Interview: Dr. Stuart McGill

Insights Interview: Sailing, Chainsaws, and Tissue Tolerance

AC:

Dr. Stuart McGill a name that will inevitably live on forever as being one of the most influential researchers of spinal biomechanics and its applications.  Dr. McGill has shaped my understanding of the lumbar spine in a way the scholastic system (at that time) couldn’t. Moreover, he helped me of ongoing lumbar pain though simple instruction and habit changing (avoiding repeated flexion during the treating of my patients). Really there aren’t enough words to say regarding this man and the impact he has made and will continue to make on humanity. Thanks Dr. McGill for your excellence in both work ethic and on a personal level. Your hospitality to my questions is much appreciated.

AC:

Spinal biomechanics isn’t something the typical college matriculate would say they want to study. Dr. McGill please explain how you became so interested in spinal biomechanics.

SM:
A series of chance events. I was starting my PhD in Systems Engineering and met a professor who was just starting spine research and I switched to his lab. His name was Bob Norman. He was a mentor to me in many components of life.

AC:

When I was watching your first DVD I noticed you had a boat. It looks like a pretty nice boat. Is that one of your hobbies?

SM:
I love to sail and that sequence was on a trip where we chartered a boat in the Virgin islands. I built a small wooden boat last winter and currently have a canoe under construction.

AC:

Moving into academia now, your research has sparked more controversy in health and fitness than personally anyone else I have read (and I read a lot). Extremes will always exist but what do you think people are missing when you come under fire regarding topics such as lumbar flexion during movement and exercise?

SM:
Several principles but here are a couple.

Tissues have a finite number of cycles of load, and particularly bending under load, until they break.

Bone, muscle adapt but discs accumulate fatigue loading. So it is important to use the number of bends wisely. Further, with so many people spending so much time sitting, bending the discs uses up even more capacity. There is usually little need to train more bending. Also posture – posture determines a tissues ability to survive load and usually flexion reduces disc strength. Choice of exercise is also so important to spare the spine – optimal choice allows a greater volume of training pain-free. Removing the cause of the offending motion/posture/load as well is a major key.

AC:

Considering this, how do you deal with people who criticize your work?

SM:
Most of it I have to ignore as they rarely have a full understanding. They may pick on one facet of our work not realizing that we have done work on spine tissues, back pain patients, athletes and use virtually all imaging and diagnostic techniques. We have several hundred scientific publications. For example this past weekend I was at a conference and one delegate stated that our work on TvA used surface electrodes and was not valid (only intramuscular electrodes are valid). I suppose he had read only one of our papers. I had to point out that had he read our complete work I was one of the first people in the world to have intramuscular electrodes implanted into my TvA and many other deep spine muscles too. This was published years ago. But having stated that sometimes their criticism is correct.

AC:

When you work on patients clinically do you ever have those patients who just don’t follow through with treatment or fail to improve? If you do, how do you personally deal with that?

SM:
First I don’t see the average painful back – only those who have failed to get better after seeing several other clinicians. So these are the difficult patients and that is our specialty. So, Yes I have patients who fail. We then try a different approach to see if we can get some improvement. But if they have better and worse days we rarely fail to find out the mechanisms that cause this and

from there we help to create more pain-free days. Then we try to modify the progression to keep building more success. As well, people have to pay out of their pockets to see me – that motivates them I think. Yet there are still those who don’t follow through which is their choice. And any clinical failure bothers me. And then there is the category of those who may have substantial pathology and I fail. They may have had several surgeries and they have little tissue left that is able to bear load or they may have been hit by a bus.

AC:

I have to ask this one. When was the last time you hurt your back?

SM:
I fell on ice this past winter and really cracked my pelvis – it took a while to get over that one.

AC:

Where do you see the future of spinal biomechanics? Whats exciting you at the moment?

SM:
Several avenues: developing more provocative tests to detect the painful tissues and learn more ways to remove the offending mechanism and pain. Learning the mechanisms that great athletes employ to enhance performance and perfecting more physical based treatments.

AC:

In your book there was a picture of you working with the wonderful Dr. Vladimir Janda. Which leads me to ask, who has influenced you?

SM:

Virtually all of the great experts: Janda, Sahrmann, Skaggs, Erhard, Kirkaldy-Willis, Farfan, Bogduk, to name just a few together with some of the great training pioneers: Siff, Santana, Kazmaier, and many other great coaches.

AC:

Lastly and probably the most personal. Whats something not many people know regarding your life?

SM:

I try to do heavy physical labour every day – my favorite tools are a chain saw and a heavy splitting maul. It is good therapy.

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Dr. Stuart M. McGill is a professor of spine biomechanics at the University of Waterloo (Waterloo, ON, Canada). His advice is often sought by governments, corporations, legal experts and elite athletes and teams from around the world. Difficult back cases are regularly referred to him for consultation. Dr. McGill’s research at the Spine Biomechanics Laboratory has three objectives: to understand how the low back functions; to understand how it becomes injured; and, knowing this, formulate and investigate hypotheses related to prevention of injury and optimal rehabilitation of the injured back, and ultimate performance of the athletic back.

They have two separate laboratory approaches – one which examines intact humans which utilizes a rather unique approach that monitors spine motion and body segment position, muscle activation, ligament involvement and modelling tissue loading in each individual subject; and a second approach where they examine the mechanical behaviour of low back tissues and spine specimens. His graduate students have been involved in several issues such as investigating the load tolerance of the spine under various types of load, assessment of spine stability, examination of devices such as abdominal belts, examination of various injury mechanisms and determining the safest methods of achieving performance in the back, to name a few.
This work has been recognized with many awards including the R. Tait McKenzie Award 2005, the CSB Career Award 2004, the Stow visiting lectureship from the Ohio State University College of Medicine 2002, the Steven Rose Lectureship from the Washington University School of Medicine 2001, to name a few.

http://www.backfitpro.com/

Interview: Bret Contreras

Insights Interview: Silver Linings and Forecasting of the Industry

AC:
Hi Bret, I want to thank you for your time and effort in making the interview happen.  I have looked up to many great people in the health and fitness industry over the last 15 years and one name that I keep seeing more and more of is yours.  Tell me how old you were when you started becoming interested in the field and also what your background is.

BC:
Hey Anthony, first of all I want to thank you for allowing me to do this interview. To answer your question, at fifteen years old I started reading every muscle mag I could get my hands on and training using bodypart splits. At twenty-four I stumbled upon HIT training. Before that I seriously didn’t know there were other “methods” out there other than HVT. Shortly after that, I stumbled upon sport-specific training and never looked back. Over the years I’ve taken a hard look at nearly every method, system, and style imaginable. I’m a 33 year-old CSCS with a master’s degree and a background as a high school mathematics teacher.

AC:
We all go through tribulation and trial and if you haven’t you will.  When you first started doing your job and focusing on your work, what were some of your biggest let downs, failures, and/or rejections?  What did you do to overcome this negativity?

BC:
The most difficult struggle I ever went through professionally was when I had to let go of the idea that my invention was going to make me a lot of money one day. In late 2006, I invented a glute-apparatus called the Skorcher. I thought it would take off especially considering the compelling EMG experiments that were conducted showing it’s effectiveness. However, the world wasn’t ready for the invention, the economy plummeted right around the time I was able to raise money to launch the product, and my dreams of “making it big” came to a screeching halt a couple of years ago. I became quite bitter and distrustful after this experience and am not sure if I’ll ever fully “recover” from the let down. I was lied to and taken advantage of by unscrupulous investors.

As time goes on, it becomes easier to see that everything happens for a reason. I gleaned some great business lessons and learned an awful lot about what type of person I never want to become. Best of all, I own one of the few Skorchers out there and can use it in my own training! Here’s my friend Keats Snideman using the Skorcher to do a single leg hip thrust.

AC:
Many people often get, “tall poppy” syndrome (where the person tries to cut another down for their own gain).  I am sure this happens to you at some time or another but what do you do to keep your mind focused away from this sort of stuff?

BC:
Tim Ferriss wrote an excellent blog about “dealing with haters. Here’s the link:

DEALING WITH HATERS

Here’s what I try to focus on:

1. The more popular your work, the more haters you’ll likely develop

2. The more cutting edge and innovative your work, the more haters you’ll likely develop

3. The Strength & Conditioning profession is male dominated and often ego-driven. Getting hated on comes with the territory and many don’t like “newcomers”

4. All publicity is good publicity

5. If you put yourself out there and your stuff works, you’re going to positively impact thousands of people. I’m one of the few trainers I know of who have invented and popularized exercises and created terminology that “caught on” in the industry. Focus on the good you’re doing and resist the temptation to get enraged by comments written on blogs and forum threads

6. Strength training attracts a lot of “meatheads” who love to pick fights on forums and say horrible things. Once again, getting hated on comes with the territory.

7. All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. – Arthur Schopenhauer 1788-1860

8. Nobody likes a negative person. If you can’t learn to deal with adversity and be positive most of the time, then doors aren’t going to open up for you and you’re not going to be able to spread your message and positively impact nearly as many people as you could if you were a happier person.

9. Our profession needs critical individuals who aren’t afraid to call it like they see it. Learn to appreciate these highly critical and opinionated folks as they’re a natural “checks and balances” system for our profession

10. Every negative situation that occurs is an opportunity for you to display your positivity, professionalism, adversity, and determination

I find that after considering these thoughts I’m able to calm down and not be deterred by haters.

AC:
How do you, Bret Contreras, motivate the unmotivated?  How do you make someone who is in denial about their health to come to terms with themselves?

BC:
First of all, it’s important to realize that you can’t motivate everyone. As a young personal trainer I used to give discounts and train so many people for free to the point where I went overboard in my quest to “save the world.” Now I reserve trying to “motivate the unmotivated” mostly to family members and dear friends. For these people, I try every angle imaginable. I beg, plead, bargain, write simple programs, print articles, email links to journal study abstracts, and try to find an “angle” that will do the trick. Sometimes you just have to accept that a person isn’t ready to care about their health and be proud of the fact that you may be “planting seeds” that will sprout later on down the road. Just never give up!

AC:
Who is the one person who has motivated you the most in your direct family?  How about in your field?

BC:
Although I have the greatest Mom and Dad in the world, I have to go with my Gramps on this one. He was an engineer and always bought me all kinds of math and physics books when I was in high school and college. I was probably the only kid in my high school who read Steven Hawking books and understood the theory of relativity. He would give me his Discover Magazines and talk to me about science all the time. This affected the way I approach everything in life.

As to my greatest influence in the field…that’s really tough. I’m a very unique trainer and don’t always follow the norm. I’ve been heavily influenced by Louie Simmons, Charlie Francis, Mike Boyle, Christian Thibaudeau, and Gray Cook. However, my training and methods are quite different than theirs. My number one influence would have to be Mel Siff (although I didn’t read his book until after he died so his influence on me occurred post-mortem). He was in my opinion the brightest guy to ever care about fitness. Although I’ll never come close, I aspire to think like him on a daily basis.

AC:
Where do you see the gym and fitness industry heading?  What will be the next big step for the fitness industry?

BC:
I thought long and hard about this one and have realized that I’m no prophet. My friend Carl Valle offered some insightful opinions on this topic. Here’s the link:

http://www.elitetrack.com/blogs/details/5271/

I’m curious to see if our profession ever enacts stringent licensing procedures for personal trainers. I’m curious to see if gyms keep becoming “fruitier” or if “manly” gyms will be resurrected. I look forward to the time when our profession has a better understanding of what “functional training” entails, as well as what best practices are for assessment/screening, gaining mobility/flexibility, maximizing transfer of training, and optimizing core training. I look forward to the time when we have a better understanding of program design as it pertains to manipulating training variables for various populations. As the different fields of Physiology, Biomechanics, Physical Therapy, and Psychology converge, we’ll gain a much better understanding of the “Big Picture.”

AC:
If you could train anyone who would it be?

BC:
Definitely Usain Bolt! I would love to conduct all sorts of analyses, experiments, and studies on him in hopes to figure out exactly what makes him so special. I would also love to see if I could help make him even faster. It’s easy to make a novice better. But getting the best in the world to be even better takes someone who really knows what they’re doing.

AC:
What’s your biggest advice for a new student or trainer?

BC:
As Rob Panariello, one of the brightest minds in the fitness and physical therapy fields likes to say, “Know the difference between fact and opinion.” Strength & Conditioning is an arte scienza. It’s a blend between art and science. There are too many variables to ever allow us to boil it down to an exact science. Much of what we do is based on opinion. No expert has all the answers. In fact, no expert even comes close. Many roads lead to Rome and there are many methods that can lead to success. Learn from all the experts via books, textbooks, articles, blogs, DVD’s, journals, seminars, college courses, and internships. Have respect for those who know what they’re doing but don’t put them on a pedestal. No matter how smart you think they are, they don’t have all the answers. We don’t have much figured out so always remain open-minded yet at the same time be highly skeptical. Try to be evidenced-based while also remaining innovative and staying on the cusp on scientific advancement. Don’t be afraid to try new methods as that’s how we learn. Don’t be afraid to fail. Develop your own philosophy based on evidence, theory, anecdotes, and opinions. Always err on the side of safety. Learn from a variety of fields as that sparks creativity. Make friends in the profession. Never stop training yourself!

That’s awesome advice Bret.  Thank you Bret for your time and input, I am really excited to keep following your work.  Although I have been through a decade or so of school, I am really new to the field and like everyone, I am always learning.  I am really inspired by your drive and work ethic and applaud you for your effort.  Thanks Bret, I appreciate you.

-Anthony Close

Thank you very much Anthony! I appreciate those words very much. It’s very nice to know that I’m inspiring others. Excellent and unique interview questions. Thanks again!

-Bret Contreras (http://bretcontreras.wordpress.com/)(www.thegluteguy.com)