control yourself with dr andreo spina

Ep 20: The Volume Problem

Volume has largely been viewed as an endlessly positive quality to pursue in current strength and conditioning protocols. However, “more” doesn’t alway equal “better”. 

In this episode, Dr. Spina sits down with FRS Instructors John Quint and Dr. Michael Chivers to discuss programming and volume issues in training. What are the downsides of pursuing volume? Moreover, what is missing from standard-model training programs?

Topics include:

• What is strength?
• How to elicit specific endocrine responses towards building this strength.
• Training inputs and how they can be defined and categorized.
• Programming and the importance of intensity.
• Blind-spots in current approaches to clinical rehabilitation. 

Disclaimer: This podcast does not provide medical advice and it is intended for informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. For more information or to seek out an FRS provider in your area, please visit our website.

Episode 19: Load Management and Injury Prevention

LOAD > CAPACITY = INJURY. Using this simple equation as a starting point, Dr. Spina explores the idea of Load Management in professional athletics. Specifically, he discusses how a shift in focus to tissue specific training can hedge an athlete's tissue capacity against the increasing loading demands that occur over their career.  Topics covered include injury mitigation and management, the physiology of tissue healing, cellular communication and force signalling, loading ‘vacations’ in professional sport, and more.

Disclaimer: This podcast does not provide medical advice and it is intended for informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. For more information or to seek out an FRS provider in your area, please visit our website.

Ep.18: Why does your back still hurt?

In this episode Dr. Spina discusses the management of low back pain and what may be missing from your treatment and/or rehabilitation strategy. Topics include the evolutionary anatomy of the spine, the importance of re-establishing segmental spinal motion, the misunderstandings regarding neutral spine, the need for specificity in treatment and training inputs, and more.

Whether you are a therapist, S&C coach, or patient, this podcast will shed light on some of the most common issues in dealing with both acute and chronic low back pain cases, as well as provide ideas to improve long term clinical outcomes.

Disclaimer: This podcast does not provide medical advice and it is intended for informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. For more information or to seek out an FRS provider in your area, please visit our website.

BONUS EPISODE: FRS Internal Strength Model® Roundtable

In this episode Dr. Spina, along with his fellow FRS lead instructors Dr. Michael Chivers, John Quint, and Dewey Nielsen, takes a deep dive into the new Functional Range Systems Internal Strength Model.  The conversation covers the evolution of strength training, the distinction between training for strength vs skill in high level athletics, contrasting standard model training with the Internal Strength model, managing force and training volume, and much more.  Since its inception, Functional Range Systems has challenged the status quo by offering logical reinterpretations of the scientific literature regarding human optimization.  Join the FRS team as they turn their lens to the development and practice of training for strength, its meaning, goals, and execution.

 

Ep, 6: Training the Art of Concentration - A conversation with Josh Halbert

In this episode of the podcast, Dr. Spina sits down for a conversation with conditioning specialist and Functional Range Systems Instructor Josh Halbert about a number of topics including his experience managing and training professional athletes, consciousness and its evolutionary basis, the physiology of meditation and its role in pain management, regular meditative practice, free will and managing motivation, flow state and creativity, building body awareness and control, managing training risk, the over prescription of weight lifting for athletic development, how to bullet-proof your athletes, and many more.

Follow:
Josh Halbert @GetChimpy @learnmobility
Dr. Andreo Spina @DrAndreoSpina

For information on upcoming seminars visit us at www.FunctionalAnatomySeminars.com

Ep. 5. On The Origins of Human Movement

In this white board session, Dr. Spina sits down to discuss the evolutionary origins of human movement and how an understanding of those origins leads to better exercise selection and programming. Also covered is the concept of movement and exercise prerequisites – Play Basketball? Love yoga? Want to smash your WODS? You love to run? Just remember, all movements have prerequisites and managing them will lead to performance enhancement and ongoing joint health. Ignoring this reality often has devastating, long-term consequences.

Although it’s a deep dive, the concepts covered in the podcast are presented in a very digestible manner making it a useful listen for everyone from therapists, to trainers, to athletes or anyone interested in human optimization. 

Ep 16: Cross-Cast with Don Saladino and Derek Hansen of the D&D Fitness Radio podcast.

For over 20 years, Don has coached actors, athletes, musicians, and business executives pushing them to function at their fullest potential. In 2005, he opened his NYC Gym, Drive 495. He has developed a reputation for training some of the biggest names in Hollywood for the big screen. Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Jake Gyllenhaal, John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Liev Schreiber, Sebastian Stan, Anne Hathaway, Zachary Levi, Drew Powell, Hugh Jackman, & David Harbour are among his roster of clients who have trained with him at Drive 495.

Derek is an International Sport Performance Consultant that has been working with athletes all ages and abilities in speed, strength and power sports since 1988. His coaching career started in Track and Field, providing instruction to sprinters of all ages eventually working with collegiate sprinters, hurdlers and jumpers. His career evolved rapidly working closely with some of the top performers in the world as a coach and a consultant – including Olympic medalists, world record holders, Canadian National team athletes, and professional athletes from numerous sports. He also serves as a performance consultant to numerous professional teams in the NFL, NBA, MLS and NHL, as well as major NCAA Division 1 programs throughout North America, specializing in speed development, strategic performance planning, return-to-competition protocols and neuromuscular electrical stimulation programming.

In this episode, I have the pleasure of speaking with Don and Derek across a variety of topics including:

• ‘Mobility’ vs internal training and how we define it within Functional Range Systems.  
• The approach to my own personal health and fitness.
• Spine and joint health, as it relates to mobility, stability, & articular health. 
• Movement and movement screening to maximize health and minimize the potential for injury
• The importance of addressing and managing pain on both a physical and psychological level.

iTunes – https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/d-d-fitness-radio-podcast/id1331724217

iHeart Radio – https://www.iheart.com/podcast/dd-fitness-radio-28797988/

Spreaker.com – https://www.spreaker.com/show/d-and-d-fitness-radios-show

Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/show/5Py2SSPA4mntNwYRm0Opri

You can reach both Don and Derek at the following locations:

Don Saladino: http://www.DonSaladino.com

Twitter and Instagram - @DonSaladino

YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/donsaladino

Ep.15: Whiteboard Session

In this white board session, Dr. Spina sits down to answer some questions specific to the Functional Range Systems, as well as questions relating to manual therapy as a whole.

Topics discussed include – a detailed description of the purpose/utilization of Controlled Articular Rotations (CARs) for articular assessment, training, and therapy; the differentiation between capsular workspace (CW), articular workspace (AW), and global workspace (GW) and how an understanding of these principles can focus/guide force based inputs (therapeutic and/or training); Chronic pain research and management; the neurophysiology of ‘muscle tightness’;  the difference between Neurological Tightness vs. Mechanical Tension and how the ability to distinguish the two can rapidly improve clinical outcomes; the histological goal of specific soft tissue treatment; and many more. This episode is a deep dive into the specifics of clinical practice full of big take always, and numerous ‘a-ha’ moments that will interest manual therapists, medical practitioners, and strength and conditioning specialists alike.

As this episode is part of our Whiteboard Series, if you’d like to reference Dr. Spina’s notes/illustrations during the podcast, please hop over to our YouTube channel at  https://youtu.be/upLI2OzqODU

Ep. 14: ‘The Evolution of Eating’: A conversation with 2X NYT best selling author Robb Wolf

In this episode of the podcast Dr. Spina sits down with former research biochemist and 2X New York Times best selling author of ‘The Paleo Solution’ and ‘Wired to Eat,’ Mr. Robb Wolf.  Robb has been a long-time authority on nutrition and has served as a review editor for the Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism, and as a consultant for the Naval Special Warefare Resiliency program.

The conversation broadly focuses on the evolutionary perspective of human nutrition.  Some of the topics covered include: contrasting physical vs. chemical (nutritional) evolution in homo sapiens, How the ‘caveman’ principle applies to understanding human dietary needs, the natural selective pressures that forged the human genome, consciousness and the challenges it presents to maintaining healthy eating habits, the Hedonic Treadmill, why we are wired to move less and eat more, intermittent fasting, the importance of personalized nutritional programming, the research landscape concerning human nutrition, the problems surrounding the concept of the ‘biohacking’, the reserve-capacity hypothesis, and many more.  Also discussed are the many myths surrounding Paleolithic eating, plant AND meat based diets, telomeres and human longevity, and caloric restriction.

Ep. 13: A Conversation with Dr. Duncan French, Vice President UFC Performance Institute

In this episode of the podcast, Dr. Spina sits down to speak with the Dr. Duncan French, Vice President of Performance at the UFC Performance Institute (UFCPI) in Las Vegas.  Dr. French is globally recognized as a leading expert in high-performance sport and is responsible for directing sport-specific technical interfaces that maximize the impact of performance services for UFC rostered athletes.  Prior to this role, he led Strength & Conditioning at the English Institute of Sport and was also the head S&C at Newcastle United Football Club in the Barclays English Premier League.  He has also co-authored over 60 peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts and seven book chapters.

Duncan holds a PhD from the University of Connecticut in Exercise Physiology with a focus on Neuroendocrinology.  As such, the discussion focuses largely on the endocrine (hormonal) responses to resistance training and conditioning.  Topics include the selection of appropriate training intensities, creating an anabolic environment in the athlete, the role of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA Axis), stress and its effect on hormonal output/metabolism, exercise selection, sport specificity, psychological factors that enhance or depress neuroendocrine output, progressive overload, training accommodation, the role of genetics in high level athletics vs. training effect, and more.

Dr. Spina and Dr. French also discuss the inner workings of the UFC Performance Institute which has become the world leader in Mixed Martial Arts research, training, and athlete care.