The following schedule additions will take effect on Thursday, May 31st:
We hope these changes will accommodate all and make it easier for everyone to find a time that fits their needs.
[This is a guest blog by one of our Athletic Interns, Adam Whitehead, an Exercise Science student from East Carolina University]
Jump in the form of a verb is defined as, “to spring off the ground or other base by a muscular effort of the legs and feet” says “The Free Dictionary” on the web. That same site also defines spring in the form of a verb as, “1. To move upward of forward in a single motion or a series of such motions; 2. To move suddenly on or as if on a spring.” So if we put the meaning of spring in the definition of jump we come up something such as; to move upward or forward suddenly by a muscular effort of the legs and feet. Now if we look at the meaning of suddenly……
Just kidding, I think you all get the point and now know what jump means.
The reason I went so deep into the definition of jump is because when I was in high school if you asked my coaches they could have told you something similar to what is stated above. But the way I was taught to lift in high school for sports did not reflect my coach’s knowledge on the correct meaning of jumping. Throughout high school I was taught and worked out with the basic lifts (bench press, dead lift, squat, lunges, etc) which are normally performed slowly. Some of you might have gone through the same training and it’s potentially robbing you of your potential.
We all know that most sports involve some sort of jumping or explosive movements. Loading the bar up to train our muscles to move slowly makes us strong but has limited application to sports. If we want to be explosive in a game, we should add some sort of training that trains those qualities.
That brings me to the Olympic Lifts: the Clean, the Snatch, and the Jerk. All of these lifts are full body explosive lifts. Requiring all of the muscles that are used in jumping, with the same characteristics of jumping; it makes sense that when you are training under a load completing these lifts, that when you unload your jump and explosive performance will improve.
There have been studies done to support what I have stated above. This study examined 32 men and divided them into different groups. There was a control group that resistance trained, a VJ group that did vertical jump exercises and resistance training, and a WL group that included Olympic Weightlifting along with resistance training. The results indicated that adding Olympic weightlifting to your already existing workouts help an athlete improve jumping ability more as well as improving other test that relate to sport movements.
Another study was performed using a group of football players. One group participated in power lifting and the other participated in Olympic weightlifting. The article states that, “after a 15 week study was over the Olympic weightlifting group had a significant improvement in the vertical jump and 40 meter sprint over the power lifting group.”
Along with those two studies there is tons of anecdotal evidence to suggest we should include Olympic lifts to help athletes reach their jumping potential. I do want to warn you that Olympic weightlifting is very technical and shouldn’t be performed without supervision or appropriate equipment. If you would like to add Olympic style weightlifting into your training regimen but you are not sure about being able to perform them safely; all Athletic Lab are certified by USA Weightlifting as Level 1 coaches
In this third and final blog dedicated to pullups, we take a look at the training stimulus differences between strict and kipping pullups.
It’s a general belief of CrossFit that kipping pullups are superior to strict pullups because they produce a higher power output. Gregg Glassman, the founder of CrossFit, is quoted as saying: “kipping allows more work to be done in less time, thus increasing power output.” If we are focused solely on power output (force x distance/ time), this is true. However, power output is just one variable of training and it can be improved in several different ways. It shouldn’t be the only focus of a workout, especially if it opens the door for an increased risk of injury (as reviewed in the second blog in this series). According to Dr. Mike Young, “Saying that kipping pullups are superior just because they exhibit greater gross power output is like claiming Mercedes Benz is the absolute best car. The absolute best at what? Comfort? Dependability? Fuel economy? It depends on what you’re looking for.”
Strict pullups focus the training load more on the upper body musculature and they potentially provide a greater time under tension without the inherent risks of kipping pullups for speed. Additionally, more strict variations of the pullup provide a better opportunity to train the qualities that most people associate with strength. When we speak of being strong, it’s really just a reference to how much mechanical work someone can perform in a given movement. Work equals force x distance. Notice: time is not a factor in work. It’s doubtful anyone would disagree that one weighted rep of a 3 sec up and 3 sec down strict pullup would be more work or harder than a single kipping pullup. Without a doubt, when comparing one strict pullup to one kipping pullup, the kipping pullup can be done with more ease. Some people can crank out several kipping pullups but they lack the strength to do a single strict pullup. A strict pullup requires more upper body muscular strength and it can actually benefit your ability to do kipping pullups more safely and effectively.
The two different types of pullups offer different training stimuli. The benefit of kipping pullups comes as being able to complete more reps in a shorter amount of time. This works great when the desired training stimuli is metabolic conditioning but it is not the optimal way to become stronger in the upper body. Comparing kipping pullups to strict pullups would be like comparing jump roping to weighted squat jumps. Is one variation better than the other? Not really…they’re just variations of an activity. The right choice greatly depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. With the increased likelihood of injury imposed by wild or excessive use of kipping pullups, we prefer to use them sparingly at Athletic Lab. We would like the primary focus to be on strict pullups or a very conservative kip with use of kipping pullups primarily reserved for timed workouts and max pullup testing only. We would also like to periodically distract clients from focusing on their time that will be posted on the board and challenge them to throw out a time that reflects doing harder work and building more strength through strict pullups or by mixing the two pullup variations within a timed workout.
A special thanks to Dr. Mike Young for his contribution to this blog series.
[This article was written by Cate Young. Cate has been a lead instructor at Athletic Lab since its inception. She is a former collegiate athlete and holds certifications from USAW and USATF]
Athletic Lab coach and athlete, Eric Broadbent, represented the United States and placed 2nd in the Pan-Am Combined Event Championship in Ottawa, Canada with a score of 7,498. Eric was the top American in the competition and placed behind only Cuban, Jose Mendieta Velazquez. Broadbent led after day one with a score of 4322 points. He won 4 first day events (100m, long jump, high jump and 400m).
From an anatomical standpoint, this blog will dig into why we, Athletic Lab, believe a strength base through strict pullups should be established before kipping pullups are added to the mix. Bypassing the ability to do strict pullups and veering directly toward kipping pullups opens the door for serious injuries.
Across the board, kipping pullups are widely utilized by CrossFit (CF). It doesn’t take much searching to realize the CF injury message boards are overwhelmingly filled with reports of SLAP tears (Superior Labral Tear from Anterior to Posterior) and rotator cuff injuries that have come as a result of the excessive use of kipping pullups. There’s a reason for this and in order to further explore the cause for these injuries, it will require us to brush up on the anatomy of the shoulder.
Moving in nearly every direction, the shoulder joint is the most mobile joint in the human body. For this very reason, the joint is extremely unstable, especially while the arm is overhead. The shoulder joint is considered a “ball and socket” joint, but there’s an issue when it comes to this joint. The ball (the head of the upper arm’s humerus bone) is only partially covered by the socket [the glenoid fossa of the scapula (shoulder blade)] because the socket is very shallow. The ball is bigger than the socket is deep. In fact, only about one third of the head of the humerus is covered by the glenoid fossa. To make up for the loss of this coverage, there’s a rim of cartilage, the glenoid labrum, that lines the socket. From this point, we’ll refer to this cartilage as the labrum. The labrum has multiple functions. It attempts to make the joint more stable by providing a rim around the socket. With this rim, the labrum adds about 50% more depth to the glenoid fossa to allow more room for the head of the humerus. It also acts as an attachment point for the tendon (attach muscle to bone) of the biceps bracii (the same arm muscle you watch yourself flex in the mirror).
A SLAP tear occurs when there is damage at the point where the tendon of the bicep inserts the labrum. At this location, there is very little vascularity (blood flow) and it’s very unlikely to heal on its own. Other injuries may inflict the labrum but they’re more likely to heal on their own due to ample blood supply to the area. It is extremely rare for someone with a SLAP tear to return to full capacity without undergoing surgery.
When hanging by your hands, as pullups require, if muscles are not fully engaged throughout the entire range of motion, the load (weight of your body) is transferred to non-contractile tissues (such as ligaments, tendons and fascia)- including the biceps tendon that directly attaches to the labrum at the point where SLAP tears occur- which greatly increases the likelihood of injury.
Kipping relies on momentum and this allows the freedom to hang from the already unstable shoulder joint instead of engaging the muscles around it. Strict pullups engage muscles that take the load away from non-contractile tissues. In addition, they add strength to allow for a more controlled kip when it is used.
There’s no doubt about it, kipping pullups are faster than strict pullups. During timed workouts, those who crank out kipping pullups generally finish the workout with faster times than those who are going through the workout with strict pullups. Who really wins?...the person who tops the board with a faster time or the person who did a harder variation of the prescribed exercise? The answer to that question depends on your personal outlook as to what you’re trying to accomplish and what you consider to be a better workout.
At Athletic Lab, we prefer to see the use of kipping pullups confined to timed workouts or during a max pull up test. And even then, we like the kip to be conservative and not a wild flailing action. For pullups outside of a timed workout or a max output, strict pullups are recommended.
Those who are new to pullups are encouraged to keep working on their pullup strength through strict pullups before moving on to kipping. If pullups require a band: once the band is removed, strict pullups without a band should be the next goal. According to Dr. Mike Young, director of sports performance and co-owner of Athletic Lab, “I’d like to see people be able to do at least 10 strict pullups before attempting high rep kipping pullups. Once kipping is mastered, it would be best reserved for timed workouts. That [strict pullups] ensures you have an appropriate level of shoulder and back strength to provide support to an inherently unstable joint instead of just flailing around on ligaments, tendons and fascia using momentum.”
The next two blogs will take an in depth look into anatomical reasons and offer training load insights as to why Dr. Young and Athletic Lab stand on this belief.
[This article was written by Cate Young. Cate has been a lead instructor at Athletic Lab since its inception. She is a former collegiate athlete and holds certifications from USAW and USATF]
Athletic Lab and HPC Elite is proud to have their own, Eric Broadbent, representing the United States as a decathlete in the Pan Am Games this weekend in Ottawa, Canada. Eric has put in years of hard work and dedication to his sport and has earned every accolade. We wish Eric the best of luck as he competes against some of the world’s best.
Being a police officer requires a high level of fitness for both job capacity and personal safety. Athletic Lab has been a physical preparation service provider for the Cary Police Department since 2011 and Dr. Mike Young developed and instructed the Physical Preparation for Law Enforcement Officer curriculum which is regularly used at the NC Justice Academy. Our athletic-based functional training methods have helped officers raise their levels of fitness to lifetime bests. Check out these recent results:
We are proud of our officers who help keep Cary, NC one of the safest cities in the United States.
[This is a guest blog by one of our Athletic Interns, Adam Whitehead, an Exercise Science student from East Carolina University]
According to the Essentials of Strength and Conditioning book by NSCA, osteoporosis is a disease in which BMD (Bone Mineral Density) and bone mass become reduced to critically low levels. So one might think that if they have the chance for, or have existing osteoporosis; then they would want to stay away from higher impact activities or activities that would put a stress on the bones. That is completely opposite of what is recommended. Depending on the severity of someone’s osteoporosis, depends on the intensity of the activities they participate in.
Wolf’s Law states “Every change in the form and function of a bone or of their function alone is followed by certain definitive changes in their internal architecture and equally definite secondary alteration in their external conformation, in accordance with mathematical laws” (NSCA); meaning that when stress is applied to the bone, it adapts with the transformation of new tissue. Also studies have been done by orthopedic surgeon, Harold Frost that have stated; “Repetitive dynamic loads on bone trigger remodeling; static loads do not.”
For someone who has not been checked for osteoporosis and does not know, think about it like this. Say you have saved up 1,000 dollars in the bank (you have applied stress to your bones through dynamic weight bearing activity and they have developed a high BMD). Some one else has saved up only 100 dollars in the bank (did not take care of their self and did not do much weight bearing activity and have a low BMD). A robber comes and steals 100 dollars out of each bank account (with age our bones are going to weaken BMD decreases). Who is hurting worse?
At Athletic Lab we offer our Cary CrossFit which is a fitness program that is designed to get people extremely fit through constantly varied athletic movements.Those constantly varied athletic movements will apply a dynamic stress on your bones to build up, strengthen, and help reverse the osteoporosis disease. As stated before, if you have existing osteoporosis, depending on the severity we can modify the workouts to fit your needs.
We have some of the most dedicated clients and athletes you’ll ever find at Athletic Lab. They put in their time and often embrace the discomfort associated with the hard physical training necessary to reach one’s goals. Yet, there are still times when the temptation to cheat can get the best of you. Perhaps it’s because you’re exhausted and just want to be done. Maybe it’s because you want to post the best time of the time on a given workout. Or maybe it’s just because you thought no one would see your partial range of motion reps. Whatever the case, we encourage you not to cheat yourself. Everyone here is here to work. No one cares what your score, time or lift was. But everyone cares if you cheat. Be honest with yourself and be honest with everyone else. If you give in to the primitive monkey brain that’s telling you to short the range of motion, cut off a couple reps or skip a round you’re the only one who’s losing out. Push on.
