When you people-watch at the mall or airport, it’s easy to tell who’s in shape and who’s not. We make the same judgments when we look at ourselves in the mirror. If you are committed and resilient with the Core program, your body will undergo a physical transformation. But I need you to think not just in terms of the way you look but also in terms of the way you move.
When I watch people, the first thing I notice is their movement patterns. I might see them walking with one or both of their feet rotating outward, which prevents them from rolling over on their toes or using their ankle joints. That leads to tight ankles, hips, and lower-back pain.
Other times, I notice a person’s hip instability. With every step they take, they put undue stress upon and cause excess wear of the knees, feet, groin, and, by extension, the spine. In the short term, this might not seem like anything other than soreness after a long day of walking. Down the road, however, one of those areas will become a major problem.
These people, some of whom are in decent shape, suffer from “biomechanical dysfunction.” From a height/weight standpoint, they might look like they’re in above-average condition, but they still have biomechanical dysfunction because they no longer can perform the necessary movements to thrive and sustain a high quality of life. Maybe they don’t realize it now, but they will when something breaks down. It’s like driving your car when the wheels aren’t aligned.
At our training centers we conduct an analysis of each athlete’s movement-pattern efficiency. The idea is to make sure they meet and exceed the excruciating demands of their sports. We also take a look at the athletes’ software—in other words, their brains. The Game of Life installs viruses into our software through injury and illness, lack of activity, and improper training. We need to improve the way our software boots up so that our bodies operate efficiently to create functional, fluid movement that protects and propels us.
We do this by trying to determine which, if any, muscles are “overfiring,” creating tightness and tension, and by seeing whether any muscles have been turned off all together. This causes other muscles to overcompensate, leading to muscle fatigue and strain.
When we get these movement patterns working properly, we find a body that is perfectly balanced to efficiently store and release energy with every step. These graceful patterns allow muscles to complement one another, smoothly transferring energy back and forth; they feed off one another in perfect harmony. This program will help you achieve the same feeling.
Most exercise programs provide the standard workouts that you equate with traditional fitness. Many people see exercise solely in the one-dimensional, old-school mode. Authors and followers of such programs might belittle you for your willingness to try something new, going beyond the stale, inefficient regimens at the gym. But by using the Core program, you will be able to reach your fitness goals better than the majority of people exercising at clubs—and often better than their trainers, who believe people should follow the same program they use every day.
The movements you’ll learn through the Core program might seem unusual, but they’re effective. They are derivatives of the guiding principles we use at Athletes’ Performance. We can’t take credit for these powerful movements because they are merely variations of childhood movement; they just need dusting off.
As a baby, you started to learn these movement patterns, first by rolling over. Gradually, you began to crawl, stand, squat, walk, and run. You progressed during the preteen and teenage years, refining these movement patterns to higher levels. And then what happened? You stopped progressing, falling into a less active lifestyle of school, work, and screen time. That is where you left off, and that’s where we will begin.
At first, this program might seem remedial as we return to the basics of movement, but be patient. Don’t get frustrated as you learn these new exercises. Give yourself some time. Like a baby, we will learn and steadily progress throughout your lifespan.
Have you written down a consistent, weekly plan that is realistic and achievable given the time constraints in your life?
Do you define the success of your exercise program primarily by the changes you see in the mirror?
Do you know how your program improves your body function so that you can thrive given the demands of the Game of Life?
Does your program create pain as much as, if not more than, it reduces pain?
Does travel, the demands of your job or family, or another external factor throw you off of your program?
We have broken up these exercises into four simple categories:
• Movement Preparation (or “Movement Prep”)
• Prehabilitation (or “Prehab”)
• Strength and Performance Circuits
• Cardio
These four categories or “players” are important individually and even more so as a comprehensive regimen. They might have you off-balance at first, but the athlete inside of you will adjust to meet the challenge.
In part 4, we will add a fifth element called Regeneration. Think of Regeneration as a closer in baseball—the guy who gets those final outs and seals the deal. This element will allow you to catch your breath, and it will encourage all the benefits of the four preceding elements to take effect. That way, when I call you back into the game tomorrow, you will be able to improve on your last performance.
First, I want you to toss aside everything you know about exercise. The problem with most workout routines is that they’re based on bodybuilding. You work your biceps and triceps on one day, your legs the next. But unless your goals are to take up residence in a gym and win bodybuilding championships, you’re wasting time and not improving overall health. Before you get started, take the time to answer questions in the Core Movement Assessment above.
In this chapter, you will learn to adopt a realistic exercise plan that you’ll be able to stick to regardless of the demands of work, family, and travel. You’ll see why it does not make sense to define fitness by how you look in the mirror but rather by your body’s function and how resistant it is to injury and long-term deterioration.
Like the rest of the program, we want to focus on the centered self and build from the inside out. Not only that, but we’re now thinking of ourselves as athletes, and athletes do not train with the intent of improving their looks. They train in order to master the movements that their sports require. We need to train the same way to compete in the Game of Life.
You might think that your daily movements do not require much athleticism—and oh, how wrong you are. What about lifting children or groceries? What about reacting quickly and maintaining balance when you slip on a wet floor? How about climbing stairs, rushing to grab a taxi or subway, or working in the yard?
All of these things require athletic, functional movement. If you’re going to invest the time to work out, why not do it with more than aesthetics in mind? By following the Core Workout and Nutrition program, you’ll train your body, and as an added bonus, you’ll get in phenomenal shape—in far less time than bodybuilders spend in the gym.
Bodybuilding-based workouts view the physique as a series of parts, and most people tend to think of movement as starting from the limbs. If we reach out to grab something or step forward, we think of those motions as originating with the end result—we’ve reached out, therefore, we’ve used our arms.
But movement starts from the very center of the body, the core area of the torso. That’s why we refer to the torso as the pillar—it’s the structural center of movement and life. The way we maintain that pillar—its alignment and function—directly correlates to the health of our organs and the rest of our bodies. Everything is interrelated.
Pillar strength is the foundation of all movement. It consists of hip, core, and shoulder stability. (If you’re having a hard time getting your head around this concept, it might help to picture your body as a mannequin with no limbs.) Those three areas give us a center axis from which to move. If you think of the body as a wheel, the pillar is the hub, and the limbs are spokes.
We want to have the hub perfectly aligned so we can draw energy from it and effectively transfer energy throughout the body. It’s impossible to move the limbs efficiently and forcefully if they’re not attached to something solid and stable.
There’s a reason why parents are forever telling kids to sit up straight. Without pillar strength, without what I call “perfect posture,” you will significantly increase the potential for injury in a chain that starts with your lower back, descends all the way to the knees and ankles, and rises up to your neck, shoulders, and elbows.
The reason we train body movements instead of parts is because everything about the body’s engineering is connected. What happens to the big toe affects the knees, the hips, and ultimately the shoulders. The muscular system is both complex and simple, a series of muscular and fascial bands that work seamlessly to produce efficient movement. Many workout programs do more damage than good by producing muscle imbalances and inefficient movement patterns that sabotage this highly coordinated operating system that we’re born with.
Remember the way that movement evolves in infants. They move on their backs until one day this action allows them to roll over, initiating the hip crossover movement. Soon they progress to crawling, standing, and, finally, walking. With each step, they realize how to stabilize their bodies.
Aging reverses that process. Many people lose the ability to squat and maintain their balance, creating poor posture. Eventually, they lose the ability to stand, surrendering the core fundamental movement patterns they developed as toddlers. But instead of conceding that devolution as an unavoidable part of aging, why not look at getting older as a process of taking these movements to new levels? In this program, you’re going to take your body to the highest levels of performance and movement capabilities by challenging yourself to increase flexibility and stability. We’ll help you do this by adding resistance or increasing the balance demands. This will put you farther and farther away from the regression of aging.
Look, I’m not here to bash bodybuilding and tell you not to lift weights. This program includes resistance training because of its undeniable benefits. The Movement Prep and Prehab routines you’ll learn are not a cutesy program to ram the concept of functional exercise down your throat. It’s more about reprogramming the body to function properly—as nature intended—and to continually become stronger. It’s possible to become physically stronger every day of our lives.
Instead of looking at movement as coming out of the arms and legs, remember this perfect posture. If you can master the following three elements of pillar strength—shoulder stability, core stability, and hip stability—both while working out and in everyday movement, you will go a long way toward a healthier life.
Anyone who participates in a sport involving hitting or throwing understands the importance of the rotator cuff. It’s even more important in everyday life.
We tend to think of the hands and arms as carrying the workload for the upper body, but it’s really the shoulder, or at least it should be. After all, we think of someone shouldering a burden.
The shoulder “girdle” consists of the humerus, scapula, and clavicle. It’s engineered for a remarkable range of three-dimensional movement. From the shoulder, it’s possible to rotate, press, and pull. We can raise our arms to the side or across the body. We can rotate shoulders by holding the elbows in and by moving the hands up and in—or in a 90-degree angle to the torso.
Our natural instinct is to drop the shoulders forward, especially after long periods of sitting. But you want to do the opposite, bringing the shoulders back and down, which will give you proper posture.
You probably wouldn’t think of the Amish as a very athletic people. But because they work mostly as farmers and shun technology, spending no time in front of computers and televisions, they actually are among the fittest.
A recent study of physical activity and body composition in an Old Order Amish community by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) suggests that a large decline in work-related physical activity in North America is a major contributing factor to the obesity epidemic.
Ninety-eight Amish adults in a southern Ontario farming community wore pedometers and logged their physical activities for 7 days. The conservative Amish use 19th-century farming techniques that require physical labor. Not surprisingly, the study indicated that a high level of physical activity is integrated into the daily lives of the Amish.
Amish men reported an average of 10 hours of vigorous work per week and took an average of 18,425 steps a day. Amish women, most of whom work as homemakers, still logged an average of 14,196 daily steps. On average, the Amish participated in roughly six times the amount of weekly physical activity performed by nearly 2,000 participants in a recent survey in 12 modernized nations.
“The Amish were able to show us just how far we’ve fallen in the last 150 years or so in terms of the amount of physical activity we typically perform,” says David R. Bassett, professor at the University of Tennessee who served as lead researcher for the study. “Their lifestyle indicates that physical activity played a critical role in keeping our ancestors fit and healthy.”
The ACSM study found that only 4 percent of the Amish surveyed were obese and only 26 percent were overweight. Compare that with the United States, where 31 percent of adults are obese and 64.5 percent are overweight.
Because of their high activity levels, the Amish stay fit despite a high-fat, high-sugar diet of meat, potatoes, gravy, eggs, vegetables, bread, pies, and cakes.
If you log 10 laborious hours a week pushing a plow or lifting heavy beams, feel free to enjoy the “Amish Diet.” But wouldn’t it be easier to accomplish the same level of fitness by tweaking your diet and spending one-third of the time working out?
Remember The Karate Kid? Mr. Miyagi, the wise martial arts instructor, made his young student Daniel LaRusso paint his fence and wax his cars. For days this went on and Daniel wondered if he was ever going to learn karate. When he confronted Miyagi, the old man asked him to demonstrate the various motions of painting and waxing and then attacked Daniel from all angles. Using the same motions, Daniel easily defended himself and quickly realized that he had not just been painting and waxing but stabilizing and strengthening his shoulder muscles and mastering these vital, functional movements.
If you’re involved in martial arts, this program will help by stabilizing your shoulders—and I won’t make you wax cars and paint houses. Even if you have no desire to become the next Bruce Lee or Chuck Norris, you must strengthen this area to perform everyday activities from cleaning to passing objects to filing to, yes, waxing and painting.
Most of us don’t realize how hunched over we are from sitting at computers and traveling in cars and airplanes. People tend to think that this affects only the elderly, but that’s not the case. The next time you’re people-watching at a mall or airport, pay attention to the position of their thumbs. If they’re rotated in, pointing toward the body, that means their heads and shoulders have moved forward.
Unless those people do something, I guarantee that they will soon have rotator cuff and back problems, which will limit their ability to participate in the daily activities of life.
As people age, they tend to flex forward, as if the chest is caving in. We want to do the opposite, almost as if there’s a fishhook inserted under the sternum, pulling us up. This will allow the shoulders to fall into place and help give perfect posture.
We’re not trying to be military cadets, standing at attention. Instead, think of this as standing or sitting tall in a comfortable position, always elevating the sternum.
The exercises in this program will require you to bring the shoulders back and down, but you’ll want to make it a daily habit. To make lasting change, we want to lengthen the chest and strengthen the muscles of the upper back. Think of pulling your shoulders toward your back pockets. This posture is the exact opposite of the shoulder shrug, the same motion that you make when you say, “I don’t know.” That’s what a sitting lifestyle does to you. If you create a habit of bringing your shoulders down, you’ll be amazed at the results. People will find you more confident and think you’ve lost weight because you’re no longer slouched over. They might even think you’ve grown. There have been instances of adults following this program and gaining up to an inch of height from standing tall and bringing their shoulders back, as well as improving hip and core stability.
The middle third of our pillar is the “core,” which consists of the muscles of the abdominals, torso, and lower back. It’s the vital link between shoulder and hip stability, and it includes such muscle groups as the rectus abdominis, transversus abdominis, internal and external obliques, lats, the erector spinae, and many small stabilizer muscles between the vertebrae of the spine.
These are the tiny muscles that often get shut off because of a back injury and never become reactivated, causing long-term back problems. These small stabilizer muscles cannot function alone; they must be helped by training the muscles of the core to become strong and stable with the right types of recruitment patterns that will enable them to work in tandem with the shoulders and hips.
Core training is not just about the abs—abs are less than a third of the equation. Countless books and magazine articles promise great abs, and though many of them have terrific exercises that we believe in, they’re of little use unless done in conjunction with exercises aimed at integrating your shoulders and hips.
Instead of just focusing on the abs, we want to create the framework for all movement. The aim isn’t just a well-sculpted midsection; it’s a high-performance core.
In order to maximize the benefit of the exercises in this book, it’s important to keep your tummy tight, not just while exercising but all day. Think of your tummy flat against the hip bones. Keep your tummy tight, as if pulling your belly button off the belt buckle. This isn’t the same as sucking in your gut and holding your breath. Keep the abdominals in, but still breathe.
The abdominal and lower-back muscles work as a team. The point guard is the transverse abdominis, which is the first muscle that’s recruited each time you move. If you can keep that “TA” activated and your tummy tight, you’ll be well on your way to optimum movement and preventing long-term deterioration.
All of those muscles that attach to your ribs and spine are extremely important for shoulder and core stability. But what good would this be without a strong foundation?
In all the people I evaluate, including the best athletes in the world, the number one focus is hip function and stability—in other words, how they use their pelvis. If people better understood how to use the pelvis and hips, we could eradicate lower-back pain, knee pain, foot ailments, and a host of other aches that make us miserable.
We tend to think that if our ankles, knees, or feet hurt, there must be something wrong with those areas. But if we again look at the body as a wheel, the pillar, and more specifically, the pelvis, is the hub of that wheel. The pelvis is in charge of controlling the spokes. You might have the greatest spokes (legs and thighs), but if something goes wrong with the hub, the spokes cannot function.
Many injuries are caused by hip tightness and a lack of hip stability. As a result, the body does not recruit the necessary muscles from the pelvic region, and it puts more stress on other areas, which overcompensate and get injured.
We want to go to the source of the problem and prevent injuries from happening. On either side of the pelvis is a hip “capsule,” where the femur attaches to the pelvis. This along with more than 40 muscles in and around this hip capsule creates the “hip cuff.” This should allow you to rotate your knees in or all the way out, as well as lifting your leg up or back and in every combination. You should be able to lift a leg up and across your body, as if posing for the Heisman Trophy.
NAME: JAIME MERRIFIELD
AGE: 45
HOMETOWN: MESA, ARIZONA
Jaime Merrifield was an avid triathlete until she was diagnosed several years ago with chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic mononucleosis, and fibromyalgia, a musculoskeletal pain and fatigue disorder characterized by pain in the muscles, ligaments, and tendons.
She’s not sure exactly what brought on the health problems, but she has a few ideas. At age 11, she dove off her father’s shoulders and hit her head on the bottom of a swimming pool. As a young adult, doctors told her she had the spine of a football player, so compressed were her vertebrae. She chalked that up to a bicycle accident at age 23 and the stress from long hours spent standing as a teacher.
“I would seem healthy and fit and then I’d crash for a month and sleep,” she says. “People thought I was lazy, but it turned out I have these chronic conditions.”
The ailments were devastating for an active working mom in her midforties who has a busy schedule as a veterinarian. She had tried other exercise programs only to give up when the pain became too much. With the Core program, she found the pain manageable. In fact, some of her chronic pain began to dissipate.
“What I like about the program is the combination of light weights and stretching,” she says. “The key is the order in which you do them. I’ve done variations of a lot of it independently, using a physioball and doing Pilates, but this has proven to be the best mix. It’s helped so much both mentally and physically.”
Merrifield found the Movement Prep routine especially beneficial.
“You get that endorphin release, and my pain just seemed to dissipate. I stopped getting so many migraines.”
As a veterinarian and a pain sufferer, Jaime has studied what causes pain and the links to depression. It’s no surprise to find that anyone suffering from chronic pain might feel depressed, but Jaime believes that research in the coming years will show a neurological link between the two.
“People will tell you they suffered depression after a major injury, and that’s no coincidence,” she says. “It’s a vicious cycle. I’ve found there’s something in the way the exercises of the Core program are arranged that has proven, at least for me, to really inhibit those pain triggers.”
As a triathlete, Jaime always valued an active lifestyle, and she suffered when that was taken away from her. Now, she views training as a necessity just to get through her days.
“If I miss a day or two, I feel like I don’t want to get out of bed,” she says. “If this program can have this kind of impact on someone like me, I can only imagine the positive effects it could have on others.”
Most people get into trouble squatting by using their quadriceps rather than the muscles of the hips to initiate movement. As a result, the knees slide forward, the glutes (your butt) don’t get involved, and there’s undue pressure on the knees and back. Our goal is to become more glute-dominant. Watch kids and see how well they squat and stand up. Many of us have lost this movement from sitting too much and being inactive.
Thankfully, we can get it back. Let’s practice for a moment. From a standing position, place your feet farther than hip width apart. Lean forward, arms straight ahead. Elevate your chest by feeling tall and pulling your shoulders toward the back pockets and keep your tummy tight. Now, try and sit with the hips; instead of flopping down, as you might if there was a chair underneath, sit firmly by using your hips. Try to create an arch in your lower back, shifting the weight to the middle part of your foot, even a little toward the heel. Feel the glutes and the other muscles of your hip capsule stretch as you lower your body. Squeeze your glutes to stand back up.
Now try to push your pelvis forward while standing and then squat. It doesn’t work because you drive the knees over the toes. No wonder so many people suffer from knee injuries.
We want to initiate all movement from the hips, while maintaining perfect posture. If you’re going up steps, squatting to pick something up, or simply standing up, squeeze your glutes until your legs are extended. Walk with your toes pointed forward, your chest over your knee, and push through your hips until your leg is extended. That might mean you have to skip every other step, but that’s okay. This way, the pressure is on your hips—where nature intended—not the knees.
The reason we see so many running-related injuries is because people don’t have the necessary hip stability. Runners have to be able to effectively balance on a single leg and move from the hips. If the hips don’t stabilize, the force created by the pounding of running is stored in the body. That energy is absorbed and stored in the muscles, tendons, and joints, leading to overuse injuries.
But if you’re stable in the hips, core, and shoulders, the energy transfers through the feet, legs, core, and through the opposite arm, leading to maximum performance. So, by creating a mobile and stabile hip joint, you will store and release energy efficiently, creating optimum movement.
A properly functioning pair of hip capsules is the most powerful thing you have in your body, but it’s the most destructive if it’s locked down. If your hip capsule is locked down, lacking stability and mobility, it’s as if a bone is welded to the pelvis—it’s like having a cast on your hip. To get anything to move, you need to have excessive motion in your back and knees. But the better job you do of creating stability, mobility, and strength around the hip, the less potential there is for injury and the far better chance you’ll have of performing well in any activity you do.
But the benefit of initiating movement with your hips doesn’t stop there. You know the easiest way to get buns of steel? Use them constantly. Don’t do just one isolated workout. People who have flat, shapeless butts do not use their hips and glutes properly in everyday movement; they just have a couple of saggy bags back there. Look for every opportunity to lengthen and strengthen those glutes, whether it’s squatting, going up stairs, getting out of a chair, or simply walking. It’s the foundation for all movement.
Think of life as one big glute workout and you’ll see amazing results. Every time you walk, move and bend, fire (squeeze) those glutes. Don’t take them for granted.
One way to keep track of how active you’re becoming in day-to-day life is simply to use a pedometer. These easy-to-use devices, available for $10 or less, keep track of how many steps you take. At the end of the day, you can see how much you moved—or did not move—and that’s terrific motivation to turn your daily routines into more of a workout. Adidas, one of my company’s sponsors, even has a new “MOVE” shoe with a pedometer built into the heel that calculates your steps throughout the day. The MOVE, due out in February 2006, features a digital readout with seven digits to count up to 9,999,999 steps. If you make it to that point, you definitely will have made your life a daily workout—to say nothing of needing a new pair of shoes!
Remember, you’re a competitive athlete in the Game of Life, and that’s not just when you’re working out. Throughout the day, fire those glutes, keep that tummy tight, and elevate the chest. Soon you’ll be gliding through life like the successful person you are.
Chapter 8 Summary: Effective workouts train the body for athletic, functional movement. It’s about training movements, not body parts. Pillar strength, the foundation of movement, consists of shoulder, core, and hip stability.
Try to work these areas beyond your workout routine. Make it a daily habit to bring your shoulders back and down as if you’re putting them in your back pockets. Keep your tummy tight, and fire those glutes.