Once Inspired

Archive for March, 2010

Intro

During physical activity our neuromuscular pathways play a major role in alignment, movement, postural support and also responsiveness or “muscular awareness”.

Certain patterns are impressed on the motor coordination centre as a result of stimuli, be it physical trauma and injury, emotional trauma, or new and desirable learning through training or simply as part of natural progression as we favourably adapt to our environments.

Post injury, dysfunctional movement patterns impressed on the neuromuscular pathways during the time of injury results in definite dysfunction and pain. This is known as sub-clinical injury and although there is no longer any physical tissue damage, pain and inefficiencies still exist. These ergonomically inefficient use patterns inherently affect our energy levels and general state of well-being.

The unexpected benefits of Muscle Activation extend beyond the improvement of neuromuscular efficiency. By reducing the energy demand for the support and movement system, muscular definition is increased through the attainment of normal activity levels, tissue metabolism is normalized, and the availability of freed-up energy boosts brain function.

How it Works

Muscle Activation engages kinaesthetic conversation with the motor control centre. It bypasses the usual reflex spinal root circuits thereby over-riding the current natural reflex state of that specific pathway and facilitates new learning.

Initially testing is done by asking the muscle to resist an application of pressure. This reveals the responsiveness (muscular awareness) of the specific neuromuscular connection and a rating out of ten is given.

The antagonistic muscle (opposing muscle) is then tested in the same way. Imbalances in the *cooperative muscle group are thereby detected and are rectified by stimulating the neuromuscular pathway along specific pressure points.

This reawakens the malfunctioning neuromuscular pathway and immediately improves muscular awareness.

The same tests are then repeated and the results are astonishing.

Conclusion

Muscle Activation significantly improved my muscular awareness, quickening my response time to the applied pressure during post therapy testing.

Greater strength and greater flexibility is something that any athlete can put to good use. Muscle Activation really is that dam good.

Footnotes:

*Cooperative Muscle Groups consist of the following sets of muscles:

Agonists – They create the normal range of movement in a joint by contracting. They are primarily responsible for generating the movement.

Antagonists – These muscles act in opposition to the movement generated by the agonists and are responsible for returning a limb to its initial position.

Synergists – These muscles perform, or assist in performing, the same set of joint motion as the agonists. They neutralize extra motion from the agonists to make sure that the force generated works within the desired plane of motion.

Fixators – These muscles provide the necessary support to assist in holding the rest of the body in place while the movement occurs.

After doing some research on bike fit and technique I realized that this article from http://triathlete-europe.competitor.com is simply as good as it gets.

A lot has been made about bike fitting in recent years. But while qualified fitters can undoubtedly have a massive impact on your speed and comfort, they do not always offer an absolute solution. Sometimes there are slight alterations that you can make in your own technique that can have a huge impact on the way you perform on the bike.

By Jason Goldberg
Something has been lost in the recent bike-fitting craze. We’ve forgotten that it’s not just about the bike. The typical fitting is all about setting up the bike to support an assumed position of the rider. The goal is a setup that creates an optimal blend of comfort, power and efficiency, but to actually get this result, a fitter must devote just as much attention to the rider’s position, which cannot be taken as a given. Unfortunately, few fitters know much about rider positioning.

Worse, many triathletes don’t even bother to seek out qualified fitters to work on their positioning. On many triathlon forums, people post side-view photos of their positions and ask board members to critique them. The problem here is twofold. One issue is that air hits you from the front as you cut a hole through it, not from the side. The second issue is that most of the people replying with positioning advice have never been in a wind tunnel nor are experienced fitters. In other words, they don’t know what they’re talking about. Let’s look at what wind tunnel testing and real-world experience at the elite level tell us about proper positioning.

There are three major forces that will hold you back when riding your bike on a flat to rolling course: mechanical resistance, rolling resistance and wind resistance. Mechanical resistance is the least important. It is generated by the gears of your bike, which are fairly efficient, especially on a race-tuned bike, and in the bearings, which are also quite efficient. Rolling resistance is a little more complicated, as it varies by tire construction, inflation pressure and surface smoothness.

Both mechanical and rolling resistance increase in a linear manner, but wind resistance is different because, assuming that there is no change in your body riding position, it increases at the square of the increases in speed. The drag on a cyclist traveling at 20 mph is four times as great as the drag at 10 mph. Thus, the faster you go, the more power is required to overcome wind resistance. In any given riding position, you need about 33 percent more power to go 10 percent faster. The good news is that you can reduce wind resistance at any given speed by manipulating your position. The key is to cut down the frontal area of your position, forming your body into a more streamlined shape on your bike. Watch the Tour de France and you can tell which teams and athletes take this streamlined position seriously and which do not. The same goes for the front of most professional non-drafting triathlon fields.

A rule of thumb developed by Steve Hed, of Hed Cycling Products in Shoreview, Minn., is that you can save three seconds over 40 kilometers for every 10 grams of drag dropped. There are 454 grams in a pound; therefore, dropping a pound of drag can save you roughly 2.5 minutes over 40 kilometers and more than 11 minutes over an Ironman bike course.

Reducing Drag
The most effective positioning change you can make to reduce drag is to lower your head as much as you can toward your hands. This change alone has been shown reduce drag by more than 200 grams in the wind tunnel. Taller athletes typically cannot get their head as close to their hands as shorter athletes because of the length of their upper arms. They can overcome this disadvantage to some degree by angling their forearms upward. When this is done properly, you can actually hear the wind resistance decrease.

The next biggest time savings comes from repositioning your shoulders. The objective here is to narrow your shoulders by rolling them inward. To do this, get into your riding position indoors and look directly into a mirror. See if there is a way to “shrug” your shoulders to make yourself narrower. Modifying your elbow and hand position might make it easier.

The more your shoulders roll in the narrower your shoulders will get and the faster you will be. This can save you another 100 to 200 grams of drag. Again, angling your aerobars slightly upward might enable you to narrow your shoulders more comfortably. Moving your elbows closer together may also help. We use giant calipers that we call “manipers” to measure shoulder width and ensure that as the elbows come closer together, the shoulders follow. Eventually, you will get to a point where your shoulders are unaffected by further reductions in the distance between your elbows, and that’s the point where you’ll want to stop.

Aero Positioning
There is no apparent effect of aerobar shape and aerodynamics. S-bends offer the most powerful position but are not necessarily the most comfortable. Finding a balance between power and comfort is important. While pulling up on the bar (which is a real power position), the more rotated your wrist becomes, the more leverage you can generate. The more angle there is in a single bend, the less power you will have pulling up.

The variety of hand positions that are possible with S-bends makes it easier to find a position that optimizes power and comfort. The key to proper S-bend positioning is to make sure that your ring finger is lined up with your elbow. This will prevent the wrist and forearm discomfort often seen with ill-fitted S-bend aerobars. Also, avoid angling your aerobars downward. This not only increases your frontal area, it also raises your effective bar height, causing you to ride “taller” and further increasing your frontal area.

Many triathletes assume that the surest way to increase the aerodynamics of the riding position is to drop your bars and lower your torso, but this is not always the case. A better indicator of aerodynamic positioning, from a side view, is how low the head is. A greater sternum angle may actually facilitate a lower head position because the rider is not forced to keep his or her head back to see forward.

Using a goniometer, we measure an athlete’s sternum angle rather than hip angle. It is certain that if your sternum angle goes below five degrees, you will be slower than if it were at five to 15 degrees. We actually raise some riders because their net drag is unaffected by going a little higher, as the steeper their torso angle is, the more they can lower their heads.

This is not to suggest that your back position is not important to aerodynamics. However, what matters is not how low it is but how you hold it. You want to strive for a slight curve in your mid-spine, almost like a hump. This will help integrate your aero helmet into your streamlined position. Specifically, it will help smooth airflow over your aero helmet, integrating your aero tuck into a neat little package and lowering your drag numbers another 50 to 100 grams.

There is a principle in aerodynamics that states that air likes to flow over curved surfaces as opposed to flat ones. Consider the toroidal bulges of aero wheels versus flat sidewall wheels. If you have a naturally flat back, work on curving your back into a hump, and if you have a humpback, rejoice, because it will help you ride faster.

It is important to note that the best time triallers and triathletes in the world all work very hard to make the unnatural natural. Almost everyone who attempts to modify his or her position according the guidelines I’ve just given you comes back to me after the first few rides complaining about feeling uncomfortable.

Be patient, as it takes time to first get into the right position and then learn to pedal, steer, corner, drink and feed in it. When it does become tolerable and eventually comfortable (and it always does), your persistence will be rewarded with significantly faster bike-splits.

Many pros feel that drafting is ruining the sport of triathlon. It’s removing the purity of a true racing spectacle. Some suggest that the only way to get around it is to avoid a lap course. Others say that there should be a bigger gap between age groupers and elites, men and women.  What do you think? Please post your comments below.

Getting a new pair of running shoes is always fun, especially when they look like the New Balance RC 760.

For the lay man selecting a running shoe can be easy, if it looks good and falls into the right price category it’s a done deal. But now, more and more people are becoming aware of the importance of having the correct shoe.

Before the NB RC760, I was running in the Asics Gel DS Racer 7. They both fall into the supportive racer category however as little as supportive racers could vary, they are quite different. Allow me to start with the Asics.

The Asics have a large pronation block and no mid-foot support piece allowing the shoe more lateral flexibility whilst correcting pronation through the large pronation block. They are considerably soft for a racer allowing for a smoother ride and hence a smooth transition through the gait. This shoe is certainly better suited to a heel striking runner with a high toe off, offering more cushioning than most racers yet still have a low profile and are still extremely light at 195 grams.

The New Balance on the other hand has a significantly smaller pronation block, yet has an extensive amount of mid foot support which extends up along the inside of the heel. This makes the New Balance extremely supportive and considerably more rigid than most other racers. The NB is better suited to a mid- foot striker with a flatter gait as there is little lateral flexibility thanks to the extensive amount of mid-foot support. Also if you do happen to run on gravel or similar off-road terrain the New Balance is a great shoe for this purpose.

Overall the Asics offer more cushioning and flexibility whereas the New Balance offer more support.

At this stage I still cannot choose and rightly so. I had a pair of very nice elastic laces in my Asics and am yet to put a pair in my New Balance. It just wouldn’t be fair to choose right now.