Preface:

This article is a continuation of a series we are sharing that is slightly different than your typical article.  This series is being written by 2 different authors and blended together.  This lends 2 different perspectives, 2 different backgrounds, and 2 different voices to the content.  It is pretty awesome.  You will see two different colors and formats of text:

The blue text is written by Brandon Hetzler of Movement Outlaws.  

The black text in this is written by Dr. Mark Cheng.  Why did I ask Dr. Cheng to work on this with me?  Well, read about his background here (https://www.drmarkcheng.com/about/).  That’s why, and anytime I have the opportunity to collaborate with someone this awesome, I take advantage of it.

We hope you enjoy this endeavor and after reading it feel like it was worth your time.  While everyone will read the exact same words, everyone will hear a slightly different story based on their background and perspective.  If you have questions feel free to ask in the comment section or via twitter @MovementOutlaws.

Why does fatigue lead to injuries?

Why does this type of story happen every day in every gym and on every practice field across the country?  NCAA injury tracking statistics show that more injuries occur towards the end of a practice or competition than at the beginning.  Why?  Does the sport change?  Do the external conditions (field, ball, basket, opponent) change?  Or is there an internal change?  Is fatigue the culprit?  If so, why?  At Movement Outlaws, we have adopted this visual representation of how movement and strength serve as our foundation of skill: 

Whatever our “skill” is, it is balanced on top of our strength and movement base.  But, we have to realize that strength and movement are so intertwined together, that the only time they are separated is in “hypothetical” discussions.  From a neurological standpoint, they are different expressions of the same thing.  As we fatigue, any decline in our strength capacity, our movement competency or just CNS fatigue, can cause an overall decline in our ability to maintain the level of output we began with.

In a real-world, boots on the ground application, each attribute depends firmly on the other, and there is no delineation between strength and movement.  During the developmental process, movement only develops if minimal strength levels are attained to progress; as one attribute progresses the other progresses alongside it in a synergistically.

Similarly, I’ve had a vested interest in the optimal training and performance of athletes who’ve been patients and clients of mine over the years. Thanks to movement screening concepts that I’ve been fortunate to learn from Gray Cook, Dr. Lee Burton, and the rest of the Functional Movement Systems crew, I’ve learned that looking at “cold proprioception” is a superb starting point for looking at how well an athlete can manage movement tasks in the absence of fatigue. But with my higher performing athletic clients and patients, I almost always screen with the FMS or assess with the SFMA after applying some sort of intervention and allowing some fatigue to be applied to the system.

At the time when I first was exposed to the Functional Movement Screen, this wasn’t standard practice, but in the years since, I’ve heard founder Gray Cook talk about re-screening areas of key dysfunction under fatigue to measure the individual’s ability to maintain a biomechanical “minimum” under varying levels of fatigue. 

As for training methods used successfully by myself and those under my direction, fatigue management has been one of the biggest factors in keeping people uninjured, especially in the world of contact sports and martial arts. The moment I notice that someone is unable to keep themselves in position (whether in terms of biomechanical alignment, defensive posture, or mental awareness), I either change the drill that they’re working on to downshift to a lower risk environment or I remove them from a reaction-based environment altogether, allowing them to dictate the pace of exertion commensurate with their stage of recovery.

What does this mean for you? 

How does this apply to everyone from the low-impact aerobics class member to the cardio kickboxing instructor to the soccer coach to the clinician? Simply put, exertion has to be monitored. While we can use technology like heart rate monitors & the like to give us a better idea of when it sets in even before it’s self-reported, there’s no substitute for working hard to stay aware of fatigue and effort/exertion levels during training sessions. 

If Red-bull gives you wings, then Strength gives you wiggle room.  Like I discussed in Part I, strength and movement develop together.  Good movement and being strong don’t ensure success or health.  All they do is give you the ability to absorb and adapt to whatever life or your sport hit you with.  Movement gives you the ability to start down a path; Strength gives you the ability to adjust to the path that is in front of you.  Strength alone doesn’t make any physical attributes better; strength allows you to train and practice with greater durability which is where we see improved physical characteristics.

It’s sexy to fall back on phrases like “no pain, no gain” and “go hard or go home”, but when we allow ourselves to be pushed past the point where we can react to our environment with a safe degree of reliability (or worse yet if we’re the ones doing the pushing past that point), we almost always increase the likelihood of some sort of injury. 

What is “Strong Enough” for you?

How can we extend the point at which we can no longer safely react to our environment?  Step one is a hard, honest look at yourself – are you strong enough for the activities in which you want to participate?  From my experience, too many people get hung up on getting stronger and chasing the unknown/never-ending goal of “Stronger.”  Strength does have a greater purpose, but at what point does blindly adding more strength become detrimental because of the time, energy, and toll it takes to acquire that greater strength.  Before we can consider “stronger”, we have to consider what is the minimal level of strength that is needed.  To determine this for each sport/activity is beyond the scope of this article.  But, outlining what it takes to be a normal, functioning human (the 2-lane highway) is within the reach of this article.  After many years of training people, here is what I consider bare bones minimum for everyone that wants to be able to get through their day:

• • • • A 50% body weight squat (half of your body weight loaded in a manner that you squat)
      • A body weight deadlift  (your body weight on a bar -or kettlebell(s), or sandbag, or another person- that you pick up)
      • A strict push up that begins on the floor (hips/ shoulders move together, and the ears are in the midline of the body)
      • A strict pull-up 

Why those?  I’ll explain further in a later article, but for now, if you are unable to meet those human minimums, you need to get stronger.

While we as human beings love to gravitate towards programming that outlines specific sets, reps, and formulas that we can just plug and play with success, the reality is that there’s an endurance factor that needs to be accounted for, ESPECIALLY when dealing with someone who has good form and strong technique at the outset. That individual’s ability to maintain that quality of movement over time and with increasing fatigue or other distracting factors is a deciding factor in how the training session progresses.

If you meet the minimum human strength standards, now the question is, are you strong enough to be successful in your sport/chosen activity?  I up the ante for all athletes that I train (regardless of sport or age) to these athlete minimal expectations:

• • • • A 100% body weight squat (all  of your body weight loaded in a manner that you squat)
      • A 150% body weight deadlift  (1.5x your body weight on a bar -or kettlebell(s), or sandbag, or another person- that you pick up)
      • A strict push up that begins on the floor (hips/ shoulders move together, and the ears are in the midline of the body)
        • plus 10% bodyweight for females, 25%bodyweight for males
      • Multiple strict pull-ups
        • 3 for female, 5 for males

If you can meet these general athlete minimums, now it is time to discuss capacity.

In Conclusion

Training is an opportunity for the trainee to learn how to expand his or her envelope to accommodate a larger quantity and wider volume of movement over time. It’s also an opportunity for the trainer to learn how to push the envelope without tearing it. Ideally, we should monitor outputs and comfort levels, seeking to build and optimize those numbers in a time efficient manner, but still keeping a careful eye on the individual and waving the load as the ability to competently handle those loads changes.

Test your strength; determine which road you are on.  Then, put up a road construction sign and go to work!  Either get strong enough to meet the athlete minimums or add capacity/endurance to stave off fatigue.  Either way, the skill of your sport will be precariously perched on how well you integrate your strength and movement training.  One immediate positive change you can make today is to begin prepping for your next training session IMMEDIATELY after your current training session – replace the failing mindset of “cooling down” with a mindset of “earlier preparation.”

You will get weaker with exertion; training in your sport will give you less margin for error the deeper you go into your training session. The only way to stave this off is to start with a bigger road.

Safe Travels!