplest way would be to just watch how your body performs movements when training and then with a little anatomy and kinesiology, you can semi-diagnose problems. The reason I say semi-diagnose is that our body's are masterful in compensating and adapting a movement to cover for an imbalance. You can actually learn a great deal about imbalances by reading "Movement" or "Athletic Body In Balance" by Gray Cook. You can also learn about imbalances and correction with Phil Page's "Assessment and Treatment of Muscle Imbalance." As far as diagnosing, there are many different tests and you will need to either have or rig some equipment and then video yourself while going through the movements.

Or if you're less inclined to read and want to see examples, you can search youtube for movement screen. Here is an explanation of FMS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9zqKLA8SA0
a quickie on how to do it by yourself
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8G6jkEf1uI
and a playlist with the tests and corrective movements
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCD30E4219881CA78

When doing weight training, should I work to reach the target heart rate as with cardio? I find that if I try to keep the heart rate up, I am pressing the matter too much and the form goes to crap.

I believe your experience is similar to most of the clients I work with and one of the reasons I limit the amount of time performing super, giant, and metabolic conditioning sets. Naturally, your heart rate will accelerate very quickly under a load and can reach or exceed your target heart rate while lifting. This is to be expected as heart rate is tied to oxygen consumption and efficiency of the body to get it to the muscles that need it. Lifting a heavy load requires (without a long winded science explanation) ATP, acetylcholine, and calcium to cause the muscle contraction, and at some point, your body will struggle to remove waste products, get enough oxygen to the muscles, or have enough of the chemicals needed for full contraction (resulting in form breakdown as you weaken). In order to see aerobic benefit, you would have to maintain that elevated heart rate longer than your muscles would most likely be able to continue lifting at a high enough intensity to cause strength or hypertrophic gains. None of that is to say that elevating your heart rate while lifting is bad, but it is unlikely to have the cardiovascular effect you would want.

Now, before the zealots scream that they can perform high intensity exercise for extended periods of time and their heart rate never drops out of the fat burning zone, yes, it is possible. Crossfit lives on this principle and it is possible for someone to maintain a minimum heart rate of 60% of max. Does this make it beneficial? That depends on the goal.

Programming and Performance of Good Mornings:

The good morning is a hip hinge exercise and focuses on the posterior chain including the hamstrings, glutes, and lower back. For those that don't know, there are multiple forms of good mornings and they each have their benefits and risks associated with them. All of the forms have a risk of back injury if done with poor form. Proper form for a good morning includes: engaged upper back, flat lower back, and bending at the hips.

• Traditional - performed with the bar on the upper back / traps in either a close or wide stance. Can use a cambered bar or a yoke bar. The wider the stance, the more the hamstrings will be incorporated.
  
  
• Seated - performed with the bar on the upper back / traps while sitting on a bench or box and the knees at about a 90 degree angle. The ROM is limited and can actually cause more stress on the lower back for those with tight lower backs.
• Zercher - performed with the bar held in the bend of the elbows. Probably the hardest on the upper back and painful from resting the bar in the elbows.
• Banded - using a monster band or other form of large band wrapped over the upper traps and performed similar to a traditional good morning.

When programming good mornings, they are typically an assistance lift performed later in the workout because they focus on a weak point in either the squat or deadlift but don't mimic the movement patterns in either. Personally, I program them as my last assistance on squat days because it allows me to incorporate the hamstrings and lower back with moderate weights to strengthen my lower back without taking away from any of my other assistance lifts. I also don't do them on deadlift because my back is less exhausted on squat days. I rotate them in about every six weeks and perform them with high volume (30 - 50 reps) to build the muscles and develop endurance.