Bench Tip

Is your bench stuck? There are many ways to increase it, but here’s a quick tip. Learn to bench with your legs. Yes, you heard that right. Lie on the flat bench and get set to press, make sure your feet are firmly planted on the floor. As you lower the bar to your chest, keep your abs tight, and when the weight touches your chest, drive your heels into the floor, and push with your legs as you press the bar to lockout. (Make sure your butt stays on the bench). This will take some time to learn, so practice with an empty bar, and progress slowly in weight until you have mastered it. Leg drive is a “secret” of top powerlifters. If it works for them, it will work for you. This will not allow you to “isolate” your chest, that is no the goal. It will allow you to move more weight, and that will stimulate more growth.

More on ART

Another great Dr. Brady article:

Overcoming Scar Tissue Based Injuries: Getting Better, Faster with ART
By: Dr. William F. Brady, D.C.
It can be downright ugly. Walk into any gym that specializes in strength and conditioning, powerlifting, strongman, or even martial arts, and you’ll run across a number of the athletes who have an injury that is making their training difficult and painful, often putting the freeze on their hard earned progress. Most of us have experienced hamstring pulls that return when we train hard or shoulder pulls that prevent us from doing certain lifts, but all too often these injuries become chronic, nagging training partners that repeatedly remind us of our weak spots.
Conventional wisdom tells us to stretch, ice, and rest for a while and things will be fine. That’s great advice, but what do you do when that doesn’t really solve the problem?
Enter Dr. Michael Leahy, a military test pilot turned chiropractor. He has developed Active Release Techniques (ART), a system of locating and treating areas of scar tissue. Since many injuries entail some form of scar tissue, this procedure is revolutionizing the way doctors look at and treat athletic injuries.
‘Muscle pull’, ‘strain’ and ‘tear’ are all terms used to describe damaged muscle or tendon. When a tear occurs, there is a gap between the torn ends. The body creates scar tissue to fill this gap and “glue” the torn parts together. This is why rest and ice are critical first aid in the beginning. Rest allows the scar tissue to form properly with out re-tearing, and ice reduces the inflammation and swelling so the torn parts are in close proximity and heal faster. Problems arise when this advice is not followed or when an injury is so severe and too much scar tissue has built up.
Think of scar tissue as glue; it will not only limit the ability of the affected muscle to fully lengthen but it will also prevent complete muscular contraction, which ultimately limits strength and flexibility. Not a good place for any athlete to be.

Besides damaged tendons, scar tissue can also “glue” muscles together. Muscles lie in layers throughout the body and must be able to slide across each other for efficient, pain free motion. If scar tissue has bound the muscles together, the necessary gliding motion is prevented. This too will limit strength, cause an abrupt limit of motion, and over time, damage joints. Nerves can also get glued to muscles by scar tissue, as well. Trapped nerves cause symptoms of numbness, tingling and burning, and can occur virtually anywhere in the body.

How do you know if you may be suffering from scar tissue damage and how can you treat it? You probably have scar tissue if: (1). You have strained a muscle or had a tear in the past, especially if the area continues to cause you symptoms. (2). You have tightness or pain early in the workout that improves with warm up. Scar tissue will behave kind of like taffy; when it is cold it is not flexible but after a warm-up it is able to stretch. (3). You have a limited range of motion that does not consistently improve with stretching.

Active Release Techniques is the treatment of choice for scar tissue. It utilizes over 300 different procedures to treat the majority of the different muscles, tendons, ligaments and nerves in the body.
ART is a type of manual, soft tissue work that is deep and very specific. It works like this. First, the doctor identifies the scarred area by palpating or feeling it. Then, the muscle, tendon, or ligament is shortened by moving the affected body part. The doctor places a contact (thumb or fingers) on the scar, creating tension and the patient moves the body part back to its original position to lengthen the structure. This generates tension that breaks down scar tissue and restores normal movement, texture, tension, and function to the tissues, which reduces pain and improves performance.

ART treatment is unique for two reasons. First, it utilizes the patient motion to generate tension; this is the only way to produce enough force to really break down the scar tissue, and second, the treatment is very specific. It is essential to treat not only the right tissue, but the exact area within the tissue! After all, if you are not on the scar tissue you can’t break it down.

If you have a nagging injury and are interested in ART treatment and live in the Boston area, please feel free to contact me at the Soft Tissue Diagnostic & Treatment Center, 617-367-3110 or visit us at http://www.softtissuetreatment.com/.

For those of you outside Metro-Boston, you can find a provider in your area by going to http://www.activerelease.com/.

Dr. William F. Brady, D.C.

Active Release Treatment-FYI

Here is an old post form the TPS newsletter on ART. It's good!

Ask Dr. Brady
We premiered the ‘Ask Dr. Brady' column in February and many of you have commented on your own battles with scar tissue and the relief ART (Active Release Therapy) has brought you.
This month, Dr. Bill Brady and his colleague, Dr. T. Grace Steinley, of the Soft Tissue & Diagnostic Treatment Center here in Boston , ( http://www.softtissuetreatment.com/ . ) have been kind enough to help us out with some information on tendonitis.
If you'd like to consult with Dr. Brady, he does come here to TPS on Wednesday afternoons in addition to his normal office hours at his Downtown Boston location. For an appointment at either location, please call his office at 617-367-3110.
Q: My shoulder's been hurting for months. I've been diagnosed with tendinitis, but the pain isn't going away. What's the deal?
A: To lead you in the proper treatment direction, we need to determine if tendinitis is what's actually going on. If the problem is has been present for several months, the chances you are suffering from tendinitis is low. Tendin osis is likely the culprit for your aching shoulder. Semantics aside, this distinction is important for finding effective treatment.
 
Tendons, structures that connect muscle to bone, become inflamed and painful when injured. The body responds to injury with inflammation. Various cells are sent to an area to destroy injured tissue and set the stage for healing. Standard treatments include rest, ice, and anti-inflammatory medication to combat excess inflammation. The catch – inflammation is rarely present in cases of chronic tendon pain. In fact, tendinitis is a relatively rare condition.
 
Tendinosis, on the other hand, is common. In 1979, surgeons Robert P. Nirschl and Frank A. Pettrone removed sections of injured elbow tendons from patients and examined them under a microscope. Remarkably, they found no inflammation. Instead, they found that the tendons were degenerated, swollen, grayish rather than white, and soft. Tendinosis is the correct name for this condition, which has for years been mislabeled as tendinitis.
 
What causes these tendons to degenerate, you might ask? Repeated or sustained muscular contraction associated with activities such as lifting weights, playing tennis, and keyboarding causes a decrease in blood flow to the working muscles and tendons. This lack of blood flow then causes an accumulation of waste products. These waste products are very similar to those produced when a muscle is torn. The waste products in turn attract the cells that produce scar tissue. This is helpful if indeed you have torn a muscle, but in the case of overuse injuries, the body is signaled to repair muscles that are not really damaged. The body is thus fooled into thinking there has been an injury and tries to repair it. The result is an accumulation of scar tissue in otherwise healthy muscles and tendons. The scar tissue increases stress on the tendons and they begin to degenerate.
 
Visualize pouring glue on a healthy tendon; this is the effect that scar tissue creates. It prevents normal stretching and limits muscle contraction. This can cause a decreased range of motion, pain with use, decreased strength, and early fatigue. In fact, pain is often the last symptom to show up. Overuse injuries usually start with one muscle or tendon developing scar tissue. The involved muscle is then weakened, requiring neighboring muscles to become overworked. With continued use and the passage of time, the neighboring muscles begin to develop scar tissue. This cycle of increasing stress, buildup of scar tissue, and degeneration continues until the body can no longer compensate. At this point, the system has broken down and chronic pain sets in.
 
Creating scar tissue is the only mechanism that muscles have for healing. The development of scar tissue, therefore, is the body's fairly universal response to stress and injury. If you are experiencing pain from overuse, there is a high probability that scar tissue and degeneration are occurring. Scar tissue does not go away by itself. If you take time off and feel better but find that pain returns to the affected area once you resume activity, it is likely that scar tissue is present. In contrast, an inflammatory problem resolves with rest and does not return.
 
With the understanding that overuse injuries are most often degenerative-scar-tissue problems rather than inflammatory problems, treatment strategies must change accordingly. Over- prescribed rest, ice, anti-inflammatory medication, and electrical stimulation are no longer the treatments of choice. Active Release Techniques (ART) is the best treatment for the reduction of scar tissue and reversing degeneration. The procedure is as revolutionary as the realization that overuse injuries are not the result of inflammation. As an article in the June 1999 issue of the Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation reported: "Results [with ART] demonstrated a 71 percent success rate, which, when compared to similar studies in the literature, was superior." Doctors trained in ART are able to locate scar tissue by touch. The characteristics they look for include increased tension, abnormal texture, and restricted movement. The treatment involves soft-tissue manipulation done exclusively with a doctor's hands.
Although tendinitis and tendinosis sound similar, they are two very different problems with two very different treatment strategies. The first step to finding effective treatment is finding an accurate diagnosis.
Dr. Bill Brady