Just So You Never Forget

Foam roll, foam roll, foam roll. A lot. And often.

Jim Wendler says "foam roll".

Eric Cressey and Mike Robertson say "foam roll".

I say "foam roll."

Do not ignore this message. Don't read it, laugh for a second and then forget about it as you move on with the rest of your life. I absolutely implore you to take action. 5 minutes a day. 10 minutes a day. An hour a day. It doesn't really matter. Just do it. Why?

• Less aches
• Less pains
• Less inuries
• More flexibility
• Re-read 1-4 and realize how incredible they actually are. 

Dedicated foam rolling almost completely neutralizes every negative thing that accompanies training. Use it.

Online Diagnosis

Diagnosing pathologies online is a treacherous path, but, for a lot of reasons, I'll try and help people out when I can. 

Q: I hooped for like an hour today and then jogged a mile after. Everything was fine. I came home and sit on the couch for 45 minutes, and then when I get up to walk, my right foot starts killing me. No matter what way I turn it, it just kills. The source of the pain is on the top right where the foot bends and hurts when the foot is moved in any direction. Is it a stress fracture. What's going on?

A: I'm not sold on it being a stress fracture. While stress fractures do normally present pain on top of the foot, they are usually found more proximal (closer to your body) on the foot. Where you describe it would be pretty uncommon place to find a stress fracture. 

That, plus you say it hurts whenever the foot is moved in any direction. Quick physiology lesson here: Stress fractures are a bone pathology. They happen when there is there is an unequal amount of osteoclast activity going on, versus osteoblast activity. Basically, you're breaking down more bone than you're building. This is caused by a number of factors including crappy nutrition, old age, low calcium in your diet and most importantly, doing too much activity that you're body isn't prepared to handle, specifically impact-related activities.

Stress fractures normally really hurt upon impact. That's how they're caused and that's when they hurt. You said it hurts when you move it, that's not impactful. 

Truthfully, I don't know if it still even hurts, but it's much more likely to be inflammation of some tissue in there. The treatment for it is the same as a stress fracture ironically, except it'll heal a lot quicker and won't cause all the problems that coming back from a stress fracture does. Come back to activity slowly, if it hurts, don't do it, etc. Don't be stupid and play through it if it hurts. That'll only prolong it. And, of course, ice that baby when you're done.

How much is too much?

If you've ever read a training article, then you've undoubtedly read something from the author that went something like, "And be careful not to do more than 4 sets or you'll overtrain." 

I'm sorry, but I have a problem with such a ridiculous and general statement. Maybe it'll be overtraining if you're planning on training that same movement pattern in 48 hours, but what if you have 120 hours until you train it again? You'll have to do more in that first workout, or you'll probably miss your supercompensation point. And then some people recover more rapidly than others. If you can safely do more work without causing issues, then you probably should. 

There's a lot more to it than that, but you should keep to things in mind from now on:

1. Overtraining is a real thing, but you would have to do so much work without ever taking a break for an extended period of time. I'm talking months here. The truth is that I can almost guarantee that anyone reading this is not, nor will they ever be at risk for overtraining (and that's a good thing!). Unless you're training 25-30 hard hours a week at least, you're not even close to overtraining. If you are feeling unmotivated, fatigued, stressed, sore all the time etc., then it is possible that you are in an overreaching state, which is quite common. In that case, skip your next scheduled workout, take some naps, eat some food and relax. That will take care of it.
2. Take everything you read about training with a grain of salt. There are thousands of people out there, whether it's on the web, newspapers, magazines, TV or any other form of medium, talking about fitness or training. Unfortunately, a lot of them are often badly misinformed, and unknowingly, are dishing out useless information to the masses. So, whenever you're reading something about training, don't just take the message as the truth. Question everything, talk to people that you know are knowledgeable in the field and be weary!
   

Recovery!

People love to talk and discuss different training methods, and sets and reps and different exercises and a million other things. But what a lot of them fail to realize is that you only spend maybe 3-7 hours a week training. There are 168 hours in a week, and at least 160 of those are spent not training, but RECOVERING! So, what's the message? Spend more time figuring out your recovery strategies and less time worrying about the actual training instead of just doing it. 

There are a ton of different recovery modalities including contrast hydrotherapy, ice, meditation, foam rolling, massage, ART, static stretching, dynamic stretching, tempo work and on and on and on. They are all viable options at different times, depending on what you've been doing and where you're at in your training and experience. It's taken me a while, but I've been able to figure out what to use when to use it for best results by listening to my body and being aware of how its operating. I recommend you do the same, apply what you are learning, and see your recovery (and in turn your gains) shoot through the roof.

And now, here's what not to do when taking a contrast shower:

Contrast Shower