Charles Badawy, DPT, CSCS, USAW

EPISODE 317.1 | Running Warm-Ups . Warm-ups, believe it or not, can be a controversial topic! . Are they useful?... . Is a general dynamic w/u really necessary? . Or do you just need to be specific to the task? . Is activation work a thing? . How long should you really spend warming up prior to a training session? . Let’s touch on a few of these points. . . Personally, I think they’re vital to the performance of a training session. . But my approach has changed drastically over the years. . I used to be extremely specific. . Assessing the individual, creating something tailored, & programming corrective & activation work prior to my lift or cardio. . These days, I’m a little more lenient, and I still believe specificity to the task is important, but my approach is still very much GENERAL to SPECIFIC in nature . . For lifts, I’ll often start w/ a quick bike, jump rope, incline walk to get moving, inc blood flow, & get my mindset right. . I may shift to a few dynamic drills to move into workout specific positions & start to apply tension to the tissues that will be under load later on. . Then move right into my first exercise, using progressive loading, always starting with barbell-only movement, & building up in incremental load jumps to prime the motor patterns & neural pathways directly related to the task. . This is how I view activation work - Direct application of load to the muscles that need it & w/u set motor learning to prep for more neurally intensive sets. . . For runs, this approach is similar, but different. . I’m sitting a lot more w/ the quarantine hitting, so extending my pre-run walk is important. . From there, I’ll start to bump up the intensity & move into a few running for drills. . High Knees - Butt Kicks - Lateral Shuffles - Lazy Leg Skips - Power Skips - Bounding . Often moving into these drills after a building up to a light jog and running out of them, adding a few short sprints at the end. . This is all designed to get me moving faster & faster while working technique. . From there, I jump into my main run of the day - Ex: Yesterday’s Tempo Work - We’ll jump into this next . . How do you warm-up these days? See more

EPISODE 314 | Benefits of the Jump Rope . I think it’s common for people to take for granted how intense the act of running truly is on your feet & ankles, not to mention the rest of the lower extremity. . This is amplified for larger athletes, as greater bodyweight leads to increased impact forces leading to greater strain on the associated muscles, tendons & ligaments.... . The jump rope can be an excellent way to start to start to recondition these structures to impact loading in a more tissue friendly way. . Although the motor patterns are certainly different, there are ways to apply a graded approach that become slowly more specific to the act of running. . 1) Double leg jump rope helps to share the load between limbs & introduce basic plyometric training. . 2) Single leg variations take it to the next level. . 3) And unilateral hops (not shown ; R-to-R / L-to-L) increase the intensity of the plyos to better prepare for single-leg plyo variations. . As a result, I’ve been including this into my own training to help supplement & prepare my body for greater volumes of running. . I’m 210lbs & even relatively small running volumes can take their toll. . I’ve started with 2-4x/week of 10’ intervals in my strength workout warm-ups, slowly building up to a 20’ set today. . The goal here is to better prepare my body to help reduce the risk of stress reactions that are an inherent risk with increased running volumes. . I’ve always been impressed with how proficient combat athletes are at this stuff. . We’ll see how this goes. . . . Questions, comments, concerns? . Drop a line in the section below! . #StrengthAndConditioning #PhysicalTherapy #JumpRope See more

EPISODE 303 | The Aerobic Energy System . As we practice social distancing, I’ve started to shift from a strength focus due to equipment availability, or lack thereof . As much as I love barbell work, this is an excellent time to shift back to improving general work capacity... . My conditioning work has changed quite drastically & today was my weekly Base Aerobic Day. . The workout - 60’ Running Clock . Stairs: 25 Flights x 3 Rounds w/out Rest Steady-State Cycling for the remainder . What is the Aerobic System? . The Aerobic System utilizes oxygen to produce ATP (energy) . It’s responsible for the majority of energy production for long duration work . It also happens to be the only system that can utilize & breakdown fat to produce ATP . Inherently, this system has a tremendous CAPACITY for energy production, which comes at the cost of POWER, or energy production at high rates . It’s limited by the supply of oxygen from your cardiorespiratory & cardiovascular systems, oxygen utilization by the muscles, & substrate/enzyme availability . There are many ways to develop this system, some focused on improving the capacity of the system to provide energy & others focused on maximal oxygen uptake . An excellent resource to learn more is a book by @coachjoeljamieson - Ultimate MMA Conditioning . Today’s long duration session utilized the CARDIAC OUTPUT METHOD. . In layman’s terms, this is your classic LISS (Low Intensity, Steady State) training . From an adaptation standpoint, a few things take place: . Eccentric Cardiac Hypertrophy via volume overload of cardiac fibers causing a stretch . Increased stroke volume as a result (The amount of blood each heart beat pumps) . This enhances oxygen supply to working tissue & inc mitochondrial size/density, inc muscle capillarization, & inc aerobic enzyme production . Generally, these sessions should be completed in the 130-150 heart rate range, w/ sessions lasting between 30-90 min, utilizing a volume progression scheme . We’ll dive further in future episodes, until then comment below w/ your favorite aerobic workout! . #StrengthandConditioning #PhysicalTherapy #AerobicSystem See more

EPISODE 309 | Sit-Up w/ Overhead Reach Progression . Yeah, I know. . SiT-uPs ArE bAd FoR yOuR sPiNe!... . I’ve been there. . You may have been there. . But they’re really just like any other exercise... your body will adapt over time. . I’m still a huge fan of isometric training for the trunk, especially for beginner-level trainees. . Functional, the trunk often acts as a stabilizer & force transducer, rather than a prime mover. . But there are times where we do want to train some degree of spinal motion, especially if this is specific to the patients task. . For example, Jiu jitsu athletes perform loaded spinal flexion in competition quite often. . CrossFit athletes literally compete in exercises that emphasize spinal motion. . And if you’re really just looking for a bigger, more defined anterior core, you probably want to train it dynamically. . . I Iike the Sit-Up w/ Overhead Reach as a way to do this. . The overhead reach component maintains a big of spinal extension throughout the process, limiting the posterior compressional loading from a pure biomechanics perspective. . In addition, progression w/ load adds an element of shoulder girdle training while increasing the anterior core challenge. . We can also do this by maintaining the overhead reach on the descent, effectively lengthening the lever arm / extension moment that is placed on the core, demanding greater force output w/ relatively lower loads. . Finally, I strongly suggest slowing down the tempo on the descent. . Eccentric training has a ton of proven benefits and, from a programming perspective, is a sure-fire way to get buy in if you have a client that values then feeling of being sore. . . Questions, comments, concerns? . Drop a line in the section below! . #StrengthandConditioning #PhysicalTherapy #Abs #Core #HomeWorkout See more