Unsafe and safe exercises?

[Guest guest]

The late Dr Siff wrote the below some years ago:

Dire Warnings have been proclaimed throughout the fitness & health professions.

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 materials.

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 supported by another one of the fundamental principles

of all training adaptation, namely SAID (Specific Adaptation to Imposed

Demands).

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.

Let's now consider the deliberate role of what I term " imperfection training " in

sport.

Injury Prevention by Imperfection Training

The occurrence of injury is partly related to the philosophy of injury

prevention. Currently, the emphasis is placed almost exclusively on prevention

by means of avoidance of so-called 'dangerous' exercises and excessive volumes

or intensities of loading. Unfortunately, this approach is limited in that it

tends to neglect the vital aspect of preparation to cope with less than optimal

training and competitive situations. All-round sports training must include the

capability of coping with unexpected and sub-optimal conditions.

In certain sports where accidents or unexpected situations often occur, such as

the martial arts, parachuting and motor racing, participants are taught how to

cope with events that can have serious consequences. This type of preparation

needs to be adopted far more extensively in all sports so that the athlete is

able to anticipate threatening situations, react much more rapidly to unexpected

circumstances, take action to avoid or minimize injury, and cope with

sub-optimal conditions by practicing with imperfectly executed movements.

These strategies are rarely invoked, but they should be a standard item in the

training repertoire of every athlete.

After all, it is rarely possible to produce perfection of movement every time or

to balance one's training loads very precisely, so it is logical to program the

nervous system and brain to respond with effective contingency actions whenever

imperfections of movement or accidents occur.

Forinstance, it is not unusual to witness Russian weightlifters holding a snatch

overhead in the low squat position and shifting in different directions to move

the bar into unstable positions which they are then compelled to control by

astute postural adjustments.

In general, exercise safety is largely a consequence of skill development

(neuromuscular efficiency) and may be enhanced by imposing activities which

progress carefully with respect to factors such as complexity, intensity,

volume, speed, range of movement, duration, variety, level of fatigue and mental

state.

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Carruthers

Wakefield, UK