Drivers to Avoid on Metro Manila Roads

I’ve been riding my Vespa to work for almost a year now. Ever since opening Movement Performance MNL in Makati, I decided I would not be driving (more like sitting in) my car and wasting 3 hours of my day in traffic. Initially I tried biking to work from QC, which was still faster than driving, but it got tiring to pedal 30 km on a daily basis. The next logical step was to get a scooter.

In the 12 months of scootering, these are the drivers I try to avoid at all costs to keep myself alive and accident-free, which I have managed to do, so far. I won’t be discussing the 2 obvious motorcycle-killers on the road, trucks and buses, because those are no-brainers.

1. The Distracted Driver

This is usually a private car driver who is easily spotted from afar because of their erratic moves on the road. You will usually see them going slower than the flow, keeping an unusually large distance between them and car in front, or slowly drifting in and out of their lane. Once you pass them, 95% of the time they are on their mobile phones sending a text message, checking Facebook, or trying to add a destination on Waze. I usually blow my horn when I’m beside their window to wake them up from their technology-induced stupor.

2. The Byaheng Langit Jeepney

Some roads I pass are more notorious for these types of drivers. I usually see them on Marcos Highway, Aurora Blvd, and España/Quezon Ave. These jeeps have no qualms of weaving in-and-out of traffic to overtake fellow jeepney drivers, and beat them to the next passenger most likely waiting in a no loading/unloading zone.

3. Tricycles

Most of these drivers DON’T have any clue of the rules of the road. In heavy traffic they will occupy the right most lane including the gutter where they won’t fit anyway, essentially blocking the only escape of cyclists and motorbikes. On national roads, they occupy the left or fast lane instead! Why they do that, is still beyond me. Plus with no real guidelines on what sort of safety designs they should have, they most likely won’t have rearview mirrors and a complete set of lights, so you’ll definitely have to anticipate their next move.

4. Underbones with Faulty Side Mirrors

With 3,000 pesos you can probably walk out of a motorcycle showroom with a brand new underbone. Combined with a joke of an agency called the LTO, that means there are a lot of uneducated riders on the road. You can easily spot these riders because they will have one or both of these on their motorcycle: Missing or non-functional side mirrors, and/or open pipes that are noisy and annoying as anything. These riders feel like they are the only ones on the road and just dart in-and-out of any opening they see. They will also be the ones you see who will stop right on top of the pedestrian lanes on intersections with stoplights. In street speak, parang bulbul magmaneho!

Avoiding these types of drivers, together with trucks and buses with massive blind spots should keep you safer while riding to work. Scoot on!

If you have more to types of drivers to add, feel free to put it down in the comments!

 

 

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The Importance of Core Stability

Last time, I wrote about the possibility that crunches could be doing you more harm than good.  I hope I was able to make some sense and convince you to look for alternative ways to train your abdominal region.  Today, I shall write about these alternative exercises and why you should incorporate them into your routine.

First of all, we need to define what muscles make up the core.  According to the New Rules of Lifting for Abs, the core includes all the muscles that attach to your hips, pelvis and lower back.  These include the 4 layers of abdominals, hip flexors, hip extensors, spine extensors, hip adductors & abductors, multifidus (which you’ll only hear about when your doctor diagnoses your lower back pain), and the lats.  Basically, all the muscles from below your shoulder up to the bottom of your butt.

When coaches talk about core stability, what we really are referring to is lower back or lumbar spine stability.  We want this area to move as little as possible during exercises and stay in what we call a “neutral zone.”  If your lower back is pushed or pulled (trunk hyperextension or flexion) out of this zone repeatedly, it may lead to lower back pain. Examples would be slouching all day long at your office chair, or while driving in heavy traffic, or even picking up heavy objects with your back bent.

So what exercises can you do help strengthen your core muscles to keep your lumbar spine in this neutral zone?

To begin with, you should be doing exercises that are known as “Static Stability” exercises.  Under this, you will have to do different kinds of exercises classified under anti-extension, anti-lateral flexion, and anti-rotation.  Notice that all of these basic exercises are all “anti-movement.”  The ability to resist movement is the true function of our midsection.  It has to stay stable and serve as a base for our moving extremities.

The most basic of these exercises are called planks.  Planks are classified as anti-extension exercises since when you do them, gravity will pull your lower back into hyperextension and you will have to resist this force.

The following pictures and descriptions will show you how to do a basic plank and some of its most common progressions that you can do at home.

 

Fig. 1 Plank  Get into a modified push-up position, with your weight resting on your forearms and toes.  Your body should be aligned from your head to your ankles.  Try to hold this position from 60-90 seconds.  If you can’t, hold it as long as you can, rest, then go up again until you hit 60 seconds.

Fig. 2 Plank with Leg Lift  From the plank position, lift one leg so the toes are a foot off the floor.  Hold this position anywhere from 30-45 seconds then switch legs.

Fig. 3 Plank with Arm Lift  Set up with your feet slightly wider.  Lift one arm out diagonal to your torso.  Hold this position for 10-15 seconds, switch arms, and then continue on for 60-90 seconds.  This is progression is a big step in difficulty and you should fight the rotational force that your torso will undergo.

Fig. 4 Plank with Feet Elevated  Set up with your toes on an elevated surface like a bench or box and your forearms on the floor.  Try to maintain a straight line from your head to your ankles and hold this position from 60-90 seconds.  This is harder than a basic plank because you will be supporting more of your body weight with this variation.

Fig. 5 Push-up Hold with Feet Elevated + Leg & Arm Raise  Start with your hands below your shoulders and then raise an arm with opposite-side leg raise.  Try to hold this pose for 10 seconds then switch arms and legs, for a total of around 60-90 seconds.  You can also do this variation with your feet on the ground. 

Remember though that while doing planks, the first thing you should focus on is form.  Always try to maintain a straight line from your head to your ankles throughout the exercise.  If you feel yourself lower back area sagging or your butt lifting in the air, it would be better to take a 2 to 5 second rest then go up again to finish the prescribed time.  It would be best if you could check your form in a mirror or have someone look at you.  You should have the feeling of making your torso as long as possible.

Next time, I’ll be writing on anti-lateral flexion and anti-rotation exercises.

Are you still doing crunches?

If you answered yes to the question above, you better be a boxer, mixed martial artist, or an athlete in a full contact sport such as rugby or American football.  If you are not one of those people, there are better, more efficient, and more functional ways to train your core musculature, which I will discuss in more detail in future posts.

Let’s face it; most people do crunches in the gym with one thing in mind, which is to get that most desirable six-pack.  But it has been scientifically proven time and time again that spot reduction is not possible and having a ripped midsection is not a matter of doing a high number, usually in the hundreds, of crunches per day.  Getting washboard abs will only happen if you get your TOTAL body fat percentage down to around 8%.  That means if you weigh around 160 lbs, you can only be carrying around 13 lbs of fat on you.

So now that we got that argument out of the way, there are a number of reasons why I dislike doing and making my clients do crunches.  First of all, to fatigue your abdominal muscles doing crunches, you have to do quite a number of them, usually around 20-50 per set, multiplied by 3 sets and 3 exercises (normal crunches, bicycle crunches, and leg raises) that totals to 180-450 reps!  Doing that high a number will take up precious training time I have with a client or athlete.

Second, I believe crunches reinforce a forward, hunched over posture which is bad for almost any sport (except the ones mentioned earlier), and bad manners at the dinner table.  Imagine your mom telling you to sit-up straight because you are hunched over our plate, or your golf pro instructing you to keep your lower back flat because you are bent-over the ball.  That is the posture a crunch will most likely strengthen.

And third, there have been a few studies that have shown that doing repetitive spinal flexion (which is what crunches are), may damage the intervertebral discs in your spine.  Although a lot of so-called fitness experts will argue this point, why risk it?  I believe doing too much of a certain exercise will eventually lead to some sort of overuse injury.

So there you go, unless you fight or model shirtless for a living, I would advice you stay away from crunches and train your core in more functional ways.  These exercises such as planks and their progressions, chops and lifts, and anti-rotation exercises, I will go over in my next posts.

My First Post

I never considered myself a techie, which is weird since my first course in college was computer science.  No wonder I shifted out after 2 years.  Anyway, it seems everyone who is anyone in the fitness/athletic training industry has his own blog or website.  Due to recent developments,  I guess there will be no better time than now to start one.  Maybe I could actually make some sense writing.

I’ll set a goal of one post per week for the start and hopefully I can help out people who want no bullshit tips and advice on how to train your body in the most efficient manner and with the most functional results.

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com! This is your very first post. Click the Edit link to modify or delete it, or start a new post. If you like, use this post to tell readers why you started this blog and what you plan to do with it.

Happy blogging!