Rollandddd @rollandddd-blog - Tumblr Blog

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Remember the Fallen: Empty chairs at empty tables.

Oh my friends, my friends forgive me

That I live and you are gone

There’s a grief that can’t be spoken

There’s a pain goes on and on.

Phantom faces at the window,

Phantom shadows on the floor,

Empty chairs at empty tables

Where my friends will meet no more.

[Afghanistan War Memorial in Yekaterinburg, Russia. Lyrics from Les Misérables.]

Alysha Nett

Wild but Gentleman Instagram

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3 Reasons Why Your Poor Mobility is Holding You Back

So many lifters are willing to complain ad nauseam about their lack of mobility, but very few of those people are willing to get up and fix it. Most individuals would prefer to deadlift heavy and get their heart rates up than spend about 10-15 minutes addressing their muscular imbalances and chronically tight areas.

What those people might not realize, is that their lack of mobility is actually sabotaging their progress. Instead, they’d rather just cut to the chase and dive face first into their workouts. They see the value in heavy lifting and pushing hard, but they neglect the accessory mobility work. It’s easy to ignore, because the immediate pay-off might be minimal. They release a tight muscle once or twice, and don’t make any lasting changes. Like strength training, though, consistency is the key. Doing a handful of stretches, some self-massage, and corrective exercises every few days will go a long way. Not only will you feel more loosey-goosey, but you may even PR your lifts just from adding some more range of motion to your joints!

If your overhead squat looks like that of the guy on the right, this article is about you.

Hopefully, this post will help knock some common sense into you and remind you to pay more attention to the corrective exercises. Here are three major reasons why your limited range of motion is holding you back from getting stronger:

You can’t get into the right positions. Movements like the front squat require a considerable range of motion. If your latissimus dorsi and pectoralis minors are tight, you won’t be able to achieve an ideal position in the lift. No matter how many times a coach may say “elbows up,” you just can’t get them any higher. Your mobility is going to hinder your progress, because if you cannot keep your torso upright, then you won’t be able to support a significant amount of weight in that position. I have met plenty of people who have ample strength, but stagnate on the clean, because their chest drops every time they catch the barbell. Their legs can support the weight without a problem, but their shoulders aren’t having it. If these people did some work on the areas in question (pecs and lats), they would, undoubtedly, get an immediate PR on their cleans.

Your potential for force production is limited. A muscle has to lengthen before a contraction. A length-tension of a relationship of a muscle explains that a muscle can produce an optimal amount of force at a certain length. For example, if you were to pick up a heavy book, you wouldn’t do so with a fully extended elbow. Instead, you would probably bend your elbows a bit. Now, this continuum of ideal length is a balance. If someone is too flexible, force production will be limited, and the opposite is also true. If you are inflexible, the muscles are constantly partially contracted. Take a look at the diagram above of a muscle cross-section. The top model (a) cannot produce enough force because there is too much of an overlap, whereas option © can’t produce optimal force because there’s no overlap at all. Option (b) is just right: a little bit of overlap so that the muscles are at their ideal length for force production. So, if your hamstrings are “tight” you won’t be able to produce true power on a sprint or a vertical jump, for example.

Muscles are not firing in the proper sequence. If you’re tight, you’re more than likely compensating in ways you don’t even realize. For example, if your ankle mobility needs some help, chances are, you’re using the muscles on the medial portion of your leg (hip adductors) way too much, while the lateral muscles (abductors, gluteus medius, tensor fascia latae) aren’t working enough. Every time you squat, lunge, or sprint, your mechanics are altered. Because your muscles are not in symbioses, this could mean a slower 400 meter time or a weaker back squat. Once the kinetic chain works as it is supposed to, your mechanics are more efficient and you might find that previously challenging movements are a bit easier!

Bodyworker Thomas Myers notes, “organismic movement and stretching – yoga‬, pilates, training‬, manual therapy – can help cells to their proper tension environment by relieving pressure or strain, and this results in better functioning all over.” It’s great to work hard and get stronger, but it’s also important to give your muscles some love and alleviate tension in the body.

Ultimately, if you find that your performance has plateaued, perhaps it is time to finally work on improving your tin man status of mobility and join the supple side.

Check out the rest of my articles on my website or my Facebook page.

zoiodlula

kushandwizdom

Vibes

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outwestbackeast

wildbutgentleman

Wild but Gentleman

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Care less, smile more.

(via nawaffs)

Sh

(via 965-965)

kushandwizdom

unrepentantwarriorpriest

War Puppies!

kushandwizdom

ruckusapparel

You have enemies? Good. It means you actually stood for something.

bootyscientist-deactivated20160

i can’t fuckin stand people in the armed forces who act like they’re gifts from the gods and they’re protecting our freedoms like first off u probably joined cuz u wanted a guaranteed career and second off what freedoms is u protecting? which war was about freedom? not Vietnam, not the gulf war, not the afghan war, not the occupation in Iraq

kushandwizdom

Woah!

rollandddd-blog

Service members should be proud of their service to the country however I think that some take their patriotism a little far. Humility is a quality I feel people in today’s society could use more, military and civilian alike. I was disgusted during fleet week in NYC two years ago when sailors came into a bar, chatted with me briefly, shared a few jokes then asked me “so are you going to buy us some drinks?”. As if I owed it to them! Shame.

America, the land of the free. We live in a world with many free countries. Majority of the citizens of the world live in freedom. But to question the fact that the military and government protects our freedoms is laughable. We here in America do not have to deal with dictators like Al Assad. Like Saddam or Gaddafi when they were alive. IS, Boko Haram, Al Qaida, and the Taliban are responsible for the massacre of 18 000 last year alone. That’s what the military is protecting you from. Did forget the history of the Holocaust? The rape of Nanjing? The millions that Stalin starved to death?

To say every war is a fight between good and evil is ignorance. There is a war economy. The first world war started after assassination but was a war of who got what when it was over. There was no good or evil. The US benefited tremendously. The center of World Trade and World Finance moved from London to NYC in that time. Do I agree with our current conflicts? No. Can we pull all of our troops out? No. We’re too deep now.

Instead of bitching, how about you go out and vote.

I joined soon as I could out of high school because I believed in the cause back then. I don’t anymore, but I believe we can be great again. 9 years in the service and now I’m a reservist. Personal trainer, adventurer, friend, son, brother, soldier.