Your Brain's Crossings

Major Bone and Vessels Crossings

Crossings of vascular channels by bone or other structures (arteries, intestines, ) are spots that require attention in strength training in order to enhance circulation to the terminal organs.

Like any hydrodynamic system, the flow of fluids follows the least resistance routes and are pushed by pressure gradient.

In the body, the blood vessels provide the least resistance highway for blood flow. The heart and muscles impart the pressure gradient that circulates the blood and lymph around the body. The bones provide the rigid support of the blood vessels under the crossings, from one region to the other. Thus, crossing from the chest to the neck, which constitutes the most crucial blood crossing in the body, requires the clavicles and scapulas to be anchored on the spine in such manner that permits the unrestricted blood flow to the brain. Here, at those bony crossings, strengthening exercises make all the difference between health and fitness, and weakness and wasting.



Strengthening The Crossings

In a last week article in the NEJM titled "A Sinister Development — A 35-year-old woman presented to the emergency department with a 2-day history of progressive swelling and pain in her left leg, without antecedent trauma", the crossing of the left iliac artery over the left iliac vein caused compression of the vein and blocked circulation to the whole left leg.


This diagram depicts the anatomy of crossing:



In the Clean, Front Squat, there are two major bone-artery crossing that require constant emphasis in order to advance the strength of lifting.

1- The Clavicle-Subclavian vein Crossing:

Racking the bar on the shoulders presses down the clavicles. The fallen clavicles crucify the Subclavian veins and numb the arms. When the weight is too heavy, the arm circulation is totally blocked and the shoulders have to give up, dropping the barbell to the floor.



2- The Radius-Radial Artery Crossing:

The overhand grip in the Clean ends by placing the radius bone (the outer bone of the forearm) over the radian artery at its elbow path to the forearm. A weak forearm musculature causes the arms to numb and fail to support the barbell in front squat.

Many bodybuilders opt to use the underhand grip to avoid that crucifixion, as shown above.



Today, Wed Jul 11, 2007 11:07 pm , I devoted a whole workout for the strengthening the crosses, thanks to the above article:

1- Declined bench presses: 10 sets, no counting 20, 50, 60 kg loads. I devoted 5 sets of 5 reps in 85 kg then 3 sets of 3 reps in 100 kg, then 2 sets of 2 reps in 100 kg. That should enhance the lower support of the clavicles.

2- I supersetted the declined bench with standing triceps presses, starting from 20 kg up to 50 kg, in 8 sets of 5 rep.

3- I supersetted the above two with abdominal sit-ups of 5 sets by 20 reps with twist.

4- I then moved to theseated front press and did 10 sets, 3 in 60 kg, 3 in 70, and 3 in 80 of 6 to 3 reps. And ended with 1 set of 90 kg in 2 reps. That felt great. Both that radial and clavicular crossing were now well strengthened.

5- I supersetted the shoulder press with weighted abdominal sit-ups on declined bench starting with 20 kg for 4 sets and 40 kg in 4 sets all of 6 reps. That was very invigorating exercise.

6- In thedeadlift, two fellows joined me. So I stayed light in 60 kg for 4 sets of 5. Then, solo, moved to 100 kg for 2 sets and 140 kg in 2 sets all in 3 reps.

7- Then I was invited to do dips in 4 sets of 10 and triceps again in heavy 80 bounds rope extension over the back.

Here is my reasoning:

1- Abdominal strengthening with weights in extensive number of sets enhances diaphragmatic support and respiratory muscles.
2- The Chest and Shoulder presses further enhance respiratory muscles and clavicular and scapular attachments.
3- The Deadlift strengthens the support of skull-spine structures (Trapezius and spinal erectors). That further supports the clavicles.
4- The seated front press and standing triceps presses strengthen the forearm crossings in the overhand grip.

ere is my reasoning:

Lift With Me

Learning how to lift weights beyond the age of 7 years is as demanding as learning academic subjects in elementary school. It would require many years of hard, and consistent labor, in order to implant the seeds of a new discipline into your brain.

Now, imagine that you were 12 years old, never learned how to read, write, or think literally. Then, imagine how formidable would be the task of getting you to decipher the secrets of the alphabets and numerals that afford literal folks the luxury of communicating by symbols. 

Lifting with me is, therefore, not a pleasant cake walk. It never has been except for very few people with very special gifts. 

 Most of those gifted students of mine came from the poorest and neediest families, which gave them the deepest appreciation for acquiring the skills of weightlifting. People with the least resources are truly too naive to tell that lifting weights would never make them rich.

Have you ever noticed that the most talented circus clowns sleep in tents, on deserted lands or cheap hotels? Like circus clowns, weightlifters enjoy the greatest benefits of being awesomely strong and healthy, yet least appreciated as professionals. They invest in their health, whereas a professional is required to generate revenues for enriching the employer. 

Even if you commit to the brutal demands of training for weightlifting despite the lack of any immediate financial gratification, and despite your advanced illiteracy in physical performance, you are faced with the demands for extraordinary creativity in order to overcome your addiction to laziness, indiscretion, and poor understanding of the nature of biological development of your physique.  You might have retained a great sense of the challenges of your early years of life and how you triumphed over many relentless challenges, both emotional and physical.  

Such retention of your past success might be the only hope for your potential to triumph in the future, lifting with me, in another chapter of your development and growth.  

In the immediate environment of in-person training, the governing relationship between the trainer and the trainee is no different from any human relation , where the two parties interact on emotional basis, rather than objective, rational one. An annoying, unpleasant, or unreliable trainee would lose the best chances of benefiting from his/her mentor, who would be rather seeking cheerful company than putting up with difficult encounters.  In the indirect forum of training through books, media, and other forms of remote communication, other untoward issues arise such as the lack of understanding of the distant parties of each other's motive. You would have hard time to emotionally attach to a remote mentor when your own relationships with others are founded on look, touch, and picking and choosing your acquaintances. 

If your experience has led you to develop deep appreciation for getting healthier, stronger, and smarter about  physical performance, you would have to strive to isolate your handicap and annoying ignorance from those who could lend you hand during your development and growth. Like a drowning victim who is being rescued by divers, you have to submit entirely to the hands of your saviors. In stead of being submerged under water, you are buried under tons of exercises, policies of training, and strict physical operations that affect your body and mind in a manner very predictable to experienced people other than you. 

All your taboos have to be crushed and new ones constructed in their place. If you believe that you should only be lifting weight to stay healthy and not become a champion, then no one would put up with your mediocre goal.

First, if you have never been a champion, you may not predict that you could not be one. Again, no one likes people with lame outlook on life.

Second, if you believe that you must have a definitive time frame for reaching certain landmark then you are in the wrong business because no one could predict when a genius would arise out of someone. Some people drag their feet in life like every ordinary others, yet the same people could be transformed to greater heights when opportunities trigger their hidden potentials.  

Having primed your brain to accommodate the new discipline, you are then faced with the true nitty gritty of the sciences of mechanics, physiology, and psychology. You have to learn how to reduce the number of exercises to the most practical limit that does not batter your psyche to despair.

You have to develop penetrating senses to what exercises could do good to your heart and lungs while maintaining progressively strengthening musculoskeletal frame. 

If you could quickly grip the fundamentals of picking the least number of the most effective exercises that maintain highly integrated bodily health, you then need to do the unthinkable of committing your remaining years of life to such new discipline of lifting, planning, and making decisions on many fronts of hard core sciences. 


My own growth and development were impacted by many fortunate events that kept me on the right trial, navigating between all sorts of adversaries. My greatest asset was my lack of ability to express my gut feeling when the urge kicks in. That gave me opportune time to test many new challenges before I would have avoided them from the initial outlook. Listening, waiting, and avoiding immediate reactions have enriched my life with many precious skills which many people lacked, out of their ignorance of how to acquire such skills or what to make of them.