The Results

Candles illuminate the room, a peace has settled over the house, and I click on a Pandora station, a song comes on that is by no means a coincidence. The title of the song is, “Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)”

 

Five years ago after my dad was diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease, I immediately began to the process of deciding whether this was the time to move back home to Des Moines. This song came on the radio and I broke down in a flood of tears, knowing then my time had come to move home.

 

The same song is the music I walked down the aisle to at our wedding. And now it plays during my reflections on yet another pivotal moment in my life. I do not like to share emotion in person. In fact, I even hide my tears from my therapist. And yet, this week I experienced something that brings tears to my eyes each time someone mentions it and even as I write these words.

 

Over the last few months, I have been going through the process of getting tested for Huntington’s Disease, a genetic brain disorder that I had a 50/50 chance of receiving from my dad. A disease I have watched try to take hold of his mind and body over the last five years as it began to really show. The same illness has caused me to subconsciously wonder every time I choke, trip, have a headache, a blip in my memory, a moment of fidgeting… whether I also have Huntington’s Disease. For years I have known I was going to get tested and every day the thoughts have been subconsciously present.

 

A constant thought over the last few months, basically since we had to decide whether Dad needed a feeding tube, has made me wonder about even more painful things to come. The night before my test results, last Thursday, and for many weeks before that I would often look at Dad training at my studio and become deeply saddened about all the “last times” we will never get back. The times no one could give me a warning were going to just suddenly end one day without ceremony.

 

Before the feeding tube, my Dad bench pressed with a barbell, he squatted with a dumbbell, and could even do some dumbbell incline bench presses. Now, he can still do many activities in the studio, in fact he can do activities many people with HD cannot do, and I am incredibly grateful. Yet I constantly look at the lifting rack, biting my tongue to hold back the tears, and wish I had known we would never get the chance to bench press again. I look at pictures of us climbing through trails in the woods or over rocks and just wish for one more time. I think of his face behind the video camera for all our Christmas and birthday events. I see him in the garage bent over the car, hitting his head on the hood as he stood up to answer a question. So many moments gone, but memories precious.

 

And the night before I got my results I wondered if that would be the last day I would be on this earth with the privilege of not knowing, the last hours before life would forever change. I had been extremely calm and at peace about this process until those last 24 hours. Even in my fear of being diagnosed, I knew that God would shine light through the darkness and that I could choose to rise from the ashes…. like my mom and dad have day after day. I had determined long ago that if I received a positive diagnosis, I was going to do something with it while I had the time. My work schedule would change, my goals for my business would shift, family and friends would be priority, and my own health would come sharply into focus. And Dan and I would travel. Whatever we had to do to make that happen, we would do. Dan and I have always rolled with the punches together. And I knew we could and would again. But I was scared. I had no idea I would fight tears all night Thursday into the day on Friday.

 

I went through the day as planned. Telling less than a handful of people what I was doing that day. Despite my best efforts, I had two more friends reach out after noticing some things. One friend texted to check in and another just showed up at the studio to see if I was okay. Those moments, wow. My eyes were opened to just how truly blessed I am with quality people in my life. I decided to lift some heavy weight, deadlifting to bury the emotional weight and feeling of defeat that was trying to bury me. I then went to get a massage to calm my mind. I came home to my ever supportive and loving husband, and we headed down the road to Iowa City.

 

After driving over an hour and a half, the news seemed to come so suddenly. Months and years of build up, to sit for just a couple minutes in the neurology clinic and hear the words from the doctor’s mouth, “You are negative. You do not have Huntington’s Disease.” She stretched out her hands to give me the paper with the blood results… they were well below the range. I was very much cleared. I looked at Dan, we said a few words to the doctor, thanked her and walked out.

 

Disbelief. Confusion. Relief. Sadness. Joy.

 

I cannot begin to explain what those moments and the hours and days following have been to me emotionally. And I was completely unprepared for how my dad would react. All I wanted to do was get to my parents’ house to tell them… before anyone else.

 

We arrived and I asked Mom if she knew what the range was because I wanted to simply hand her the paper with the blood results. I let out a smile and she burst into tears, knowing what that smile meant. My mom is one strong woman. There are no words to tell how I feel about her even writing this. Only tears of gratitude and appreciation for her through all of this.

 

And then came the moment, I went up to talk to my dad. He lay in his bed with his CPAP mask over his face. I asked him if he knew where I went that day. He immediately got very antsy….

I have to interrupt myself to explain that lately Dad is very restless except at home in bed. He also does not talk very much for a few reasons. Usually, the most I hear him talk is when we are doing flash cards for piano.

 

As he got antsy he started sitting up, and I said I went to U of I to get my HD test results. He took his mask off and shut the machine off trying to sit up in bed to look at me. I told him they were negative and I did not have Huntington’s Disease. His eyes got so wide. He said, “that’s good. That’s really good. That’s good.” I said I just wish he did not have to have it. His mouth was gaping open which is actually what he does when I tell him to smile now. I believe he was smiling and in his eyes I could see both clarity and an expression of tears. I will never forget those moments as I never expected that reaction. He kept following me around the house and kept giving me a hug, over and over again.

 

I never knew what survivor’s guilt meant until that moment. If I could take on every ounce of his pain and what he has been through just to have him back for an hour, I would do it in a heartbeat. I miss his voice, his cheesy jokes, kindness. I miss him visiting me every single Saturday at my job in high school and college – smothering his cinnamon roll in peanut butter. And yet, I am so grateful he is still here. I am grateful that as my mom gave me another hug, he also followed me to the car and tried to hug me.

 

Learning that I do not have Huntington’s Disease made me wish even more that my dad did not have it. I cannot begin to explain the deep sadness that washes over me just typing those words. In a way, having negative results made me so much sadder that he has HD. That I was spared but he was not.

 

And yet, this is the journey we are on. I would not change it or control it because I know there is a plan and a path I do not see. And I continue to find my peace in the promise his body will be restored one day. That through Christ’s resurrection, there is no power in HD. And I am so grateful for the breath in my lungs and for being saved from this immensely painful disease. I’m grateful that because I was spared, so also my husband, family, and friends are spared from watching me go through what I have to watch my dad go through every day. For my mom, knowing in great detail what HD means, that she does not have to watch me endure it.

 

However, now I struggle. I grapple with the “what now’s” and realizing that all my priorities should be the same as if I had been diagnosed – I do not have HD but tomorrow is not promised to anyone. And I am listening for what comes next. I am allowing myself to process the emotions that not even writing can help me put into words. Absorbing the beautiful disaster, I sit here grateful and watching the horizon as the weekend comes to a close and a new day dawns on this path we are on. I am beyond grateful for this miracle and I wait in peaceful discontent… searching.

 

But still, I rest in the promise spoken in one of the song’s we sang this morning, again with no coincidence:

 

No guilt in life, no fear in death,

This is the power of Christ in me

From life’s first cry to final breath,

Jesus commands my destiny

No power of hell, no scheme of man,

Can ever pluck me from His hand

Till He returns or calls me home

Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.

 

Why Strength Training – Part 4

Types of Strength Training

Walking into the gym, picking up a dumbbell and curling it while grunting in your loudest “beast mode” voice does not make someone a bodybuilder any more than squatting with a barbell makes someone a powerlifter.

Although this might seem like an obvious statement, I often hear people talk about doing powerlifting or bodybuilding as though either of those things are merely a style of working out. But to those who compete powerlifting or bodybuilding, you must step on the stage or platform to be considered a powerlifter or bodybuilder.

In this post, I am going to provide a brief definition and explanation of the different types of strength training. In next week’s blog, I will explain what we do at Muscle for the Journey. These definitions are not all-encompassing and not a scientific explanation of movement.

weightlifting – The lower case “w” is not an accident and I will expound on that in a moment. This type of strength training is usually performed by those desiring to train for general fitness. “weightlifting” could be defined as general strength using both free weights and machines.

If you do not know the difference between free weights and machines, look back to the second blog in this series. Every single client at Muscle for the Journey is trained using weightlifting combined with other aspects of fitness.

 

Weightlifting – involves movements such as a power clean, snatch, clean and jerk, and split jerk. These are the movements people often refer to as “Olympic Weightlifting.”

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However, Olympic lifts are performed… wait for it… in the Olympics. Thus, we make the distinction between general training with weights and the Weightlifting movements by merely capitalizing the W. These movements are primarily performed for strength and power. Weightlifting movements are technically and physically challenging. They can be used within regular training but are also used on a competition stage.

 

Bodybuilding – is used in sculpting the muscles of the body and lowering body fat percentage. Most often, in bodybuilding programming, high reps are performed. Bodybuilders do lift heavy and are not restricted merely to light weights with high reps, although this is the stereotype. However, movements performed in high volume are often the focus. Bodybuilders also often use workouts containing dropsets, supersets, and circuits to intensely work a specific muscle group.

Bodybuilders also break up lifting days into specific muscle groups rather than which lift is being performed, unlike powerlifting. Meaning, bodybuilders often will have a “split” like this: Chest and Shoulders Day; Legs: Quad Emphasis and Abs; Back and Arms Day; Legs: Hamstring Emphasis.

Bodybuilders will also perform more cardio and their nutrition is an important focus of their training. On the day of the show, everything is manipulated down to the minute a competitor steps on stage including water intake, food intake, and getting a pump before you go on stage. A series of poses, sometimes choreographed like a dance, are performed for the judges both alone and alongside other competitors.

 

Crossfit – These people are the crazies with way more energy than I can ever fathom. I am joking, but Crossfit has really come to encompass so many aspects of athletic training

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I am not sure where to begin. Much of crossfit is performed with specific timing in mind. Crossfit is a fast paced workout that includes power, strength, agility, cardio, and athleticism. Crossfit combines movements from Weightlifting and Powerlifting while also including rowing and running. They perform movements with a kettlebell, rings, boxes, lunges, bicycles. The list is huge. Hit up Netflix and choose any number of documentaries to learn more about Crossfit.

 

Powerlifting – focuses on the three main movements of competition: squat, bench and deadlift.

If you ask a powerlifter what the difference is between them and the person who squats, benches, and deadlifts in a gym, we will tell you that a powerlifter has stepped on the platform and competed. In powerlifting, training days are usually designated by movement. For example: Squat Day, Bench Day, Deadlift Day, Accessories Day.

Within powerlifting, there are many ways to write a workout routine besides the example given above. On competition day, lifters are divided into flights according to weight class. Each lifter begins with squats. The lifter will perform three squat attempts. They then wait for the remainder of the flights to perform their squats and then move forward to three attempts of bench and then three attempts of deadlift.

Powerlifters train for maximum strength, which is often very taxing on the central nervous system. Although powerlifters will train movements in high repetition, they usually train in cycles. These cycles, simply explained, include hypertrophy – high rep and muscle building, strength – lower reps and heavier weight, and strength peaking – for a competition.

Of course, I could go into much greater detail here but I just wanted to give a general overview. I am thinking of providing a short interview with athletes in each field to help you understand more about each of these avenues of training. Drop a comment if you are interested in this idea!

Why Strength Training – Part 3

In the last blog post, I discussed the reason barbell and free weight training is useful, the history of machines, and the reasons barbells are superior to machines in most circumstances. Here are 8 reasons free weight training is beneficial for most ages and abilities and I am passionate about training my clients using them:

 

1. Bone Health

Barbells load the skeletal system. In women especially barbell lifts have been proven to

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improve bone density. Bone is not a dead tissue, it is living, stress responsive tissue just like muscles, ligaments, and tendons. Therefore, just as one seeks to increase muscle mass and function by lifting, one can seek the same benefits for bone health through lifting weights.

Barbell movements require core stability which reinforces postural needs and needs for stabilization. Furthermore, they signal the growth and survival of cells and train the largest amount of tissue at one time.

 

2. Functional Movement

Barbell movements are functional, meaning, everyone sits, pushes, picks things up and puts them back down. Translating, everyone squats, everyone presses, and everyone deadlifts. Barbell movements lay the foundation and strength for properly performing these movements.

 

To further explain the relation of lifting to cell growth, Jonathan Sullivan MD, PhD, SSC, explains in his article Barbell Training Is Big Medicine:

 

…cells decide to die. It’s not a passive process, but rather the culmination of an      elaborate biomolecular self-destruct program call apoptosis or programmed cell death…. Up to a point, apoptoseis can be inhibited or reversed, and the most effective way to do so is through growth factor signaling. But growth factors don’t just promote growth – they promote cellular survival….

 

When we train with a barbell and eat correctly, we are sending a signal to our body that an anabolic environment is called for. An anabolic environment means growth factors. Growth factors suppress apoptosis. And apoptosis is a fundamental part of aging.

 

3. The Most Effective Medication

If barbell movements were prescribed, at least in addition to prescription medication,

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we could make some true progress on problems developed with age and in people with disabilities. Lifting is the only prescription where an increase means one is getting better instead of worse – and this is beautiful. While there is no research on whether lifting increases one’s lifespan, research absolutely shows lifting increases functional years.

 

4. Fight Aging

In my dad’s case, Huntington’s Disease results in a decrease in the ability to perform functional movements. Although his condition has worsened, overall for the last four years, he has made improvements and progressed in his lifts and the longevity with which he maintained basic living skills. Research has been done in the elderly that reinforces this theory, again from Dr. Sullivan:

Research with elderly subjects indicates that resistance training improves overall function and strength, enhances bone density and balance adaptations, and improves the metabolic profiles and glycemic control of patients with type 2 diabetes….

Squats, deadlifts, and presses strengthen functional movements – getting up, walking, standing, bending over, reaching – that we all rely on every day and that can be challenging for deconditioned elderly people. And because, unlike machines, barbell exercises do not isolate joints and their corresponding tendons and ligaments in unnatural loaded movement patterns, we can expect them to be far less likely than machines to damage older, more beat-up joints.

 

5. Improved Body Composition

The National Academy of Sports Medicine describes strength training as, “Ideal for individuals seeking alterations in body composition.” In fact, the highest rate of body composition changes come from lifting weights. Lifting weights improves one’s metabolism. When a person performs cardio, one burns calories only during that activity. However, when one lifts, that person burns calories even while at rest. This is because the muscle fibers tear during exercise and after the exercise is complete those muscles are using energy (calories) to repair.

The squat, bench, and deadlift are all compound movement, which means they recruit large muscle groups simultaneously. This also converts to more energy being used.

 

6. Stronger Athletes     

This may seem like an obvious point, but often athletes are afraid of heavy lifting and

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will stick to machines or dumbbells. But, the stronger an athlete is, the less energy they will waste. Strength increases the athletes ability to generate large amounts of force. Strong athletes will run faster and jump higher. Research has shown that a maximum effort squat is related to performance in vertical jump tests and sprinting speed.

 

7. Lifting Improves Mental Health

Strength training is undeniabily one of the single greatest confidence builders. The weight can make or break a person and when one realizes they have the ability to overcome that obstacle, empowerment results.

Lifting also creates independence. As strength increases, so does one’s ability to perform daily tasks. This could include a challenge as intricate as a triathlon to as mundane as picking oneself up from a fall. Chronic pain can be absolutely debilitating.

 

8. Minimal Equipment

Lifting can begin as simply as a few kettlebells, dumbbells and bands. You can workout at home, in a gym, or private training studio. The point is to move.

Because lifting transfers to many areas of life, I have the motto at my studio, “whatever it is… channel it.” Bring the things that have been plaguing you – physically or mentally. And leave it all on the bar.

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Why Strength Training for All – Part 2

“There is simply no other exercise, and certainly no machine, that produces the level of central nervous system activity, improved balance, skeletal loading and bone density enhancement, muscular stimulation and growth, connective tissue stress and strength, psychological demand and toughness, and overall systemic conditioning than the correctly performed full squat,” said Mark Rippetoe, author of Starting Strength.

 

THE GENERAL POPULATION NEEDS STRENGTH TRAINING

As a strength trainer, I often meet with skepticism regarding the general population’s ability and to perform barbell movements. I battle the stereotype that as a competitive powerlifter, I will train all my clients like powerlifters. I witness a misconception that I will design my clients’ workouts to create a robust, even rotund, powerlifting body.

In fact, every single one of my clients will learn to lift with barbells at some point in their journey. I do not expect them to become powerlifters, but barbells are the single greatest tool for training. Not only does science provide evidence of this, but I have personally witnessed these benefits in my clients, including my dad who was diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease in 2014.

 

WEIGHT LIFTING MACHINES ARE INFERIOR TO FREE WEIGHTS

Historically, free weights and barbells were the primary avenue for lifting. In 1986, however, the reversal of this system of lifting began. The rise of the Nautilus Machines and corporate gyms, began when Arthur Jones designed the first circuit style machines.

For gym members looking to get in shape and spend less money on personal trainers, this was a dream come true. Additionally, gym owners were happy with their savings and earnings simultaneously increasing. The machines appeared to be a winning invention. Unfortunately, these gains were short-sighted as far as the benefit to gym-goers. On the surface everyone seemed to benefit, the missing link was the physical, and even mental, benefit of true strength training.

 

JOINT HEALTH

According to Rippetoe, “the body functions as a complete system – it works that way and it likes to be trained that way.”

Yet machines were designed to isolate just one unit of the body, or one muscle, at a time. This method of training is harder on the joints as they move in a singular plane of motion, repetitively and independently. Barbells, on the other hand, allow weight to be moved in the way the body is designed to move it.

A primary example of the poor movement patterns forced upon the body by machines is the Smith Machine. This machine, along with many others, forces the body to move the way the machine moves. Yet humans are not each born with the same proportions (or leverages), our bodies were not designed to squat or bench in one designated plane of motion.

 

BALANCE AND NEUROLOGICAL STIMULATION

Machines do not allow for adaption to surroundings, a.k.a. proprioceptive awareness.

My dad who has Huntington’s Disease has benefited greatly from performing strength training twice a week.

They do not force the body to recruit its ability to control and stabilize weight. In contrast, barbells produce what Rippetoe refers to as a proprioceptively rich environment:

An unstable (yet controllable) physical situation in which exercises are performed that cause the body to use its internal balance and stabilization mechanisms (which is not present in machines).

Since muscles function simultaneously in the rest of life, this should be reinforced in one’s training. Not only do barbell movements teach the body how to move correctly, they force the body to adapt in ways that benefit its internal functions.