Complementary Proteins

Not all proteins are created equal. There are two major types of proteins. Whole proteins, are proteins that you get from animal meats, eggs, dairy, and fish. These have all the essential amino acids in that our bodies require. The other types of proteins are called incomplete proteins. These are proteins that do not contain all the essential amino acids. For these proteins to be of value, they must be consumed in combination with one another to provide you with all the essential amino acids that should be consumed by humans.

What are amino acids?

Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. Altogether, there are 20 amino acids. All of these are required by our bodies, but not all of them are required in our diets. Our bodies are capable of making some amino acids on their own, but the ones that we cannot make are deemed essential. We must consume essential amino acids in our diets to make up for our inability to make them on our own. The essential amino acids include:

Histidine

Isoleucine

Leucine

Lysine

Methionine

Phenylalanine

Threonine

Tryptophan

Valine

Non-essential proteins can be made by our bodies. Therefore, we do not need to necessarily need to consume them. These include:

Alanine

Asparagine

Aspartate

Cysteine

Glutamate

Glutamine

Glycine

Proline

Serine

Tyrosine

Arginine* (can be considered essential during rapid periods of growth, childhood)

Foods that contain incomplete proteins include legumes, grains, and nuts/seeds. Legumes include beans, peas, and lentils. Grains include wheat, rice, oats, and barley, to name a few. There are many types of nuts and seeds but almonds, walnuts, pistachios, sunflower seeds, and flax seeds are a few. When foods from two or more of these categories are eaten throughout the day, they provide you with a spectrum of all the amino acids that your body needs to repair itself and grow.

For example:

Legumes + Nuts/Seeds = All Essential Amino Acids

Grains + Legumes = All Essential Amino Acids

These are just a couple examples and can be consumed in any combination that your heart desires. When eaten in combination these foods are considered complementary proteins. Consuming a mixture of incomplete protein sources is a good way to get more nutritional benefit into your diet. The stereotypical American diet consists of gains + grains + grains + grains. Branch out and add some of these other sources of protein and nutrients into your diet. This concept is especially important for the vegan or vegetarian who chooses to not eat whole protein sources. If you are going to choose to do this, YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THIS PRINCIPLE!

Ryan Goodell, CSCS

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Performance Does Not = Health

Athletes are the healthiest people, right?

 

No. That’s not the case. 

     Although athletes do have a level of athletic prowess and some of them look like Greek gods, they are not necessarily the epitomes of health. The training intensity and push to reach top-level performance comes at a cost. If you ask any elite-level athlete if they have sustained an injury, I guarantee that they will be able to remember instances when they have physically been beaten up by their training and competitions. This situation is obviously not ideal, but it happens. Even if they do everything in their power to prevent an injury and have great recovery practices, injuries will still happen. Athletes are riddled with musculoskeletal problems and, when it comes time for the season, are rarely ever 100% healthy after the first game.

     For the purposes of this post, “health” refers to that of the musculoskeletal system, not the cardiovascular. Athletes tend to have incredible cardiovascular systems. As impact forces and velocities increase in higher levels of sports, the incidence of injuries that athletes will accumulate over the years rises (figure 1). Athletes are literally trying to push the limit of human performance, and when you do that, it’s very possible to overreach. That’s when sprains, strains, broken bones, and everything in between occur. It’s not always one traumatic instance, like an acute injury during a game; smaller, chronic injuries can accumulate over time and sneak up on them. 

Figure 1: Graph showing the trend of musculoskeletal injuries in relation to a variety of factors related to athletes as they progress and train.

     I think this is a universal principle when it comes to training, especially if you are a driven and competitive person. Overreaching and subsequent injuries do happen, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do everything in your power to prevent them. Aches and pains are part of the journey. Your ability to recognize when you have the gas pedal floored and should pull off a little bit is crucial to maintaining performance for the long run. As long you are trending in the right direction, you’re fine.

     So performance doesn’t always equal heath, especially in athletics, but I’d rather be going to see an orthopedist than a cardiologist. The take-home point of this? Don’t let the aches, pains, bumps, and bruises stop you from reaching the level of performance or the body you want. Understand that this is also a learning process, and sometimes you don’t know what the limit is until you push it. Growth and progress occur in an area that plays with the limit of your abilities. When you exceed that limit, bad things happen. If you are training for performance you are going to get beat up a little. If you are training for health, you need to know where your limit is and try not to exceed it.

Ryan Goodell, CSCS

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Squat Talk: Spine Position and Bracing

     Spine position and bracing technique in the squat: this tends to be a hot topic area in my experience. To start, let’s go over the possible positions that your spine can end up in when squatting. 

     First, a neutral spine. A neutral spine is described as a natural lordosis of the lumbar spine, slight kyphosis of the thoracic spine, and natural lordosis of the cervical spine. This position is ideal if you are lifting for general health and wellness.

     Next on the list is an extended position of the spine. This position is not necessarily bad, but there are some considerations to take into account if you decide to go this route.

      Then we have spinal flexion. Let’s just put it this way, and make this one black and white: you do not want to be going into spinal flexion under load, when squatting (figure 1)!

 

 

Figure 1: Lumbar flexion under load. Depending on how you interpret the picture (left), it could also be a fart. You also do not want that because it will cause a loss of intraabdominal pressure. :)

     The spine also bends sideways, but if you are doing this in your squat, either you have something real funky going on, you didn’t set yourself up in the middle of the bar, or you unevenly loaded the weights.

Now that we’ve covered some of the positions and motions of the spine, how do these play into health and performance?

     From a health and wellness perspective, a neutral spine is the best position to be in, possibly with some slight extension. Holding this position during the squat will help develop strong core stabilizers to keep your muscles holding your spine in a nice position into your golden years. 

From a different perspective, there is the more extended spine position. I see this in lifting events such as those for powerlifting and Olympic lifting. In these instances, extension is required to lift maximal loads for a one-rep maximum. Going into more extension, or arching, will give your spine a relatively more stable position, partly due to the spine’s biomechanics and the fact that extension is the closed packed position of the lumbar spine. Structurally speaking, then, extension provides more stability, along with keeping a strong stable core contraction during the movement and bracing, allowing you to put more weight on the bar. 

Is this sustainable for the long term?

I lean towards “no.” If we are talking top-level performance in weight lifting, then this is the direction you would want to be going in. By all means you definitely don’t want to be going into lumbar flexion when lifting maximal amounts of weight when squatting. This extension can be seen well in the bottom position of a squat in powerlifting, and the bottom of the catch position during an Olympic lift. This technique will help you maintain a more upright position when under heavy loads. This is the nature of the sport, and so for these athletes to be in extension doesn’t worry me much. If we’re talking about general health and wellness and spine health, however, it would be best to go with a neutral spine when squatting.

Regardless of which route you choose here, you should be able to brace your core and support your spine using its natural “lifting belt mechanism.” This is sometimes referred to as a Valsalva technique, or “drawing in air.” This technique entails breathing into your stomach from the bottom up and contracting your core musculature to increase your intraabdominal pressure, which naturally provides stability to the spine (figure 2). Everyone was born with their own natural lifting belt. I highly recommend that you learn the Valsalva maneuver to maximize your performance and spinal health. Learning how to do this will also help you better utilize an actual lifting belt, if you choose to use one. Don’t just rely on external aids to provide support to your joints. There are some precautions to take before performing a Valsalva technique; for example, if you have dangerously high blood pressure you should avoid it.

Figure 2: Drawing in air, providing support to your lumbar spine.

In summary, keep your spine healthy for the long run. Your body will thank you for it.

Ryan Goodell, CSCS

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