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In case you didn’t read the essay yet injuries, let me go down that road for a split second as well. The
best way to recover from any type of injury, even if you cannot push any weight on that joint or limb or
maybe it’s even an internal organ, is movement.
The lymph fluid and blood flow throughout the body is critica l in healing (another reason I adamantly
oppose ice for any type of injury!). We had a football player this past year that was the starting
quarterback on a high-level team. Half way through the season, he suffered a hairline fracture in his
tibia.
I love to use reverse engineering to prove a solid principle; the way we add raw material to bones is to
stress them and make them perform weight bearing activities. I know calcium has been the holy grail
for fighting against osteoporosis, but that is more of a marketing scheme from the very toxic and
poisonous pasteurized milk industry (I know, I will make one of the last essays about raw milk vs.
pasteurized milk and the like).
Common knowledge would dictate that the best way to heal from a hairline fracture would be to
continue to put weight on the bone. There is a HUGE difference between stressing the body and over-
stressing it. In the case of the bone, remember that the body always does the opposite of what you
think are doing.
Of course, the doctors and athletic trainers had him in a cast and allowed no weight bearing for 8
weeks. Season over.
By not moving and stressing that leg to a minimal standard, the bone takes longer to heal and becomes
weaker. Again, the body responds the opposite way of what you want it to do.
Whether you sustain an acute or chronic injury, IF you buy into the belief that the best route is to be
still, you will find yourself in a steady state of decline, both physically and mentally. I cannot
understate the importance of movement and brain health. Momentum of the negative sort will take
over and momentum is a powerful force indeed.
Second to last thing: unilateral training is a great way to refresh the body, mind and nervous system. If
you are a busy dad that happens to go on a lot of business trips, try unilateral training the first day or
two to rejuvenate the body after flying around the country (flying is a HUGE stressor to the body).
The last thing I want to speak of regarding unilateral training is that even if you are not injured, training
one limb at a time will lead to way better core activation due to the uneven forces placed upon the
core and it will lead to more muscle growth. Go back up top and refer to the force deficit that you
experience when training both limbs at the same time.
Growing bigger muscles is all about applying the muscles to new stress. If you can overload a muscle
region with more weight than it otherwise would be able to withstand under traditional training, it will
have no choice but to grow to adapt to that stress. Let’s suppose you can squat 300 pounds. Well, if
you assumed, like most people, that you could do 150 with each leg, you’d be wrong. What I have