CrossCore180 goes so far beyond suspension training, CrossCore is about movement, fluid rotational movement. TRX, Jungle Gym, AST and other strap systems are excellent at providing instability through suspension, CrossCore180 provides movement, rotation through a full range, and the ability to transform it into a functional training resistance machine not dissimilar from a cable machine.
Balance is involved with CrossCore 180/ WarMachine both for the benefit of our clients at Balance Clapham and in Fulham and also with a view to introducing as many people as possible in the UK and Ireland to the possibilities of Rotational Bodyweight Training and rotational resistance training.
The versatility of Crosscore 180 in exercise selection for bodyweight drills and also for added resistance from bands, kettlebells and sandbags is truly impressive. For a glimpse at the possibilities take a look at this video from Olimpus in Slovenia showing bodyweight on the regular handles, rings, partner drills, added weight from bands, kettlebells, flexibility drills.
This video is on the CrossCorePTS YouTube channel which sources CrossCore and rotational bodyweight training videos from the many CrossCore 180 and WarMachine owners around the world.
Warning: this video contains 14 mins of 80′s rock music, feel free to use the mute button.
A shorter video from CrossCore Europe’s friends and Netherlands distributors http://www.crosscore.nl
Running Engineer, Naeem Akram & Fitness Explorer, Darryl Edwards host barefoot running and natural MOVEment workshop at
Balance Performance.
WHEN: 7.00-9.00pm, Tuesday 20th March 2012. WHERE: 113 Gauden Road, Clapham, London, SW4 6LE TO BOOK: visit http://balancephysiobarefootrunning.eventbrite.co.uk or contact Scott Morris on 020 7627 2308 / scott@balancephysio.com
Many people are drawn to running as it is cheap, accessible and because they have been led to believe by the ‘popular press’ that it’s fantastic for their health. The team at Balance Performance regularly see’s a large number of people running large weekly mileages that their poorly equipped bodies can’t cope with. Traditionally physiotherapists put them in supportive running shoes, with or without orthotics and prescribe strengthening exercises.
This works reasonably well but it’s not a long term solution as their movement skills remain absent and their attention to preventative measures is short lived.
Jonathan Lewis BSc ACSM Cert, MCSP, SRP, Co-Founder and Director of Strength & Conditioning at Balance Performance comments:
“At Balance Performance we’ve tried to instil the need for improved movement skills. This along with ongoing soft tissue work, using for example Trigger Point Therapy tools for self myofascial compression techniques, is a good starting point, but most just can’t accept the simple concept that moving with more fluidity will be less stressful on their bodies. We are now seeing that people who have more patience or have tried the traditional approach unsuccessfully are now looking at the ‘barefoot’ running lifestyle.”
The evening workshop will be run by Naeem Akram, a certified running coach for leading barefoot running brand Vivobarefoot, and Darryl Edwards, founder of Fitness Explorer and qualified Register of Exercise (REPS) Level 4 personal trainer who specialises in Movement Therapy.
Jonathan Lewis goes on to say:
“Working with Naeem and the Vivobarefoot organisation both UK and worldwide has been very useful to us and has opened up a whole new niche of
runners. What Naeem does exceptionally well is to have the conversation with runners of every persuasion in a language they understand, without insisting they get rid of the shoes. Naeem has very good observation skills, he understands movement (his engineering background helps), and the drills he teaches are not too wacky or dogmatic. He realises it’s about the movement skills not just pure running drills but at same time he makes the connection obvious for runners in a unique way. Naeems skills fit perfectly with our existing runners even if they aren’t interested in the barefoot aspects.”
The evening workshop will start at 7.00pm and look at all aspects of Barefoot Running and will cover the philosophy and practice of “natural MOVEment. There will be a heavy practical demonstration bias and for those who wish to participate as much physical interaction as possible.
For natural MOVEment we will be discussing Darryl Edwards’ PRIMALITY philosophy as an anagram which underlines this. Discussion topics during the workshop will include:
What is Natural Movement?
The 25 Components of Fitness
What is the matter with Tabata?
Function vs. Structure and Fitness Dualism.
Interactive demonstrations and audience participation will include:
Balance Performance has worked with the people of Clapham, Stockwell, Brixton, Balham and Tooting for over a decade now. We have developed an affinity with the endurance athlete community based on our expertise dealing with their avoidable overuse injuries and also with combat athletes, dancers and other performance artists based on our awareness and teaching of quality movement programmes to increase resilience, performance and prevent injury.
Written below you will find how one ultramarathon runner, Warren Pole, had to add strength and powerful movement abilities to his endurance to complete the Tough Mudder: extreme assault course race for Men’s Fitness:
Warren Pole competing in Mudder Extreme Assault Course Race
As an ultramarathon runner and long distance triathlete I’m fine with endurance but as weak as a kitten when it comes to explosive speed or upper body strength, so when Men’s Fitness asked me to race the Tough Mudder (a 12-mile extreme assault course race in the US) for a feature I knew I had some training to do!
Traveling extensively for work and having an irregular schedule to say the least, the gym is not an ideal solution for me. Also, I wanted functional, agile strength rather than just muscle – 50-100 mile mountain ultramarathons are still my key focus so bulking up was not what I wanted.
Then I stumbled across the War Machine [also known as CrossCore180]. It looked absolutely perfect. Small enough to travel with, simple enough to fit in my garage for use any time I had half an hour spare. Jonathan at Balance was brilliant in teaching me how to use the kit, and for the next six weeks before the Tough Mudder I set to work.
It was a revelation, building the functional, flexible strength I lacked and being really enjoyable into the bargain thanks to Jonathan’s inspiring instruction. Combined with circuit training in the local park (hill sprints, burpees, bench dips, etc) this was the ideal training set up for what I needed.
The result was I left for the Tough Mudder feeling better physically than I ever have.
Now the War Machine is an integral part of my fitness, helping me build a stronger, more flexible and more resilient platform for this year’s programme of mountain ultras. As well as this, taking up so little space it also means there’s plenty of room in my garage for the drum kit my wife has been wanting for years. All I need now is some earplugs.
For more on the Tough Mudder Race series, created by former British Soldiers, which you can now run in the UK go to http://toughmudder.com/
To see stacks of videos and understand what CrossCore® Rotational Bodyweight Training™ is about go to the CrossCore USA YouTube Channel. I suggest you start here though http://youtu.be/nilSvH3yNbY?hd=1 as Brendan Cosso, creator of the War Machine, demonstrates some of the possibilities using CrossCore180.
Winston Gordon Team GB Judo and current UK number one middleweight was interviewed in the dojo at Ernest Bevan School in Tooting by ITV news this week about his preparation for London 2012 and how the team at Balance Performance Physiotherapy have not only helped him overcome several potentially career ending injuries but also improve his performance through strength, conditioning and movement drills.
Jason Progl from Balance training Winston and the boys at Ernest Bevan
It was a fantastic afternoon where Winston was filmed putting some of the pupils through their paces in the dojo, they thought that was hard until Jason Progl from Balance took over and tested their ability to really move.
Graham Anderson our Clinical Director has now worked closely with Winston for over ten years as Graham used to be the physio for Team GB Judo. With Graham’s and the team at Balance expertise and Winston’s hard work massive obstacles have been overcome in terms of injury. To be the current UK number 1 and hopefully soon to qualify for the Olympics is a massive achievement for Winston and everyone who has worked with him as Winston says himself
Although Balance is an organisation that has been at the forefront of many innovations and concepts related to movement, rehabilitation, recovery and performance we arent exactly controversial! We are different to every other sports injury and spinal rehabilitation centre in London because we dedicate ourselves to sustainable solutions for our clients even when many clinics feel it doesn’t make good business sense to educate clients to a level that empowers them to take care of themselves. Perhaps they are right – we have invested in space to move rather than extra cash generating treatment rooms, we introduce innovative products to an unknowing public rather than sticking with “convention”, and we have dedicated time into refining and discussing and racking our brains to see how best to communicate our objective – which is for clients to expect more of themselves and develop a resilience of mind and body that will protect them over a lifetime. Despite all this, and our lack of tailored shirts, we havent fallen out with any of our fellow professionals.
After a controversial boxing weekend we are asking ourselves if Dereck Chisora’s use of the Alter-G at Balance helped provide some of the additional fitness required to go the distance with heavyweight World Champion Vitali Klitschko: click here for the BBC sports report.
Dereck Chisora using Balance's Alter-G shortly before leaving for his World Title Challenge to Vitali Klitschko in Munich
Balance Performance brought its high spec Alter-G anti-gravity treadmill to the UK the same week in 2008 as Manchester United and Manchester City football clubs. At that time only elite sports clubs and world class runners such as Paula Radcliffe owned or had access to the G-Trainer. Not much has changed in that time few sports injury clinics are prepared to invest in such technology despite the benefits to their clients – although now the NHS is dipping its toes into the world of anti-gravity. This is surprising as virtually every one of our clients who comes to our sports injury and orthopaedic clinic following low back, hip, knee or ankle surgery will have been advised by their surgeons to observe a period of “partial weight bearing”. Once our people and clients who come to us from other physiotherapy clinics in London experience the Alter-G partial weight bearing treadmill the benefits to their movement – and so recovery, confidence and well-being – are obvious.
Others who instantly recognise the benefits of the Alter-G are those who suffer periods of joint pain but wish to continue indulging their love of running despite arthritic changes in their low back, hips, knees, ankles.
However since 2008 the list of people who have used Balance’s Alter-G is broad and diverse: from lightweight iron woman athletes looking to expand their training volume, ultra endurance adventurer Oli Dudley preparing for 7 back to back ultramarathons around the world, the awesome Parkour Team from Urban Free Flow (click here to see their video), US Olympian Shannon Rowbury (Bronze medalist at the World Championships 1500 meters race), countless professional footballers including players from Fulham FC, Millwall FC, Brentford FC, Ipswich Town, Brighton and Hove Albion FC, and regular appearances from professional rugby team Harlequins – London Broncos went on to get their own.
Away from sport our Alter-G demonstrated to those working in military rehabilitation the benefit to soldiers who have had amputations following traumas sustained in combat. This led to the first Alter-G in the UK Military going to Headley Court.
If you’d like to know how you could benefit from using the Alter-G whether because of a sporting injury, neurological condition, following lower limb or back surgery, after a hip or knee replacement, or because you have endurance goals or need greater power on the sports field: call Balance on 02076272308 and ask to speak with one of the Balance professional team.
Dr Lucy Goldby has written a fantastic article on the Alter G treadmill (G-Trainer) that has appeared on Run Britain’s website. Run Britain is the largest online group for road running in the UK.
Balance has now had their Alter-G for over three years and firmly believe that a tool is only as good as the knowledge of those who use it. In the three years that Balance has had the Alter-G our team of therapists have accumulated hours of time using the G-trainer with clients from a huge range of disciplines, levels and with differing problems. From clients with hip replacements, club runners wanting to run faster to premiership footballers getting over a knock the Balance team have seen it all.
If you want to use the Alter-G at Balance and haven’t used it before you will automatically have a session with one of our expert therapists on how to use it to maximise your rehab and or performance to achieve your goals.
Balance is delighted to announce that we now have a Computrainer. Bring your bike down to Balance hook it up to the trainer and ride up the Alpe d’Huez!
The Ford Ironman World Championships in Hawaii provided fantastic results for CompuTrainer pro riders. For the second year in a row 8 of computrainer trained athletes made it into the top 10 (5 women and 3 men). Even more exciting was the fact that 3 of those ladies made it into the Top 4 – Mirinda Carfrae (2nd), Leanda Cave (3rd) and Rachel Joyce (4th).
Pete Jacobs from Austaralia is quoted to say:
“On the Computrainer, Your legs don’t get a break. It’s not like doing four hours on the road. You are not getting a break and you are doing constant wattage and when I feel good I pop the wattage up and when I feel lousy I just cruise but I’m still getting really good cadence and muscle memory. Much more than on the road. ”
Take your indoor bike training to a new level with the CompuTrainer – a state-of-the-art indoor bicycle training technology that improves cycling performance while keeping the indoor rider challenged and happy. The CompuTrainer is the leading electronic bicycle ergometer for maximum performance improvement, testing, and enjoyable indoor training.
Benefits of the CompuTrainer:
Increases your cycling power by 20 to 30% and your speed by 2 to 4 MPH. Whatever your starting point, you’ll improve significantly.
It sets the industry standard for accuracy (± 2.5%), power (1500 watts), quality, and service lifetime (10+ years).
Exclusive performance features like SpinScan™ electronic pedal stroke analysis and Adjustable Aerodynamic Drag Factor are unique to CompuTrainer.
Call Balance on 020 7627 2308 to inquire about using the Computrainer.
Graham Anderson our Clinical Director is among the key speakers at this years International Cycle Symposium (ICS). The inaugural ICS takes place over two days in the heart of Covent Garden in Central London at The Design Centre on January 25th-26th (Wed and Thurs).
The International Cyclefit Symposium is a two day forum into the relationship between the human body and a bicycle. The journey will by necessity draw from may disciplines:Bike fitting practitioners,Medical community, Academic community, Bicycle frame and component manufacturers, The international line-up of speakers have selected because they are all leaders in their particular field.
Each speaker will present for 45 minutes. There will then be a chaired Q & A session from the symposium to try and learn from each other and also establish ‘best practice’ for fitting and related disciplines.
Practical Sessions
At the end of each day there will be a demonstration/participation fitting by an experienced technician. Comments and general input from speakers and delegates will be encouraged!
Who Should Attend?
ICS will be a fascinating learning forum for anyone who has an interest performance cycling. Go to the website to learn more.
Sports injury and orthopaedic rehab at Balance Performance Physiotherapy
If you’re unfortunate enough to suffer an Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) rupture as Lucas Leiva did last week – the Brazil international will miss the rest of the season having injured his left knee during Tuesday’s Carling Cup quarter-final victory at Chelsea – as a professional footballer reconstructive surgery is essential to return to the game.
If you’re not a pro but the injury results in your knee continuing to irregularly give way, an operation to reconstruct the ACL is really your only option, especially if you aspire to have an active lifestyle. At Balance of course we actively encourage you to ask for more and expect more from yourself. However whether pro athlete or not the operation is only effective if followed with quality rehabilitation executed with discipline and patience. Ensure your rehab guides you far enough down the road for you to achieve a complete recovery, give you absolute confidence to return to your sport and has provided you with resilience to future injury (either to the same knee or another structure that becomes vulnerable due to inadequate rehab). Of course there is no such thing as invulnerability in a human but to reiterate – you should be asking more of yourself and more of your physio or sports therapist. Do not pull up short!
Hamstring grafts are the grafts of choice these days but patella tendon grafts can also be used and do well.
Here’s the kind of schedule you’d expect going into rehab post operatively, which is initially quite straightforward: Weeks 1-4 focussed on range of movement.
Weeks 1-9 also focussed on straight line strengthening
Weeks 8-10 introducing rotational control quickly adding impact control
Week 12 should see slow running commence
Weeks 12-24 should be more intensive physiotherapy rehabilitation
Week 20 introducing base level sports activities
Return to sport at 5-6 months and contact sport soon afterwards.
This timeline is dependant on the quality of rehab, the individuals discipline and motivation, their unique circumstances and complications.
Most surgeons would like to see their work relatively protected for 9 months post op.
Balance got world class judo player Winnie Gordon competing in European champs at 5.5 months but that is rare. He went in to surgery on with a good level of preinjury knee strength which gave him a useful functional reserve.
Like every injury ones success is dependent on quality of training, movement, control and motivation.
At Balance we use tools that provide results, consequently we have a vast array of “toys” to work on specific weaknesses identified in our clients. There are some tools that we use over and over again, equipment that makes rehab more effective for a variety of reasons. one such reason is the ability to introduce something as early within the rehab process as possible to familiarise a client with the tool and also because we use equipment that is scalable – it can be used with more or less intensity depending on the stage of development a client has achieved.
For example Trigger Point Performance Therapy (TPT) and Alter-G partial weight bearing treadmill are used at very early stages in ACL rehab, CrossCore180 and kettlebells arent far behind. We make use of all of our available space: in Clapham and Fulham we have 1,000s of square feet of space to utilise and matted areas for essential ground work.
When an individual has focussed on prevention (prehab) prior to their current injury (remember there is no such thing as invulnerable) their subsequent recovery is much faster. Such prehab involves a mindful approach to movement skills, joint mobility, intelligent recovery following practice/training/competition: sports massage, self massage (Trigger Point Performance Therapy), hydration and nutrition, good quality sleep, stress management (mental and emotional).
As for Lucas, he and Liverpool are now considering when last season’s player of the year should undergo surgery.
