With all of the current emphasis on increasing conditioning and therapeutic
safety by prescribing fashionable approaches such as core training, stability
training, functional training and balance training, the following article may
be of interest here.
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Contraindicated Exercise May Protect
Siff M C "Facts and Fallacies of Fitness" 2000, Ch 13
Sports and medical science have been warning us for many decades against the
dangers of certain exercises because it is maintained that these can cause
structural damage. Thus, dire warnings about spinal flexion, deep squatting,
ballistic stretching, spinal hyperextension and numerous other actions have
been proclaimed throughout the fitness and health professions.
In the case of inanimate mechanical structures, predictions concerning the
effects of certain types of static or dynamic loading can be made with a
fairly high degree of accuracy, but in the case of the human body, the fact
that the body is self-repairing and self-adapting confounds the issue. Even
in inanimate systems the type of loading, tempering or curing can produce
specific advantageous effects in the given material.
In other words, loading can produce beneficial or detrimental effects. In
engineering, this is used to great advantage in producing materials or
structures that are far better equipped to handle higher levels of stress.
We might be tempted to say that repetitive flexion of a given metal rod is
dangerous and should be avoided at all costs - but that same rod, as part of
a structure, may be called upon to cope with that very type of long-term
repeated flexion for many decades or centuries.
Certainly any system can be forced to deform or fail completely, depending on
the precise manner of loading, but 'conditioning' and design of the structure
can ensure a prolonged and failure-free lifespan. A key issue is designing
the system with a certain 'safety factor' to ensure that the system will not
fail under certain multiples of the worst anticipated conditions. An
engineering structure is invariably 'overdesigned' to cope with any
unforeseen levels or directions of loading. This means that a certain degree
of 'dangerous' loading is catered for and this constitutes good engineering
design.
In the case of the human body, the principle of gradual progressive overload
serves as a type of loading procedure that allows the body to adapt to
gradually increasing loads. This is one of the fundamental principles of all
training adaptation.
Thus, if the limits of loading are not exceeded in any inanimate or animate
system, then damage will not occur. This must then imply that it is
relatively safe to allow the body to be used imprecisely or inefficiently,
provided that certain structural limits are not exceeded. After all, we know
that a certain degree of adaptation will always strengthen the most stressed
parts of the body, provided that their mechanical limits are not exceeded.
We also know from the principle of gradual progressive overload that this
repeated activity will make these stressed structures stronger and stronger,
so that they will be better equipped next time to handle poor technique or
deviations from the recommended 'norm'.
In other words, it would seem that the body will adapt to certain levels of
'harmful' exercising, provided that this is not imposed near the mechanical
limits of the given soft tissues. If this is done progressively in a
controlled manner, then the body should become capable of handling all of the
so-called dangerous activity. Does this not sound reasonable and logical?
This implies that the neurosis about exercise safety may be misleading and
inaccurate in many cases. After all, the body adapts to all types so-called
neutral, natural or safe norms. In other words, we might state that perfect
training produces maladaption, while integrated, well-sequenced phases of
perfection and imperfection produce superior functional adaptation.
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Dr Mel C Siff
Denver, USA
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Supertraining/
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