Stress Fractures

2019-03-242019-01-04 by Steph

What’s up ? This is THE stephane ANDRE. With my training, I’m interested in biomechanics to avoid injuries. I read « Sport Medicine Media Guide » and I learned some good stuff.

A stress fracture is an overuse injury. Human body creates a new bone to replace a bone that has been broken due to the stress of everyday life. This process is done every day to keep the balance. Unfortunately, this balance can be disrupted because of excessive physical training. There are several factors that can prevent the body from creating enough bone and this make microcracking, called « fracture stress ».

The most common factor of fracture stress is an excessive increase in the intensitiy or frequency of physical activity without adequate rest period. Other factors are nutritional deficiencies, mechanical influences, lack of sleep, systemic factors (hormonal imbalance, etc.) and metabolic bone disorders.

There are case of development of eating disorders and/or amenorrhea (infrequent menstrual periods) for some female athletes who are preparing for a competition. These 2 conditions can create a decrease in estrogen that can decrease bone mineral density. This increase the risk of stress fractures.

Stress fractures are often seen in athletes (especially runners) or military recruiting. For an athlete, 1.6km run is 110 tons of force absorbed by the legs. Bones aren’t made to resist this force (energy) so it’s the muscles that have the function of absorbing shocks.

When the muscles get tired, they stop absorbing the forces and eveything transferred to the bones. Stress fractures occur in almost all bones but are more common in lower bone, expecially the tibia. Depending on the type of sport, there’re distinctive stress fractures such as the elbow in throwing sports, the ribs in golfing and rowing, the spine in gymnastics, the lower extremity in running activities and the foot in gymnastics and bascketball.

Diagnosis

stress, fracture, foot, x-rays, metatarsal,2nd

Stress fractures create pain in a limited area directly above the tip of the bone where the fracture occurred. The pain is raw because of physical activity and relived with rest. The sensitivity of the bones is the most obvious conclusion to the physical examination.

With regard to X-rays, this isn’t a tool that actually helps to diagnose an early stress fracture because the bone often looks normal and the microcracking aren’t visible. It’s difficult because after several weeks of rest, the bone begins to repair itself and shows a healing reaction or callus on X-rays.

An early stress fracture is usually confirmed by a bone scan or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Treatment

Stress fractures are generally classified as low-risk (will not become a serious fracture) or high-risk (will become a serious fracture).

Low-risk stress fractures usually require a rest period of 1-6 weeks of limited weight bearing activity progressing to full weight bearing may be necessary. Return to physical activity should be a gratual process.

Low impact activities like swimming or biking are recommended to maintain cardiovascular condition when the pain is gone. When the patient can comfortably perform low impact activities for long, pain-free periods, the patient can begin high-impact activities.

High-risk stress fracture have the danger of becoming a complete fracture. For athletes suffering from chronic pain and having normal x-rays results, it’s recommanded to use a bone scan or MRI. High-risk stress fractures should be treated as traumatic fractures (with cast or surgery) because of complications.

Prevent

food, vitamin,d, carrot, papay, meat, ,egg, chees, broccoli, fish, sweet, potato, mango, pepperoni, apricot, peach, melon, avocado

calcium, food, almond, amarant, grain, aparagus, apricot, artichoke, baked, bean, haricot, blackberry, blackstrap, molasse, blackcurrant, bok, choy, brazil, nut, bread, wholemeal, brocolly, chickpeas, cinnamon, edamame, soya, fennel, kale, kidney, olive, orange, sesame, seed, milk, spring, green, tofu, swede, walnut, watercress

Here are tips developed by AAOS to help to prevent stress fractures :

When an athete does a new sport activity, it’s necessary to program progressive goals. For example on the 1^st day, don’t run 8km but rather increase the distance gradually per week.
Cross-training => Alternate activities to achieve the same fitness goal helps to avoid stress fracture injuries. For example to achieve a cardiovascular goal, alternate cycling and running (cycling one day and riding the other day) is excellent. Adding strength training and doing flexibility exercises help improve performance.
Have and maintain a heathy diet with foods rich in calcium and vitamin D.
Use good equipment. Don’t use running shoes, gloves, etc, very old and very worn.
If during physical activity it start to swell or the pain starts, stop the activity right away. It’s essential to rest for a few days. If the pain continue, you should see an orthopedic surgeon.
It’s important to recognize early symptoms and treat them appropriately to return to the sport with a normal level of play.

Stats

Stress fractures occur less frequently in those of black African descent than in Caucasians, due to a generally higher BMD (bone mineral densitiy) in the former.
Women and highly active individuals are also at a higher risk, The incidence probably also increases with age due to age-related reductions in BMD.
Children may also be at risk because their bones have yet to reach full density and strength.
The female athlete triad also can put women at risk, as disordered eating and osteoporosis can cause the bones to be severely weakened.

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-Steph

P.S. If you’re in Miami and you like Caribbean food, go to my cousin’s bistro to eat Haitian food, click here .

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Validate Data Mining In Tableau With A Chi-Square Test

2018-08-02 by Steph

I have just enrolled in a Data Science course on Udemy and I learned good stuff.

In this article we will start using statistics. Don’t worry we’ll do something simple, we’ll use the Chi-square test in a basic way. There is a special section to learn how to do statistics at an advanced level.

I’ll explain why we’re going to learn how to use the Chi-square test. The results we have with theses 2 bar charts are good. We see on theses 2 bar charts that age has a significant impact on the rate of client leaving the bank. We also see in which age groups the clients leaves the bank the most and which age groups the clients leave the bank the least. With that we have good insights.

In the A/B test « Gender », we can see that there is a correlation between the male and female sex and the choice to leave the bank. But as I said before, this A/B test is basic. The results of a basic A/B test visually shows us what is probably happenning in reality but we aren’t 100% sure of these results. To validate these results, we need do to use statistical tests like Chi-square test.

Doing a report based on basic A/B test is very risky and you can have completely false insights. I don’t advise you to do it (unless you want to leave your job). It’s for this reason that using Chi-square will help us to have strong insights.

Chi-square will allow us to know if our results are statistically significant. Our results are based on a sample of 10 000 clients and Chi-square test will tell us if these results are due to chance effects or if these results can represent all the client of the bank.

For example in our A/B test « Gender », we observed that in our sample of 10 000 clients, women are more likely to leave the bank compared to men.

Now, we aren’t sure if the results of this sample represent the behavior of all the bank’s clients.

To use basic Chi-square test, we use an online tool. Click here .

On internet, there are plenty of websites to do a Chi-square test but we’ll use this one so that you can understand how it works. To do a Chi-square test, we need to use absolute values and in our A/B test we have percentage.

Let’s go back to Tableau. We’ll create a new tab with a version of A/B test with absolute values. In this way, we keep the A/B test with the percentages. Do a right-click on the « Gender » tab and select « Duplicate ».

Name the new tab « Gender Actual » to specify that it’s absolute values.

To have the absolute values, move « Number of Records » in « Measures » to the « Marks » area and put it over top of « SUM(Number of Records ».

Move « Number of Records » in « Measures » to « Rows » over « SUM(Number of Records ».

Cool, we have our absolute values.

We also need total absolute values, which means the total number of men and women. There is a very fast way to get that. Right-click on the vertical axis and select « Add Reference Line ».

Then in « Value », click on the drop-down on the right and select « Sum » to have the total sum of the observations.

And in « Scope », you select « Per Cell » option to specify that you want the total sums for each category, male and female.

Now, we have the total sum at the top of the bars. We will modify labels to have the absolute values. In « Label », we will change « Computation » to « Value » and click on the « OK » button.

Perfect, we have the total amount of observation at the top of each bar : 4543 women and 5457 men. We have what we need to use our online tool.

OK, I’ll explain how this tool works. « Sample1 » and « Sample2 » correspond to the independent variable « Gender ». You choose in which order you enter the data, « Sample1 » for men or the opposite. In our case, we use « Sample1 » for women and « Sample2 » for men.

« #success » corresponds to the result Y=1, which means in our case « yes, the client left the bank ».

« #trials » is the total number of observations, which means the total number of women in « Sample1 » and the total number of men « Sample2 ».

That’s how you enter the data :

For « Sample1 » in #success, you enter 1139 because there are 1139 women who left the bank. For « Sample1 » in #trials, you enter 4543 because there are 4543 women in total.

For « Sample2 » in #success, you enter 898 because there are 898 men who left the bank. For « Sample2 » in #trials, you enter 5457 because there are 5457 men in total.

Here is the verdict : « Sample1 is more successful ». « Sample1 » corresponds to women and #success is :« yes, the client left the bank ». This verdict means that of all the bank’s client, women are more likely to leave the bank than men. And look, there is something important, it’s « p<0.001 ». This means that the « p » is strictly less than 0.001.

« p » is the value that indicates whether an independent variable has a statistically significant effect on a dependent variable. In our case, the independent variable is « Gender » and the dependent variable is « Exited », which is : « yes, the client left the bank ». So « p » is strictly less than 0.001, which means that the independent variable « Gender » has a statistically significant effect on the dependent variable « Exited ». This shows us that out of the total number of bank’s clients, women are more likely to leave the bank than men.

This is how we use Chi-square test with this online tool. This is the same principle on all online tools that you can find on Google or DuckDuckGo . You can repeat these instructions that I gave you with other tools, you will get the same results.

It’s cool with the Chi-square we validated the A/B test and to specify that this A/B test is validated, we’ll color the tab in green.

Right-click on the tab, select « Color » and select « Green ».

Perfect, now we’ll validate another A/B test. Selects « HasCreditCard » tab.

We’re going to create an A/B test « HasCreditCard » only with absolute values. To save time, right-click on « Gender Actual » tab and select « Duplicate ».

We’ll remove the green color on the tab « Gender Actual (2) ». Right-click on the tab and select « Color » and « None ».

You rename the tab « HasCreditCard Actual ».

Move the variable « HasCrCard » over « Gender » in « Columns ».

Excellent, everything is ready to do a Chi-square test. We’ll remove « Exited » labels to better see the absolutes values. Make a click and drag out.

Perfect, let’s go back to our online tool. In this case, « Sample1 » is « no », which means client who don’t have credit card and « Sample2 » for « yes », which means clients who have a credit card.

That’s how you enter the data :

For « Sample1 » in #success, you enter 613 because there are 613 clients who left the bank. For « Sample1 » in #trials, you enter 2945 because there are 2945 clients who don’t have a credit card.

For « Sample2 » in #success, you enter 1424 because there are 1424 clients who left the bank. For « Sample2 » in #trials, you enter 7055 because there are 7055 clients who have a credit card.

Let’s look at the verdict, it’s « No significant difference ». « p » value is very high, it’s above 5%. This confirms that the independent variable « HasCrCard » has no statistically significant effect on the dependent variable « Exited ». That was the conclusion we had made when we had done the A/B test with percentages.

We had seen that there was 21% of « Exited » (clients who left the bank) in the category « no » and 20% in the category « yes ». With these results we concluded that most likely the variable « HasCrCard » had no impact on the rate of clients who left the bank. Chi-square test confirms our conclusion and we can put the tab « HasCrCard » in green to say that it’s OK.

Right-click on the tab « HasCreditCard » => « Color » => « Green ».

Excellent, now, you can do a statistical A/B test with 2 categories. Soon, we will do statistical A/B tests with more than 2 categories.

Share this article if you think it can help someone you know. Thank you.

-Steph

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Combine 2 charts

2018-05-30 by Steph

I have just enrolled in a Data Science course on Udemy and I learned good stuff.

We’ll move to the next level. We’ll work with 2 bar charts in parallel to have a more efficient data mining. In a previous article, we created 2 different bar charts. The 1^st was an A/B test (actually, it’s a classification test) that told us in which age range the clients were most likely to leave the bank. The 2^nd was a bar chart showing the age distribution of clients in our sample of 10 000 clients.

Let’s go. We’re going to have an A/B test with age range and we’ll add a bar chart of the client distribution below. To add a bar chart, we must start by choosing what we want to keep and what we want to add. In our case, we want to keep the columns because they’re the same in the 2 bar charts.

And we just want to add a new line so we will add a new variable in « Rows ». As we want to add a bar chart of distribution, we will use the variable which corresponds to the number of observation « Number of Records ».

In « Measures » moves the variable « Number of Records » in « Rows » to the right of « SUM(Number of Records).

We have a 2^nd bar chart below the 1^st bar chart. As you can see, these 2 bar charts are in one column. « Columns » is « Age(bins) ». These 2 bar charts are in 2 different lines which are the lines that correspond to the 2 « SUM(Number of Records) » in « Rows ».

The space on the left has also changed. There is « All » which represents the 2 bar charts at the same time. It means, when your select « All », you make change in the 2 bar charts.

Below this tab « All » we have 2 tabs. The 1^st tab represents the 1^st bar chart so the 1^st « SUM(Number of Records) » in « Rows » and the 2^nd tab represents the 2^nd bar chart so the 2^nd « SUM(Number of Records) » in « Rows ».

Which means that if you want to make changes on the 2 bar charts at the same time, you make the changes in the tab « All ». If you want to make changes only in the first bar chart, you select the first tab below « All ». If you want to make changes only in the 2^nd bar chart, you select the second tab below « All ».

So if you change the color in tab « All », our 2 bar charts will be colored by the same color.

Select the « All » tab and click on « Colors ».

Click on « Edit Colors… » and select « Stayed ». Select the green color and click on the « OK » button.

As you can see, the color changed in the 2 bar charts.

Click on the tab of the 2^nd bar chart.

Removes the « Exited » variable from « Colors » to remove colors only in the 2^nd bar chart.

Removes the « SUM(Number of Records) » variable from « Label » to remove the labels only in the 2^nd bar chart.

We will add color on this 2^nd bar chart. Click on « Colors », click on « More colors… » and select the blue color. Click on the « OK » button.

Now, we would like to see the colors vary in intensity depending on the number of observations. Take « SUM(Number of Records) » from the 2^nd line in « Rows » and holding « Ctrl » or « Command », move it to « Colors ».

Cool ! We will take care of the 1^st bar chart. Select the tab of the 1^st bar chart.

Click on « Colors ». Click on « Edit Colors… ». Select « Stayed ». Select the brown color and click on the « OK » button.

For more clarity, we will add labels in 2^nd bar chart. Click on the tab of the 2^nd bar chart. Take « SUM(Number of Records) » from « Colors » and holding « Ctrl » or « Command » and move it to « Labels ».

Perfect. Now we will change the location of the bar chart. We will put the 2^nd bar chart instead of the 1^st bar chart. According to the logic of « Rows » and « Columns », simply put the 2^nd line « SUM(Number of Records) » to the left to pass in 1^st line.

BOOM, the bar chart of the age distribution is going over because it’s in the 1^st line in « Rows ». With these changes, tabs to change the bar charts have changed order.

Observation

What we can observe with these bar chart is that we see on the 1^st bar chart that the majority of bank’s clients are in the age group of 30 to 34 years old and 35 to 39 years old. In these 2 age groups, we see on the 2^nd bar chart that client of 30 to 34 years old are less likely to leave the bank than clients between 35 and 39 years old. Look at ages 30 to 34, the rate of clients leaving the bank is 8% while in the 35 to 39 age group, the number of clients leaving the bank is 13%.

In the age group of 40 to 54 years old, we see on the 2^nd bar chart that the rate of clients leaving the bank is increasing and is above of the average rate of clients leaving the bank (20%). But we see in the 1^st bar chart that the number of clients in the age group of 40 to 54 years old decrease with the age groups.

Do you remember the potential for anomalies in age groups 75, 85 and 90 ? We’ll check it. In the 1^st bar chart we can see that there are 11 clients in the age group of 80 to 84 years old, 2 clients in the age group of 85 to 89 years old and 2 clients in the age group of 90 to 94 years old. We can conclude that these observations in age group of 80, 85 and 90 aren’t very significant from a statistical point of view because 2 clients is something negligible in this sample of 10 000 clients.

In the first age group of 15 to 19 years old, we can see that there are 49 clients, which is not very significant.

Compare these 2 bar chart in parallel allows us to have additional insights.

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-Steph

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Add Color

2017-11-15 by Steph

I have just enrolled in a Data Science course on Udemy and I learned good stuff.

Podcast:

In the last article, we created our calculated field « TotalSales » that you can see in «Measure » zone.

In Tableau, the calculated field is very used (almost every time) because in most case the data don’t give the value you want to show.

The calculated field « TotalSales » is a simple example to make you understand how it works but know that you can do things more complex. I’ll show you that later.

In this article, I’ll show you how to manipulate colors because it’s an important element to communicate. With colors, people will understand more quickly what you want to explain to them.

Imagine that you have to show this bar chart to the manager who handles the bonuses. By putting a little color, a little art, you could improve the reading of this bar chart.

To use colors, click on this button.

You can change the color with the basic colors.

Or you can have more colors by clicking here.

If you have a picture in the background, you have the possibility to change the opacity to have a transparent effect of colors.

You can add a border, change the border’s color, etc.

But what would be nice to do is to have bars with different colors.

To start, take « Rep » and move it on « Colors ».

With this, there is a unique color for each representative.

There is also another method to do that. Instead of taking « Rep » and moving it to « Color », you can click « Rep » here.

If you move it to « Colors », you’ll break everything because « Rep » will no longer be in the « Columns » zone.

To avoid this, press Ctrl or Command on your keyboard and click « Rep » to make appear the sign « + ». Now that you made a copy of « Rep », move it to « Colors ». It’s like making a copy/paste from « Rep » to « Colors ».

With this method, « Rep » is always in the « Columns » zone. This is a method that is very practical when there are many dimensions.

It’s possible to change representative’s colors by clicking here.

As you can see, there are several choices of palettes.

You can test the « color blind » palette which is very useful for color blind people. To select this palette, click « Assign Palette » and « Apply ».

When a palette has fewer colors than representatives, you will have a message saying that some colors will be duplicated. But this is not a problem because there are names below the bars.

Now we want to see something else with our bar chart. Press “Ctrl” or “Command” on your keyboard and click on SUM(TotalSales) to display the « + » sign. Then move SUM(TotalSales) to « Colors » to replace « Rep ».

As you can see SUM(TotalSales) has different colors. The colors are on a continuous basis which means that the more sales there are, the darker the color.

For our case, this is not useful because the size of the bars represents the sales number but for other situations, this is useful.

The problem now is that there are duplicate colors and because of this, the Manager could misinterpret the results. An alternative approach would be to ensure that the Manager understands the results.

The solution is to take « Region » (by pressing “Ctrl” or “Command” on your keyboard) and move it to « Colors ».

You can also take « Region » (with “Ctrl” or “Command”) and move it to SUM(TotalSales) to replace SUM(TotalSales).

With that, the bars are colored by region.

That way, you can clearly see the 3 regions through colors that are unique to each region and you can see the total sales per representatives with the size of the bar.

This is a small example so that you can understand the basics to manipulate colors in Tableau. There are still more complex techniques to manage the colors that I will show you later.

Plays with the colors so you can fully understand how it works. You could find your favorite palette and find your style. Have fun.

Share this article if you think it can help someone you know. Thank you.

-Steph

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Connect Tableau Public To A CSV File

2017-10-16 by Steph

I have just enrolled in a Data Science course on Udemy and I learned good stuff.

After downloading the file « OfficeSupplies.csv », you will open this file with Tableau. When you open Tableau, there is a « Connect » column :

Click on « Text File » and open the file « OfficeSupplies.csv » :

The connection manager appears for this source file :

At the top left, there is « Connect » where the file is located and below it, there is « File » with 1 file. There is 1 file because you imported 1 file. I’ll show you later how to import several files of the same type.

In the center, there is a window with the files you connected. And it’s possible to connect several files.

For exemple, if you do a drag and drop here, Tableau will try to connect these 2 files.

You can work with data comes from several differents files, different tables from different CSV files. We’ll see that later.

At the bottom, there is a preview of the file with columns and rows. Colums « Order Date », « Region », « Rep » and « Items » identified as data in text format. Columns « Units » et « Unit Price » identified as data in number format.

Now you’re gonna go on the dashboard. To access it, click here.

Here is the dashboard.

We will discuss the various function in more detail in the next section.

Now, I just want to show you that we have « Data » column with our source file.

If you do a right-click and click on « View Data », you see the data as in the previous window.

You’ve seen, it’s simple to connect a source file to Tableau.

Wait, I’ll show you how you can connect more source files. Click here to return to the connection manager where you can connect several different files.

Of if you want to stay on the dashboard, you can click on the top left on « Data » then « New Data Source ».

Or click on this icon on the dashboard. Here are the files types you can connect to Tableau

What is interesting with the « Statistical File » is that we can connect files type SAS, SPSS and R.

We have access to different server with OData and others.

It’s perfect, now you can connect a data source to Tableau and you’ll see later how to connect data faster.

Share this article if you think it can help someone you know. Thank you.

-Steph

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Triceps Tear With Back Exercises

2019-04-072017-07-19 by Steph

I read a Frederic Delavier’s book « Strength Training Anatomy » and I learned good stuff.

Podcast:

Workout for back exercise with very heavy weights such as lat pulldowns or chin-ups with weights can create injuries to the long head of the triceps brachii.

In fact, the latissimus dorsi is a powerful muscle whose function is to bring your arms close to your rib cage and your distal tendon is anchored in your humerus.

It’s for this reason that it’s called the climber’s muscle

Your long head of triceps has the function of extending your forearm and bringing your arm nearer to your rib cage. It’s when you bring your arm closer to your rib cage that your long head of triceps and your latissimus dorsi work together.

Usually, this is when the long head of the triceps has not had a good warm up or is tired that there is a tear.

This happens very simply. Imagine that during an exercise such as lat pulldowns or chin-ups with a very heavy weight, you release for a few seconds your muscle of the latissimus dorsi. The result is that at the tension will go on your long head of triceps.

In a few thousandths of a second, this may partially tear your triceps long head and usually, it’s located near of the connection of your triceps long head and the scapula. Fortunately, it’s rare to have a total tendinous tear.

This type of injury doesn’t have the same consequences as shoulder injuries because, with a shoulder injury, you’re almost forced to stop to train the upper body.

Despite the injury, it’s possible to do exercise with light weights. You can do exercise for the back like low cable row, t-bar row and triceps pushdowns with the elbows along the body for the triceps.

It’s recommended to have a rest period before to restart the upper body training.

Note

It’s possible a triceps long head tear with the barbell lying extension. To avoid this, it’s advisable to do some stretching exercises before training.

Share this article if you think it can help someone you know. Thank you.

-Steph

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From Exercise Machines To Free Weights

2019-03-242017-03-08 by Steph

I read a Nerd Fitness article and there is good stuff.

Very often in gym’s advertisements, we watch a lot of high-tech machines to do exercises and the free weight zone is a small hidden room.

What I see in my gym, it’s people start their training with a little bit cardio and they use machines. They do this because it’s easier and this look more secure. Unfortunately, this is not the reality. The Matrix trap us with these machines.

Attention : If you have a medical prescription or you need to use machines for a special reason, continue to follow your training program prescribed by your doctor or physiotherapist.

Why

The truth is that machines force muscles and joints to make movements that aren’t natural.

Machines force your body to move weights in a single pattern (up – down or left – right). Our bodies naturally don’t move like it, this is the problem. Movements or our bodies aren’t straight lines, it’s rather « S ». The result is that machines develop our muscles in a way that isn’t balanced and they endanger our joints and spine.

Like you can see, machines don’t put your body in safety and in addition, they don’t work your stabilizing muscles. Don’t work stabilizing muscles is very bad for everyday activities.

When you bent forward to take something on the floor, you body use a dozen and a dozen muscles at the same time. But since you no longer work your stabilizing muscles because of machines, your muscles don’t know how to work together so your body uses a muscle.

Study case

« Smith Machine » is famous to do squat in safety so it protects your back. Lie ! This machine is perfect to destroy your back and compressed your spine because this machine force your body to move only up and down. The real squat allow to do the fundamental movement and when you do it, you notice that your body doesn’t do a straight line from up to down. With the real squat you do a natural movement.

Do exercise with weight or with bodyweight is more efficient to burn calories than machines.

Full body

All exercises classified in 2 categories : pull and push

I remember, I did a full body training program for 1 year before lift weight. This is what my Taekwondo’s teacher advised me and he was right (wow, Korean wisdom). A full body training program, 3 times per week is more efficient than a machines training program, 5-6 times per week for beginners. If you want to train more, you can do Tai-Chi or walking during rest days.

Full body is important

With full body, you learn to each body’s muscle to work together, you synchronize you body. This is allow you to be healthy, avoid using too much a muscle and avoid injury due to a weak stabilizing muscle. To maximize your body, eat healthy and you’ll burn more fat, build muscle and build a body of which you’re proud.

What is great with a full body training program, it’s when you skip a training day, it doesn’t matter. You’ll not have certain muscle more developed than any others because each training session work all body’s muscles

Bodyweight (full body)

Mastering basics movements with bodyweight is perfect to prepare you for a training with weights.

It’s primitive movements therefore natural that allow you to become stronger without material.

The best example are gymnasts. Look gymnasts body, it’s amazing, impressive and the majority of their training are with bodyweight exercises.

Basic exercises

Push = push up, dips, handstands
Pull = pull up, body rows
Legs = bodyweight squat, pistols squats, lunges, box jumps

For each exercise, you do 2-4 sets of 8-10 repetitions.

No it’s too simple ! => Do this training program and if it’s too easy, increase the difficulty. You can do push up with one hand or pull up with one hand (like my friend Inti). You can also add more set ou repetition.

No it’s too difficult => Do this training program and if it’s too difficult, decrease the difficulty. You can do sets of 3 repetitions. The principle is you progress to do 4 sets of 10 repetitions. Take your time but be regular.

No I want abs => When you do squat, push up and pull up, you keep your core tight and by this way you work your abs. But if you want to do an exercise specially for abs, you can to plank and side plank.

Strength training (full body)

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a man or a woman, dumbbells and barbells are your friends.

Basic exercise

Push = Bench press, Overhead Press
Pull = Deadlift, Bent Over Row
Legs = Squat, Deadlift

For each exercise, you do 2-4 sets of 8-10 repetitions.

No I don’t like squat => Do you think squat is an useless exercise ? I advise you to read the book of Mark Rippetoe. If you seriously want to train, this book is for you !

No I afraid of weights => Don’t panic. Most people in free weights section are too busy to look at themselves in the mirror, they will not look at you. You can use a barbell or dumbbells for each exercise to improve your pure strength. I advise you dumbbells.

No I’m afraid of being ridiculous => Everybody don’t care if you life a dumbbell of 4kg (8.8lbs) or you squat 181kg (400lbs) because everybody struggle to do their training program. Forget people, stay focus and do you training program until the end.

But if I do bad => At the beginning use light weight to do movements with the good form, the good technique. When you’ll stronger, you’ll can add weight slowly each week to reach your limit. You can hire a personal trainer for 1-2 sessions to learn and improve basic exercises techniques or form.

No I want only lose weight => It’s simple, you do basic exercises and you eat less. The training is the same for lose weight or gain muscle. It’s diet that make the difference ! It’s a science :

Eat more calories than you burn = gain weight
Eat less calories than you burn = lose weight

Your physical condition, it’s 80 % diet and 20 % training. If you want bulk, you need to have a specific diet to do this.

Track and adjust slowly your training program and your diet to see your progress.

No matter what you do, don’t be afraid of the free weight zone. Remember than 90 % of people inside are focus to do their exercises by looking in the mirror therefore don’t worry. Do your exercices, become better and become stronger.

What do you feel when you train with free weights ?

-Steph

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