If tying your shoelaces hurts, how do you expect to be able to live life fully?

By Tom Summers

Your lower back is not a lever to replace weak hips and incompetent bracing. Respect your spine and strengthen your movement competency.

Athletes join us for many reasons. Some want to podium in a full Ironman, some aim to PB in Hyrox, some want to be able to Deadlift 2x their body weight, and others just want to be able to put their socks on without being in pain. Regardless of your athletic goal, pain is all encompassing. If you are in discomfort while sitting, standing, lying, or moving around; then we need to do something about it. FYI, ignoring the pain and hoping it will go away is not a strategy, it is a prayer. Let’s use some science for a bit..

Your spine is the structural foundation of your skeletal system. If you are blessed with the ability to walk, run, hinge, turn, and jump then let’s talk about respecting one of the most complex and essential building blocks of your body. Yes your spine can bend (sideways, backwards, forwards, and rotationally), but that does not mean you can use it instead of your hips and knees. Your back is not designed to do the heavy lifting or compensate for tight hips. Yes your back is strong, after all, it keeps your head up, but it is not designed to carry the load of heavy bars or inefficient sitting and standing. Sixty percent of adults report lower back pain (LBP), let’s look at what might be the cause and some take away strategies to identify why your back might be in pain and how to respect yourself a bit more to be able to pick up the fork you dropped. 

We will address each of the potential areas of fault below in the coming weeks. For now just place yourself in the Green (Yes I can), Amber (nearly but room for improvement), or Red (wow that hurts) box for each. 

Mobility?

The foundation of a healthy system is a full unrestricted range of movement. Three main joints contribute to being able to tick the lower body mobility checkbox.

Ankles - With a flat foot, bend your knee to the wall and if your knee travels 10cm + past your toes then your ankles are mobile. Less than that and you will struggle to squat (sit down) properly.

Knees - your thighs must be able to touch your calves, either passively or, ideally, actively. If your knees hurt when you bend them to this range then you will struggle to absorb force through your thigh muscles when you walk around. This will force the work up into your lower back which is not designed to be a backup generator. 

Hips - keeping a neutral (long) spine, you must be able to hinge to 90’ at the hips. Hold a pole behind your back to see how well you can push your hips towards the wall behind you. Less than 90’ will inevitably result in using your lower back to reach down. 

▶ Click here to watch Tom demonstrate each of the Mobility markers.

Strength?

We can cut this up in many directions but let’s stay with the basics again. Three essential movements that if you can’t produce because of weakness then we have found the culprit and can get started on the solution…

Trunk - returning to a previous video you need to be able to hold a neutral braced position in your mid section. The Deadbug is our go to assessment for this. Utilise a band under your lower back to mark your neutral position and progress your limb movement to see where the trunk brace fails (▶Watch our previous Bracing Tips Video). 60s of alternating limbs is bare minimum or you have homework to do.

Hips - assuming you smashed the hip hinge and can achieve 90’ now is the time to see if we can do that under load. Yes you could do a Deadlift but for now lets try the Single Leg Hip Bridge. Put your foot on a step / stair and raise your hips to the ceiling. Keep your tummy down to ensure the work is coming from your hips. Do you observe any differences left to right or after a 60s of reps? Then we have work to do. 

Knees and Ankles - your life is lived on one leg through walking, stepping, climbing, and hopefully running. Best to make sure that you have the leg strength to do a static lunge or we have no hope of applying single leg power on the tennis court. So stand in a split stance and keep your chest upright when you lower your back knee to the ground. Do 20 per side. Impossible, then winner winner, we have found the problem.

By now, you should have a Green, Amber, or Red for all six exercises. Stay tuned for the subsequent blogs addressing each one in turn and guiding you through improving them. If like us however you are impatient and want to be pain free now (why wouldn’t you?!) then get in touch and we will start your tailored programming tomorrow. 

Interested to learn more about how we can tailor fit a training programme for you?

Maximise the Power of your Day: design a winnable strategy for your habits.

By Tom Summers

James Clear (author of Atomic Habits) and Andrew Huberman (neuroscientist and podcaster) deserve the highest accolades for their work guiding us all to be the best version of ourselves with the least friction. Why?

Do I worry about my 1RM Deadlift the most? Not anymore. Do I worry about the grammar in my newsletter writing? I probably should but I don’t. So do I worry about how much to charge for a BLACK Tier membership. Nope. So if it isn’t athletic, content shipping, or membership fees (all have drained significant brain space in the past 10 years!) what keeps me awake? 

Simple. I worry when the last time will be that I bounce my daughters on my knee. Or how quickly the time will arrive that I stop being cool (stopping snorting), idolised (seriously shhh), and unequivocally adored. I can buy anything else, I can replace anything else, I can probably expect to care very little about anything else. But not spending as much time with my daughters now and making sure that I am in peak condition to chase and play with them dwarfs my business fears. 

Importantly however there is another reason I don’t worry about my Deadlift, newsletters, or business tactics. Because far more clever minds than mine (read aforementioned James and Andrew - to name but two), teach how to build frictionless growth focused habits that we would be foolish to disregard. I don’t lose sleep over my athletic goals or business tactics because we spend upfront time sharpening the axe with detailed strategy and then allow our strong habits time to compound.

No one else cares if you have created an environment for nutritional success or not. And no one else will lose sleep over your investment ratios. But you should. You should spend enough time now to create winnable circumstances, automatic contributions, and rapid onboarding for everyday activities that make you a better version of yourself and utilise lessons from the findings of experts.

So what can you structure most effectively from these great teachers? 

1. Gamify your goals. Commit to 6 daily habits. Big or small they must all stretch you forward enough to deserve a self gratifying check on the fridge each night. (Ie brushing your teeth if you are older than 3 doesn’t get you a sticker - sorry). Write all 6 on a whiteboard and celebrate achieving 4 or more. Some days you will be perfect but some time life gets in the way. Avoid chastising yourself for grabbing a snack and ‘losing a point’ and instead celebrate successfully turning off your screens 30 minutes before your bedtime *hypothetical goals, enter your own 6. 

2. Flip the friction switch. Make your new habit easy and the one you want to break hard (we all do this the wrong way round!). Stick a password limit on your Youtube screentime each day or cut up some vegetables on a Sunday and leave them as ready made snacks in the fridge. It doesn’t matter to me but if you find yourself slipping into your old ways too easily, create an obstacle (home delivery avoids the snack aisle!) and butter the success runway. 

3. Find an accountability partner. Ok this one is more from our very own habit guru and Senior Coach Danny Atamu but without someone to hold you accountable, to celebrate with, and to remind you of why you started in the first place you are 100% less likely to achieve. Big statement but anyone who achieves long term health success with us has has the support of a spouse, best friend, child, or coach. Life is tempting and hard, why make your own bags heavier when you can share the burden. 

Belts don't teach the everyday athlete how to brace for the storm.

By Tom Summers

Weight belts don’t show strength. They actually say “I’m weak”.

If you need a belt to pick up a bar in a controlled environment, what will you need when you get your bags out of the car…?

Carrying children, stepping over lego, slipping from a curb, sneezing - life is lived in hundreds of shapes, at different speeds, and from morning to night. For 99% of the time it is highly unexpected and chaotic. You rarely foresee the intense pull on the dog lead as a rabbit runs past, anymore than you remember to slowly bend your knees and pick up the tooth brush whilst carefully exhaling on the way down and bracing on the way back up. In my opinion the best exercises are the ones that prepare you for life. Sometimes this includes competitions and high force production (weightlifters, rugby players, name a sport*), but for the most part it includes grandchildren, long periods sitting, and unusually shaped loads. 

One of the most ineffective  gym tools you can use is a weight belt. Why? Because it is fundamentally a different breathing model to life and you are adapting your body to a weak kinetic chain and breath work whilst protecting ‘your bad back’ when you Deadlift. **Spoiler, if your back hurts enough for you to need a belt to protect it (or wrist straps, or gloves… stop ranting Tom), then you are too weak for the load. Simple. 

Donning a belt requires expertise in the Valsalva maneuver to create intra-abdominal pressure during a rep. Put simply, breath and hold to create massive spinal support to maximise force transfer through the body. If your goal is to lift a heavy 1 RM then it has a place. But if your goal is to look strong and impress the gym (second spoiler, no one is actually watching) then you are mistaking noise for substance. 

Less than 1% of gym goers compete in force production events but more than 50% of the population report chronic lower back pain. We are enabling the wrong goals.

My hypothesis is that when you strip back the illusionary sex appeal that going to the gym with a belt boasts, the use of anything that de trains every day movement competency is stupid. I do understand that looking good matters (relief for my wife) but I believe that being pain free and capable of a multitude of speeds and shapes is a far better use of time in the gym for most people than fake output. As a coach I cringe over shortcuts and encourage the path of most effective work.

So instead of using a belt to fake your way through a Deadlift, try our tips on bracing feedback to strengthen your vital midline and get cracking with those suitcases up the stairs. 

Forrest Gump was just a story.

By Tom Summers

No one should just get up and run. Not even Forrest. Respect your movement by prepping effectively first

Driving a car towards a wall without testing the brakes at speed makes you foolish (politely). Dropping an egg and salt onto a plate and expecting it to be an omelet makes us wishful.  Likewise we need warming up to be our best. Our joints, muscles, lungs, and circulation are not airbags. 

If you climb out of your commute and hit the pavement you are creating a kinetic storm in the forces you expect your body to transfer. Equally, if you roll out of bed and demand your coordination to be ready for a pre breakfast match of Padel then your body will one day tell you that you should have primed some sporting shapes more effectively first. 

There is a reason that high performing individuals rehearse their actions and ensure they nutritionally, physically, and cognitively prep. And there are lessons that we can all learn from the athletes, business leaders, and individuals around us who seem to effortlessly defy fatigue. Yes they might have a higher baseline of output, but more controllably they schedule a non negotiable window before crucial execution to warm up. They read their notes before a key speech, execute imagery skills before a big race, and always always always pay more attention to readying their performance than ignorantly expecting the mind and body to respond on demand. 

So what can you do to best protect yourself before your next Sunday league training or park run? Respect yourself to add 10 minutes and activate the movement pathways and response systems of the body so that your output exceeds a cold engine. 

At high specificity the exercises and techniques for warming up will vary. But for the other 99% of us the means to activate your muscles and rehearse for our sport will be similar enough to create non negotiable rules for anyone to follow;

1. Move your body through increasing ranges of motion that simulate the activity:  Before running 5km move through a Runners Lunge to mobilise hips & ankles;

2. Gradually increase your breathing rate, lung, heart, and circulatory functions from their resting state to the activity intensity: If you expect a HR of 175 bpm on the football pitch, make sure your warm up identifies this with high velocity pitch runs and 30s small sided games;

3. Activate the specific movement patterns building to a competition intensity: Before accelerating, decelerating, turning, and jumping on the squash court, complete Side Lying Clams, Glute Bridges, Deadbugs, and IYT’s. 

Follow our Runners Lunge flow as a generic primer before any activity to prep better than simply a Redbull on the motorway.

Why movement competency matters.

Pain controls everything. 

We compensate away from it in our personal lives (*read instantly gratifying hunger or boredom with snacking and Youtube) instead of sitting in discomfort; and our bodies radiate it when movement is dysfunctional or we have done too much. Our lower back overloads and warns us when we pick things up poorly from the floor, and our knees ache when we ascend and descend at speed on tired muscles. Then we know about it for the next week and regret that first 5km run or running with a heavy bag at the station. 

So we have a choice. Avoid physical stressors (heavy, fast, uneven, enduring events), or technically and properly develop our movement capacity so that we are resilient and strong enough to cope with whatever life throws at us. This is a personal choice. 

Luckily for us mother time will do her part. So you need not do anything if you want your muscles to atrophy, your heart to weaken, your joints to stiffen, and your metabolic age to soar. Simply stay watching Netflix and let the decaying commence. 

Or you can fight. You can identify the incompetencies in your daily health, critique your diet, and find windows to live the fullest physical life you can. Then when you are 80 you can chase your grandchildren and carry your own luggage up the stairs. 

If you are more inclined to fight than succumb (we hope!) then you need to know what physical restrictions are inhibiting your movement and smartly train to improve them. No one moves perfectly and we all compensate for that stiff shoulder or niggling elbow. Take the time now to know what for you is preventing pain free daily life and attack it. There are plenty of ways to assess your baseline and it is important to find the right one for you. However you define your journey, we encourage you to check your physical bank balance and educate yourself on the investments you need to be a millionaire. 

We believe that everyone with a goal is an athlete and that the only difference between achieving progression or stagnating is a defined purpose to be the best version of yourself. What’s your Pinnacle?

Our Co-Founder, Tom gives us some tips on how to do a Squat shape. Learn how to do this shape properly and notice how you improve the way you move in your everyday activities.

Why we believe in subscribing to your fitness.

By Tom Summers

Showing my maturity (read: age) I remember taping the Top 40 from the radio each Sunday so that I didn’t have to buy the CD. Cheap Yorkshireman certainly, but I would argue I wasn’t alone and we were all accepting of the world of musical and television subscriptions. Now in 2023, everything is at our finger tips in consumable subscription models many hundred of hours deep. Want to binge on Netflix? That will be US$ 11 per month please. Want to listen to music all day every day? That’s US$ 7 on Spotify please. 

Stepping back from the dopamine entertainment hits to life and careers, raise your hand if your university charged you by the hour? Of course not. What about the schools your children attend? Public or private you still pay at the start of the year in taxes or fees. So why does all this matter and why has 99% of the coach led fitness world got it wrong? Why do most coaches charge by the hour? 

Well fundamentally all the examples above and the reason Pinnacle prioritise subscription memberships is that it provides stability and projecting power for the business. The school that has fees confirmed can employ the best coaches and upgrade facilities. The streaming services with the highest number of sign ups can out market the competition and capitalise the industry. But as a consumer it goes deeper than that. We can all relate the wonderful meal that was tainted by paying the bill at the end or the hotel stay that was dwarfed by analysing the invoice and spending the final hour of your holiday in a queue to pay for the experience. Daniel Kahneman notes that the ‘Peak-End rule” is the realisation that memories store the best (peak) of the experience at the end; vis-a-vis, load up the costs and logistics before the event and you will enjoy it all the more by ending more enjoyably. 

So in the capitalist world of attention marketing and uniquely also for our mental health, paying upfront is better for us. We agree and strongly advocate for your fitness being a lifestyle subscription instead of a transactional bill on your table!

“OK Tom, so you have made a case for why Spotify is better than individual CD’s and we all know the business model of Apple and crew, but why is this important to fitness?” Well put bluntly, fitness is the last into your schedule and the first out (sense the tone of frustration referring to the rate of cancellations in the industry when “a meeting has come up”). If you are willing to postpone a training session that is directly correlated to a better and longer life for a meeting about some paperwork crap that will be forgotten the moment you leave, imagine how big the barrier is to even commit to a plan that will have success. Put simply, every time you need to pay a bill for the expert fitness coaches you need you question it not based on a 20 year plan, but on a cash flow that day. Is your longevity and health at 60 really something you want to look back on and remember that at 35 a new iPhone was more important? We don’t believe so. 

So why is the industry so backward? Why are the most readily available options for knowledge based fitness (coaches) transactional? Because the world doesn’t think fitness is a subscription commitment and something as important as your mortgage. We think it is a nice to have extra or something that 3 x 60 minute sessions will complete each week. Newsflash, it isn’t. If you view fitness as a costed extra you will put it last and miss the best opportunities to be your best self and achieve results when they matter. 

But let’s be clear. We are not advocating for cheap, 24 hour unlimited access to a sweaty treadmill in the corner. No. We are advocating for a coaching subscription service that puts your commitment to your health first and combines the business needs for stability and forecasting at the top of the tree with your human emotions to avoid paying for things that take effort. 

Regardless of the services and the fee pay, if the value aligns to your budget and fitness needs then you are literally off to the races. By budgeting for a fitness service to be part of your life every day for the next 10 years you are prioritising your quality of life and significantly impacting the results you will achieve and your enjoyment.

Subscriptions enhance utilisation. In entertainment they walk us down a line of lost hours and un-productivity.  Flip that model to your benefit. Don’t stop at subscribing for your media diet, keep going and commit to your nutritional, physical, and mental diets. If subscriptions handcuff us into the 3rd hour on YouTube each day, imagine the power of that extra session or extra coaching consult that you have already enrolled to!! We promise that you will get out of bed for the habit you subscribe to instead of the one you pay to attend. Your body and your results will thank you for it. 

So ask if you can settle the bill when you arrive next time you go on holiday and enjoy lying by the pool knowing you have paid for it instead of racking up a bill that is going to niggle you in 7 days time. And when you get back convert your fitness packages into subscriptions that commit you to a journey and maximise the brains power for using every bit of something you have already paid for.

About Tom

Tom is the CEO and Head of Strength & Conditioning at Pinnacle Performance. He now leads a team of full time coaches having spent his coaching career with professional athletes from World Cup Cricketer’s and Footballers, to Sprinters and Triathletes.

Gyms as the new religion.

By Tom Summers

This week I was listening to The Prof G Pod - cast, with Scott Galloway. It is my weekly dive to feel like my commuting time is contributing to something greater than my embarrassing Owl City infliction or worse still the News. Aside from drowning in market insights and business commentary higher level than the trees I walk past, the first listener question in this edition stuck with me and was based from a 2018 Harvard Study on how we gather.

“Are gyms and fitness brands playing a quasi religious role and tactile form of community and transformation through suffering than traditional churches now can? Are fitness brands here to stay and are they the new church for the masses?”

How did Scott answer the question? In short, yes, but with a clear problem that all fitness brands have a responsibility to consider…

Scott: “I really buy into (the) thesis. The need for community and answers has slipped the big brands of Peloton, Soul Cycle, Orange Theory into our lives. The idea of fitness as the new idea church with agency around other people and something bigger is really wonderful. The successful brands (where was Pinnacle’s shout out…?!) accommodate for the top 10% who continued to kill it. But where do those who can’t afford $100’s per month go?”

Enter the bigger community question. 

I categorise fitness brands into four boxes.

1) Mass market; cheap; access only; faceless; soulless. You’re better off running around your garden but few do, so a treadmill on a rainy day is worth the $40 you pay to not go.

2) Group cooked; semi coached; freelanced relationships. No need to think about what to do because we have a weekend course in how to treat everyone’s body the same so just do 10 more reps.

3) Transactional; tailored; camaraderie while you pay; accountable. Look more like me, eat less, post about your sweat, expect nothing when the clock ticks past the top.

4) Exclusive; business class; limited edition; aspirational. Fantastic if you’re in but inaccessible for 95%.

Each has its place and everyone wins when expectations and services match. However if you expect tailored science in a group class, or cheap and cheerful for 1-2-1 packages, you will have issues.

But are we still missing the masses? Where are the Youth Clubs, the Running Clubs, the Basketball with mates, the couch to 5k bootcamps? They exist but they are not glamorous and they do not attract the top coaches, in fact they often attract the cheapest (read - free Youtube on a shared phone screen).

As a Company we are as guilty as the rest of the industry and times have been tough enough as it is. Gyms are not a charity and are rarely structured in a committee ownership model. Even more rarely do they pass around an Offering’s plate during the Squats instead of charging a membership. And for this reason I disagree that gyms are the new church.

Instead I do agree that gyms and fitness houses bind the best of human endeavours, drive us to aspire to be the best versions of ourselves (or throw status in the face of those who can’t do a muscle up), and direct our lifestyle into community accountable health. And more power to us all.

So yes, gyms can serve a purpose to unite, bridge, structure, and define our lives, but let’s all remember that the only reason any of us should go to the gym is to challenge ourselves and grow as individuals. If we are expecting redemption because ‘yes bro we do Squat’, then the pearly gates might be an obstacle too high for even the best Spartan athletes. More importantly until we as business owners and industry representatives offer much easier on ramps for the less affluent then I agree with Scott, and suggest that we are no more a church than a Gucci store with a queue outside. We certainly cannot wear the good for the community ‘Pius’ medal and this is not a bad thing either because the gyms that don’t make money die and with it so do the incomes of some and the outlet for many. 

Gym’s don’t have to replace churches but we can all do more to give back to the community (like donating to 👉🏼 MOVEMBER) and politely nudge us into building a new relationship and remembering what Zoom for 2 years was like. In person is awesome. Let’s never forget the fear of isolation and ensure that our businesses are inclusive as far as a renters responsibility allows.

I invite you to listen to the Podcast for yourself and see what you think. Consider where you live, your family and community around you, and if in fact your gym has become the centre of your ‘village.’

About Tom

Tom is the CEO and Head of Strength & Conditioning at Pinnacle Performance. He now leads a team of full time coaches having spent his coaching career with professional athletes from World Cup Cricketer’s and Footballers, to Sprinters and Triathletes.