Complete Fitness: How Well-Rounded is Your Exercise Program?

Most exercisers have their favorite activities, and they tend to only stick to them. An example of this is bicyclist. They tend to only ride their bikes. How fit does this make them? In order to be fit, I feel that as many as possible of the 16 components of fitness should be developed.  

How many of this list do you work on?

The following article does a great job of explaining this concept.

Complete Fitness: What’s Healthy Exercise?

Frederick C. Hatfield II, MS, MFS, CSCS

The International Sports Sciences Association has identified 16 components of fitness. These are:

1. Limit strength

2. Starting strength

3. Explosive strength

 

4. Agility

 

5. Flexibility

 

6. Static Balance &  7. Dynamic Balance

 

8. Local Muscular Endurance

9. Speed Endurance

10. Cardiovascular Endurance

11. Muscle Mass

12. Percent Body Fat

13. Freedom from stress

14. Freedom from disease

15. Preventive lifestyle (includes proper nutritional habits and reducing risk factors)

16. Mind/Body/Spirit Connection – Being “at peace” with yourself

Even for the average “Mr. And Mrs. Jones”, all components of fitness have an effect on preventing cardiovascular disease. With this in mind, the following table charts how the components of fitness help prevent cardio vascular disease. The effects of “light exercise” has on each of the components (based on the studies documented in recent studies) is also noted. An example of Light Exercise might be walking. Light Exercise doesn't raise the heart rate enough to leave you catching your breath. What is Light Exercise for one individual might be very intense for another. It depends on your current level of conditioning.

How The Components of Fitness Help Prevent Cardiovascular Disease

Component	How	Benefits of Light Exercise?
Cardiovascular Endurance	Promotes heart, respiratory, vascular fitness.	Low or Non-existent
Freedom From Stress	Lowers the daily demands placed on the heart.	Possible
Freedom From Disease	Obvious benefits.	Low or Non-existent
Preventive Lifestyle	Improves vascular functioning as well as direct benefits to the heart and respiratory system	Low or Non-existent
Body Composition (Reasonably Increased Muscle Mass and Decreased Body Fat)	Lowers the demands on the heart by increasing vascular functioning.	Low or Non-existent
Limit Strength, Starting Strength, Explosive Strength	Factors involved in improving Body Composition	None
Local Muscular Endurance	Improves cardiovascular and Cardiorespiratory functioning	Low or Non-existent
Mind/Body/Spirit Connection	Lowers Stress Level	Possible

Agility, balance and speed endurance may play an indirect effect by providing

components needed for enjoyable activities.

Faulty Alignment of the Pelvis

When helping clients dealing with lower back pain, I always consider how the position of the pelvis is affecting the lower back.

After reading this article you will understand why road cyclist can develop lower back pain.

This article is going to be focused on what is referred to as the lumbo-pelvic-hip complex.  

The major joints involved are the sacroiliac joints, pubic symphasis and the hip joints.

There are about 29 major muscles that influence this part of the body, but, we will only focus our attention on the muscles that are most likely to distort posture and cause pain. 

The muscles of importance are the psoas major, quadriceps, hip adductors, erector spinae, lumbar multifidus, quadratus lumborum, gluteals, hamstrings, rectus abdominus, external obliques, internal obliques, and transverse abdominus. 

The pelvis can assume many types of malalignments in different planes, but we will only focus on pelvic alignment in the sagittal plane. The most common deviation seen is accessive anterior pelvic tilt. This faulty alignment can be seen in the picture below. 

 

Now lets look at the common tight muscles in this misalignment
The short/tight muscles include:

 

• Psoas major, which by its anatomy can cause increased lumbar extension and hip flexion, causing the pelvis to tip anteriorly. 
• Quadriceps, particularly the rectus femoris, which also contributes to hip flexion.
• Lumbar erectors, which cause lumbar extension.
• Quadratus lumborum, if bilaterally tight, can cause increased lumbar extension.
• Hip adductors, anterior pelvic tilt results in internal rotation of the femur. This will shorten the adductor musculature.

The long/inhibited muscles include:

 

• Gluteus maximus, which causes hip extension and opposes the psoas major.
• Hamstrings, this muscle can be tricky, It may be weak but appear tight simply because it is a synergist to the gluteus maximus and may be compensating.
• Deep abdominal wall, this includes the transverse abdominus, and internal obliques which may become inhibited due to facilitated lumbar erectors.

The main contributor to anterior pelvic tilt is usually the psoas major. If the psoas major is tight, it can disrupt the muscle balance relationships of the entire postural chain. When the psoas is tight, it pulls the pelvis into anterior tilt, thereby increasing hip flexion and shortening all hip flexor muscles. Since the psoas has its origin on the lumbar spine vertebrae, when it shortens, it pulls the spine into extension. This causes the lumbar erectors and quadratus lumborum to shorten. The short/tight muscles can inhibit their antagonists. 

The gluteals, which contribute strongly to hip extension, will be inhibited by the psoas, causing the hamstrings to pick up the extra force. The deep abdominal wall will be inhibited by the lumbar erectors, and their synergist, the psoas major. 

Due to the neurological connection, other muscles in the deep stabilization mechanism may become dysfunctional. This may include the pelvic floor and lumbar multifidus.

Sensory Adaptation of the Head, Neck, Shoulder Complex

Our bodies have ways of compensating no matter what we do to them. In my Anatomy and Physiology class they called this sensory adaptation. In other words, our bodies adapt to how we use them. Sometimes this is a great thing. Ask your muscles to do more, and they get stronger or build more endurance. Sometimes the adapt in ways that they shouldn't. Quit using them properly, and they quit working they way they were designed to work.

An example of what can change the posture of our upper bodies. (aka as the Head, Neck and Shoulder Complex)

What do I look at when deciding what I have a client work on when it comes to this part of their posture?

 
One being a forward head posture, which in a positive test involves the ear to move more than 3cm forward of the shoulder joint.    
 
The second visual assessment is the position of the shoulders. The shoulders appear slumped or rounded forward, and there is a noticeable rounded appearance of the thoracic spine.  



The third visual assessment shows the scapula to be winged and abducted. The normal position of the scapula is about 2-4 inches from the spine.

 

Certain muscles in the body tend to be prone to becoming facilitated/tight, or inhibited/long and possibly weak. This is the reason why certain muscle imbalance syndromes tend to be so common.

The muscles that tend to become short and hypertonic are the suboccipitals, upper trapezius, sternocleidomastoid, levator scapulae, pec minor, lats, and pec major. The muscles that tend to be inhibited or weak include the rhomboids, lower trapezius, serratus anterior, posterior deltoid, external rotator cuff, and the deep cervical flexors.

To correct this problem we must remind our clients to maintain a corrected postural alignment as often as possible. Cues such as "Pull your shoulders back", and "Tuck your chin back," will do well for starters. Have your client perform these corrections every hour on the hour, even when they perform their cardio exercise. Take advantage of correcting them while they are in the gym with you, because they may not do it on their own at home. Stretches should be emphasized on all of the tight muscles listed above prior to their workout.

Exercises can also be added at the end of their routine to assist in strengthening the weaknesses. 

Four exercises that I use frequently have my clients perform are:  

Chin Tucks

 

The Hands Behind the Head Shoulder Blade Mobility
 

       Standing Shoulder Blade Squeezes with emphasis on scapular retraction, and depression.    
 
Wall Slides

 
                                                                      

For the Hands behind the Head Shoulder Blade Mobility and the Chin Tucks, your goal is to eventually work your clients up to 1-2 minute straight holds, but to start, hold each for 30 seconds, then rest 15 seconds, and continue in this manner until the client cannot hold for a full 30 seconds.

Other variations can be used for weaker or stronger clients. Shoulder Blade Squeezes should use a slow tempo and high reps if postural endurance is the goal.