A Coach's Guide to Optimizing Movement

Citation preview

Page

1

A Coach’s Guide to Optimizing Movement Rethinking the Big Patterns

Pat Davidson, PhD

Page

2

CONTENTS 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10

Foundational Questions

...6

Foundational Principles

...11

Foundations of the Model

...26

Principles of Progression

...43

Pattern 1: Breathing

...54

Pattern 2: Core: Pelvic Focus

...69

Pattern 3: Core: Thorax Focus

...96

Pattern 4: Locomotion

...122

Pattern 5: Change of Direction

...141

Pattern 6: Throwing

...152

CONTENTS 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Pattern 7: Triple Extension

...168

Hip-Dominant

...198

Knee-Dominant

...217

Horizontal Push

...235

Horizontal Pull

...252

Vertical Push

...269

Vertical Pull

...284

What Do I Do With This on Monday?

...297

Conclusions

...307

Page

4

Introduction Being in its infancy, the fitness world doesn’t yet have a central, governing concept to ground it. Because of this, the professionals who presently work in this world display many of the worst aspects of tribalism. Within the ecosystem of fitness, there are specialists from yoga, Crossfit, powerlifting, animal flow, Pilates, strongman, Olympic weightlifting, figure, Zumba, spin classes in the dark, boxing classes, rowing classes, treadmill classes, kickboxing, surfboard classes, rock climbing gyms, Ninja Warrior gyms, bodybuilding, bikini, boot camps, bodyweight only, super slow training, Tabata, and countless others. The one tendency common to many professionals in all of these camps is that each thinks that they have the secret sauce to optimal physical training, and that everyone else is deeply misguided. Meanwhile, within such a divided and antagonistic ecosystem, the consumer has no way to discern a quality product from trash. Many consumers just want to belong to a particular discipline. Many want to feel as though they have an inside track towards the body they want. Presented with infomercial nonsense and hoping for a silver bullet, they buy gadgets and slapped-together workout routines. After all, the purveyors are affable and attractive, with

larger than life personalities. Unfortunately, those same purveyors are often charlatans, devoid of actual knowledge. To serve the fitness consumer well, not to mention foster mutual respect amongst fitness professionals, the fitness industry needs that central governing concept. We need a systematic approach that names the primary forms of trainable exercises. This system should be descriptive in nature, and able to articulate with accurate terminology exactly what an exercise is. An early right of passage for any young scientific domain is the construction of taxonomy for the phenomena within it. The most famous scientific taxonomy is Systema Naturae constructed by Carolus Linnaeus for the classification of life forms. By going through the hierarchical arrangement of Linnaeus’ taxonomy, one can effectively classify any form of life on the planet. In my mind, the world of exercise is not very different from the world of life. Life on planet Earth is incredibly diverse, with seemingly countless varieties of each type of creature, plant, or fungi. Some forms of life are so bizarre that it is hard to believe they exist. But every living thing makes perfect sense when considered in the context of its environmental niche. If something does not make sense, then it goes extinct. This is the vetting process of time. As exercise goes, there are so many ways in which we humans choose to move, ranging from logical, to a little ridiculous to downright dangerous. A similar vetting process has occurred with exercise as with life. Things that work stay around, whereas things that do not disappear over time. Regardless of the type of movement/exercise/ training practice that a person chooses to engage in, there should be some progression they can follow to take them from the ranks of entry level, to intermediate, to advanced practitioner. Not all who begin an exercise practice are capable of reaching advanced trainee ranking, but such a logical, sequential progression—one

Page

5

based on fundamental principles—should be the backbone of any discipline’s training model. This book is not intended to reach into movement realms, such as yoga, Pilates, or dance. Rather, this book will focus on forms of exercise primarily aimed at creating large scale, measurable physiological adaptations. Aerobic exercise, strength training, and reactive drills are forms of exercise that yield measurable adaptations like increased capillary density, mitochondrial biogenesis, muscular hypertrophy, speed increases, strength increases, and jump height increases, and hence characterize the motor patterns we will cover. The training-based activities that will be referenced in this book are ones commonly performed in commercial gyms, and both private sector and public sector strength and conditioning training rooms. I will begin by laying out the trainable menu of activities performed in these environments. Once that is done, guidelines on the proper way to perform these activities will be provided, as will the fundamental principles underlying my approach. This synthesis will remove the need for listing and describing endless individual exercises, as well as highlight the strong similarities and connections between seemingly dissimilar exercises. Mastery always depends upon understanding such underlying principles. They will be presented in the most objective manner possible. Which body parts / muscle groups are targeted, which are aligned with others, the heft of the load, the velocity of the movement and other specifications will be described for each exercise covered. The design of this model won’t be perfect, and may reveal certain shortcomings. All I hope is that this model is useful to you, as I believe it can be incredibly so, for those who take the time to understand and implement it.

01 Foundational Questions

Page

7

Foundational Questions

Chapter 1

This is a book about movement. The aim of this book is to allow you to objectively evaluate movement quality and to coach towards improvement thereof. To this end, I will offer a system—a taxonomy—that categorizes and describes all trainable movement. Secondly, I will offer a competency checklist for each category so that you can assess, according to fixed criteria, the execution of a given movement. The aim is to be as systematic as possible. The downstream effects of such an approach can be far-reaching. A taxonomy can provide a universal language for exercise professionals, allowing clear communication between coaches, trainers, and physical therapists. The intended outcome of each exercise will be readily apparent. Fixed criteria will standardize movement quality so as to lead us towards objective appraisal of movement performance. But why do we need objective standards in the first place? This chapter will try to address that question.

Great fitness coaches have been trying to categorize things for a long time. In the track and field world, training days are often divided by the neurological intensity of the chosen activities. When training sprinters, coaches often have high intensity days with sprinting, heavy lifting, and jumping with maximal intent. Low intensity days include tempo runs, calisthenic circuits, and massage therapy. Strength and conditioning coaches may divide training days for athletes by the direction the athletes are moving in (linear or multidirectional), and by the movement patterns being trained (hip dominant, knee dominant, pushing, pulling, etc.). Coaches in strength sport may divide their training by rate of force development, with maximum effort days (heavy weights moved slow), dynamic effort method days (submaximal weights moved at maximal velocity), and repeated effort method days (submaximal weights moved to failure). Some coaches, however, have a less organized approach, likely due to a lack of understanding behind the effects of specific drills. Without a scientific understanding or an empirical process, such training plans yield unpredictable outcomes. Furthermore, a lack of scientific rigor can undermine the credibility of exercise science as a field. If we as fitness professionals want to learn from a more mature field, we should look to medicine. In the medical field, conditions and treatments are carefully defined. Tests are run to find quantifiable deficiencies. Drugs specific to a condition are administered at regulated and titrated doses, according to diagnosis and prognosis. If we too can become more exact with our measurements, definitions, and dosages, and if we can bring these to bear on precise movements for specific outcomes, we too will be able to create better results for a greater number of people.

Page

8

The purpose of medicine is to heal. The purpose of training is to create specific structural and functional adaptations in the body. A structural adaptation is an increase or decrease in a tissue such as muscle whereas a functional adaptation is when someone’s performance improves in a specific task, such as squatting more weight in a ten rep max set. Most of the time, structural and functional adaptations feed into each other. For instance, you would expect that by training the squat, an athlete would grow their quadriceps, and that, with bigger quadriceps, they would then be able to squat more weight. The difficult question is whether structural change drives functional change or whether the opposite holds true. The answer is probably that it depends on both the individual and the context. In any case, the take-home message here is that training is about changing the form and function of our bodies. “What gets measured gets managed”—a quote generally attributed to Peter Drucker, one of the philosophical and practical founders of the modern business corporation—should be on the wall of every gym. The implication of the quote is that you first need to decide what variables you want to manage. In order to decide that, you must figure out what specific structural or functional changes you want to drive. Next, you would do some research to find out what training measures are targeted and appropriate, recommended by experts and supported by science. When you begin training, establish baseline measurements for the relevant variables. If you’re working with a 5k runner, you should probably measure how fast they can run five kilometers as well as other distances you plan to have them run in training. If you’re working with a powerlifter, you should probably measure their squat, bench, and deadlift. If you’re working with someone who wants to lose weight, you should probably measure their weight, food intake, and some key fitness variables. Continue to measure as you implement your training plan. Have some end date in mind when you plan to formally measure and evaluate your training outcomes. When you identify the variables you will

be measuring in a trainee, you automatically invite his or her attention, thought, and effort to focus on those specific variables. If, during the course of training, values associated with those variables remain static or change in the opposite of the desired direction, this may upset and potentially demotivate the subject. Conversely, seeing a variable improve has the power to motivate him or her. Therefore, make sure you measure only those variables that are both critical and likely to change in the desired direction, omitting any that don’t meet these criteria as unnecessary noise. Once you have them in hand, measure them consistently and often. Not surprisingly, those who weigh themselves often tend to lose more weight than those who weigh themselves less frequently, and those who consistently time tasks tend to improve upon their times with future attempts. At the end of the training program, assess. If the program was a success, stick to that strategy as long as it continues to drive change. If the program was a failure, go back to the drawing board, perhaps first consulting with a coach or other experienced professional who can help revise or oversee your methodology. The most important thing is to be very specific in what you are trying to improve, and measure exactly that variable as best you can. Always let data show you which practice is best. Science, theory, and practical advice are all great, but the numbers are where the rubber meets the road. What about those clients who come to you with very vague, “look good / feel good” goals? They too will need to measure and train specific variables. For those new to exercise or low-level trainees, my recommendation is to measure aerobic performance and slow speed strength at the outset of the training process. Humans evolved for endurance. Our systems have a greater capacity to improve aerobic fitness and slow speed strength than high-velocity, phosphagen-powered activities like sprinting and jumping. This may, in part, explain why an untrained person can improve aerobic performance by 100% or more—often going from a 15 min mile to a 7:30 mile, for instance—or why

Page

9

another may see similar improvements in the deadlift, not uncommonly going from 135 lbs to 315 lbs—but find it virtually impossible to get a similar percent change in a vertical jump. By choosing to train aspects that change quickly, and measuring consistently and often, you will be giving your client frequent, positive feedback. The reward of improvement will likely get him or her hooked on the process, and may often turn him or her into habitual exercisers. As such, it’s in everyone’s best interest for trainers to provide as much positive reinforcement as possible to their trainees. A discouraged client is more likely to quit, having invested their time, effort and financial resources with little perceived return. A feedback loop that allows them to see a return on those investments early on in their fitness journey reduces that risk. Only when we strive towards something do we tend to exert our best effort, and exercise can only create significant body and lifestyle changes when performed with intense effort. Whatever physical goal one hopes to accomplish, parts of the process will inevitably be very difficult and unpleasant. Sacrifice and even suffering in the present are prerequisite for rewards in the future. All the more reason to keep motivation high, so as to pull clients through this discomfort. By setting specific numbers to be hit on a specific date, you will increase their motivation to work on those habits and behaviors that move them towards their goal, whether that means training consistently, not drinking the night before a training session, etc. In addition to benchmarking against measurable goals, some clients may benefit from introducing a competitive element to their training, which taps into the human desire to win, stand apart, or succeed relative others. As a sidebar, consider your own motivation and your own return on investment as a coach. Sure, most coaches want to work with the best of the best professional athletes, but working with those individuals is more about management rather than radical improvement. Can you prevent a 300 pound lineman from

falling into your quarterback’s knee? Can you prevent a defenseman in hockey from cross checking your star center? Can you dramatically improve the athleticism of NBA’s current MVP? No. At best, you and the athlete may come up with a best case scenario plan, and you may improve the goal outcome by .05%, which may well be an outstanding achievement. But weigh this marginal improvement against the results you could get training an average 15 year old kid, or perhaps a freshman college athlete. Or with a sedentary 35 year old mom, who just wants to look and feel a little better. What about a 75 year old man who simply wants to be capable of performing standard household chores? These are the people you can transform, whose lives you can radically alter by improving their physical capabilities by hundreds of percentage points. The motivated, engaged, lively and committed, are great to work with. But elite athletes get the smallest return on investment from their work with fitness professionals, while those just starting out on their fitness journey typically get the most. Those who aren’t physically fit need help. Those who are moderately fit need help. Elite athletes need help. As fitness professionals, it’s our job to differentiate between these populations, and figure out which one we might be best suited for. And now, a word on range of motion, which a book about human movement must address. Range of motion is measurable and directly affects human movement, so it should invite our interest. Is it possible to change the range of motion of someone’s joints? The answer to this is a resounding yes. Range of motion is a very fickle beast. If I have been sitting down for a long time, such as during a long car ride, I may find myself feeling extremely stiff. If I were to be tested after an eight hour drive, I would probably display poor range of motion in a number of my joints. If, conversely, I were to take a 90 minute yoga class, I would expect improvements in my range of motion immediately afterwards. Range of motion is almost always better right after performing a targeted stretch held for long enough. However, the effects of

Page

10

stretching are acute in nature. If I were to measure my toe touch range of motion and then do a 60-second hamstrings stretch, I would expect to see an immediate and substantial improvement in my toe touch. If I held another 60 second hamstrings stretch, I would expect further improvement. What happens if I come back the next day? I’d probably display the exact same range of motion as I did the previous day on the first toe touch test, and I’d probably improve about the same amount after each hamstring stretch. Although I’d gain range of motion immediately after stretching, I’d lose it again as the day went on and be right back to where I started on the third day of testing. In other words, improvements in range of motion are not chronic and therefore not cumulative, getting you nowhere from a big picture standpoint. Can we truly change the way people move? Your motor neurons are basically done with myelination by the time you finish puberty. This essentially means that the nerves that go from your brain and spinal cord to your muscles have completed their wiring. Neuroplasticity research has demonstrated that there remains some capacity to rewire our sensorimotor system, but only with difficulty. True change requires an unbelievable amount of time, conscious effort, and volume. So, generally speaking, in terms of range of motion and the execution of previously learned motor patterns, you’re stuck with what you’ve got at the end of puberty. This is particularly true with our largely sedentary Western population. Now, this does not mean you can’t learn new skills or master new movements. Thirty year old adults can learn to squat with great form, do handstands, break dance, sew, or do any other number of physical skills and tasks. However, if you are an absolute stiff at the age of 35, it is going to take a hell of a lot more than an hour of yoga four times a week to remodel you into a pliable, highly flexible individual. To achieve that, you would probably have to quit your job, move to a very different place, and become extremely physically active in tasks that

demand exertion through large ranges of motion for hours every day. And, the likelihood is that even if you did that, you would still be less flexible than someone who was a gymnast between ages 5 and 18 (but then settled into a typical suburban Western lifestyle into their early 30s). That said, we can all become better movers, and acute, transient changes in range of motion can be parlayed into better movement in training. This book will systematically guide you through this process. This will not be a shallow dive concluding with a platitude along the lines of, “Stay on your heels when you squat.” We’re going all the way to the bottom of the ocean. In fact, if you learn the competency rules and follow the recommendations, you will display masterful mechanics which will, in turn, allow you to train as hard as you possibly can. I hope you want to get jacked, or get freaky strong, or be an incredible endurance athlete, or play football, basketball, soccer, or golf. I hope you have specific fitness and performance goals that you’re willing to work your ass off to reach. That said, if you’re going to shoot for the stars, how you move becomes a big deal. If you move improperly, you’re probably going to torque yourself up, and not make it as far as you could. Avoidance of unnecessary injuries that come from training with poor form is the biggest culprit that I strive to pin down, and help others avoid. This book is my attempt at bringing my methods to anyone who’d like to benefit from this codified system. In addition to providing a taxonomy of exercise and standardized execution guidelines, this book will also describe principles for progression and regression, which will act as a troubleshooting guide for athletes/clients who perform exercises improperly. Using these should help you examine a specific drill and apply recommendations that can steer the client back to optimal execution.

02 Foundational Principles

Page

12

Foundational Principles

Chapter 2 Theories and Models

Theories are testable explanations of phenomena, created in an attempt to comprehensively explain it. When we master a subject, we gain the ability to predict outcomes, and to manipulate it for our benefit. Moreover, theories ultimately provide us with the ability to make generalized observations about ourselves and the world we live in, and guide us to construct models that can be used to explain both the human organism and the world we inhabit. The ability to formulate theories also increases our likelihood of obtaining desired outcomes, leveraging the branch of philosophy known as Scientific Materialism. George Box famously stated: “All models are wrong, but some are useful”. In other words, there is no way to be 100% right about a topic or an outcome. Instead, everything is based on probability. Scientists attempt to increase the probability of their predictions being correct (when tested in a laboratory or in real life set-

tings). When we arrive at solid theoretical conclusions, we inherit strong guideposts to direct us towards more hits than misses.

Model 1: Variability Variability characterizes something as having multiple capabilities for accomplishing the same task. An increased number of viable options for getting something done provides a sort of security blanket. When variability is present, the chances that an organism is going to be wiped out through a catastrophic event are reduced, and the chances that it comes through are increased. At the most macroscopic level, life on Earth has selected to incorporate variability into its fabric. The very process of creating life is an incredibly unlikely event. Life as a phenomena has existed for an unimaginably long time. Life most certainly began simplistically. The first life form(s) possessed the ability to replicate themselves, as well as the ability to alter themselves in the process of replication. For life on Earth, perfect fidelity in replication wasn’t in the cards. Rather, all life on earth undergoes random mutation upon replication. As they spread, life forms increasingly diverged from their origins, and became increasingly more complex. Life has had millennia upon millennia to grow, differentiate, diversify, spread out, arm and armor itself, and become increasingly more complicated and intricate in its makeup. There are many hypotheses on why variance is selected for. The most likely explanation is that an increase in variability provides life forms with greater chances for survival. For instance, extinction-level events of the past have instantaneously and dramatically altered the environment in which many life species found themselves, rendering a good number of them

Page

13

unequipped to survive. This is the fate that befell many species when oxygen arose and came to dominate ambient air on our planet or when the event that wiped out the dinosaurs occurred. Through these catastrophic events, the survival of life on Earth as such depended on the survival of one or more species. Because the odds of this happening grow with each new species that arises, the more variance, the better those odds. While opting for a strategy of differentiation, a common thread continues to permeate all life forms: a carbon backbone. It seems that, for greatest evolutionary success, life can be neither too rigid or homogeneous, nor too chaotic, lacking any common denominator. Variability is the middleground between these two extremes. Human movement capabilities can be thought of as being rigid, variable, and chaotic. Movement variability is quite an involved subject, which I will do my best to simplify. Excellent athletes and teams possess the ability to win through multiple strategies. Great teams in American football typically possess optionality. They can line up with different personnel in different formations on the defensive side of the ball to appropriately counteract the offense. When they are on the offensive, this same team may employ different strategies, throwing the ball frequently to break through some defensive schemes, but using running attacks against others. Great teams can win using blowouts, shootouts, low scoring field possession games, or in some mix of all of the above circumstances. Conversely, the flash-in-the-pan teams are those that rely solely on their quarterback for their offensive plays. What happens when the weather isn’t perfect? What happens if someone gets hurt? A lack of variability hurts these one-dimensional teams when an unforeseen event occurs, because they lack the optionality provided by a backup plan or alternate strategy. The Greats can win any day, any time, any which way.

With great athletes performing specific skills, much the same rules apply. Any high-level quarterback can throw the ball accurately under ideal circumstances where they stand tall and clean in the pocket and deliver the ball over the top with classic throwing mechanics. The difference between the good and the great is that the great ones can still throw the ball accurately when they have a defender coming in hot, or when they are on the move, or when they have to drop their arm slot and release three quarters, side arm, off the wrong foot, or with any other number of factors influencing the exact way that they get the job done. Rigid athletes need everything to be perfect. Chaotic athletes are inconsistent, and hence unreliable. The variable athlete increases the likelihood that he or she can successfully accomplish the task, regardless of what’s going on around him or her. How do we gain movement variability? The answer to this is a two-parter. First, the subject needs to demonstrate movement potential. That is, the demonstration that the joints can move through acceptable human norms in joint range of motion tests. Exercise and therapeutics scientists have measured every human joint, and arrived at standard and acceptable ranges of motion for how many degrees each should be able to move, making it possible to look up normal ranges of motion for elbow flexion, big toe extension, cervical spine rotation, or femoral adduction or any other joint in most Kinesiology textbooks. There are two primary types of movers who are significantly deviated from standardized joint range of motion: the rigid and the chaotic. Rigid individuals demonstrate dramatically reduced range of motion, and chaotic individuals demonstrate an inability to control their axial and/or appendicular skeleton while moving. Rigidity and chaos are red flags, both from a movement competency and injury avoidance perspective. That said, there are techniques and methods that can move rigid and chaotic individuals back towards normal ranges of motion and control, and such techniques will be discussed in this book.

Page

14

The second part of bringing about movement variability entails learning the fundamentals of body control and mechanics for the training and competition movements of interest. In other words, passing the joint range of motion standardized table tests gives one clearance to enter motor learning 101. In the world of fitness, this means the big training patterns typically performed in athletic development centers and general population gyms. While adequate range of motion theoretically enables us to execute requisite movements with ideal technique, it does not imply that we will be able to perform those movements properly out of the gate. Those who don’t possess the underlying prerequisite joint motion capabilities won’t be able to achieve certain positions required for proper execution of some training exercises, the best coaching in the world notwithstanding. Those who do possesses the movement prerequisites are ready for a great coach to teach the technique and tactics that characterize great training. Children help us understand movement variability well. A healthy five year old will most likely demonstrate acceptable range of motion in all joints, but will most likely be unable to consistently shoot a basketball into a hoop. The child may employ any number of strategies to achieve this task. On one shot, they may throw a granny style scoop shot, followed by throwing it like a baseball, followed by a throw used in soccer, etc. These strategies can be described as chaotic, stemming from the fact that the subject hasn’t learned the fundamentals of properly shooting a basketball. Because the child passed all the range of motion tests, he or she has the potential to be coached to learn how to properly shoot a basketball, but, until this motor pattern is learned and engrained, he or she does not possess movement variability for this task. Those who have learned the fundamentals of how to perform a movement properly will display increasing movement variability as they move towards mastery. As the child gets coaching and practice, chaos will begin to get

replaced by low variability shooting. As the child abandons strategies that have extremely low probabilities for success, more and more of his or her shots begin to resemble one another. As the child matures in basketball, he or she will be exposed to shooting the ball under different circumstances. When they are closely guarded, they will learn to alter their shot to a certain degree. When they are shooting off the dribble, they will develop a distinctive shot from the ones used to “catch and shoot”. The child takes the fundamental nature of the shot, and, increasingly, morphs the pattern to fit the exact circumstances he or she is in. This is the essence of the variability we are after. Passing the table tests that confirm our potential for mastering the fundamentals of a movement or sport, and obtaining “motor learning 101” of said movement or sport from a great coach marks the start of true high-level variability.

Model 2: The Invariant Representation of Memory and Archetypes Your brain stores your memories. Grab a pen and paper for me, and sign your name on the paper. Next, put your pen down, and sign your name with your index finger in the air in front of you. Now, point the toes on your foot, and sign your name with your big toe into the air in front of you. Now, try signing your name with your elbow. Did you use the same series of strokes performed in the same angle with the same sequence? My guess is, you did. Have you ever tried to sign your name with your elbow before? My guess is, you haven’t. Did you have to learn how to sign your name with your foot before being able to do it? Nah. The point of this is that your brain has a stored memory for the motor program, “sign your name”, kept somewhere in the synaptic connections that make up your interconnected neural networks. The memory “sign your name” is a static, unchanging entity. The only thing that changes is the context under which you are attempting to execute this program. Building on the “sign your name”, program, let me ask you some follow up questions.

Page

15

If you were a young child and you had just learned how to sign your name the previous week, do you think you could expertly execute this task with your foot or your nose? Unlikely. The only way you are going to be able to execute, “sign your name” with a multitude of body parts is by having gained a tremendous amount of practice at the task. In your case, the practice came with paper and pen, held by your dominant. Similarly, if you had originally learned to sign your name while holding the pen with your foot, you would have engrained that stylistic representation in your brain, and if I asked you to do it with your nose twenty years later, the nose version would follow the sequence and rhythm of the foot method. Would your signature be as precisely executed when using your elbow instead of your head? Of course not. But, practice signing your name with your elbow for twenty minutes a day for the next week, you would get more proficient at it. While the memory of “sign your name” would remain largely unchanged, your execution of this movement with the new body part would improve dramatically. The specific motor neurons controlling the movement of your elbow for this task would learn more efficient, more accurate strategies for neatly signing your name… but these strategies would all be based on making the outcome look more and more like your handwritten signature. What does the “sign your name” program tell us about training? Any exercise selected is best trained using its basic, fundamental, standardized, proper and agreed-upon form. When practicing it, achieving this form should be goal on every execution. Drilling an exercise over and over will build and engrain its pattern in the brain, making it possible to execute almost autonomically, and identically. Once the memory of this movement is solidified, we can start to add variation to the movement. Let’s use the snatch as an exercise example. If I take a young, healthy athlete, and teach him or her the barbell snatch with correct form, he or she will form an invariant representation of this movement in his or her neural cir-

cuitry. Consequently, snatching with light, warmup weights will look identical to the movement when executed with 85% 1RM during training sets. The movement will also look the same when performed in weightlifting shoes and in flip flops. Now, if I want this same athlete to do a dumbbell snatch instead of a barbell snatch but give him or her zero coaching on performing the former, the movement he or she will use will be recognizable as a snatch. Building on his or her preexisting mental representation of the barbell snatch, a it shouldn’t take too much practice for our athlete to nail the dumbbell variation of this movement. As we can guess, this athlete will have masterd the dumbbell snatch significantly faster than one who was attempting it anew, never having mastered the barbell snatch. Bruce Lee was speaking to the idea of the formation of the invariant representation of memory when he admitted: “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” Great coaches do not try to introduce a plethora of different movements at once. Instead, they teach one or two skills at a time, but with exceptional emphasis on accuracy, and using a high degree of repetition. With the snatch example, the movement hinges on the athlete first grasping a fundamental, proper starting position for it. Once in this position, the athlete then sequences the extension of the hips, knees, and ankles to create vertical propulsion through space. This is followed by dropping the body under the object to catch the object overhead, and finally standing up straight with the object held overhead. If the athlete learns the proper coordination of this activity, dictated by proper positioning and sequence of movements, then the coach can progress to other heavy ballistic exercises such as the power clean, building on its movement overlap with the snatch. All memories, including motor memories, are based on relationships. These relationships are powerfully rooted in the relative position of body parts with each other, particularly the relationship of the axial skeleton with the appendicular skeleton. If you can coach from an

Page

16

understanding of the positions and movements of the axial skeleton and how they influence appendicular skeleton capabilities, you will be creating a vital underlying memory system for exercise. It’s easy to get carried away with the arms and legs, but the body is the show. By creating the movement foundation through engraining its proper, unique memory, the coach establishes a springboard for quickly teaching other skills strongly related to this original memory. Avoid teaching a tri-planar lunge matrix on day one, and instead teach a static split squat. The day one lunge matrix is ten inaccurately thrown stones and no birds hit, versus the split squat being one excellently hurled stone that hits a bird today, and continues to pelt bird after bird thereafter. Choose exercises that people have the potential to perform properly (as ascertained from table testing). Rather than add drills for the sake of adding drills, coach the exercise to the highest degree possible. Let the athlete gain a lot of practice at the movement. Rather than introducing training variation for the sake of variation, wait until the movement is firmly entrenched in the athlete’s unconscious pattern execution repertoire, and then branch off and coach other pertinent, necessary exercise variations that will move the athlete towards his or her goals. If you have someone who has passed the table, who has learned the essence of the fundamentals for a training pattern, now you can steer him or her in any number of directions… the playbook is open! That said, great coaches selectively scroll through their playbooks, finding optimal lessons for any given circumstances. The way the brain forms invariant memories is a fascinating subject, one pondered since the time of Ancient Greeks, one of them being Plato. Our brains are able to categorize even under really interesting circumstances, for instance, recognizing the object pictured below. Though the actual image has no true outline and is just six black shapes distributed in a human-recognizable pattern, you likely quickly and correctly - identified it as a soccer ball, due to its resemblance to your mental construct of

this object.

Fig 2.1 - Soccer ball

Plato believed that our experience on Earth was a state of being in one realm of reality, but that there were other realms as well, such as the realm of Forms, a super reality to which he believed our souls were tethered. The realm of Forms, it was believed, houses the perfect essence of all concepts, including Plato’s famous Perfect circle. Our memory of a circle (or any object), it was believed, comes directly from the perfect version of that concept in the realm of Forms. But, as soon as we try to make the perfect memory a reality, a flawed, altered version of the concept emerges in our reality. Though modern science rejects Plato’s theory of Forms, the human quest for perfection is alive and well. To any given end, some solutions are superior to others, both in form and function. In this book, I’m going to try to apply rules that will guide you to the closest version of the archetype for your training movements. The rules will be based on an invariant representation of what constitutes proper positioning of your axial skeleton. Once the memory of what to do with your axial skeleton is ingrained in your brain, you will be able to make fast associations to similar exercises, and improve the rate of mastering the relevant drills that will help you move towards your goals.

Page

17

Model 3: Asymmetry You are not a symmetrical organism, and you never will be. This is ok, because symmetry should never be your goal. Why? Because gradients are the backbone for movement, and gradients imply a lack of symmetry and balance. In order for movement to occur, a lack of balance has to precede the event. This is true whether we are talking about a human throwing a ball, or about oxygen diffusing from one region to another. Kinetic energy requires potential energy to exist, and potential energy cannot exist unless we have more of something in one location than another location. Even our universe began asymmetrically, with an uneven “Big Bang” explosion, scattering unevenly sized chunks of matter within varying, uneven distances from one another, and setting the stage for a dynamic universe. Yes, a superficial appraisal of the human body suggests a symmetrical organism. But, under our skin and muscle, in our viscera, the distribution of our internal organs is quite assymetrical, with one heart on our left and one liver in the lower right quadrant of your thoraco-abdominal complex, to name only a couple examples of our asymmetry. Moreover, torque and twist reside within our bodies. Most of our organs are being torqued and pulled in a counter-clockwise direction. This is especially evident in the position of our brains, called Yakovlevian Torque, which is the tendency for the right hemisphere to be positioned slightly in front of the left. Our musculoskeletal systems are always working to overcome the external force of gravity, along with the internal forces of our fluids and organ placement, preventing musculoskeletal symmetry. Finally, at the subatomic level, we see the greatest degree of asymmetry. The nucleus of an atom is made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons. These three particles must create some form of dynamic stability in order for life to function at its most basic level. While the protons and neutrons congregate close together in

the center with one another, the electrons orbit both. The protons and neutrons make up the entirety of the mass of the nucleus, whereas the electrons are essentially massless. This extreme asymmetry or “imbalance” between the mass of the atom’s proton/neutron core and its electron fringe is what sets the electrons in motion, and this movement forms the backbone of matter and life on our planet. Similarly, asymmetry is the driving force of human musculoskeletal movement. The upright bipedal locomotion used by our species is unique and strongly distinctive. When we observe the limbs during the gait cycle, we see that the left side and the right side are always doing exactly the opposite motion. When the left femur is flexed, abducted, and externally rotated, the right leg will be extended, adducted, and internally rotated. This is no different from examining a pitcher throwing a ball. During the cocking phase of throwing, the throwing hand arm is flexed, externally rotated, and the hand is supinated. Meanwhile, the glove side arm is extended, internally rotated, and the hand is pronated. When the pitcher throws the ball, the reverse takes place, as the throwing arm extends, internally rotates, and the hand pronates, while the glove side arm flexes, externally rotates, and the hand supinates. Aside from twofoot jumping, or some other way of moving the body through space where we simultaneously propel ourselves with both limbs, the majority of human actions intended to propel our bodies or external objects through space feature this alternating “mirror asymmetry”. Inorganic movement actually preceded life, in the form of alternating mirror asymmetry through which particles flowed down concentration gradients. The wider a gradient—aka, the more of something in one region compared to another region—the faster and more powerful the movement of particles from the more to the less concentrated region. Human joints rotate in a given direction as the muscle group on one side of the joint assumes a concentric length status, while the muscle group on the opposing side of the joint assumes an eccentric length status. The ability to switch back and forth be-

Page

18

tween a concentric length and eccentric length state on both sides of the joint allows for continuous movement. Our thoraco-abdominal region shifts back and forth between an exhalation and inhalation state. The exhalation state is that of compression, where the volume of the chest cavity is reduced, the pressure of the chest cavity is increased, the diaphragm domes, and intra-abdominal pressure decreases. The inhalation state, on the other hand, is characterized by expansion throughout the thoraco-abdominal complex, with increased volume in the chest cavity, decreased chest cavity pressure, diaphragm flattens, the pushing of visceral fluid and organs downward, which increases intra-abdominal pressure. To breathe, our bodies must toggle between this compressed, concentric, thoraco-abdominal exhalation strategy, and an expanded, eccentric inhalation strategy. At a still more macroscopic level, as we move through space, we continuously cycle back and forth between having one side of our body accepting our mass via a yielding action, while the other side shoves it away through an overcoming action. The more that we are able to shift into each of these previously mentioned states— concentric, eccentric, compressing, expanding, overcoming, yielding —the greater the degree to which we can create mirror asymmetry, and the greater the degree we can be efficient in our motor performances.

Model 4: Jacksonian Dissolution John Hughlings Jackson, the father of English neurobiology, did the majority of his work in the late 1800s. His primary discovery was that during times of stress, the most modern and sophisticated parts of the human brain are inhibited, and the older, less complicated parts of the brain take over. The prefrontal cortex was the most recent brain structure to arise, and, the more modern the structure, typically the more complex, sophisticated and individualized it is compared to its evolutionarily older counterparts. Interestingly, the newer additions are also less capable of dealing with stress, and, as stress rises, organisms revert to reli-

ance on older components. Whenever I think about this concept of Jacksonian Dissolution, I think about appliances, alarm clocks in particular. When I was a kid, the first alarm clock I had was a windup one. Its sole two features are to display the time, and wake you up if you set an alarm, both of which had to be hand-wound. When it would go off in the morning, it was to the loud sound of a metallic bell being struck by a tiny hammer. You knew the battery was dying when the alarm was not quite as loud as it used to be. When I got older, I got a radio alarm clock. This clock plugged into the wall, had an electronic, digital display, and multiple options for noises I could wake up to. There were problems with this clock though. First, it was hard to set. I think it blinked 12:00 at me more than it told me the actual time. If the radio station wasn’t working in the morning, or if I accidentally hit the dial, it would play low grade static that I might not wake up to. If the power went out at night, it would throw the time back to blinking 12:00 and turn the alarm function off. Fast Forward to the late 1990s, when I got a CD player alarm clock. This thing had all the bells and whistles. Now I had my pick of wake-up sounds: old school alarm noise, radio station, or my favorite song from my CD collection. Of course, there were a host of problems with the CD alarm as well. For starters, you needed a degree from MIT to figure out how to program it. Sometimes the CD would skip, or just fail to play. You still had the same problems with the radio feature if you chose that. And, of course, If the power went off or your college roommate tripped over and unplugged the cord at night, there went your alarm. These progressively more complex iterations of the alarm clock follow evolution’s pattern of increased sophistication, greater options and personalization. Likewise, they also demonstrate how more sophisticated structures are less resistant to stress. As reliability went, nothing beats that “old faithful” wound-up clock, precisely because its simplicity limits

Page

19

its potential for failure under stress. Interestingly enough, modern alarm clocks—aka cell phones—have largely reverted back to the past (including the handy fact that, so long as you have a bit of charge left overnight, unplugged cords and overnight power outages won’t prevent your phone from waking you up in the morning). This concept of Jacksonian Dissolution is a universal phenomena that permeates our reality and our behavior. Most of us can be quite civil and easy to get along with when we are fed, well rested, relaxed, and in an environment that suits us. Such a state would be a low stress background, and under such conditions, the most modern equipment in our brains is running the show. We can laugh, be clever, have empathy for others, demonstrate thoughtfulness, and be good natured. But, imagine yourself at the grocery store checkout, hungry, tired, with a couple of screaming (also hungry, tired) children in your ear. You hand the surly teenage cashier your credit card, the only one you have on you, but, after staring blankly at her screen for what seems like eternity, she hands it back and says with what sounds like a scoff: “Um… yea.. it’s declined?” Most of us would probably behave a bit more primitively and less refined in this scenario, falling back on our ancient amygdalas for a good dose of anger and anxiety. When it comes to movement, we can also plot it on an evolutionary timeline, to get a sense of what primitive movement looked like, and ascertain whether or not any given organism is moving with a modern, fully evolved human style. While extremely primitive animals, such as amoeba, did possess some motor proteins which functioned as propellers and primitive legs to move them through space, the majority of their movement was expansion and compression. These single celled organisms cycled back and forth between states of swelling and depletion, as fluid crossed their semi-permeable outer membrane. This type of movement is still present in our modern human bodies, both at the cellular and organ level.

Fish and snakes move through water in the frontal plane, using their heads and tails as the primary drivers of movement. As animals reached land, they brought this frontal plane movement with them, evident by the fact that lizards, snakes, and other reptiles largely drive themselves forward with frontal plane, side-bending body actions. As animals continued to evolve, a sagittal plane style characteristic of mammals emerged. Compared to reptiles, quadruped mammals display greater flexion and extension of their spine during locomotion. When quadrupeds run, the motion looks much more like a rocking horse compared to the slithering style of reptiles. This movement difference is well illustrated in the way marine mammals swim and terrestrial reptiles walk: you could say that dolphins are, “running”, in the water, and reptiles are, “swimming” on the land. It would be fair to say that chimps and other great apes are glorified quadrupeds, who also happen to use their front paws for grasp. By the time we get to modern humans, we see a distinctive upright bipedal style of locomotion that features sagittal limbs, a frontal plane dominant pelvis, and a transverse dominant ribcage and neck. Plato classified humans as, “featherless bipeds”. Darwin rattled the cage about as hard as anyone when he suggested that humans evolved through the lineage of apes, and that the key variable that drove us towards our modern physical presentation was bipedalism. We are a bit of an odd, unique animal in many ways. Other than avians, we are the only biped going, but the way in which humans move around is so drastically different from the strategies used by birds that the comparisons are incredibly difficult. Our closest living relative is the chimpanzee, with whom we shared a common ancestor, somewhere around 5 to 8 million years ago. Climate change is identified as the catalyst for divergence between humans and other great apes millions of years ago. A significant drought of the African climate, and resulting rain forest recession brought the open woodlands of the Savannah into prominence. Chimps

Page

20

stuck to the rain forest and continued to eat a diet made up almost completely of fruit. By contrast, the animals that became hominids and humans ventured out into the open terrain in search of other types of food. All of a sudden, they were having to travel many miles a day on foot to acquire foods such as yams and other tubers, forcing our ancestors to find a mode of locomotion that would be as economical as possible. It’s when the going gets tough for a species that adaptation takes center stage. When aforementioned climate change drove our ancestors out of the rain forest in search of new food sources, they found themselves having to traverse significantly greater distances than their chimp counterparts, who rarely move more than a mile per day. Over time, three large shifts in the structure of the skeleton, at the spine, pelvis, and feet, allowed our predecessors to maximize economy in locomotion. These shifts in our morphology increased our ancestors’ odds of survival and even enabled them to thrive in an ever-changing, often inhospitable environment, making them—and us— amazing featherless bipeds indeed. Compared to humans, the long duration locomotion used by chimps is 4 times less energy-efficient than ours. This means that it costs a chimp about 140 Kcal more to traverse 6km as compared to an average-sized human. The spines of quadrupeds like chimps are long, with a concave anterior, resulting in gentle kyphosis, or the outward curvature that causes hunching, almost throughout. Conversely, the bipedal human spine features an “S” shape, which is the result of significant lordotic curves at the lumbar spine and cervical spine. If a quadruped attempts to rear up on its hind legs, the straight spine causes the thorax to be in front of the pelvis, and the center of mass is always falling forward, back towards the ground. The human lumbar spine also has five lumbar vertebrae compared to a chimp’s three to four, and the shape of human lumbar vertebrae is more wedge-like compared to the more square vertebrae of a chimp. The optimal human lumbar lordotic curve is 30 degrees, which, in tandem

with the thoracic kyphotic sweep back to the posterior side, allows the thorax to be centered over the pelvis during upright posture. The neck of a chimp emerges from the back side of its skull. The foramen magnum of a chimp’s skull is positioned in a manner that is much more posterior than that of a human. This arrangement of a chimp’s foramen magnum and neck to skull position creates a more horizontal orientation of the chimp’s neck compared to the vertical orientation of the human neck. The optimal human cervical spine shares the same amount of lordosis as the lumbar spine: 30 degrees. When these lordotic curves are coupled with a more anterior foramen magnum on the skull, the resulting arrangement is one where the skull is stacked over the middle of the thorax, and the thorax is stacked over the middle of the pelvis in an upright bipedal presentation. The sagittal curves of the lumbar and cervical spine set the stage for humans to be able to create forward propulsion in locomotion with pendular walking and spring mass model running, without having to excessively contract the muscles of the thigh, hip, and back to prevent toppling forward, back down to the ground, where we would have to rely on our hands for support. The ilium bones of a human are fairly squared off. The insides, aka “medial surface”, of the human ilium bone face each other and the outsides, the “lateral surface”, face away from one another. A chimp’s ilium bones are rotated on a transverse axis, so that the medial side faces forward, and the lateral side faces backwards. As a result, a chimp’s glute medius faces posteriorly (whereas a human’s faces laterally), and is unable to provide frontal plane control for the axial skeleton. Due to the direction the chimp’s gluteus medius muscle faces, when chimps attempt to stand upright and walk forward, they lurch side to side like a penguin. The thorax of a chimp rocks back and forth laterally and falls outside its base of support (feet) during gait, which is incredibly energy-inefficient. The human glute med faces laterally, and integrates the pelvis with the thorax during single leg stance, preventing the center of mass

Page

21

of the thorax from laterally rocking during the forward propulsion used in gait. Humans with movement impairments and those who are carry excess mass (resulting from extreme muscle hypertrophy or obesity) oftentimes demonstrate some form of compensatory frontal plane motion of their axial skeleton in the form of excess sway, or appendicular skeleton in the form of imaginary lat syndrome, both reminiscent of a prehistoric, quadruped-like strategy of upright movement. Barring these conditions, keeping the axial skeleton inside the base of support from a frontal plane perspective during forward propulsion enables the rhythmic elevation and demotion of our center of mass, which, in turn, allows for tremendous energy conservation due to cycling back and forth between collection of potential uphill energy and release of downhill kinetic energy during transitions between phases of stance and swing. The feet of a chimp have a big toe that is almost perpendicular to the other toes. This is similar to how the thumb is offset from the other fingers on our hands, and is oriented in an oblique to horizontal direction relative to the other fingers. This offset “first digit” on a foot or a hand greatly facilitates grasp, evidencing the chimp’s need and ability to climb trees. Featuring a longitudinal ligament that helps create its arch, a vertically oriented, rounded metatarsophalangeal (MTP) joint in our toes, all of which are forward-facing, the human foot is clearly not optimized for grasp or climbing. Chimps do not have an arch, and the shape of their MTP joints prevent them from being able to hyperextend their toes, forcing chimps to try to walk on the outsides of their feet, almost as if they were on a Bosu ball. The human arch separates the rear foot, the calcaneus, from the forefoot, the ball of the feet and toes. The arch in our feet enables them to stiffen as we transition from our heels to the balls of our feet during gait and other human movement tasks. During normal gait, we strike with our heel, which sets off the neural cascade response that stiffens our arch, and allows the

forefoot to be able change shape to receive the body mass and then propel it forward. Without an appropriately stiff arch, the functionality of our rear foot and forefoot is impaired, and we resort to compensatory movement patterns. Our ancestors, who lived outdoors in the wild, moved a lot. They walked and ran miles and miles a day, and then reposed in deep kneeling, seated, and squatting positions. They assumed postures that we tend to avoid in our “in-seat” modern world, and put us to shame with their activity levels. We are built to be upright and move for a large part of our day, and then rest on the ground. The stereotypical behaviors that our species engaged in drove the genetic evolutionary pathway that led to the presentation of our skeletal arrangement. When we, modern humans, are subjected to either excess or insufficient physical stress, we deviate from attaining our optimal phenotype. In other words, if we don’t use it, we lose it.

Model 5: Unconscious Incompetence to Unconscious Competence Plato created the “Allegory of the Cave”, to allude to the way humankind tends to exist in an unconscious, ignorant state when it comes to our reality, including truths about ourselves. The image is that of prisoners chained in a dark cave, facing towards the wall of the cave. There is a fire in the cave that casts shadows on the wall. We witness shadow figures moving against the backdrop of the rock wall and assume that we are seeing reality taking place in front of us. Sometimes, a prisoner gets loose from his chains and escapes the cave. In doing so, the prisoner climbs out and ultimately emerges into daylight. But, when he does so, the prisoner is initially blinded by the light cascading down onto him from the outdoors. The light, or the truth, is so overwhelming that it is too much for take in at once. Slowly, the man gets his bearings and comes to drink in everything that is true about his surroundings. The man realizes that what he assumed to be the truth about the world was a cruel hoax. Now, the man is driven to go back

Page

22

into the cave, free the other prisoners, and expose them to the real world. When he attempts to do this, he finds that the other prisoners do not want to hear his message or to be unshackled. Because the man is himself no longer a prisoner, he is rejected from their group. He now must start anew, or find others “free men” to band with. And, more than likely, there will be other caves in which he will find—and need to free—himself from. We’ve all had moments of awakening, eureka moments, where a concept or a model we were struggling to figure out suddenly becomes very clear to us. How could we not have understood it before? Great sports coaches tend to provide their students with these moments. You thought your jumper, or your golf swing, or your split jerk, or your triangle choke was garbage, until your coach made some simple changes to positioning, and BOOM: now the movement is sweet and right. Such coaches give you just the right amount of information, so that it feels like you are cooperatively arriving at the improvement, rather than being dictated or talked down to. What great coaches can also do is demonstrate how the simple change they made to one area of training has carried over to others, building lasting, useful associations for the student. Another quality of a great coach is the ability to hold off teaching a particular lesson, if the student doesn’t appear ready for it, echoing the ancient Theosophist saying: “When the Pupil is ready, the Master will appear”. In other words, you have to recognize when you are trying to open the eyes of an unwilling prisoner in Plato’s cave. To minimize the chances of this, it’s often best to work on no more than one flawed skill at a time, and make sure that the skills you choose are only those that you believe the athlete can in fact improve with practice.

The sequence of correcting incompetence looks something like this:

● Stage 1: Unconsciously incompetent ○ Because the student is unaware of the flaw, at this stage, the coach has the difficult job of pointing it out to him or her ● Stage 2: Consciously incompetent ○ Having had the flaw brought to his or her attention, here, the student knows they’re doing something wrong, but doesn’t yet know how to fix it. Needless to say, good coaches don’t leave their students in this stage. ● Stage 3: Consciously competent ○ With the coach’s help, the student can move to this stage with a strategy in hand for mastering competence over the task in question. It’s here that the athlete understands what he or she should be doing differently and can practice to achieve desired technique. Only if the athlete executes the movement over and over competently with conscious intent, at some point, this new, competent strategy, will become the dominant response for executing the movement. ● Stage 4: Unconsciously competent ○ Here, the competent execution of the task becomes the student’s default, finally graduating him or her into unconscious competence for said task. This four-stage process of moving from unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence actually applies to any sort of behavior change we use to break bad habits and improve our lives. This is how we quit smoking, start exercising, lose weight, or pay bills on time. It’s also how we fix broken jump shots, set PRs in the squat, or stop slicing drives in golf. Experts in behavior change generally recommend picking one bad habit at a time, fixing it, and then moving onto the next. But, sometimes, we happen upon keystone habits that have a cascading effect on our lives. For many, exercise is one of those keystone habits. When

Page

23

you embark on a training program and start to progress, you quickly recognize how other lifestyle factors like sleep, nutrition and others impact your exercise performance, and make lifestyle adjustments to optimize it. The better a behavior lends itself to objective observation and quantification, the greater its odds of becoming a keystone habit. And, development of keystone habits is a great ingredient for creating great students, who are ready for great teachers. When our evolutionarily older systems are operating at the level of unconscious competence, our newer systems can operate freely. To put it a different way, few of us are going to be at our peak level of thoughtfulness, creativity, and cognitive prowess while our bodies are fighting a stomach bug. When all is well, our vegetative systems, controlled by the autonomic nervous system, can operate in the background, out of our conscious awareness. When this is not the case, and our conscious attention is brought to problems associated with our gut, our vision, our hearing, our sense of balance, our thermoregulation, etc., our higher functioning is compromised. Lasting success, meanwhile, can only occur when our rational minds are unencumbered to formulate strategies and oversee execution.

Model 6: We Must Be Able to Climb Up and Down the Evolutionary Ladder Are there situations in which we need to rely on older evolutionary systems? Yes: they’ve hung around for a reason. For instance, our stress response is an ancient one, predating the existence of modern humans. Our brains recognize a stressor or threat, and they begin a cascade neurochemical response that involves the hypothalamus simultaneously triggering the autonomic system to escalate sympathetic activity, while also commanding the pituitary to signal for adrenal gland release of catecholamines and glucocorticoids. Healthy adrenals are large and robust, capable of secreting large boluses of adrenaline and cortisol when needed. When the threat subsides, so does the stress response, and our internal envi-

ronment resumes its parasympathetic, non-glucocorticoid-rich state. These responses are designed to strike when the iron is hot, but rest when it isn’t. The energy systems elegantly demonstrate the climbing of the evolutionary ladder and can help us unify a number of aforementioned concepts. At rest, with low stress, we unconsciously, competently exist in a state where our oxidative systems run the show. The oxidative system has all the characteristics of a modern system. Aerobics has a multitude of options for energy sources, in that it can burn carbohydrates, fats, amino acids, ketones, and lactate. The oxidative system is also fairly complicated, as aerobics require quite a few moving parts. You’ve got the Krebs Cycle and the Electron Transport Chain (ETC). The Krebs Cycle is a grinding wheel that feeds the high energy compounds NADH and FADH2 into the ETC, where these compounds are oxidized by respiratory proteins. The final receiving station for free hydrogen ions that lead to water formation at the end of cellular respiration, the oxidized products both ultimately spin the ATP rephosphorylation machinery of the enzyme ATPase, and reduce oxygen. If those last few lines just gave you head and/or a stomach ache, you’re not alone. Here’s a visual of the oxidative system, further illustrating its complexity:

Fig 2.2 - Krebs Cycle

Page

24

Displaying characteristics of an evolutionarily older system than the oxidative system, the Glycolytic system is responsible for Glycolysis, the ten step process of taking a glucose molecule and breaking it down into two pyruvate molecules. Glycolysis is like a reverse Thunderdome phenomenon, wherein one glucose enters, and two pyruvate leave. Whereas the oxidative system can use any of the macromolecules as fuel, glycolysis is limited solely to glucose and glycogen. As such, while Glycolysis is no simple process, it’s far more so than the multitude of steps and substeps, shuttle systems, and ion exchanges of Krebs and the ETC combined, as illustrated by the comparatively simpler diagram of Glycolysis below: Fig 2.3 - Electron Transport Chain

Fig 2.4 - Phosphagen system

The phosphagen system has all the signs and symptoms of being the oldest energy system out there. Glycolysis is ten enzymatic steps, and has the ability to yield two to three net ATP. The oxidative system has a practically uncountable number of steps, and is usually given credit for rephosphorylating somewhere in the mid-30s for ATP. The phosphagen system is a one step, one ATP rephosphorylation system. In contrast to its more modern counterparts, the phosphagen system is incredibly simplistic, with few ingredients and moving parts. With the phosphagen system, one ATP gets rephosphorylated by having creatine phosphate (CP) donate its phosphate to ADP in the presence of the enzyme creatine kinase (CK). In the presence of the enzyme adenylate kinase, one ATP and one AMP arises from the reaction between two ADP molecules. Let’s take a look at these processes to appreciate their simplicity in comparison to glycolysis, and especially oxidative respiration. Where is all of this going? When you are in the lowest stress situations like rest and extremely low intensity activity, the oxidative system, the newest, most complicated and featuring the most variability will be in the driver’s seat. As your stress level rises, the older energy systems may come into play. For instance, the slowest, lowest-intensity jog can be powered almost exclusively through aerobic means. But, as the runner gains speed, the stress level

Page

25

Fig 2.5 - Phosphagen system threshold of the aerobic system is crossed, and cedes more and more to glycolytic energy means. Sprinting as fast as possible will result in the nearly exclusive reliance on the phosphagen system to power the ATP rephosphorylation involved in this high stress activity. As we become progressively more experienced at training and higher stress levels are introduced, we fall back on our older systems. In fact, the more we toggle back and forth between the old and new, the greater our ability to rise up to the challenges of the high-stress modern world, and allow ourselves to rest and recover after each stressor subsides.

03 Foundations of the Model

Page

27

Foundations of the Model

Chapter 3

Part 1: An Objective, Movement-Based Categorization System Exercise program design is an applied solution to the inherently complex task of strategically manipulating the biological expression of the human form. We as coaches and sports scientists are trying to understand and manipulate human physiology; a system of daunting depth and complexity, which, to this day, is not fully understood. This is really hard stuff, and it is my belief that the best we can do is create inaccurate models that are rooted in basic science and simple rules that maximize utility and reproducible numerical results. Likewise, I believe that the only way to actually design a comprehensible and comprehensive training system is to design it around biomechanics rather than physiological principles. In other words, training the relevant and appropriate domains within a biomechanics model should ultimately result in affecting appropriate physiological pathways. The fundamental principles presented in this chapter will help illustrate the superior utility of this model when applied to fitness program

design. Drawing its influences from medicine, Botany, and Zoology, Biology emerged as a single coherent discipline in the 19th century. Exercise science falls under the umbrella of Biology, and is essentially in its infancy from a scientific inquiry timeline perspective. A crucial right of passage for any young scientific realm is the establishment of a taxonomy of the phenomena within that domain. The most famous scientific taxonomy is known as Systema Naturae, wherein Carolus Linnaeus created a framework of classification for all life forms on the planet. In my mind, the world of exercise is not very different from the world of life. Life on planet Earth is incredibly diverse, with what seems to be an infinite number of variations on each type of creature, plant, or fungi. Some forms of life are so bizarre that it is hard to believe they exist. But, on the contrary, every living thing on this planet makes perfect sense when viewed as a product of the environmental niche that it has come to occupy and take advantage of. And, of course, many forms of life have become extinct along the way, because they were ultimately unfit for the environment they occupied. In the world of exercise, there are so many ways that humans choose to move that some methods of physical exertion appear ridiculous, bordering on comedic, dangerous, or misguided; yet, for now, they exist. Ultimately, time will determine what forms of exercise will go extinct. The following model was developed for my empirically-minded fitness colleagues who, like me are periodically mortified by certain methodologies we deem unsafe or incredibly ineffective. It’s one we can all use to classify and categorize all forms of exercise, as well as

Page

28

grade the degree to which the movement you are witnessing represents its optimal incarnation. To do this, let’s utilize the aforementioned biomechanics lens rather than a physiological one. This chapter will walk you through the 7 Movement Pillars. The Movement Pillars provide a model, which in aggregate describe, define and determine the moving parts, if you will, of any exercise, as well as whether or not it’s being properly executed. Understanding the 7 Movement Pillars outlined here provides the tools for becoming an exercise architect, and creating exactly the right combinations of the Pillars to drive users perfectly towards the right adaptations. The first three Pillars will be addressed in this chapter, and Pillars 4 through 7 will be explained in Chapter 4. The following are the 7 Movement Pillars:

1.Movement Quality 2.Movement Quantity 3.Movement Standardization 4.Movement Progression 5.Movement Strategy 6.Muscular Orientation 7.Muscular Action

The first two Pillars are Movement Quality and Movement Quantity. Quality describes the nature of the shapes that life can assume and move through. Quantity provides numerical, aka quantitative, information about movement. In this model, movement quality is divided into three sections:

1.Pattern 2.Stance 3.Plane

Movement quantity is likewise divided into three sections:

1.Load 2.Velocity 3.Duration

Pillar 1: Movement Quality Ian King was one of the first to begin thinking along the lines of creating an exercise taxonomy, and his list of primary resistance training patterns is a place that many of us fall back on whenever we are thinking about designing a training plan. Great coaches like Boyle and Verstegen were wise to begin thinking of designing training days based on concepts such as linear and multidirectional movement directions/patterns. The next step in the evolution of these descriptive taxonomies is to make the components more objective than they currently are. Here are the movement patterns that I use in this section of the Exercise Taxonomy:

1. Breathing 2. Core, Pelvic Focus 3. Core, Thorax Focus 4. Locomotion 5. Change of Direction 6. Throwing 7. Triple Extension 8. Hip Dominant 9. Knee Dominant 10. Horizontal Push 11. Horizontal Pull 12. Vertical Push 13. Vertical Pull

When I am talking about stance, I am speaking about the arrangement of the feet relative to each other, and relative to the center of mass of the axial skeleton. I divide stance into three realms:

1.Bilateral Symmetrical 2.Asymmetrical Front/Back 3.Asymmetrical Lateral

Bilateral symmetrical stances are common in life and sport, and involve the two feet being next to each other, and bearing equal weight from the skeleton above. The bilateral symmetrical stance is the position from which certain athletic movements take place, such as two foot vertical jumping, and is oftentimes a ready position in sports;pre-snap linebackers,

Page

29

pre-pitch baseball players, free throw position in basketball, etc. In the world of exercise, the bilateral symmetrical stance is where we also find ourselves when performing nearly any imaginable weightroom movement.

back and forth, in the process losing energy that should be contributing towards moving forward. The transverse plane allows us to coil and uncoil for a high rate of force development, like striking and throwing maneuvers.

The front/back stance is seen in any exercise where one foot is in front of the other, or when the feet are arranged with one foot higher than the other. A linear lunge is a simple example of a front/back stance exercise where the feet are separated more horizontally than vertically. A step up is a good example of a front/back stance exercise where the feet are separated more vertically than horizontally. The front/back position of feet is ubiquitous within athletics, as it is how we take first steps, then run, jab steps in basketball, set up shots in wrestling or ice skate, to name a few.

Do what you will with these speculations, but please note that my aim in presenting them here is to get us to start asking the right questions, such as: “What the purpose of the cardinal planes of movement are from an overarching perspective?”. My statements here regarding the purposes and essences of these planes reflect the way I coach exercises targeted towards a specific plane of motion. Confirmation of successfully targeting the desired plane usually lies in my subjects self-reporting a muscle corresponding to the appropriate plane. When attempting to train the sagittal plane, the affected muscles should be flexors and extensors. When targeting the frontal plane, subjects should feel adductors and abductors, and, when going after the transverse plane, rotator muscles should be doing the work. Part 2 of this chapter will present some strategies for determining whether or not an activity represents competency within a specific plane of motion.

The lateral stance is one where one foot remains under the center of mass of the axial skeleton, and the other foot is kicked out to the side like a kickstand, and resides outside the center of mass of the axial skeleton. In the world of exercise, the lateral lunge is the simplest way to visualize this stance. The lateral stance displays itself in sport movements featuring change of direction, such as cutting, but it also presents itself in throwing motions. You will probably be introduced to the three anatomical cardinal planes of motion in one of the first three chapters of any anatomy textbook. Rather than belaboring the identification and definitions of these planes, I would like to share what I perceive to be the root of each plane for human movement. The sagittal plane is your anti-gravity plane. Mastering the sagittal plane allows you to be able to avoid falling on your face or your back. The frontal plane is the plane you have to regulate to be able to ultimately create forward propulsion. Optimal forward propulsion occurs when the center of mass shifts side to side in a sigmoidal pathway, but stays within the boundaries of the base of support, aka inside the feet. Those who display aberrant frontal plane mechanics stagger

Pillar 2: Movement Quantity As we move into the movement quantity side of the discussion, I would like to start out by saying that I have created my own arbitrary differentiations for what will constitute different levels of load, velocity, and duration. With all three quantitative variables, I’ve tried to keep things simple by dividing them into the three zones, separated by the following numerical dividers: LOAD: High: 80-100% 1RM Mod: 60-80% 1RM Low: Below 60% 1RM VELOCITY High: Greater than 1.0 m/s Mod: 0.5 – 1.0 m/s Low: Below 0.5 m/s

Page

30

DURATION High: Greater than 120 sec Mod: 15 to 120 sec Low: Below 15 seconds Now that we have been introduced to the first two Pillars, let’s discuss how a coach would go about utilizing this information. I would start with the qualitative information. First, what movement pattern are you trying to train? Once you have identified the pattern, what stance are you going to put the athlete in? Now that you have a pattern and a stance, what plane of motion do you want them to move in? Now we shift our attention to the quantitative variables. How much load do you want to provide? At what velocity do you want that load moved? For how long would you like this movement to take place? Once you have answers to all of these questions, you’re ready to select your “tool”—barbell, medicine ball—and you arrive at an exercise. Typically, the first thing you want to do with athletes at the beginning of a session is to “warm them up”. How would I use the model being presented here? As a very simple example, I’ll choose the locomotion pattern in the front/back stance performed in the sagittal plane, with low load, low velocity, and moderate duration. What is that? Jogging down the length of a football field and back. Maybe you are a coach who bases things on Functional Movement Screen (FMS) principles, and you’re of the belief that you can improve the mobility and/or stability of an athlete with a prescribed activity. You choose knee dominant, bilateral symmetrical stance, sagittal plane, low load, low velocity, moderate duration, and you come up with an activity like a squat to stand. I could list countless examples here, but warmup is generally a time of low load, low velocity, and short to moderate duration activities that can be either aimed at mimicking the activities you want to train or attempting to improve the trainee’s overall movement capabilities. As training sessions move beyond warmup, the next activity we choose is chosen by defining it from a qualitative perspective. These

would typically be activities with low load, high velocity, and short duration, like speed, agility, plyometrics or medicine ball throwing. Change of direction with a lateral stance in the frontal plane in this circumstance might be a 5-10-5 shuttle run, and throwing from a bilateral symmetrical stance in the transverse plane might be rotational med ball throws facing towards or perpendicular to a wall. Triple extension from an asymmetrical front/back stance in the sagittal plane may be a split squat jump. Following low load, high velocity, short duration activities, it is very likely that the trainee would next proceed to the weightroom. The first weightroom activities would most likely be lifts featuring high load, high velocity, and short duration. The most obvious example of lifts that fit into this category are Olympic lifts. Cleans, snatches, (and their derivatives) are triple extension, bilateral symmetrical stance, sagittal activities. Split jerks would feature a transition into a front/back stance. Outside of Olympic lifts, it becomes difficult to think of activities that fall into this quantitative category, though looking at Strongman sport activities may provide some alternatives. Stone loading and tire flipping provide alternative triple extension, bilateral stance, sagittal plane activity that requires very little coaching compared to Olympic lifts. After performing high load, high velocity, short duration lifts, likely, the next quantitative realm that we would move to would be high load, low velocity, short-to-moderate duration activities. Classic examples of movements in this category would be deadlifts, squats, presses, rows, and pull-ups. Most of the activities in this realm are going to be bilateral stance, sagittal plane activities, as that seems to be the stance and plane that lends itself most for developing strength. Generally speaking, most coaches attempt to put an activity from the major lifting categories somewhere in their weekly programs for their athletes. At least once a week in their program, at some point, most athletes will perform a hip-dominant, knee-dominant, horizontal push/pull, and vertical push/pull activity for multiple sets.

Page

31

The next component of training in a standard model would be assistance lifts, into which some movement patterns from the previous category may bleed over, but could also feature movements from categories such as locomotion like loaded carries and sled work, throwing, like Turkish Get-Ups and windmills (which are arguably the same pattern), along with core exercises, focusing on the pelvis and thorax. These activities would generally be classified as moderate load, moderate velocity, and moderate duration from a quantitative perspective. Once we’ve reached this stage of training, activities coming from hip-dominant, knee-dominant, horizontal push/pull, and vertical push/pull will often be unilateral choices. Prior to creating this training/programming matrix, I really struggled with classifying the kettlebell grind lifts. I simply did not have a bucket for this exercise, so would default to classifying it as an assistance activity after the main lift. Now, I understand that a Turkish Get-Up for 3 reps per hand fits into the previously mentioned quantitative domain, making it a throwing activity performed from a lateral stance and focusing on the transverse plane. I also understand that Farmer’s Walk for 100 feet is moderate to high load locomotion, at moderate to slow velocity, for moderate duration, with a front/back stance in the sagittal plane. The

Fig 3.1 - Categorization of 90% barbell deadlift

ability to describe these activities as a function of the type of movement they involve has allowed me to place each in a logical, intuitive place within an exercise program. The last activity of a very simple training day would be some kind of conditioning exercise. In this scenario, conditioning is low load, low velocity, long duration quantitative activity. I usually try to think of cyclic activities for this quantitative domain. Common weight room conditioning activities include jogging, stationary bikes, Jacob’s Ladder, VersaClimber, slideboard, and rowers. Jogging is a front/ back stance, sagittal plane, locomotion pattern exercise. A spin bike is locomotion from a front/ back stance in a sagittal direction, but if one were to use an arm and leg bike, that would add the transverse plane to the equation, because the movements of arms would rotate the trunk. The Jacob’s Ladder is also locomotion in a front/back stance in the sagittal plane, and is a great option for those who can’t withstand much impact during training. The VersaClimber is locomotion in a front/back stance, but is a frontal plane dominant movement, making those using this piece of equipment move like upright salamanders. The slideboard entails change of direction in a lateral stance, with the movement taking place in the frontal plane.

Page

32

Rowers feature a combination of knee-dominant and horizontal pulling (hard to categorize), and are bilateral stance sagittal tools.

taxonomy concept for specific exercises, and provide some still shots of those exercises to reinforce these notions as well.

To help the reader conceptualize the whole puzzle, I would like to provide you with some tables that visually demonstrate the

Every sport features a hierarchy based on what stances athletes assume, what planes they move through, what patterns they execute,

Fig 3.2 - Categorization of split squat w/ hip shift

Fig 3.3 - Categorization of rotational med ball throw

Page

33

Fig 3.6 - Example rotational med ball throw

Fig 3.4 - Example of split squat w/ hip shift

Fig 3.5 - Example split squat w/ hip shift

what kinds of loads they encounter, what sorts of velocities they need to be able to produce, and what kinds of durations they need to continue to move through. Targeting those qualitative and quantitative realms is a great way to provide fairly specific stimuli during the training process. Beyond specificity of training, athletes also seem to benefit from performing training movements that target tissue positioned antagonistically to the moves of their sport, as this is believed to have injury prevention potential. In my opinion, we should begin to try to quantify the number of movements that athletes perform in specific qualitative and quantitative realms. Such an endeavor using the taxonomy I am presenting here would be an enormous undertaking, requiring computer systems to accurately model out how much movement an athlete actually performs in a specific pattern, stance, and plane at specific loads, velocities, and durations. If we could see the total quantity of movement in these movement domains, we may get a glimpse into the likelihood of injury potential for an individual, and possibly see that there is a movement rate limiting factor preventing further progress towards sport specific goals. The simplest example I can think of involving imbalanced movers and high degree of injury is Crossfitters. When analyzing the types of movements done in Crossfit, almost everything takes place in a bilateral stance,

Page

34

and moves in the sagittal plane. Crossfitters warm up in this stance and plane, they lift in this stance and plane, and they even condition in this stance and plane, with burpees, wall-balls, rowers, high rep Olympic lifts, etc. Meanwhile, other stances and planes of movement are largely neglected. At Crossfit competitions, it’s not uncommon for athletes to be asked to engage in “surprise” events, swimming and peg board, for instance, which often result in under-performance and high rates of injury. It is my opinion that different stances and planes are distinct movement realms with limited carryover to other stances and planes of movement, and that accurately assessing strength, speed. As such, fitness in specific stances and planes featuring various patterns executed with different loading schemes, velocity presentations, and durations will become a critical task for coaches moving into the future of sports performance coaching. Part 2: Sensorimotor Competencies One of my favorite stories is The Wizard of Oz. The reason this story resonates with me strongly is because the audience is led to believe that there is an all-powerful magic being who is in complete control of the great city of Oz. In Oz there is pomp and panache. The buildings are large and ornate, the decorations are over the top, and the wizard inside the great tower is seemingly omnipotent. When we are inside the palace of the Wizard, and his awe inspiring appearance is at its zenith, the curtain is pulled back, only to reveal a flesh and blood man, rendered larger than life by smoke and mirrors. Be it in science, enterprise, technology, government, you name it, every institution, every empire, every seemingly invincible juggernaut is a human invention, and, as such, is riddled with human errors. But, these errors notwithstanding, humans have still done amazing, almost incomprehensible things when you really think about it. And, multitudes of charlatans notwithstanding, every now and then, gurus truly practice and embody what they preach. In just about any endeavor, there are those who

strive to improve upon, extrapolate and perfect it, sport science included. This chapter touches on fitness, program design, and biomechanical proficiency. The systematic approach that will be outlined here is my best attempt to provide a logical and useful model for coaches to follow. The ultimate problem with this and any other person’s training model is that the central ideas will stem from certain starting assumptions. If those starting assumptions are accurate, then the ideas that will be put forth will probably be correct. But, if the starting assumptions are off, the ideas to which they give rise will be as well, and clever people will pick the model apart. The overall purpose of the following material is to provide the reader with training movement competency checklists. These checklists exist to evaluate how closely the performance of an exercise compares with the archetypical, perfect version of that movement. I am going to do my best to avoid any semblance of smoke and mirrors, garbage terminology use (e.g., activation, functional movement, muscle balance), or any other ambiguous approach.

Pillar 3: Movement Standardization The quantitative side of the training movement puzzle is easy. We can measure forces, loads, velocities, and durations of movement fairly effortlessly and precisely. The qualitative component of movement, however, involves the more purely descriptive elements. We can describe the shape the body assumes, the types of movements it is making, and the direction in which it moves. The problem with anything qualitative is that there are far less objective measures. Measuring how much an organism, or a joint of the organism is moving in the sagittal plane versus the frontal plane versus the transverse plane is a much harder task, and is riddled with ambiguity. Despite being an ambiguous topic, as execution of movements in a training environment goes, quality is critically important, as proper technique, good movement, and optimal positioning is, in many ways, the foundation of successful sport/training outcomes. The gray areas of what constitutes the

Page

35

windows of things like, “outstanding movement”, “excellent form”, and “great technique” bother me, and I want to try to hang some objective markers on these constructs, so that coaches have a systematic ability to score a movement quality and correctness. This is the reason Movement Standardization is Pillar 3. The primary system that controls our movement expression is the nervous system. The central nervous system consists of the brain and spinal cord. At the top of the CNS resides the cortex, which is the most modern component, capable of exerting control over seemingly every subsystem of the CNS. Within the cortex are the sensory and motor divisions. The biomechanical premise we are starting from here is that movement is a neural process, the cortex is the king of the nervous system, and the cortex is equally a sensory and motor system. Based on this starting assumption, I am going to argue that a key feature of determining movement proficiency is that, when grading movement, you must consider both sensory and motor components. If a movement looks good to the coach or observer but the performer of the motion is feeling sensations that should not come with proper execution of that movement, then there is a biomechanical mismatch, and optimal movement is not being displayed. In this systematic approach, I am going to provide you with motor competencies and sensory competencies for training movements. The motor competencies will be the visual, observational assessment, coming from the coach. The coach will be looking for proper alignment and/or relationships of certain joints and bone structures that will be specific to certain movements. The sensory competencies will be what the athlete says they experienced during the movement. It should be stated here that when athletes are executing movements with either enormous loading, or with the highest possible velocities, the sensory component is going to be much less prominent, or impossible to identify. The slower and lighter the movement, the greater the possibility for the sensory component to be observed and reported by the

participant. I’ll cover the motor competencies first, and talk about the sensory competencies afterwards. First, let’s try to go through some fundamental premises that can serve as overarching guideposts.

The Zero Sum Phenomenon and Centering Sagittal Centering A key premise that will govern motor competencies with biomechanics is the zero sum phenomenon. When viewing the skeleton in the sagittal plane on the posterior side, we see alternating lordotic and kyphotic curves. The occiput bows out in a kyphotic curve, the cervical spine is lordotic, the thoracic spine is kyphotic, the lumbar spine is lordotic, the sacrum and glutes are kyphotic, the glute/ham tie-in is lordotic, the hamstrings are kyphotic, the popliteal space is lordotic, the calves are kyphotic, the Achilles is lordotic, the calcaneus is kyphotic, the arch of the foot is lordotic, the ball of the foot is kyphotic, the proximal toe is lordotic, and the distal toe is kyphotic. From an anterior/posterior perspective, this allows for the center of mass to reside somewhere in the middle, which is a concept that I will refer to as “sagittal centering”. Sagittal centering is critical for a bipedal animal to be able to erect itself and remain upright with the greatest amount of ease during the forward propulsion of locomotion. When thinking about centering, the easiest way to visualize this concept is by strictly looking at the axial skeleton. When examining someone from this profile view, what you are looking for is the middle of the skull to be positioned directly over and in line with the middle of the pelvic floor. If you the skull projected out in front of their pelvic floor, or the direction of the middle of the skull is aimed in a direction other than the pelvic floor, the subject has lost sagittal centering. There is tremendous debate in the worlds of fitness development and strength sports regarding deadlifting with a round back, and one that seems to be missing the most important underlying concept of centering. If the

Page

36

skull is in line with the pelvic floor, then seeing rounding in the upper back is great, because the person is displaying the natural human condition of kyphosis in the thoracic spine. If you see a rounded back, but the head is way in front of the pelvic floor, however, this is not a good situation. The great powerlifter, Konstantin Konstantinovs is a perfect point of reference for sagittal centering with a kyphotic thoracic spine. He is not in a dangerous position, because there is alignment of cranium over pelvis.

Fig 3.8 - Rounded back deadlift, with hyperextended neck

Frontal Centering Something not every coach is aware of is that the concept of the zero sum and centering also applies to the frontal plane. Frontal plane centering occurs when you see someone facing you, and they have their nose over their sternum, over their belly button, over their zipper, over one of their knees, over the big toe of one of their feet. Frontal centering involves lateralizing the center of mass of the axial skeleton so that it is held over one of your feet at a time. When evaluating frontal plane capabilities, there is left centering and right centering to consider. Fig 3.7 - Rounded back deadlift

In this second example of a rounded back deadlift picture, we can see that the individual has a hyperextended neck, which makes the direction of the middle of the skull go up/ backwards, and the pelvic floor is directed down/forward. We also see that the kyphotic curve is present in the wrong parts of the spine. The sacrum, and lumbar spine is kyphotic, and the thoracic spine is flat. There is no unity with the orientation/direction of the two ends of the axial skeleton, and the normal alternation of curves has been lost. Thus there is no centering from a sagittal perspective.

When viewing the skeleton from a frontal plane perspective, we need to see alternation of elevation and depression at the three major segments of the skeleton. If we look at The Statue of David, we can see that his right hip is elevated compared to his left. Moving to the next major skeletal segment, we see that his left rib cage is elevated compared to his right. If we move to the final major segment of the skeleton, we see that the right side of the neck is elevated compared to the left. Only with such an alternating system of ascent and descent of major skeletal segments can we achieve centering of body mass laterally over one foot at a time. If David were to shift his weight to the left, and center his mass over the left foot, we would see an exact opposite display of elevation and depression of his major skeletal segments.

Page

37

sequestered to one side of the base of support, and the center of mass is raised on that side via ground reaction forces, then the stage is set to be able to drop center of mass, and shift to the other side. This notion of raising and dropping center of mass and shifting the axial skeleton back and forth in a side to side manner is at the heart of pendular bipedal walking and the spring mass model of human running. In sport, we sometimes see frontal plane centering demonstrated to near perfection, as done by this Olympic speed skater, for instance:

Fig 3.9 - Statue of David Possessing this capability of presenting a mirror of asymmetry between the sides of the body creates the possibility for movement. At the most simplistic level of movement, all particles in the universe need to have a concentration gradient, or an arrangement of something being uphill compared to something else being downhill for movement to occur. The cells of our body take advantage of this principle through membranes. Membranes separate regions of a cell from one another, and oftentimes act as a screen through which particles have to move. It is common for cells to segregate ions, such as sodium in a high concentration state on one side of a membrane, and then take advantage of the tendency of that ion to move down its concentration gradient to power cellular behavior. Biology is built on the microcosm as the model which the macrocosm copies in a more complex way. From a macro perspective, the human body takes advantage of a similar sort of concentration gradient with frontal plane behavior. If the mass of the axial skeleton can be

Fig 3.10 - Example of frontal plane on figure Skater, right side

Fig 3.11 - Example of frontal plane on figure Skater, left side

Page

38

The transverse plane is built on the motions of internal and external rotation, along with horizontal abduction and adduction. For optimal rotation of the body, the foundational planes of sagittal and frontal must be in place. When rotational athletes are centered in the sagittal and frontal planes, transverse actions can occur with the least amount of resistance, and with the most optimal range of motion. When baseball pitchers cannot center in the sagittal and frontal plane, they tend to fall off towards the first base or third base foul lines on the follow-through of their pitch. The image of the speed skater is incredibly educational for this concept. The skater is centered, and is able to display rotation of the ribcage, and optimal horizontal abduction and adduction of the humerus. Transverse plane movements in sports are incredibly diverse, though it seems as though most athletes need to be able to load into each hip in the transverse plane, and then come out of that hip in an explosive manner. This is essentially what packs the power of a baseball swing, a golf swing, a hockey slap shot, throwing, punching, and kicking. Athletes need to possess the underlying prerequisite of sagittal and frontal centering capabilities to be able to display optimal biomechanics in rotational sports movements. For rotational power sports, athletes are always going through the process of loading through one side of their body before exploding out of the position and moving to the other side. When athletes are attempting to come out of their hip in the drive of explosive rotational activities, there is a need for dissociation between pelvis and thorax. Typically, the pelvis needs to initiate the activity, while the thorax lags behind from a timing perspective. This separation between pelvis and thorax is arguably the most critical element of transverse plane athleticism. This capability is built upon sagittal and frontal centering, and the ability to shift the axial skeleton side to side over each base of support in the frontal plane. When athletes can center and shift, they tend to be able to dissociate joints from one another in the transverse plane. This disso-

ciation is really the key to optimal mechanical capabilities in striking and running sports. The pelvis should be able to rotate left, as the thorax rotates right and the neck rotates left. The appendicular skeleton should be able to horizontally abduct and adduct, and internally and externally rotate through full range. The appendicular skeleton should also feature the same mirror asymmetry. When watching a great major league pitcher deliver a baseball to home plate, during the cocking phase, you should see the arm holding the ball be flexed at the elbow, externally rotated at the humerus, and supinated at the wrist. The glove side arm should be extended, internally rotated, and pronated. When the pitcher delivers the ball to the plate, the ball side arm will be extending, internally rotating, and pronating. The glove side arm will be flexing, externally rotating, and supinating. This matching asymmetry of the appendicular skeleton will not occur optimally unless the axial skeleton has the potential to center in the sagittal and frontal planes. Now that we’ve covered these critical principles, I would like to lay out the motor competencies of the planes. In Part 1 of this chapter, I discussed movement quality as having three stances associated with sports and training actions (bilateral, front/back, and lateral). If you understand the motor competencies of the planes, the same concepts apply to all stances. Let’s start with the sagittal plane:

•Axial skeleton is centered from a profile view •Skull is over middle of pelvic floor •Pelvis is under the middle of the thorax •Athlete is capable of retracting the ribcage without the skull going forward of pelvis •Athlete is capable of retracting the ribcage without the pelvis tipping into anterior tilt or migrating backwards of cranium

Page

39



Fig 3.12 - Examples of motor competencies of the sagittal plane. Let’s move on to the motor competencies of the frontal plane:

•Axial skeleton is capable of centering over each foot •Pelvis on stance foot side ascends •Ribcage on stance foot side descends •Pelvis opposite stance foot side descends •Ribcage opposite stance foot side ascends •Stance side foot supinates Foot opposite stance side pronates

Finally, let’s cover the motor competencies of the transverse plane:

•Axial skeleton retains frontal and sagittal centering •Neck, thorax, and pelvis can rotate both left and right •Neck is capable or rotating in any direction as thorax and pelvis rotate in any direction •Thorax can rotate left as pelvis rotates right and vice versa •Each humerus can horizontally abduct and adduct

•Each humerus can internally rotate and externally rotate •Each femur can horizontally abduct and adduct •Each femur can internally rotate and externally rotate •Mirror asymmetry can present itself during striking, throwing, or locomotion movements •All structures are capable of dissociating from each other

Now, let’s shift gears and discuss the sensory competencies part of the puzzle. This is likely the most contentious part of this chapter, as I’m essentially saying that you should feel certain things, and that it’s probably bad if you feel other things. It’s going to be really hard to dig up peer reviewed evidence for these statements. I can envision methods of potentially testing this stuff in a laboratory, and welcome researchers contacting me who would be interested in measuring these concepts with laboratory equipment, because I would like to discuss what would need to be done in order to get it right. Prior to diving straight into this material, I would say that “feel” is a critical part of sports. Great shooters in basketball need their shot to feel a certain way. Quarterbacks and pitchers want the ball to feel a specific way in their hand. Lifters know when they may have a PR type day because the bar feels light. Great athletes are sensory creatures, and they can tell you right away when they’re really feeling it on a certain day. I’m also going to do my best to talk about major muscles and bony segments that will cover the big hitters of sagittal, frontal, and transverse command of the body, that are fairly indisputable in terms of contributing to those directions from a movement perspective. When discussing the sagittal plane, it is my contention that the sagittal plane is your anti-gravity plane. There are certain muscles of the body that allow you to become upright, and prevent you from falling on your face or back. In terms of holding the pelvis and thorax up against gravity, I contend that the hamstrings,

Page

40

glute max, and abdominals are the best suited muscle groups for the task. Hamstrings are the dominant sagittal plane pelvis muscle when the femur is in a position of flexion. When we get to stages of terminal to near terminal femoral extension, the glute max becomes increasingly more important as the muscle of control over sagittal positioning of the pelvis. If you are trying to prevent yourself from falling on your face, you need a muscle on the back to make sure this doesn’t happen, and if you are trying to prevent yourself from falling on your back, you need a muscle on the front to do the same. When hamstrings and glute max act on the posterior side of the pelvis, and abs act on the anterior side of the thorax, we are able to hold ourselves upright in a centered state from a sagittal plane perspective. Please do not think it is just your hamstrings, glutes, and abs that are your antigravity muscles: all of your other anti-gravity sagittal muscles—spinal erectors, quads, etc.—are working to keep you upright as well. In regards to a focus on glute max, hamstrings, and abs, it’s more a matter of maximizing their leverage in an upright position, along with tuning for sensory feedback. The pelvis does not tip forward when hamstrings and glutes are holding the ischium in proximity to the posterior femur, and the thorax does not unhinge and fall backwards when the internal obliques are holding the ribcage and the ilium together on the front. So, when coaching individuals on being competent in the sagittal plane, I’m always looking to hear that they feel their hamstrings, glutes, and abs engaged in those activities. When athletes do not feel their hamstrings and glutes being engaged, the center of mass is typically too far forward, and the weight is on the toes. To correct this, you have to encourage the athlete to find and feel the heels. When athletes do not feel abs engaging in exercises, the ribcage is typically elevated and flared forward. The key to correcting this is typically retracting and depressing the ribcage, without sending the head forward in space or aiming the sternum towards the floor. Reaching the arms forward without overly recruiting rec-

tus abdominis and forcing the back into a turtle shell appearance will typically accomplish the task of optimizing thoracic positioning. Arms forward and weight on heels usually makes sagittal plane exercises easier to perform in a way that looks better, which may explain why virtually every coach in the world loves the goblet squat! Sensory competencies in the sagittal plane are as follows:

•Feel weight on their heels •Feel hamstrings engage when in hip flexion •Feel glute max engage when in hip extension •Feel abs engage

Sensory incompetencies in the sagittal plane are as follows (usually from center of mass being too far forward):

•Weight on toes •Feels knees •Feels back •Feels neck

Your ability to move well in any plane involves all of the planes working together. Planes are probably a lot like energy systems, where they’re all working together at the same time to some degree, just in different ratios based on the task and context. A subject’s ability to feel appropriate frontal plane sensory targets is usually strongly tied to possessing sagittal competency, and when he or she does not feel the right things, I spend most of my time working on these. This thought process is rooted in the previous discussion of comparing humans with chimps. I believe that the purpose of frontal plane muscles for a human is to allow for the center of mass to stay between the bases of support— the feet—during locomotion. Keeping the center of mass between the feet during bipedal gait facilitates forward motion without unnecessary side to side sway. Sensory competency is critical in demonstrating both this ability during gait,

Page

41

and the mirror asymmetry abilities discussed earlier in this chapter. Possessing frontal plane competency is largely a muscular phenomenon, but feeling the right part of each foot is also critical. Generally speaking, you want to be on the heel of the stance side foot and the medial arch of the other foot. Going upwards from there, you want to feel the adductors of the stance side foot, the glute med of the opposite side, the frontal plane abs on the stance side, and the serratus anterior on the opposite side. We’ll see that the competencies zig and zag across the body as we go up each segment. Sensory competencies in the frontal plane are as follows:

•Stance side heel •Opposite side medial arch •Stance side adductor •Opposite side glute med •Stance side abs •Opposite side serratus

Sensory incompetencies in the frontal plane (probably lacking sagittal competencies or frontal centering):

•Lats are firing up •Tensor fascia latae is firing up •Neck muscles (SCM and/or scalenes) are firing up •The person is gripping with their hands and feet •The person is not breathing

Finally, we come to the transverse plane. The ability to rotate is a critical capability for sports that require locomotion, striking, and throwing components. The axial skeleton is really the powerhouse of rotational drive. The glute max is the dominant transverse plane muscle of the pelvis, and the one responsible for rotating the pelvis in the contralateral direction from the stance side foot during late stance mechanics in the gait cycle. The ability of the glute max to maximize late stance actions is tied to finishing the stride through the flexion action of the great toe, aka push-off. During gait, a dissociation-based twist needs to occur

between pelvis and thorax. While the pelvis is oriented left, the ribcage needs to be able to rotate to the right when the right foot initially hits the ground in early stance. Sensing the ability of the ribcage to rotate in space is the other big axial skeleton piece rooted in the transverse plane. The swinging of the arms causes the rotation of the ribcage. In the previous example of ribcage turning right while the pelvis is turning left as the right foot lands on heel in early stance, we would see the left arm be flexed, externally rotated, and supinated, while the right arm is extended, internally rotated, and pronated. A similar mirror asymmetry concept would be present at the lower extremity, and we could say that the swinging of the legs drive the rotational movement of the pelvis. When the right foot is hitting the ground during early stance, the right lower extremity would be flexed, abducted, externally rotated, and supinated, while the left lower extremity would be extended, adducted, internally rotated, and pronated. The sensory competencies of the transverse plane are slightly more rooted in the skeleton, and less based on feeling specific muscles as compared to the other planes. The glute max is the major muscle you want to feel, but other than that, you truly want to be aware of the first ray of the foot, the great toe, arm swing, and the ribcage. Sensory competencies of the transverse plane:

•First ray of foot and great toe •Glute max •Arm swing (front side mechanics) •Rotation of the ribcage

Sensory incompetencies of the transverse plane

•Outside of foot •Lumbar spine •Neck

Page

42

If, by now, you’re thinking: “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home…” and getting ready to dawn your ruby coaching slippers and go right back to what you’ve been doing, I can’t stop you. In a lot of ways I’m writing this book and creating this system for posterity. My hope is that, as this stuff trickles out into the world little by little, and more coaches put little pieces of it together, it’ll slowly spread. And, who knows, maybe five years from now, there will even be coaches out there integrating this model into everything they do. If you’re one of those who’s really excited by a sprawling, binary, objective, biomechanics-based system, I hope this initial peek “behind the curtain” has intrigued you. For simpler rules on how to understand human movement and coach the particular mechanics that are of interest to you, let’s look further.

04 Principles of Progression

Page

44

Principles of Progression

Chapter 4

Where did you come from? Where did you go? Where did you come from, Cotton Eye Joe? Maybe if poor Joe had a directory map— you know, the kind you see at the mall with that ever-so-helpful “You Are Here” circle—he could reference where he currently is, and, from there, determine where he wants to go next. Exercise is no different. If you can establish where you are right now, you can discern the direction you need to go in, and the steps you have to take to move towards performing, feeling, and looking the way you want. The more specific you can be about your goals, the better your odds of attaining them, instead of spinning round and round in purposeless circles. What are the principles you use for progression in exercise to achieve your desired goals? If something vague and intangible comes to mind, this question deserves a better answer. Some answers that will actually move someone towards his or her goals might be more weight, more reps, more duration, more frequency, more speed, more intensity, more volume. Now, when you’re actually coaching

others, there’s more to the puzzle than just these pieces. Sometimes you’re looking to see them perform exercises better. This is where we get sucked back into the world of movement quality. To begin this discussion, I’ll tell you where I think you should start: my list of The Big 10 Principles of Progression. After we go through the Big 10 Principles of Progression, we will explore the Propulsion Arc for guiding us towards manipulating joint actions and positions to increase the likelihood of performing exercises with competence.

Pillar 4, Movement Progression Let’s start at the beginning. This is both a very stupid and smart recommendation. When your route is based on repeatable principles, then the journey can be streamlined, simplified, and much more reproducible when taking different people through it. The Big 10 Principles of Progression give us a place to start, move towards, and end with:

1.Start static 2.Start sagittal 3.Start bilateral symmetrical 4.Minimize the difficulty of managing gravity 5.Limiting ROM to only the Zone of Sensorimotor Competency (ZSC) 6.Start with short levers 7.Provide Reactive Neuromuscular Training (RNT) 8.Maximize references 9.Maximize constraints 10.Minimize load



There are a number of terms that need to be defined in the Big 10 Principles of Progression. Once you’re familiarized with these critical terms, you’ll start to see how you can use these principles towards modifying exercises, so you can execute them better and coach others

Page

45

towards the same. So, let’s start at number one and work out way through the list. 1.Static refers to having people hold isometric positions. When someone is repeatedly failing to do an exercise properly, have them slow down. The faster someone is going through a movement, the less they can sense the movement. If someone is doing something improperly, you need them to slow down to the greatest degree possible, so that they can feel what is right and what is wrong. There is no way to slow down more than staying still. Isometrics are invaluable to use with beginners for both improving their fitness, and improving their technical performance of exercises. 2.The sagittal plane is the anatomical plane that divides the body into right and left sides. When the sagittal plane is drawn, it is usually depicted as a panel that cuts the body down the middle and separates the left from the right. The joint movements of the sagittal plane are flexion and extension. The frontal plane is the anatomical plane that divides the body into front and back. When the frontal plane is drawn, it is usually depicted as a panel that cuts the body through the middle and separates the front from the back. The joint movements of the frontal plane are abduction and adduction. The transverse plane is the anatomical plane that divides the body into top and bottom. When the transverse plane is drawn, it is usually depicted as a panel that cuts the body through the middle and separates the top from the bottom. The joint movements of the transverse plane are internal rotation and external rotation, along with horizontal abduction and adduction. 3.Bilateral symmetrical stance involves having the feet spread equidistant from one another, and the weight of the body is evenly distributed between the left and right sides. This is the stance associated with the “athletic position”, and is the most common stance for weight room activities, such as squats, deadlifts, pushups, bench press, pull-ups, etc. 4.Minimizing the difficulty of managing gravity is easier explained through example

rather than strictly defined. It is easier to walk than to run. It is easier to stand than to walk. It is easier to sit than to stand. It is easier to lie down than to sit. The more of you that is on the ground, the easier it is to manage gravity. 5.Limiting the Range of Motion (ROM) to only the Zone of Sensorimotor Competency (ZSC) is a critical concept. In this model, the goal is to perform exercises while displaying planar motor competency and feeling sensory competency. When both motor and sensory competency is occurring, then the activity can be said to be competent. Large excursions of body parts through space executed in an incompetent manner is the opposite of what we are trying to accomplish here. Restrict your ROM to only that which is competent. 6.Start with short levers refers to keeping your arms and legs close to your body with exercises. This principle is a recommendation that comes from a simple appreciation of torque. Torque equals force times the distance of a lever arm from the axis of rotation. If the lever arm is longer, the torque goes up. With the human body, all of our joints are similar to lever arms that rotate around a fulcrum. If you hug a cement bag close to your body in front of you, that is a short lever. If you hold a cement bag far from your body with straight arms, that is a long lever. It is much harder to hold the cement bag in the long lever position. 7.Reactive Neuromuscular Training is a term that was popularized by Gray Cook. It refers to the idea that if I push you or a part of your body in one direction, you will reflexively push back on me in the opposite direction. We see a lot of people at gyms performing squats with a mini band around their knees. The band is pulling the knees towards the midline, so reflexively we push back out against the band. 8.References refer to feeling specific parts of your body throughout the entirety of performing a movement. With the sagittal plane, the heels are a critical reference center. I want to make sure you feel your heels the entire time you are squatting and deadlifting. When

Page

46

performing core exercises, in the beginning, I’ll put people on the ground. People can feel their back, and the backs of their feet on the ground. If the person loses those points of contact (references), then they know they’re not performing the drill properly. Providing the back with contact with the ground is maximizing references during a core exercise.

rise to high levels, the way you move to execute exercise changes, and the quality of that movement is always decreased.

9.Constraints are barriers to movement occurring in undesirable ways. Constraints can be wide-ranging from the perspective of implementation. External physical objects are often used as constraints. If you put an object near a person and instruct the person not to touch it while they are doing an exercise, this can be a constraint. If you have someone hold a physical object, and tell them to not let the object drop during the performance of a movement, this can be a constraint. Machines provide constraints when they travel along a fixed path. Also the tempo and timing of exercises can be a constraint. If you want to prevent people from moving too fast during an exercise, you can play a metronome, to force them to go at a certain speed. You can time drills to make sure that people are moving for a very specific amount of time. Preventing unwanted motion is a very valuable coaching tool.



10.Minimizing load is a far-reaching concept that ranges from the amount of weight used in an exercise to the total amount of training volume in a program. You should always start people with the lightest weight they can use that still allows them to experience the benefits of an exercise. In this way, you capture the reward of the activity while minimizing the risk of the activity.The lightest possible weights will also create the lowest stress circumstances, which are more appropriate for learning how to do exercises properly. You should always start with the least amount of total exercise in a program that allows you to experience the benefits of exercise, and then gradually ramp up the total volume of activity over time. With such an approach, you do not overwhelm the system with stress and fatigue. When stress and fatigue

Now that we know where to start, let’s talk about where we are going to go. To accomplish this, we again look for guidance from our Big 10 Principles of Progression: 1.Static to dynamic 2.Sagittal to frontal to transverse 3.Bilateral to front/back to lateral stance 4.Challenge position relative to gravity 5.Increase the ROM for the Zone of Sensorimotor Competence 6.Lengthen levers 7.Reduce RNT input 8.Reduce reference 9.Reduce constraints 10.Progressively increase load systematically

Every pattern’s exercise progression roadmap will have its idiosyncrasies, which we’ll save for upcoming chapters. But, from here on out, we’ll continuously fall back on the Big 10 Principles of Progression, as I do in my coaching, whenever I’m struggling to get a client to execute an exercise correctly, and search for ways I can incorporate these principles into the setup for the exercise in question. And, every time I go back to these basics, the outcome is better on the next go-around.

The Propulsion Arc The Propulsion Arc is a concept that I have learned exclusively from Bill Hartman, the single biggest influencer of my movement thought process, and my ability to produce the model this book presents. To explain the Propulsion Arc, I’ll need to provide you with a little bit of back story on the way that Bill views movement, which should help clarify and synthesize a few key concepts. Bill does not think that there is a sagittal plane or a frontal plane. In fact, there may not even be a transverse plane. However, if one of these planes does exist, it would be the transverse

Page

47

plane. How could this possibly be the case? It starts with the notion that in biology, the only shapes that are ever made are straight lines. The universe is a giant energy conservation machine, a machine that constructs nothing that isn’t fundamentally based on conserving energy to the greatest degree possible. Biology is not exempt from this law, and, if we are of the universe, we must abide by its laws. The shortest distance between two points, a straight line is the most energy-conserving shape conceivable. A semantics argument about how there are no true straight lines in nature could go on for millennia, so I will stop short of asserting that all shapes in Biology are derived from straight lines. That said, Biology is based at its most elemental level on shapes that approximate straight lines. Within Biology the realm of molecular geometry is largely rooted in Valence Shell Electron Pair (VSEPR) Theory. Molecular geometry explains the shapes we see at the smallest levels of Newtonian physics. The smallest objects in Newtonian physics are atoms, which are the actual elements that comprise the Periodic Table of elements. Molecules are formed when two or more atoms bond together. When discussing molecular geometric shapes, we have to consider the steric and the number of lone pairs. The steric number is the number of domains (atoms and electron pairs) bonded to the central atom. The lone pair is an electron pair in the outermost shell of an atom that is not bonded to another atom. Depending on the steric number and the number of lone pairs associated with a molecule, there are a few potential shapes that molecules can make. The shapes that are possible in molecular geometry are linear, trigonal planar, bent, tetrahedral, trigonal pyramidal, and bent. Before we go on, no, I’m not here to teach you molecular geometric science, but rather to set the stage for the fundamentals of movement, and doing so necessitates this quick review.

So, at the most basic level of biology,

the shape that structures make is linear. As shapes become more advanced, these linear bonds merge and form triangular shapes. These triangular shapes will then merge to make pyramidal shapes. And a pyramidal shape is the most advanced shape a molecule can attain. What happens when we combine a bunch of pyramidal-shaped molecules to make more advanced structures? The answer is that when you bond pyramids together, the shape that emerges is a helix, an essential shape at the body tissue level. Nucleic acids, aka “DNA”, leverage the double helix, while actin filaments display the single helix and collagen, the triple helix. Our tissues are rooted in the helix as their basic shape. But, in our essence, we are animals to which straight line molecules gave rise. As mentioned, in Biology, stacking straight lines produces triangles, stacking triangles produces pyramids, and stacking pyramids produces helixes. Finally, stacking helixes produces tissues. Ergo, our movement is the movement of helixes. What movement do helixes demonstrate? The answer to that is a spiral. What plane does a spiral move in? The closest approximation to that would be the transverse plane. To understand helical movement a little better, picture a slinky. If you were to grab a slinky by the two ends and pull it apart, you would witness the helical angles of the coils becoming narrower, and the width of the slinky appearing skinnier. If you were to push its two ends towards each other, the slinky would fatten up, and the helical angles of the coils would get wider. A slinky is a single helix model. To understand a double-helix model, picture a Chinese finger trap. If you put your two fingers into each end, you can push them together, and, as with the slinky, as you compress the Chinese finger trap, the helical angle be-

Page

48

comes wider the more it is compressed, and the middle of the toy grows fatter. If you pull your fingers away from each other, and the device expands, the helical angles get narrower, and the body of the toy gets skinnier. Our tissues work by the same premise as the slinky and the Chinese finger trap. Our helical DNA, actin and collagen all have the ability to expand and compress. As they expand, the helical angle gets increasingly narrower. As they compress, the helical angle gets increasingly wider. Biology is a fractal system. Fractals are a never-ending pattern that is self-similar across different scales, formed by repeating the same simple process over and over in a feedback loop that can achieve different levels of complexity. Organisms are assembled via fractal processes. Movement occurs via fractal processes. That which appears complex at the outer layers of a fractal system is based on the same simple rule that governs smaller, less complex layers. Analogously, understanding the “mico-movement” of a strand of actin interacting with a Z disc enables us to understand movement at the grand level, for instance, that of a thorax interacting with a pelvis. Again, biological movement is based on the expansion and compression of helical structures. When we observe the expansion and compression inherent in the human body moving through space, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the level of complexity, the constraints imposed by the skeleton, the varying degrees of freedom of different joints participating in the action, and the simultaneous interaction of different organ systems. Yet, at the heart of it, movement is driven by gaseous and fluid-filled tissue mediums preferentially expanding one area while compressing another, to move the center of mass or segments of the body through space in a specific direction. From a big picture standpoint, Bill has a few categories that he uses to describe motion: Strategy, Orientation and Action.

Pillar 5, Movement Strategies All of the things that we observe bodies doing are simply evolutionary, anatomical solutions that allow us to either expand or compress more effectively. There are specific joint action names to the movements associated with expansion, and the movements associated with compression. Broadly speaking, expansion is an external rotation-based phenomenon. Besides rotation, other major joint actions associated with expansion are flexion, abduction, plantar flexion, and supination. Compression, then, is an internal rotation-based phenomenon, other major joint actions associated with compression are extension, adduction, dorsi-flexion, and pronation. When we think about expansion and compression from a respiratory system perspective, the inhalation phase is the expansion-based phenomenon, and the exhalation phase is the compression-based phenomenon. The ability to reach full expansion requires us to be able to assume an eccentric orientation of relevant tissues, and the ability to reach full compression requires us to be able to assume a concentric orientation of relevant tissues. The muscular action of yielding is associated with expansion, and the muscular action of overcoming is associated with compression.

Pillar 6, Muscular Orientation Orientation speaks to whether muscles are in an eccentric or concentric state from a length perspective. There is some length middle-ground for muscles, within which range they are neither eccentric nor concentric. As soon as a muscle shortens beyond this divider, it becomes concentrically oriented. As soon as the muscle lengthens beyond it, it becomes eccentrically oriented. Muscles use an eccentric orientation to try to allow segments to move through a large excursion while performing yielding and use a concentric orientation to try to prevent segments from moving through a large excursion when performing yielding actions. A concentric orientation is used to allow segments to move through a large excursion while performing overcoming actions, and muscles that remain in an eccentric orientation are

Page

49

unable to finish a movement during an overcoming action.

Pillar 7, Muscular Action Action speaks to whether tissues are overcoming the forces they are interacting with, or yielding to the forces they are interacting with. Yielding is synonymous with absorbing force. Overcoming is synonymous with producing force. Typically, when we move in the same direction as the pull of gravity, we are yielding, and when we move in the opposite direction of the pull of gravity, we are overcoming. The Interaction of Strategies, Orientations, Actions, and The Propulsion Arc A muscle may be concentrically or eccentrically oriented and using a yielding strategy. Conversely, a muscle may be concentrically or eccentrically oriented and using an overcoming strategy. To reach a large excursion of ROM involving a yielding action, the involved tissues need to reach an eccentric orientation. An example of this would be eccentrically orienting the pelvic floor and quadriceps to allow yourself to go to the bottom of a squat motion. If you want to purposefully limit ROM with a yielding action, you need to keep the involved tissues in a concentric orientation. An example of this would be jumping rope. The gastrocnemius, quadriceps, and pelvic floor are maintained in a concentric orientation when the jumper lands. By maintaining this concentric orientation of the tissues, yielding ROM is kept to a minimum. To finish an overcoming action through full ROM, your muscles need to reach a concentric orientation. If you are performing a biceps brachii curl and want to reach the end range of the top of the exercise, a concentric orientation of the muscle is a prerequisite for accomplishing this. If the biceps do not switch from an eccentric orientation to a concentric orientation, overcoming ROM will cease at the midzone of the movement, falling short of achieving the top range of the curl. An eccentrically-oriented muscle may also create an overcoming action. If we reuse the

deep squat as our example, we would reach the bottom of the squat by eccentrically orienting the pelvic floor. Now, we need to come up, out of the bottom of the squat. The pelvic floor muscles are still eccentrically oriented at this level of depth, but we can still create an overcoming action, needed to push up from here. If you cannot get the pelvic floor to reach a concentric orientation in the midzone, this is the point at which your overcoming capabilities will cease, thwarting your ability to come up out of the squat. A concentrically-oriented muscle can create an overcoming action. In the example of jumping rope, we landed on the ground after a hop. We maintained our gastrocnemius in a concentric orientation during the landing, even though the muscle had to absorb force with a yielding action. Following the absorption of force, the muscle will overcome gravity to help us jump off the ground again. To drive this subsequent jump, the gastrocnemius will now use an overcoming action from this concentric orientation. That which we observe as sagittal or frontal plane movement is simply a nonuniform compression in one direction of a helix, causing a nonuniform expansion in the opposite direction of that helix. In typical human movement, the arrangement and composition of the skeletal system provide the constraints that direct expansion and compression in specific directions. To close the loop on the concept, though I agree with Bill’s assertion that there is no such thing as a sagittal or frontal plane, I will continue to use the traditional planar terms throughout this book for simplicity’s sake. Now that we have been introduced to the nature of expansion and compression from a helical movement perspective, we can get back to the propulsion arc. This is a concept that I believe applies to every trainable motion, and, indeed to all forms of human movement. The arc has three primary zones, which we will refer to as Zone 1, Zone 2, and Zone 3. Bill talks about these concepts as Early Propulsion, Middle Propulsion, and Late Propulsion, which are terms largely based on the gait cycle.

Page

50

When you are walking, your foot will make contact with the ground. The moment your foot initially hits the ground, you are beginning early propulsion. After your foot hits the ground, your weight will shift over that foot as your body moves forward through space. When the maximum amount of your center of mass is over the middle of your foot during the stride, you will be at middle propulsion. Your body mass will continue to move forward, following through to the end of your stride. Just before your foot leaves the ground again to take your next step, you are in late propulsion in the gait cycle. There are stereotypical joint positions, actions, and movement strategies that are associated with early, middle, and late propulsion. Early and late propulsion are expansion-dominant phases in the gait cycle, and middle propulsion is the compression-dominant phase of the cycle. During early and late propulsion, we will see joints externally rotating, flexing, abducting, supinating, plantar flexing, and trending more towards eccentric orientation and yielding. During middle propulsion, we will see joints internally rotating, extending, adducting, pronating, dorsiflexing, and trending more towards concentric orientation and overcoming. The concept of gradients is critical for comprehending the propulsion arc. The broad movement strategies and joint actions that are taking place are never absolute things. Your body is never expanded/expanding 100% or compressed/compressing 100%. At all times, there is an interplay between expansion and compression, and throughout your body, you are expanding and compressing simultaneously to varying degrees. Likewise, no phase in the arc is fully an expansion phase or a compression phase. Rather than thinking about it from an absolutist perspective, consider the concept one of a continuum with a sliding scale. At certain phases of motion, there will be times when dominance will shift towards and other times when dominance will shift towards compression. At the point where you are beginning early propulsion, you are biased to the greatest

degree possible towards an expansion strategy. As you go further into early propulsion, the expansion strategy gets weaker, and the compression strategy gets stronger. When you reach the peak of middle propulsion, this is when you are biased to the greatest degree possible towards a compression strategy. As you move away from middle propulsion and closer to late propulsion, the compression strategy gets weaker, and the expansion strategy gets stronger. When you reach the greatest degree of late propulsion, this is when you are maximally biased toward an expansion strategy. So, why is it called an arc? The answer to this is, if we were to examine the major moving joint during an action, we will see it make an arc shape in the path that it traverses. Examples will make this easier to see. Let’s use lifting your arm overhead. At rest, your arm is down by your side. You begin to lift your arm over your head. Your elbow and hand, while going up, are also moving forward and away from your body. When you reach the halfway point at 90 degrees, your elbow and hand are as far from your body as possible. As you move beyond the 90-degree point, now your elbow and hand will start coming back towards your body. The same close-far-close progression is also true for actions like throwing or hitting a ball with a baseball bat. You will see a natural arc motion in all types of striking sports actions, like kicking a soccer or hitting a golf ball, or a slap shot in hockey. You will even see the same concept in basic gym exercises, like barbell curls. With examples of actions involving hitting a ball, the arc is very easy to see. You have a windup phase at the beginning of the motion, and a follow-through phase at the end of the motion, the middle of the motion being when you make contact with the ball. The windup and the follow-through are phases of the motion characterized by creating expansion, while the middle of the motion at the strike zone is characterized by creating compression.

Page

51

These examples also illustrate how exhalation relies on compression. In tennis strokes, a compression-driven impact with the ball mid-stroke is bookended by the expansion-driven windup and follow-through motions. When executing a swing, athletes often audibly exhale. Hard to imagine them audibly inhaling instead as they hit the ball, and now we better understand why. Some motions do not go through the entire propulsion arc. A punch is a good example of a motion that goes from early propulsion to middle propulsion and back to early propulsion. Likewise, the leg extension machine goes from early propulsion to middle propulsion, and back to early propulsion.

As we go through the trainable patterns

Fig 4.1 - Propulsion Arc

in this book, we will revisit the many variations of this arc time and again. While the terms used by Bill—Early, Middle, and Late Propulsion—are perfectly applicable to all movement patterns, I’m going to use numbers to correspond to zones in the propulsion arc to avoid potential confusion for certain patterns. In this book, Zone 1 and Zone 3 of the arc will be our expansion-dominant zones, and Zone 2 is going to be our compression-dominant zone. When we look at the squat as a pattern, we will discuss it within the confines of the propulsion arc, and identify three different zones for this movement: the top of the squat, the middle of the squat, and the bottom of the squat. The top of the squat will be Zone 1, the middle will be Zone 2, and the bottom will be Zone 3. If we look at the motion with the knees as

Page

52

our reference point, at the top of the squat, the knees are in line with the body. As we descend, the knees go forward. If you watch someone get into the absolute rock bottom of a full squat, the knees have to come back towards the body to reach that point. You can witness the knees moving through the arc-shaped motion to accomplish the full squat. Rather than discuss the squat from the perspective of early, middle, and late propulsion, we will label the phases as Zones 1 (top), 2 (middle), and 3 (bottom). We will do the same thing with throwing pattern exercises. With throwing and striking motions, Zone 1 is the windup, Zone 2 is the strike zone, and Zone 3 is the follow-through. Zones 1 and 3 should be characterized by expansion/inhalation/eccentric orientation-related joint actions, while Zone 2 should be characterized by compression/exhalation/concentric-related joint actions. If someone is struggling to display sensorimotor competency with a particular pattern, having an understanding of the arc provides powerful tools for success. There are a few ways in which you can make easy use of the arc to manipulate exercises for better odds of competent execution. First, there is a general principle to follow for progressing exercises with the arc. Start exercises with a Zone 1 focus, then move to Zone 2, and finally to Zone 3. Some examples will make this easier to understand. If I’m considering introducing the squat in someone’s training, I can use the arc to give them a set-up that will increase the likelihood of a competent squat with the appropriate range of motion. I will start with Zone 1 concepts, implemented into the assembly of the exercise. In other words, I’ll start by giving them a form of resistance that puts their arms into a Zone 1 position. When thinking about arms, Zone 1 is when the humerus is close to being down by the person’s side. Zone 2 is when the humerus is straight out away from the person’s body

at 90 degrees. Zone 3 is when the humerus is overhead. To make the squat feature “Zone 1 arms”, we could try the goblet squat set-up. The elbow is flexed to hold an implement at the height of the chest, but the humerus is still held relatively low, down by the person’s side. Now that I have created a zone 1 concept at the arms, I can start to think about how to enhance a Zone 1 concept at the lower extremity. Recalling that Zone 1 is an expansion strategy phase of movements, and that expansion is facilitated by flexion, abduction, ER, supination, and plantar flexion joint when I think about setting someone up for success in a squat, providing plantar flexion is my pick. I can increase plantar flexion by elevating the heels. By following the guidelines associated with creating exercises that first feature Zone 1 concepts, and then applying those guidelines to a squat exercise, I can conclude that a heels-elevated goblet squat is an exercise that yields a very high probability of being performed with competency. This exercise also fits in nicely with many of the other Big 10 Principles of Progression. The goblet squat is a short lever position for the upper extremity, while the elevation of the heels references the heels for a sagittal plane exercise. To progress the squat, I can come back to the propulsion arc for guidance. A front squat would clearly be a progression compared to a goblet squat. With the front squat, the arms are positioned in a Zone 2 region. If someone needs to front squat but struggles with some of the Zone 2 joint actions, I could feed more Zone 1 concepts into the set-up for this drill. For instance, I could put lifting straps around the bar, and have the person hold onto the straps so that they can supinate their hands to a greater degree. After someone has become proficient at the front squat, now I can think about bringing them up to a Zone 3 squat, which would be an overhead squat. The world of strength and conditioning has no shortage of tools that feed expansion related joint positions into the set-up of resis-

Page

53

tance training patterns. If you think about a trap bar for the deadlift, the handle position feeds the athlete more ER and supination in their grip set-up compared to a straight barbell. A Swiss bar for bench press feeds the athlete more ER and supination in their grip set-up compared to a straight barbell. A safety squat bar feeds the athlete more ER and supination in their grip setup compared to a straight barbell. Such tools, designed to spare athletes unnecessary joint stress from high training volume, generally exhibit expansion-related concepts, and the ability to put upper and lower extremities into Zone 1 versus Zone 2 positions. When you view movement through the lens of the propulsion arc, there are limitless ways that you can manipulate the execution of training patterns. As we work our way through this book and explore the different patterns, many examples will be provided. With the Big 10 Principles of Progression and the Propulsion Arc as your templates, the hope is that you can become the architect of your own exercises, modifying and manipulating them as you see fit.

05 Foundational Principles

Page

55

Pattern 1: Breathing

Chapter 5

Part 1: Breathing, From a Qualitative Perspective In the fitness industry, breathing tends to either be overhyped or underhyped. I’m not here to talk about breathing from a “woo woo” metaphysical perspective, rather from the perspective of how airflow mechanics impact the skeleton. Though I’ll touch on a few fringe notions, I will focus mostly on the basics and physics of breathing, and give credit to those who have opened my eyes to the power of the ventilatory process as it relates to movement. As a kid growing up in the 80s, I got into karate, which exposed me to some of the basic concepts of martial arts, one of which was conscious, controlled breathing. Later, in an effort to increase range of motion for sports during high school, I got more into yoga, where the importance of breathing was again emphasized. When I got back into martial arts in my late teens and early 20s, my mixed martial arts coach would get us to bring our attention back

to our

breathing when fatigue and panic started to set in. As I got deeper into coaching within the strength and conditioning world, I sought to learn more and more from the influential physical therapists who were popular for being able to improve range of motion and movement quality in their athlete clients. This group of practitioners again led me back to breathing. I guess you could say that I have been primed to think that breathing is important. Whenever I feel like my experiences could be biasing me towards a viewpoint, I try to recognize this and assume the null hypothesis on that given issue. In the world of movement, objectivity is often attained through standardized table tests of range of motion. Having studied countless table tests, I can say that practically nothing serves to improve test results better than getting participants into proper positions, and having them breathe in very particular ways designed to drive particular changes. Yes, deep breathing drills have profound effects on the mind. Yes, deep breathing drills can acutely influence cortisol levels. Yes, deep breathing drills can help with anxiety, asthma, mindfulness, presence, and a bevy of psychosomatic problems. Without denying any of these effects, the effect we’ll examine here are those of proper breathing drills that direct people towards exhaling in very specific ways based upon test results, as well as those of controlling a nasal inhale, which can drastically alter skeletal positions, muscle leverages, and joint range of motion. I got into strength and conditioning in 2004 when I was 24 years old. At that time, I wanted to learn about the science and practice of hypertrophy, strength, power, Olympic lifts,

Page

56

plyometrics, sprints, agility drills, and conditioning. Like most young, motivated meatheads, I trained myself into the ground and ended up in a lot of pain. This is when I got introduced to some folks who valued movement quality, a concept that unveiled an entirely new world within my chosen field. My first introduction to organized strength and conditioning that emphasized movement proficiency was through the work of Mike Boyle, a brilliant and incredibly influential strength and conditioning coach based in Massachusetts. He has done a masterful job of integrating quality stretching and other range of motion/movement-related activities into an overall program aimed at athletic improvement. Through his lectures and podcasts, I was introduced to Gray Cook and the Functional Movement Screen (FMS), so I dove into Cook’s work next. Gray Cook does an incredible job of explaining a model of how the human body can get out of balance. In this model, it is explained that superficial muscles can overpower deep muscles, and prime movers can dominate stabilizers. When we have an unbalanced body, we lose the ability to express fundamental human movements that we should all possess. Furthermore, the joints of our body are organized in an alternating fashion, where some joints desperately need a high degree of mobility, and others need a high degree of stability. For the lower extremity, the ankle needs to be highly mobile, while the knee needs to be highly stable, and the hip needs to be highly mobile. This joint-byjoint approach to the body also suggests that, when troubleshooting joint pain, we should look to the joint above or below the one the patient identifies as painful. Oftentimes, chronic knee pain can be the result of a hip or ankle that has lost its appropriate mobility. When a mobile joint loses its mobility, it increases stability, and it tends to force the adjacent stable joint to pick up mobility. The FMS purports to be able to ascertain the degree to which the body has remained in balance by quantifying the degree

to which we have maintained mobility at all our mobile joints and stability at all of our stable joints. In many of his talks, Gray Cook notes the profound interplay of breathing and movement, in part attributable to the fact some muscles are primarily intended to be involved with breathing. Chief among these muscles is the diaphragm. If the diaphragm isn’t doing its job - because of a mobility and/or a stability issue in the body then other joints have to jump in and assist the breathing process. Perhaps your stiff, achy neck or hypertonic traps are just trying to help you breathe, and the real problem lies in your faulty breathing pattern. If there was a way to let your traps go back to simply being traps instead of being makeshift diaphragms, your stiff neck would return to being highly mobile, and your aches and pains would dissipate. After really digging through Gray Cook’s research, I discovered that a lot of his theory and practice was based on the work of the great Czech practitioners, like Vladimir Janda. Janda was a pioneer in physical therapy, who left an enormous wake behind him. One of the first practitioners to really start looking at the influence of the brain on the conditions he was seeing, he ushered in what is now known as the “Functional” approach to physical therapy. Janda also noticed that most dysfunctional states of the body were stereotypical, meaning that the human body seems to go to disarray in some fairly patterned and predictable ways. Janda viewed the skeletal muscle system as the crosshairs of the nervous system. The efferent messages from the central nervous system reach and terminate at skeletal muscle, and the afferent messages that return to the central nervous system originate at the skeletal muscle. In this way, the status of skeletal muscle provides a window for observing the functional state of the brain. This type of model suggests that you can influence the brain via alterations in what you do with skeletal muscle, and vice versa. Since physical therapists can’t perform open brain surgery, their work has to take place on

Page

57

the periphery and rely on afferent information that gets sent back to the CNS. The idea is that with new, different, and/or increased afferent information being provided to the brain, a new, different, and/or increased efferent message will be sent back to the skeletal muscle system. And, when a new efferent message is sent to the muscles and the skeleton, changes in muscle tone, length, position, and functionality can take place. What sorts of strategies should we use to drive a change in afferent information to the brain? Because our inhalations and exhalations are directly tied to our autonomic nervous system, breathing is an excellent choice for this type of practice. The inhalation is a sympathetic nervous system-based phenomenon, and the exhalation is a parasympathetic nervous system-based phenomenon. If I spend more time in an inhaled state, I would be biased more towards a sympathetic state, and vice versa with exhalation and the parasympathetic system.

tive from one patient to the next. Janda was a keen observer of people, and, as aforementioned, noticed specific patterns of dysfunction. Specifically, he noticed that these patterns were associated with stereotypical presentations of certain muscles being weak and long, and other muscles being tight and short. Every human could be placed somewhere on the spectrum of this typical, patterned response, with the only difference being how deep into the pattern they were. Janda believed that when we had pain or an injury, or a lack of proprioceptive information, our initial reaction to this experience is to tighten up and prevent movement. This prevention of movement at a region is an energetics-driven response. Ultimately, you move less and conserve energy, which is an intelligent strategy in response to threat.

Sympathetics is associated with a fight or flight, mobilization of resources state, and involves the release of chemicals like epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisol from nerve endings and the adrenal glands. Sympathetics would increase tone of muscle, narrow focus, place us in a state of vigilance, and be associated with increased energy expenditure. Parasympathetics is the rest and digest, tend and befriend, socialization-based branch of the autonomic nervous system. A parasympathetic experience is associated with acetylcholine being released as the chemical messenger, which leads to reduced muscle tone, reduction in vigilance, relaxation, and a decreased energy expenditure state.

After tightening up and changing your mechanics, you move around in this style, and engrain this style of movement into your repertoire in a learned response manner. The pattern of tightening and lengthening is typically done in an agonist-antagonist relationship around a joint, where the muscle on one side of a joint becomes tight, and the muscle on the other side becomes long. Once this imbalance around a joint takes place, the way the joint rotates is changed, and the way the person moves through space is altered. The tight muscles in the relationship are closer to the threshold level for contractile activity, and are therefore more easily recruited for most movements. Because it’s more energetically efficient to continuously recruit and use the same tight/short muscles over and over, we tend to deepen this pattern as we age.

As such, breathing is the most obvious pathway for immediately and directly influencing the brain in a predictable manner. Touch, either between patient and practitioner or between patient and some object, also provides a somatic afferent message to the brain. But, unlike breathing, which influences brain activity in a predictable way, touch does so in ways that are not well understood, and are incredibly subjec-

Janda classified three patterns of muscle imbalance, referring to them as Upper Crossed Syndrome, Lower Crossed Syndrome, and Layer Syndrome. Upper Crossed Syndrome involves tight and strong superficial anterior neck muscles and pecs on the front of the body, and upper traps and suboccipitals on the posterior side of the body. The long/weak muscles of Upper Crossed Syndrome are the deep neck

Page

58

flexors on the front, and the low trap and serratus anterior on the back. Lower Crossed Syndrome involves tight hip flexors on the front and low back extensors on the back, and long/weak abdominals on the front and hamstrings/glutes on the back. Layer Syndrome is when you have both Upper and Lower Crossed Syndrome presenting together. Layer Syndrome causes a hunched back, with a forward head position up top, with an anterior tilted pelvis at the bottom, and further compensation results in a swayback presentation. This pursuit of patterns and limitations of skeletal muscle function led me to study the teachings of Ron Hruska, who is the founder and director of the Postural Restoration Institute (PRI). Well-versed in classical osteopathic literature, physical therapy, Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF), podiatry, psychology, dental sciences, and optometry, among a host of other disciplines, Ron possesses a wealth of knowledge about the human condition. A unique and truly genuine human being, Ron has helped elucidate what osteopathic literature first called The Common Compensatory Pattern, terming it the left Anterior Interior Chain (AIC), and right Brachial Chain (BC) pattern. While Janda’s work helped people see things from a bilateral perspective, Ron has helped those who have studied his material understand the stereotypical presentation that the left side of the body will demonstrate versus the right. Ron integrated the osteopathic patterns into the gait cycle, and also discovered that these musculoskeletal patterns present at the level of the neck, mandible, maxilla, and cranial bones. One of the most fundamental tenets of Hruska’s patterns is that there is an underlying asymmetry to the human condition. In particular, there is strong asymmetry at the visceral level. The liver is present on the right side of the body, and is strongly connected by fascia to the right side of the diaphragm. This liver attachment to the diaphragm provides a strong base of support, from which the diaphragm can move and function. Larger, more muscular, and possessing an extra leaflet as compared to the left side, the right side of the diaphragm seems

to be designed specifically to take advantage of this mechanical advantage for movement as compared to the left, which has no such organ anchor to attach to or move off of. This asymmetry at the level of the diaphragm is the keystone fixture of the patterns that dominate the functionality of the thorax and pelvis in Hruska’s model. The psoas is interconnected with the crural fibers of the diaphragm. The diaphragm meets the psoas at the transverse processes of the lumbar vertebrae and the twelfth thoracic vertebrae. The psoas runs from this vertebral starting place down to the iliac crest, and to the deep side of the ilium. The psoas is intertwined and inseparable from the iliacus muscle, which attaches at the ilium and runs inferiorly to the femur. The psoas also has fascial attachments with the iliacus, which in turn connects with the tensor fascia latae, which merges into the iliotibial band after running inferiorly down the side of the thigh and connecting to the anterior tibia at Gerdy’s Tubercle. The diaphragm, psoas, iliacus and TFL is a chain of muscles known as the AIC, which connects the diaphragm to the spine, the spine to the ilium, the ilium to the femur, and the femur to the tibia. When the AIC is facilitated, it causes the diaphragm to make an overcoming muscle action, bringing it into a concentric orientation, which makes the muscle descend from the thoracic cavity. The descension of the diaphragm leads to respiratory inhalation and puts the pelvis and femur into the inhalation position. The inhalation position of the innominate and femur is flexion, abduction, and ER. This combination of respiration and joint actions drives your leg forward through space, making the AIC our lower body walking chain of muscles. To walk forward, you facilitate your right AIC to push off your right leg while inhibiting your left AIC to receive weight on your left leg, and to take your next step, you facilitate your left AIC while inhibiting your right AIC. Hruska has noted that the asymmetry of the diaphragm, derived from the presence of the liver, leads to the left AIC being more readily facilitated compared to the right. This neuromuscular tendency towards greater left AIC facilitation - compared to right

Page

59

AIC facilitation - creates an unconscious patterned response, which drives our species to being oriented and lateralized to the right, with the left side of the body being biased towards an inhaled behavioral state. The way we deal with this pattern of musculoskeletal activity is to address it at the most central location: the diaphragm. The inhalation response of the left diaphragm is the beginning of this chain reaction, and the place that we can most readily and impactfully check to try to reverse the phenomenon. Via positioning of the ribcage and the pelvic bones around the left diaphragm, I can leverage it towards a position associated with an exhalation state, and begin to re-pattern my subject from there. To accomplish this, I have to integrate the lumbo-pelvic-femoral complex (AIC) with the thoracoabdominal complex (BC). The BC is part of what walks the upper body through the rotation and bending of the thorax. This chain involves the diaphragm, intercostals, triangularis sterni, subclavius, pecs, and deltoids. The right brachial chain flexes and abducts the right side of the thorax. Together, the left AIC and right BC create the aforementioned frontal plane mirror asymmetry positioning and response, as demonstrated by the posture of the statue of David. David is presented with his right ilium bone elevated and his right armpit depressed. The right anterior thoracoabdominal space is closed, and the left is open. I readily fill the lung zones in my left anterior chest wall with air, while my right chest wall is compressed and empty. What I need to do is position myself so as to close the left anterior thoracoabdominal space, and open the right side. To accomplish this feat of closing the left side and opening the right, I need to examine the body from a three-dimensional, triplanar perspective. I have to examine which side has the pelvis in a long, weak state in the sagittal plane, and which side is short and tight. I have to repeat this process for the frontal plane and transverse plane at the pelvis, as well as exam-

ine the thorax in this manner. When seeing the common asymmetrical patterned body, Hruska has noted that the left posterior pelvis is long in the sagittal plane, while the right is short. The anterior side of the pelvis is the opposite, where the left is short and the right is long in the sagittal plane. My left pelvic adductor muscles are long, while my right adductors are short. The opposite is true of the abductors. My pelvis is rotated to the right with this pattern. Based on this, my transverse glute fibers are short on the left, but long on the right. At the level of the thorax, my left sagittal and left frontal plane abs are long, while my right abs are short in both planes. The transverse plane picture is more complex. My center of mass is oriented rightwards, but I have to interact with a world that I perceive to be straight in front of me. Therefore, while I’m oriented right at the level of the pelvis and lumbar spine, I’m always attempting to turn back to the left somewhere else in the system. In this pattern, we see that the thoracic spine is rotating back to the left up top. In effect, we are twisted organisms, always caught between being fundamentally shifted right by lumbo-pelvic femoral forces and trying to come back to the middle by having thoracic and cervical forces turning back to the left. Even this highly simplified and excessively summarized version of the true, extensive, complete Postural Restoration Institute model illustrates our structural and movement imperfections. And, at the heart of this model is breathing. Why? Because breathing moves bones through the action of muscles, and powers the forces of air and abdominal fluid movement, as well as our interaction with gravity. Recently, Bill Hartman has begun teaching an event that he calls The Intensive. I was fortunate enough to be one of the participants at the first rendition of The Intensive, where Bill unveiled his model. I truly enjoyed Bill’s thoughts and explanation for the movement patterns that we tend to see in the human condition. Bill gave me a new appreciation for basic physics and the way it impacts the body.

Page

60

This model started off by attempting to explain the most underlying essence of the right-oriented human condition, and I think he nailed it. The majority of our visceral organs, and other organs such as the brain, have posterior attachment sites. The back of the heart attaches to the spine and posterior rib cage. The backside of the brain is anchored to the skull. The backside of the guts is where the tendons are. When we are upright, gravity impacts everything in the same direction: downward. When these organs shift down via gravity, the posterior attachment causes the anterior part of the organ to be lower in space than the posterior part of that organ. Essentially our organs are tumbling downward, and creating a forward spin torque vector. With torque, there is always a resultant vector, known as angular momentum. Angular momentum follows the “right hand” rule of thumb in physics. When our right hand is pointed forward, the thumb is directed to the left, demonstrating the direction of angular momentum from forward tumbling organ torque. The combined angular momentum of summed organ torque leads to a constant left directed thoraco-abdominal air and fluid swirl, which is counterclockwise and going left. We’ve been taking advantage of this leftward procession for millennia. We build race tracks for humans, horses, and dogs so that they can run in a counter-clockwise direction. Baseball is set up to run with procession. Even NASCAR is set up so we can drive in a way that is assisted by this underlying fluid vortex. We can see the effects of the fluid vortex on the shape and positioning of some key central structures. When looking at the pelvis, you’ll typically see the innominate bones rotated to the right, but the sacrum is twisting to the left relative to the innominate bones. Perhaps most telling is the position of the brain inside our skulls, which exists in the state of Yakovlevian Torque. Yakovlevian Torque describes the fact that the human brain is rotated counterclockwise inside the skull, so that the right anterior brain is more forward compared to the left.

In essence, there is an unstoppable fluid force that is always moving to the left inside of our bodies due to our design. Throughout our lives, we will simultaneously be utilizing this force and fighting against it. When the air and fluid procession force brings more volume of fluid to the left side of the thoraco-abdominal and pelvic regions, the left side of our bodies expands. The natural tendency of movement is to go down a concentration gradient. The expanded side has the increased concentration of material. Therefore, it will be harder for us to move our bones to the left into the concentration gradient. Where there is low fluid volume, we will be able to readily move, since we will be moving down the concentration gradient when going in this direction. This is why our skeleton orients readily to the right and lateralizes to the right. The skeleton is just attempting to follow the path of least resistance, and direct movement down its concentration gradient. In respect to the thoracic fluid force and the musculoskeletal counteraction response to this phenomenon, Bill’s model explained that all the other joints of the body are a fractal representation of the big axial compartments. As great minds like Janda noticed long ago, the location of high fluid volume (e.g., synovial fluid) on one side of a joint and low fluid volume on the other side will set us up for the predictable concentric, short position—low fluid volume— opposite the eccentric, long position—high fluid volume. The key for us as movers is to be able to move fluid back and forth between the two sides of a joint, so as to allow for eccentric orientation and concentric orientation of the same muscle. At a fundamental level, our species has to manage pressure and volume throughout our body. Those of us who cannot regulate pressure and volume end up as either compressed, hypertonic and rigid, or flaccid, sloshing, unregulated, lava lamp-like. The interesting thing is that we can get a glimpse into the camp somebody falls in by measuring the way in which he or she breathes. When we go through the respiration cycle, our bodies expand as we inhale, and

Page

61

they compress as we exhale. By expanding, we increase thoracic volume, and decrease the pressure of air inside the lungs, which allows air to move down its pressure gradient and go from the ambient environment to inside our lungs. When we compress, we decrease thoracic volume, and increase the pressure of air inside the lungs, which allows air to move down its pressure gradient and go from the lungs to the ambient environment. Both expansion and compression of the thoracic cavity depend on moving bones in our bodies. Table tests provide telltale markers about whether the subject is patterned into over-reliance on one phase of respiration over another, judging by whether his or her bones are biased strongly towards a position of inhalation or exhalation. The Inhaled and Exhaled Skeleton Inhalation is an element of the expansion movement strategy, and exhalation is an element of the compression movement strategy. The two strategies, when viewed from a joint action perspective, display opposite motions. Muscular orientation and muscular action facilitate the expansion and compression strategies displayed at joints. The movement strategies are associated with stereotypical muscular and joint behaviors, clearly depicting an organism’s adopted attempts to manage gravity and move itself through space. The expansion strategy is associated with the joint actions of flexion, abduction, ER, supination, and plantar flexion. The expansion strategy is associated with the eccentric muscular orientation. An eccentric muscular orientation is used for permitting motion to occur in the direction of that orientation. The expansion strategy is associated with the inhalation phase of respiration. The compression strategy is associated with the joint actions of extension, adduction, IR, pronation, and dorsiflexion. The compression strategy is associated with the concentric muscular orientation. A concentric muscular orientation is used for restricting motion from occurring in the direction of that orien-

tation. The compression strategy is associated with the exhalation phase of respiration. In an ideal skeleton, the joints have the ability to demonstrate normalized human ranges for all of the expansion and compression measures. If there is full ROM in expansion joint actions and compression joint actions, then the skeleton has full movement variability, and demonstrates no bias towards either strategy. This book will briefly introduce the stereotypical skeletal presentations, which we will examine throughout, exploring the specifics of the inhalation strategy versus the compression strategy at specific regions of the body. At the level of the pelvis, the inhaled skeleton features relative motion between the innominate and the sacrum. The innominate nutates as the sacrum counter-nutates. Simultaneously, the descent of the diaphragm during an inhalation pushes the viscera and visceral fluids inferiorly, which increases the volume of fluids in the hollow spaces of the pelvis. This expansion of fluids in the pelvis leads to eccentric orientation of the pelvic floor, aka “pelvic diaphragm”, as well as flexion at the level of the coccyx, forward pressure driven into the deep side of the pubis, and posterior pressure driven into the deep side of the upper sacrum. This is the eccentric position of the pelvis.

Fig 5.1 - Posterior tilted pelvis

Page

62

At the level of the thoraco-abdominal cavity, the inhaled skeleton features relative motion between the sacrum and the lumbar spine. Counter-nutation of the sacrum will be accompanied by an increase in flexion at L5. In parallel, the descent of the diaphragm during an inhalation pushes the viscera and visceral fluids inferiorly, and also creates expansion in both the anterior and posterior direction. The fluid expansion will primarily demonstrate itself in the anterior direction, and represent what we think of as the “belly breath”. As fluid expands in the abdomen, the descent of the diaphragm also increases volume in the chest cavity, which drives air into the lungs. When air comes into the lungs, the ribcage will be expanded in a 360 degree manner. Primary expansion sites are at the lower posterior zone of the lungs (lower dorsal-rostral space expansion), the anterior infra-sternal ribs (bucket handle up), the sternum (pump handle up), and the superior posterior zone of the lungs (upper dorsal-rostral space expansion). The exhaled skeleton features the opposite joint actions throughout the axial skeleton compared to the inhaled skeleton. At the level of the pelvis, we will see relative motion between the innominate and the sacrum, featuring counter-nutation of the innominate and nutation of the sacrum. Simultaneously, the ascent of the diaphragm during exhalation allows the viscera and visceral fluids to move superiorly out of the pelvic space, which decreases the

Fig 5.2 - Anterior and posterior view of the thoracoabdominal region

Fig 5.3 - anteriorly tilted pelvis volume of fluids in the hollow spaces of the pelvis. The compression of fluids out of the pelvis leads to a concentric orientation of the pelvic floor, extension at the level of the coccyx, also resulting in a lack of forward pressure in the pubis, and a lack of posterior pressure in the sacrum. The compression strategy that features an overcoming muscular action and leading to a concentric orientation of the pelvic floor is what pushes the fluid volume in a superior direction, out of the hollow spaces of the pelvis, in the exhale position of the pelvis. In the exhaled pelvic presentation, there is a lack of fluid driving force going posterior into the coccyx, anterior into the pubis, and posterior going into the superior sacrum. At the level of the thoraco-abdominal cavity, the exhaled skeleton features relative motion between the sacrum and the lumbar spine. Nutation of the sacrum will accompany an increase in extension at the vertebral level of L5. At the same time, the superior doming action of the diaphragm allows the visceral fluids to migrate superiorly, imposing compression on the fluid from both the anterior and posterior directions. Simultaneous to the fluid compression in the abdominal cavity, the doming of the diaphragm also decreases volume in the chest cavity, which pushes air out of the lungs. When air is pushed out of the lungs, the thorax compresses in a 360 degree manner. Primary com-

Page

63

pression sites are at the lower posterior zone of the lungs (lower dorsal-rostral space compression), the anterior infra-sternal ribs (bucket handle down), the sternum (pump handle down), and the superior posterior zone of the lungs (upper dorsal-rostral space compression).

Determining Respiratory Bias/ Lack of Movement Variability What follows is the process of assessing respiratory variability and movement variability using our model. Before we proceed, please note that there is no peer-reviewed evidence to indicate whether these tests are reliable and valid for this process, and that determining reliability and validity of these tests for the purposes of demonstrating the hypothesis presented here would require testing involving scientific rigor, a current limitation of this very young model. Within this model, there are only two types of movement strategies, expansion and compression. We are looking to see if people have access to full expansion and compression capabilities. Those who can achieve full expression of both strategies have full movement variability, where breathing is one component of the strategies. Breathing is incredibly important to this model, both because it is directly implicated in autonomic function, and because we accumulate such a large volume of repetitions of the inhalation and exhalation movements during our lifetimes. In this model, if you do not have respiratory variability, then you do not have movement variability, and vice versa. The terms respiratory variability and movement variability are synonymous with one another. I am always looking for tests that give me the ability to evaluate whether or not my subjects have full movement variability. I want tests that are easy to perform, and clearly illustrate demonstrable changes following an intervention. Featuring both standardized methodology and normalized values for the human species, table tests for joint ROM are the tests of choice within this model. So long as we are very consistent in the way that we are measuring joint

ROM, we should be able to compare apples to apples. The primary table tests that we will use to determine whether someone has full movement variability will be assessments of the limbs and that of the infrasternal angle. When examining the limbs, we will measure each limb’s ability in flexion, extension, abduction, adduction, horizontal abduction, horizontal adduction, ER, and IR. We will split the tests of the appendicular skeleton into two categories, being the measures that assess expansion capabilities, and those that assess compression capabilities. Flexion, abduction, horizontal abduction, and ER are our expansion measures. Extension, adduction, horizontal adduction, and IR are our compression measures. If you are examining a singular limb, you would check to see if it can reach human norms for all expansion and compression tests. Let’s say we’re measuring someone’s left arm. First, we would perform expansion tests, measuring it for flexion, abduction, horizontal abduction, and ER. If any of the measures falls short of human norms, we would conclude that this limb/quadrant does not have the ability to demonstrate full movement variability. We would continue to all other limbs/quadrants with the same approach. If even a singular measure of expansion or compression is insufficient at a given limb/quadrant, that quadrant would be deemed to lack full movement variability. Note that, upon completion of our tests, we wouldn’t know whether our subject is specifically biased towards one particular movement strategy, but only that he or she lacks full movement variability. Our next step would be determining why someone lacks full movement variability. The short answer is an excessive bias towards one movement strategy over the other, which inhibits full movement variability. The question now becomes: how do we determine if our subject is in fact heavily biased towards a particular movement strategy? In this model, our answer to this question lies in assessing the subject’s infrasternal angle, which reveals the compensation of the skeleton. If the infrasternal

Page

64

angle is wide, that is an inhale/expansion compensation, and we can glean that the skeleton is biased towards exhalation/compression as its primary strategy. If, on the other hand, the infrasternal angle is narrow, that is an exhale/ compression compensation, telling us that the skeleton is biased towards inhalation/expansion as its primary strategy.

Fig 5.4 - Narrow infrasternal angle Fig 5.5 - Wide infrasternal angle

sternum during breathing and movement will again display greater reliance on the infrasternal ribs. There are a million other compensations that can occur from insufficient expansion or compression throughout the skeleton. One of the most common stereotypical compensations I see is a femoral expansion/inhalation compensation on subjects who are heavily compressed. A lot of advanced strength trained athletes who display a wide infrasternal angle present with externally rotated and abducted femurs. Initially, these individuals had compensated at the infrasternal ribs. Having pushed the limits of their infrasternal ribs’ expansion capabilities, they needed to find other joints with which to compensate. All of that said, though we’re touching on compensations, we need to get to know “normal” before we talk more about them. In order to understand the essence of the model, however, we need to know that the infrasternal angle is the first compensation, and its position is in direct opposition to a subject’s skeletal bias. We have been discussing compensations at the infrasternal ribs to make up for a lack of full compression or expansion throughout the whole skeleton, but have yet to cover the ideal position of the infrasternal ribs. Is there an angle at the infrasternal ribs that would represent no compensation? Is there an angle that would be indicative of a skeleton that has full respiratory variability?

The infrasternal angle will be the sight of the first compensation, because the infrasternal ribs are extremely malleable bones, which move with very little resistance. Someone who’s struggling to sufficiently expand his or her skeleton during either inhales or movements can easily make up for this limitation by excessively expanding at the infrasternal ribs. The same could be said for compression of the skeleton limitations, where someone who cannot sufficiently expand his or her pelvis during breathing and movement will rely more heavily on the infrasternal ribs. Similarly, someone who is unable to sufficiently compress his or her

An ideal infrasternal angle is 108.8 degrees. Where did we get this number? To understand this, we have to go back to our discussion on helixes and the motion of spirals. When you examine the motion of a helix, you see that it can be expanded (pulled apart), or compressed (pushed together). As a helix is pulled apart (expanded) more and more, it becomes harder to continue to pull it apart. There is an upper limit on how much a helix can be expanded before the parts are pulled into a straight vertical line. As a helix is pushed together (compressed) more and more, it becomes harder to continue to push it together. There is an upper

Page

65

limit on how much a helix can be crushed before it is pushed into a straight horizontal line. Is there a midpoint at which the helix can most easily be both expanded and compressed? The answer is that there is such a midpoint, and the helical angle that represents it is 54.4 degrees. In a double helix design like DNA, where two helixes are intertwined together, we simply double this 54.4 degree number, yielding 108.8 degrees as the midpoint position for a double helix. If you look at the ribcage, it resembles a helical model, which explains why it looks a bit like a slinky. The ribcage is divided into a left side and a right side, with the sternum separating the two sides on the front, and the spine separating the two sides on the back. With this divided helical arrangement, the ribcage approximates a double helix design. In particular, we see this with the shape that the infrasternal ribs make on the anterior side of the body. The anterior infrasternal ribs move superiorly and medially at an oblique angle, until they merge into the sternum, just superior to the xiphoid process. To determine the infrasternal angle, we measure this oblique angle on the front of the body, created by the position of the infrasternal ribs relative to the sternum. Based on helical movement potential, and the way that the shape of the infrasternal ribcage approaches a double helix, we are going to assign the angle of 108.8 degrees as the optimal infrasternal angle. Those who deviate strongly from the 108.8 degree angle should display a reduction in overall movement potential, and would be expected to be significantly biased towards an overreliance on one phase of the respiratory cycle. Those who have infrasternal angles substantially lower than 108.8 will be referred to as “narrow infrasternal angle” subjects, and those who have substantially higher infrasternal angles than 108.8 as “wide infrasternal angle” subjects. Presently, there are no established threshold values for what would constitute a subject who would qualify as a narrow, or a wide, but I would say that when you see angles of 75 degrees or less, that is nar-

row, and angles of 135 degrees or more, that is wide. Rather than becoming too fixated on specific angles in resting states, what is more concerning is whether or not the subject has the ability to change their angle. What is your plan of attack for helping wide infrasternal angle subjects versus narrow infrasternal angle ones? The obvious answer is to try to bring both as close as possible to the 108.8 degree presentation. This answer is, however, incomplete. The reason we don’t want to get too carried away with specific numbers on resting measurements is that, while they’re a fine place to start, what really matters is the presence of a dynamic infrasternal angle, or, in other words, the subject’s capability of changing his or her infrasternal angle. We will cover techniques to use for wides, and techniques to use for narrows to bring them towards 108.8, but, as we learn these, what I want us to consider is how to use a wide technique to become narrower, and a narrow technique to become wider. That is a better evaluation than hunting for a perfect static measurement. How do we achieve the measurements we’re after? Part of the answer is in the way we coach people to breathe. Let’s start this breathing discussion by talking about what muscles move the infrasternal ribs, which is the external oblique. The external oblique will be recruited during forceful exhalations, and it will act to bucket handle down the infrasternal ribs. Narrow infrasternal angle subjects feature excessive external oblique utilization in their exhalation strategies, while their wide infrasternal angle peers feature too little external oblique activity. Our narrow infrasternal angle holders need to be coached to exhale gently, and with less pressure. To decrease pressure, have them open their mouth wide and relax their jaw while exhaling through their mouth. They should sigh out the air, and their exhale should be prolonged to approximately 8 to 12 seconds. They will not recruit much external oblique with this strategy, and they’ll be forced to compress parts of their axial skeleton other than their infrasternal ribs to get air out of their bodies.

Page

66

At the end of the exhale, they should pause, seal the mouth, put the tongue on the roof of the mouth, and get a nasal inhale. The inhale should feature full skeletal expansion. Part of this expansion aims to increase the bucket handle up element of the infrasternal ribs. If the narrow infrasternal angle subject continues to compile quality breaths in this manner, you should witness the bucket handle continue to go up progressively on their inhales, where the exhales do not drive the bucket handle down. Fig 5.7 - Wide infrasternal angle person in a supine position being cued to reach vertically overhead and exhale with force

Fig 5.6 - narrow infrasternal angle person in a supine position being cued to reach horizontally towards the ceiling and exhale gently with a wide mouth opening Wide infrasternal angle subjects need to practice a pressurized exhale that is blown out through a pursed lip mouth, like blowing out through a straw, or blowing out birthday candles on a cake. These subjects also need to prolong their exhale and go for 8 to 12 seconds, but with a smaller airway, which by itself will increase the force requirements and recruit external oblique. With this exhale, they will bucket handle down the infrasternal ribs. Now, this subject needs to prevent their infrasternal ribs from expanding during the subsequent inhale. These subjects need to seal the mouth and get a nasal inhale, while keeping some relative abdominal tension to prevent the infrasternal ribs from flaring and going into bucket handle-up position. To prevent the bucket handle from going back up, the key abdominal component on the inhale is having the external oblique engaged. The type of engagement you are looking for here with the external oblique is one that creates a concentric orientation via the exhale, and a yielding action during the inhale.

An inhaled, expanded axial skeleton state is typified by a counternutated sacrum and an increase in kyphosis for the spine. During an inhale, the sternum should be pump handle up. The innominate bones will rotate forward (flexion) relative to the sacrum, the iliac crest will abduct, and the anterior superior iliac spine will externally rotate relative to the pubis. In essence, this is an open position, resulting from air coming into the body, expanding the lungs, which, in turn, expanded back into the spine, driving it into kyphosis. The lungs also expanded into the ribs, which pump handled up the sternum and the sternal ribs. The diaphragm descended, which pushed it downward into the abdominal space. This downward push of the diaphragm into the abdominal space increased intra-abdominal pressure, and forced the pelvis to open, evidenced by the counternutation of the sacrum and abduction of the superior ilium. The exhaled state is the opposite picture. The thoracic cavity space decreases. The spine comes forward and an overall increase in lordosis takes place. The sternum pump handles down. The sacrum nutates. The innominate bones rotate backwards (extension), as the superior ilium adducts and the anterior superior iliac spine internally rotates relative to the pubis. This is a state in which the diaphragm has ascended, which decreases intra-abdominal pressure. Abdominal fluid ascends, leaving the pelvic space, in response to which the pelvis closes. The sacrum nutates, and the superior ilium adducts.

Page

67

You should be able to alternate back and forth between these states of bony position and respiratory mechanics. When you cannot go through these full excursions, you compensate. And, as your “compensatory jiu jitsu” becomes more advanced, your compensations will become increasingly more distal. Movement limitations often begin, and end, with breathing. The breathing cycle seems to be a fundamental principle, considered by many great practitioners the most important element in correcting movement. The best professionals tend to be driven by objective test results over their own explanations, and dedicate their work to helping those in their care improve. For many who subscribe to this approach, incorporating breathing is a commonly used practice. Our explanations of why things work the way they do will likely change continuously over time, and I will continue to enjoy trying to understand the mechanistic explanations that the best and brightest attempt to provide. For now, I will incorporate breathing into one of my trainable patterns, and say that what we have just discussed lives mostly on the low velocity, low force, moderate-to-long duration, high sensorimotor side of the spectrum.

Part 2: Breathing, From a Quantitative Perspective I don’t know about you, but I love it when someone presents me with an explanation I am forced to accept as superior to the one I previously held for a given phenomenon. Of course, I don’t initially love this experience, for it is confusing and painful. However, once I’ve had some time to process the new information and its implications, and synthesize it into my overall schema of how things work, I find this type of integration to be deeply satisfying. One such reevaluation occurred after I listened to Aaron Davis explain his ideas on training the fitness of breathing muscles. I had previously learned that your ability to ventilate is basically never the rate limiting factor for your ability to perform maximal aerobic exercise. The explanation for why this is

the case is usually based around two measurements: the ventilation/perfusion ratio, and the maximum ventilatory volume. The ventilation/perfusion ratio relates to the quantity of oxygen that’s present in the lungs relative to the amount of blood that’s present in the capillaries of the pulmonary circulation. Across the board, there is always more oxygen present in the alveoli of the lungs than there is blood in the capillaries. This is used as evidence that your body’s ability to pump blood via your heart, the carrying capacity of blood-supplying vessels and total blood volume are the limitations to exercise, as opposed to the amount of air being moved through your body by breathing. The maximum ventilatory volume (MVV) refers to the amount of air you can move with maximal rate and depth of inhalations and exhalations over a ten second period of time. The MVV is usually about 25% more movement of air compared to how much air we are moving at maximal aerobic exercise intensity. So, even when you are going as hard as you possibly can from an aerobic standpoint, you never actually get to the point where your breathing rate is at its max. It seemed like a slam dunk win to me that breathing would never be the thing you had to worry about hamstringing your performance. Until I heard Aaron’s explanation. Hemoglobin is the vehicle in the blood that carries oxygen from the lungs to the working tissues of the body. Hemoglobin is also the vehicle that carries carbon dioxide in the blood from the working tissues to the lungs. When oxygen reaches the working tissues, it is unloaded from the hemoglobin, so that it can leave the blood and go into the tissues. When carbon dioxide reaches the lungs, carbon dioxide is unloaded from the hemoglobin, so that it can leave the blood and be exhaled out of the body. Those with a relatively small amount of muscle mass can perform a relatively modest amount of mechanical work with their skeletal muscle per unit time. As a result, their production of carbon dioxide is also modest, as is the

Page

68

amount of carbon dioxide bound to the hemoglobin being carried by their blood. As such, this carbon dioxide can be expelled with relative ease at the level of the lungs. Those with a significant amount of muscle mass, however, can perform profound amounts of mechanical work per unit time, and the amount of carbon dioxide produced from significant amounts of mechanical work can be substantial. As such, the amount of carbon dioxide carried in their blood by way of hemoglobin can be extremely high. Consequently, the ability to unload this carbon dioxide at the level of the lungs can be almost impossible. An inability to successfully or fully unload enough carbon dioxide at the lungs results in that leftover carbon dioxide continuing to occupy binding sites on hemoglobin. And, prevented by this “undelivered” carbon dioxide, oxygen will be unable to bind to hemoglobin. In this scenario, the subject may have copious amounts of oxygen present in the alveoli from a ventilation/perfusion ratio standpoint, but, if he or she cannot unsuccessfully blow off enough CO2 during his or her exhales, there’s nowhere for that oxygen to go. Like the unfortunate dying of dehydration on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean, we might say about this described scenario that there’s water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink. Those who are limited in their ability to unload CO2 to make room for O2 need to increase the fitness of their exhalation-based muscles so that they can move more air per unit time. To aid in these changes, Aaron uses a device called the Spiro Tiger. With the Spiro Tiger, the subject’s nose is clipped, preventing air from moving through the nasal passages, and the subject exhales into the device and fills a bag. He or she then inhales the same air he or she exhales. As he or she continues to inhale the air that he or she exhaled, he or she increases the amount of CO2 being inhaled. This triggers the brain to increase the rate and depth of respiration through natural processes associated with detecting an increased presence of CO2 in the body. A finger oximeter should be

worn while performing this kind of training, to monitor the subject’s blood gas state. The Spiro Tiger provides resistance to exhalation, and forces the subject to breathe fairly rapidly. This is like lifting weights for your muscles of exhalation. The Spiro Tiger can measure each tidal volume, and breathing rate, outputting the total amount of air the subject is moving. This is important for tracking progress over time, to ascertain improvement (or lack thereof). For athletes who regularly perform with high intensity and have significant muscle mass, this type of training may be beneficial to explore. Unless we correctly identify performance-limiting factors and then specifically train to improve them, overall performance is unlikely to improve, hard work and various attempts to control other variables notwithstanding.

06 Pattern 2: Core: Pelvic Focus

Page

70

Pattern 2: Core: Pelvic Focus

Chapter 6

Lacking in specificity, and more likely to conjure up the inside of an apple instead of exercises for the abdominals, the term “core” used to frustrate me. A contributing factor may have been that I came up when “core” applied to core lifts, which were compound movements performed with the feet anchored to the ground. I knew what those things were because the definition was straight forward. But, in time, my dislike for the term “core training” dissipated. If you continue to dislike it, I understand your feelings. Be that as it may, I’m going to use it in this book, because, these days, “core training” is widely accepted shorthand for the exercises we’re going to discuss. But first, we’ll operationally define it in the context of our model to avoid any ambiguity. Core training refers to performing exercises that challenge your ability to move your axial skeleton into a specific position, and/or

keep your axial skeleton in a specific position while external forces (such as gravity) are acting against your effort. While most of the other training patterns in this book are grounded in the concept of how much external loading you can lift, or how fast you can move through space, core training is rooted in demonstrating your ability to control the structures of your axial skeleton in positions and postures of varying difficulty. Generally speaking, core training is based on moving yourself into desirable positions to leverage and recruit specific axial skeleton muscles, and to prevent yourself from losing that position. With core training, it is not so much about moving loads, as it is about not letting loads and forces move you. Core training for the pelvis is going to be aimed at training the muscles that attach to the ilium, ischium, pubis, and sacrum, to position and hold the pelvis in a specific manner. With core pelvis training, the ability to train in all three stances and planes is available. From a quantitative standpoint, we have the ability to train with moderate and low loads. Since the velocities for core pelvis training are low and moderate, high load training for core pelvis activities is probably a fairly unwise or even nonsensical decision. Similarly, as duration is concerned, short duration sets aren’t a good fit for this pattern, leaving moderate and long duration core pelvis training as our available duration options. With regards to core pelvis training using moderate to heavy loads, that is an area that I would say lives in the wheelhouse of Bret Contreras. Bret has done a great job with finding activities such as barbell hip bridging which puts a fairly

Page

71

significant amount of load on the hips. Which allows for an impressive amount of hypertrophy for pelvic muscles. He has some great thoughts on the kinds of exercises that target these muscles at early, mid and late points in a given range of motion.



You can make these kinds of determinations by examining the body’s arrangement relative to the ground, and thinking about where the hardest part of an exercise would be (early, middle, or late). For instance a stiff leg deadlift would provide a great early range of motion target for the posterior pelvic muscles, while a 45 degree extension device would allow you to go after the midpoint for posterior pelvic muscles, and a Roman Chair extension is perfect for the endpoint of the motion responsible for developing posterior pelvic muscles.

Core pelvis exercises are ones that can be performed in every imaginable stance and position. You can move and control your body in all three cardinal planes. As we already noted, the major limitation with core exercises is that they are not meant for extremely high velocity or high loading. Since core exercises are so anatomically targeted, it is important to review the critical elements of the anatomical considerations of the pelvis.

Finding exercises that provide the most difficult scenario profile for early, middle, and late parts of the motion, and dividing your training volume evenly between these targeted actions would seem to be an intelligent approach for well rounded hypertrophy responses. A lot of Bret’s work requires followers to dive quite deep into his thought process and models. I just want to point out that I think a lot of the exercises that he likes for glute development fall into what I would consider the core pelvis pattern of training, and that they probably represent mostly moderate load training. My specialty is with low load core pelvis training, so that is what I will focus on here. Throughout this book I’ll do my best to give shout-outs to fellow exercise scientists whose expertise on subjects in question I consider greater than my own. As such, I encourage you to seek out those primary sources for any realm of training you find yourself gravitating towards.

•Available Loads: •Low •Available Velocities: •Low •Available Durations: •Moderate and Long

Important Musculoskeletal Concepts Related to the Pelvis The pelvis is made up of the innominate bone, the pubis, and the sacrum/coccyx. Importantly, the innominate bone is a solid unit, which we have labeled in three parts, creating the impression that it’s composed of three different bones. The largest part of the innominate bone is the ilium, which is the superior as well as the lateral part of the bone. As it moves towards the middle, the ilium meets the pubis in the front of the pelvis. The pubis is the anterior medial part of the pelvis that brings the left side and right side together in the front at the pubic symphysis.

Available Options

•Available Planes: •All •Available Stances: •All Fig 5.2 - Lateral view of the pelvis

Page

72

The ilium merges into the ischium towards the inferior parts of the bone, and the ischium is perhaps best known as being the part of the pelvis with the big holes at the bottom that look like a set of eyes looking out. In between the ilium and the ischium on the side of the pelvis is the acetabulum, which is also called the hip socket, where the femur bones insert into the pelvis. In short, the ilium makes up the upper part of the innominate bone, both on the front and the back. The pubis, then, is the front section of the lower portion of the innominate bone, and the ischium its back section.

Fig 5.2 - Anterior view of the pelvis On the back side of the pelvis is a separate bone found between the left and right ilium bones, called the sacrum. With the coccyx, or tailbone, at its tip, though the sacrum is generally classified as part of the pelvis, it can be thought of as an extension of the spine, being the seat of the lumbar spine.

compression pushes the guts and fluid in the abdominal region downward. When the abdominal contents are pushed downward, the pelvic bones must move in order to accommodate this displacement. The movement of the pelvis is driven by the ilium bone nutating. The nutation of the ilium is the combined actions of flexion, abduction, and external rotation relative to the pubis. To picture this movement of your pelvis, you replicate the way your pelvis moves through space with your hands. Place your hands in front of you with your palms facing each other and your fingers pointing forward. Bend your wrists to aim your fingers towards the ground. Tip the tops of your hands away from each other in the motion that would be moving your hands into a palms up position. Finally, bring the heels of your palms towards each other. The action of bending your wrists so that your fingers point towards the ground is equivalent to nutation of the ilium bones. Abduction of the ilium bones would be the tipping the tops of your hands away from each other. External rotation of the ilium bones (relative to the pubis) is bringing the palm heels towards each other. Hopefully, you can see how this action would allow for the pelvis to accept the fluids, guts, and pressure being driven downward by the descending action of the diaphragm, akin to the pelvis creating a bowl for the guts and fluids to land in.

Consensus is lacking on the degree to which the pelvic bones move, but it is clear that there is a degree of movement between the sacrum and the ilium, as well as some amount of rotation at the pubic symphysis. For our purposes here, I’d like to focus on the characteristic movements of the pelvic bones that are associated with the respiratory cycle. When we inhale the diaphragm descends and flattens, as that happens it compresses down into the abdominal viscera. This

Fig 5.2 - Posterior view of the pelvis

Page

73

The sacrum will move in counter-nutation during the inhale. To picture this action of the sacrum, put your hands in front of you again to represent the pelvis. Now, take your right hand and move it, so it’s perpendicular with but slightly behind the left hand, with the back of your right hand facing you. Your right hand now represents the sacrum. Extend your right wrist so that it rotates your fingertips back towards your face. This is counternutation of the sacrum. As you can see, this creates more space for the pelvis to receive the abdominal contents during the inhalation. The actions of the sacrum directly impact the position of the spine. When the sacrum goes into an inhaled, counter-nutation position, this has an overall kyphosis-promoting effect on the spine. This means that counter-nutation of the sacrum will reduce the lordotic curve of the lumbar spine. A good rule to bear in mind is that the top and bottom of the pelvis behave in opposing ways. While the ilium bones rotate forward, spread away from each other, and externally rotate relative to the pubis, the ischium bones are rotating upwards and backwards, moving towards each other, and are internally rotating in on the sacrum. Likewise, during inhalation, the top of the pelvis is expanding while the bottom of the pelvis is contracting. When we exhale the diaphragm ascends, domes into the thoracic space, and creates more space in the abdomen. When this happens, the guts and fluids rise back up away from the pelvis. During the exhalation phase of respiration we will see the opposite motions of the pelvic bones. The ilium bones will counter-nutate, adduct, and internally rotate relative to the pubis, while the sacrum will nutate. During the exhale, the top of the pelvis is contracting and the bottom of the pelvis is expanding. From the perspective of the sacrum, an increase in nutation will have an overall lordosis-promoting effect, increasing the lordotic curve of the lumbar spine. When the bones move in these stereotypical ways, we see that certain muscles gain leverage, while others

become lengthened and disadvantaged. An inability to fully attain one or both of these stereotypical respiratory positional demonstrations signifies in inability to perform certain motions associated with pelvic training patterns.

Sagittal Applications The really critical motion that we want to be able to create from a sagittal plane perspective is hip extension. When we are talking about hip extension, we’re really referring to how close we can get the posterior femur to the part of the ischium called the ischial tuberosity, a small protruding nodule on the ischium. The ischial tuberosity is at the level of the dead center middle of your glutes. True hip extension is essentially the ability of being able to get your leg straight without letting your glutes move upwards towards your low back. Another way to think of it is to try to bring your back pockets towards the back of your knees while you are attempting to straighten your leg… which is easier said than done! In the drills that will be forthcoming, you’ll see that we will first attack the pelvis by going after the hamstrings. After we get hamstrings, then we will go for glutes. The reason that we go for the hamstrings first is that they attach to the ischial tuberosity at the top. The hamstrings can pull on the ischial tuberosity, and this action would cause the innominate bone to counter-nutate. The glute maximus is a muscle that attaches to the ischium, the sacrum, and the femur. If the ischial tuberosity is in the proper position via the actions of the hamstrings, the glute max can now be utilized to extend the femur while continuing to hold the innominate bone in place. This ability to bring the femur and ischial tuberosity together in authentic hip extension is an action that Bill Hartman would say is demonstrative of respiratory variability (aka, being able to move the pelvic bones fully into an inhaled and exhaled positional state), and respiratory variability is an excellent proxy for overall skeletal movement variability.

These sagittal movements of the pelvis

Page

74

(nutation and counternutation of the innominate and sacrum) are intimately tied to the ability to perform knee-dominant and hip-dominant activities. To be able to squat to full depth effectively, we need to be able to get the pelvis into a fully expanded position, where the innominate bones nutate and the sacrum counter-nutates. The ability to reach full depth in the squat will also require the anterior pelvic floor muscles going into an eccentric orientation, in order to enable a large excursion of yielding ROM. The goal with the yielding action of the squat is to get the descent to go straight down, rather than sitting back like a deadlift. To accomplish this goal, the anterior pelvic floor must reach an eccentric orientation, and the posterior pelvic floor must go into a concentric orientation. The eccentric orientation of the anterior pelvic floor will permit movement straight down. The concentric orientation of the posterior pelvic floor will prevent motion from going back. To perform the yielding action of a deadlift, the opposite presentation of eccentric and concentric orientation of pelvic floor tissues must occur. With the deadlift, the goal is to sit the hips back in space. This requires the anterior pelvic floor to be in a concentric orientation, and the posterior pelvic floor to be in an eccentric orientation. We started this sagittal section by saying that hip extension is this really critical movement that we are looking for, and I hope you caught the bias of this statement. It can be easy to get overly focused on a motion, yet ignore the importance of its opposite motion. Hip extension is incredibly important, but it is not any more important in function than hip flexion, and, indeed, movement is typically created through extending one hip while flexing the other. True hip flexion is the opposite of true hip extension. With hip extension, we covered the “gold standard” of the approximation of the ischial tuberosity with the femur. With hip flexion, we’re after approximation of the anterior superior iliac crest with the femur. With hip extension, the hamstrings and glute max allow us to display the posterior approximation of pelvis with femur. With hip flexion, the rectus femoris and

the sagittal fibers of iliacus are the big power players for creating this anterior approximation. You cannot have great leg swing without great stance and vice versa. This echoes the sagittal idea of a zero sum phenomenon, where we need something to go back in order to have something else go forward. The human body is capable of an incredibly diverse degree of movement, and corresponding counter-movement.

Frontal Applications If you were looking down at the pelvis from above, you would see that it is a bony ring with a large tunnel in the middle. If you were to think about the entry into the tunnel of the pelvis from the top, that is a space commonly referred to as the pelvic inlet. The exit from the pelvic tunnel is called the pelvic outlet. The ilium bones and the superior parts of the sacrum are thought of as the boundaries of the inlet, and the ischium bones are the boundaries of the outlet. So, when discussing the inlet, we will be referring to the position and movement of the ilium bones, and when discussing the outlet, we will refer to the position and movement of the ischium bones. It is important to distinguish the inlet from the outlet, because their movements will always be opposite to one another. If we adduct the inlet, then the outlet will abduct, and vice versa. The interior of the medial inlet is dominated by the presence and attachment of the iliacus muscle to the ilium bone. The exterior of the outlet on the lateral side is dominated by the presence and attachment of the gluteus medius muscle. Both of these muscles are frontal plane powerhouses. Mike Cantrell (from the Postural Restoration Institute, PRI) does a great job of teaching the contrasting roles of iliacus and glute med in terms of control over the inlet from a frontal plane perspective. He paints this picture of two guys talking to each other on either side of a wall. The ilium bone is the wall, and the two guys on opposite sides are the iliacus and the glute med. When the iliacus talks and gets his message across, the inlet is adducted, and the top of the ilium bone tilts

Page

75

towards midline. When the glute med talks and gets his message across, the inlet is abducted, and the top of the ilium bone tilts away from midline. The adduction position is associated with the exhalation stereotyped movement, and the abduction position is associated with the inhalation stereotyped movement. Being able to alternate between these two states is the desirable effect on the pelvis. The tricky thing for training purposes is that the iliacus is not a muscle that you can feel working. So, to know that you are accomplishing adduction of the inlet, we have to use the action of another muscle as a proxy. This other muscle is the adductor magnus. How can this muscle serve to indicate that the iliacus is working? Because the glute med, which abducts the inlet, is a muscle that also abducts the femur. The adductor magnus adducts the femur, which, based on the laws of reciprocal inhibition, simultaneously ramps down the glute medius. If the glute medius is being inhibited, then the iliacus can dominate the conversation on the inside part of the wall of the iliacus, and it can adduct the inlet. Based on this, when we are doing frontal plane pelvic core exercises, the primary muscles that we are going to be targeting are going to be the adductor magnus and the glute med. The frontal plane actions of the pelvis are the dominant actions for the core pelvis pattern. We will use the sagittal plane exercises as the foundation for being able to get to frontal plane drills, but frontal plane activities are the show for the pelvis.

Transverse Applications Humans are bipedal, locomoting, endurance-hunting apes, who cook food. As such, our ability to run long distances on two legs is crucial to our survival and domination of our environment. Its pelvic and hip extension capabilities allow the glute max to keep our torso upright when we run at high velocities. Relative to body weight, humans have the largest glutes amongst primates, and sprinters usually have impressive glutes. The glute max is the key

component of our propulsive engine, and the transverse plane component of its abilities is what really drives us forward at the terminal part of push off during locomotion. Some folks run as though they are perpetually falling. Their center of mass leaks forward in an uncontrolled manner, their legs kick way too far back behind them, and their arms and legs never powerfully swing up in front of them. As a result, their run appears unbalanced, sloppy, fatigued, and uncomfortable. Other runners, meanwhile, are poetry in motion. The head is stacked over the torso, and the torso is stacked over the pelvis. The hands and feet come up in front of the body with grace. There is seemingly no wasted motion. The runner floats with the force of a freight train behind them. Track coaches are always talking about trying to get a ‘figure 8’ pelvis out of their athletes. This figure 8 really means a pelvis with the proper amounts of sagittal, frontal, and transverse plane motion. A figure 8 pelvis is one that moves like an axle (sagittal), fused with a see-saw (frontal), fused with a ratchet wrench (transverse). The transverse component, which is responsible for the final push, is a glute max-driven phenomenon, and one that is the tip of a pyramid, whose base is sagittal, with frontal somewhere in between the two. To get the pelvis to rotate to the left, we need the right glute max to drive the action. Since this, and so many of our critical joint actions are inextricably tied to gait, we also have to think about the feet, which start everything with their interaction with the ground. Early stance (a sagittal-dominated time), is all about heel strike. Mid-stance (a frontal dominated time), is all about transitioning from the outside edge of the heel to get increasingly more medial through the midfoot. Late stance, and push-off (a transverse dominated time), is all about pushing through a hyper-extended big toe that flexes as much as it possibly can from that position. When I am coaching these pelvic core exercises, I will be very specific about what is

Page

76

happening with the feet to be able to maximize planar specificity. Possessing appropriate big toe hyper-extension is a really important attribute for maximizing running capabilities, and for recruiting the glute max. If we are talking about the pelvis, then it is truly impossible to neglect the lumbar spine and the femur. When discussing the spine, from a transverse perspective, the critical muscle is the psoas. The psoas attaches to the transverse processes (side) of the lowest thoracic vertebrae (T12), and lumbar vertebrae 1 through 5 (L1-L5). The psoas runs inferior and laterally from the spine to where it interdigitates with the iliacus muscle on the inside of the ilium bone, and to a separate attachment site on the lesser trochanter of the femur. The psoas is an extremely large muscle, usually referred to as a hip flexor. The spinal attachment point of the psoas on the lateral components of the vertebrae allow the muscle to have a rotational effect on the spine. When the right psoas fires, the proximal fibers on the spine will cause contralateral rotation, and the spine will turn to the left. The rotation of the spine influences the pelvis. So, when the right psoas acts in the transverse plane, the entire pelvis orients left. The psoas is not a muscle that we are capable of feeling working from a transverse plane perspective. It is, however, a muscle that is intimately connected with the diaphragm. The diaphragm attaches to the inside of the xiphoid process at the bottom of the sternum, the costal margin of the ribcage, and to ribs 6 through 12 in the front and side of the body. The diaphragm arcs upwards and backwards from the bottom of the rib cage in the front, forming a parachute-like dome that separates the thorax from the abdomen in the middle of the body, and then arcs down and back to the spine where it attaches to T12-L2/L3. It is at these vertebral attachments that the diaphragm intertwines with the psoas. These two muscles interdigitate in a powerful manner, and are essentially physically inseparable from

one another. This physical connection between psoas and diaphragm allows the action of the one to influence the other. As aforementioned, when an inhale takes place, the diaphragm descends, which pushes the guts and abdominal fluids down. This nutates, abducts, and externally rotates the ilium bone as we receive this displaced abdominal content in the pelvis. When the ilium is moved in this manner, the psoas attachment to iliacus is leveraged, and tension is initiated. This tension is transmitted to the spinal attachment of the psoas. If this is a unilateral action, the spine is rotated in the opposite direction. If this is a bilateral action, the spine is pulled forward. When it comes to femoral internal and external rotation, our discussion will revolve around the glutes. The glute max is the dominant player when it comes to external rotation of the femur, and the anterior fibers of the glute med will be the big players in internal rotation. These motions of femoral internal and external rotation are incredibly interdependent with the actions of the pelvis. A big part of this book will involve coaching subjects into a movement we are going to call a hip shift. This hip shift will be a rotation of the pelvis in one direction. When the pelvis rotates in one direction, what kind of motions are we looking at? When I originally learned about the topic of a hip shift, I learned it from the Postural Restoration Institute (PRI). PRI does a great job of teaching people about how larger, proximal bones have the ability to move on smaller distal bones. Typically, when people evaluate lower extremity motion, they talk about hip rotation, and they refer to the way that the femur rotates inside the acetabulum. PRI introduced me to the notion that you can also have a fixed femur, and an acetabulum that rotates on a femur. PRI breaks hip motion down into two categories: femur on acetabulum motion (FA), and acetabulum on femur motion (AF). The two main types of AF motions for PRI are AF internal rotation (AFIR), and AF ex-

Page

77

ternal rotation (AFER). What we will be calling a hip shift is what PRI calls “AFIR”. Left AFIR refers to the motion of rotating your pelvis to the left. When you are doing left AFIR, you would simultaneously be doing right AFER. So, AFIR is what we call it when the pelvis is rotating towards a given side, and AFER is what we call it when the pelvis is rotating away from a given side. The key with these AF motions is that the femur has to stay in place. AF is referring to relative motion of the acetabulum on the femur. If I turn my pelvis left, and my femur turns with the pelvis, there is no AF motion whatsoever, as I am simply orienting my entire lower extremity left, but not creating rotation anywhere. PRI looks at AFIR and AFER as being triplanar motions. AFIR involves transverse plane IR, but also features extension and adduction riding along with it. AFER features transverse plane ER, but also features flexion and abduction riding along with it. When you create AFIR on a side, you should feel your hamstrings, sagittal glute max fibers, adductor magnus, and the internal rotation fibers of anterior glute med. AFER should feature rectus femoris as your primary sagittal muscle, the abduction fibers of posterior glute med, and the external rotation fibers of glute max as the major contributing muscle groups of the movement. The stance phase of gait is dominated by AFIR, and the swing phase of gait is dominated by AFER. Within PRI’s model, early stance is the sagittal plane-dominant phase, mid stance is the frontal plane-dominant phase, and late stance is the transverse-plane dominant phase. The same plane dominance would be associated for the different phases of the swing-side leg. The swing side leg is the leg opposite of the stance side leg, which is not in contact with the ground. Just like the stance side leg, the swing side leg goes through early, mid, and late swing. Sagittal, frontal, and transverse are the dominant planes for the previously mentioned corresponding phases of swing. When you start stance, and continue on to take a step, the pelvis rotates towards the stance side foot. If the pelvis is rotating to-

wards the stance side foot, you would be going through AFIR. If you do an exercise that involves a hip shift, you will also feel AFIR muscles. If I am rotating my pelvis to one side and I feel the hamstrings, sagittal glute max, adductors, and IR fibers of glute medius, then the logical conclusion would be that this type of hip shift is an IR-based movement. The only problem with this line of thinking is that you can feel muscles working when you are doing a yielding action. When you are descending in a squat, you can feel your quadriceps working. The quadriceps are a knee extensor, and while you are descending in a squat, you are going into knee flexion. As you are going into more and more knee flexion during the descent of a squat, you are not attempting to create knee flexion. Instead, you are performing a yielding action with your knee extensors. In this model, there are two types of hip shifts: a yielding hip shift and an overcoming hip shift. The yielding hip shift is an expansion strategy. The overcoming hip shift is a compression strategy. In both types of hip shift, you will have the sensory experience of feeling hamstrings, adductors, and glutes. The difference is that, in the yielding hip shift, you are feeling deceleration with the muscles. In the overcoming hip shift, you’re feeling acceleration with the muscles. How do you know which type of hip shift someone is doing? The easiest way to evaluate the type of hip shift is to look at the ankle. If you see someone performing a hip shift, and they increase plantar flexion at the ankle, then it is a yielding hip shift. If you see a hip shift, and there is an increase in dorsiflexion, then it is a overcoming hip shift. The movement strategies are coherent. If you see plantar flexion increasing, then you are seeing a human system that is relying more on expansion as its broad movement-operating system. If you see dorsiflexion increasing, you are seeing a human system that is relying more on compression as its broad movement-oper-

Page

78

ating system. Put another way, witnessing one clearly identifiable joint action associated with a movement strategy serves as a testament to what the whole system is doing. The direction that center of mass is moving in will largely determine what type of hip shift someone is doing. If the center of mass is staying back, or moving backwards, then it will be a yielding hip shift If the center of mass is moving forward, over the foot, then it will be an overcoming hip shift. The yielding hip shift is typically used to decelerate a motion, while the overcoming hip shift is typically used to accelerate it. Discussing these hip shifts in the context of an athletic movement should help visualize the concept. A baseball pitcher throwing the ball towards home plate is performing a hip shift towards the non-throwing side hip. Following the cocking phase of throwing, the pitcher begins accelerating his or her arm towards home plate. As the arm is accelerating towards the target and preparing to release the ball, the hips are rotating in the direction of the non-throwing side. It’s easy to see how a right-handed pitcher would be performing a left hip shift while throwing the ball, but ascertaining the kind of hip shift being performed is a bit trickier. A right-handed pitcher is using the right side of his body to accelerate the arm forward to throw the ball. The throwing arm will internally rotate, extend, and adduct as the hand pronates. The right leg will internally rotate, adduct, and extend as the foot pronates. The other side of the body is trying to absorb the motion, and then decelerate the action. We know this because we can see the glove side arm externally rotating, flexing, and abducting, as the hand supinates. This ultimately means that the left lower extremity is externally rotating, flexing, abducting, and featuring a foot that is supinating. It also means that the left hip shift being performed by the pitcher is a yielding hip shift that is using an expansion strategy. If you were to look at the typical failures of pitchers during arm acceleration, release,

and follow-through, the most common mistake you would see at the lower extremity is the non-throwing side leg spinning out too strongly. For a right-handed pitcher, this would result in falling off the mound to the first base side. In other words, the issue is that the pitcher’s femur isn’t still during the hip shift, but instead follows the pelvis, which (for our right-handed pitcher) spins to the left. If you were to perform the proper motion in a slow and controlled manner, and have the right-handed pitcher practice rotating his or her pelvis left while their femur stayed fixed, he or she would report strongly feeling the left hamstrings, glutes, and adductor working during the exercise, and soreness in those muscles the day after. Given that these muscles are the extension, adduction, and IR fibers associated with the lower extremity, does their soreness indicate training a compression strategy at the left lower extremity? In fact, it does not: you were training an expansion strategy involving the motions of flexion, abduction, and ER, but doing so through a yielding action, where the yielding—and subsequently sore—muscles were the extensors, adductors, and IR muscles. With a much more simplistic movement explanation, we could talk about what is happening during the negative of a preacher curl. You’ll feel your biceps working on the negative of the curl. The joint action is elbow extension, but you are using your elbow flexors to control the movement. In the case of a preacher curl, your biceps will be placed in a concentric orientation throughout the movement, since the preacher bench places you in humeral flexion. On the way up, the concentrically-oriented biceps will be creating an overcoming muscle action. On the way down, the concentrically-oriented biceps will be relying on a yielding muscle action. In both directions, you will be feeling the biceps muscle group as the target tissue.

Page

79

Training the Core Pelvis Pattern Overview •Available Planes: All •Available Stances: All •Available Loads: Low •Available Velocities: Low •Available Durations: Moderate and Long Sagittal, Bilateral, Low Load, Low Velocity, Moderate Duration, Core Pelvis If you follow the Principles of Progression presented in chapter 4, you will be able to figure out exactly where to start core pelvis exercises, and how to progress them. Nevertheless, to drive these points home, I will walk you through how those principles apply in each of the patterns that we will explore in this book. For core pelvis training, the place to start is with low load, low velocity, moderate duration, bilateral stance, sagittal plane drills. Lastly, nothing beats starting on the ground for managing gravity! For bilateral sagittal drills, supine is the beginner’s ground position of choice. You also want to start by putting subjects into short lever positions. This means we are going to start in a supine 90/90 position, where the hips and knees are flexed at 90 degree angles. In the initial activities, people are going to hold static positions, and they will not be moving themselves very far towards extension in their drills. As subjects demonstrate sensorimotor competency in these drills, we will gradually increase lever length, and increase proximity to full extension. When subjects demonstrate ownership of supine core pelvis exercises and sensorimotor competency in positions of full hip extension, we will increasingly move them up from the ground. With the bilateral symmetrical stance, the positions available to us that show increasing difficulty with managing gravity are supine, seated, quadruped/push-up positions with and without feet secured on a wall, tall kneeling with and without feet secured on a wall, standing

with the back supported by a wall, standing in an unsupported manner, squatting with the hands supported in front, and unsupported squatting. The two key sagittal muscles of the pelvis are the hamstrings and the sagittal fibers of the glute max. In the following list, you’ll notice that each exercise name is followed by bracketed “hamstrings” or “glutes” labels. The positions that keep people in a position of hip flexion are going to target hamstrings, and the positions that feature being closer towards full hip extension are going to target the glutes. All exercises will feature a hip extension and pelvis extension moment. The only difference is when we are extending from a position of flexion, the primary extensor is the hamstrings, whereas, when we are extending from a position close to extension, the primary extensor is the glute max. Here is the list of progressions for sagittal plane, bilateral stance, low load, low velocity, moderate duration, core pelvis exercises: 1. Supine 90/90 hemi-bridge [hamstrings]

2. Supine hook lying hemi-bridge [hamstrings]

3. Supine 90/90 w/hip extension bridge [glutes]

Page

80

4. Supine hook lying w/hip extension bridge [glutes]

5. Seated (rower) [hamstrings]

12. Standing w/back on wall

13. Standing 14. Squatting supported (hands on bar) 15. Squatting Coaching Points:

6. Quadruped w/feet on wall [hamstrings]

7. Quadruped [hamstrings] 8. Push-up position w/feet on wall [glutes] 9. Push-up position [glutes] 10. Tall kneeling w/feet on wall

11. Tall kneeling

For sagittal plane core pelvis exercises, I focus on what my subjects are doing with their heels, knees, tail bone, low back, and upper back. The supine 90/90 hemi-bridge is the easiest pick for coaching someone on how to move the pelvis into a position that maximizes hamstring recruitment. If possible, have subjects put their feet on a wall that has a ledge under their heels. If people can feel the wall on the bottom of their heels and a ledge on the back of their heels, this will provide much more heel reference, which will be a game changer for recruiting hamstrings. Instruct subjects to dig their heels down into the ledge while keeping their feet flat on the wall. At the same time, have them reach their knees straight up a couple of inches. Let them know that it is okay for their tail bone to leave the ground, but their low back must remain on the ground. You can put a small towel under the subject’s lower back and instruct him or her to prevent you from pulling it out from under them. I always want people to feel their upper back between their shoulder blades on the ground. To keep the upper back grounded, subjects can reach their hands towards the ceiling to protract the shoulder blades, making space for the upper back to retract into the ground. When reaching, be sure to prevent the sternum from moving towards the belly button, as this will excessively recruit rectus abdominis. If you

Page

81

are able to keep the thorax back while the heels move backwards and the knees move forward relative to each other, the pelvis will tuck under the body, and the hamstrings will light up like a Christmas tree. This same approach will work very well for both the hook lying hamstrings drill and the seated rower drill. Once you progress to the glute-bridge, this is where you need to add a cue that moves the entire pelvis complex through space. Start the supine 90/90 glute bridge the same way you started the hemi-bridge, and feel the hamstrings engage in a good position. At this point, you’re going to want to bridge your hips higher and higher off the ground, causing the femur to increasingly extend. But, rather than trying to thrust your hips at the ceiling, think about moving your glutes towards the backs of your knees. Oftentimes I will cue my clients with “back pockets to backs of knees”. Use this effort of trying to bring the back pockets to the backs of the knees to lift the hips higher and higher off the ground. This action will approximate the ischial tuberosity with the femur rather than separate the two from each, and it will lead to the most intense glute recruitment you’ve ever felt. If you understand how to do these major ground-based sagittal bilateral core pelvis exercises, you’ll have the ability to do the standing and squatting variations as well. Those are more difficult, because you do not have the feedback from the ground regarding the position of your thorax and skull, so it is easier to get out of position and fail to demonstrate sagittal plane sensorimotor competence. Standing and squatting are not that much different from supine 90/90 and hook lying positions. If you look at squatting, it is the same position as 90/90, simply rotated 90 degrees. But, in trying to manage this position upright against gravity, there are simply more things that can go wrong in the squat versus the supine 90/90. If you learn the invariant representation for pelvic control and hamstring and glute engagement on the ground, with practice, quality coaching, and proper feedback for upright drills, you’ll have

them nailed in no time. Keeping the skull over the middle of the thorax, over the middle of the pelvis, and strongly referencing a backwards action through the heels while the knees move forwards in space is the key to sagittal core pelvis drills. Sagittal, Front/Back, Low Load, Low Velocity, Moderate Duration, Core Pelvis Sagittal plane core pelvis exercises can also be performed in the front/back stance. Because this stance is more difficult than the bilateral stance, before attempting the first exercise from these front/back stance options, subjects should first demonstrate competence in the supine 90/90 bilateral stance exercises. In terms of exercise progression, the same sort of thought process applies to this stance as to the bilateral stance: go from short lever drills that focus on the hamstrings to longer lever drills that focus on the glutes. Go from supine to side-lying, to seated, to half kneeling, to split squat w/fear foot on wall, to split squat. The front/back stance causes the focus of the exercise to be more unilateral than the bilateral stance. This always gets me a little antsy, because most attempts at a unilateral exercise that I witness fall short of proper execution. Subjects either demonstrate insufficient control over their bodies, or choose weights that are far too light to result in desired adaptations. In order for a muscle to create tension, allow for proper force transmission, and training adaptations, we need to have proper anchoring of certain parts of the body, while other parts move. I often see dumbbell curls performed with flexed elbows and, simultaneously, a flexed humerus on the way up and on the way down, such that both the elbow and the humerus are extending. This is not an effective way to train the biceps. Something has to stay still, and, in the case of biceps training, that would be the humerus. In fact, the primary function of the highly effective preacher curl bench is to keep the humerus still while the elbow flexes and extends.

Page

82

Unilateral exercises can be fraught with so many haphazard moving pieces that they run the risk of failing to actually train any muscle group. To solve the technical execution problem of unilateral training, front/back stance core pelvis exercises are the first place to start. Rather than move load, the primary objective of core pelvis exercises is to own and hold position. The benefits of this lie in removing the weightroom ego variable from the equation, providing more ground-based reference for the subject’s body parts in space, and having builtin movement constraints to facilitate proper execution. When coaching, If you take the time to get your subjects to feel how challenging it is to truly control their bodies, they will get an appreciation for the powerful role of technique in yielding exercise results. With that, here is the list for progressing sagittal plane, front/back stance, low load, low velocity, moderate duration, core pelvis exercises:

5. Side lying in a corner

6. Half kneeling w/rear foot on wall

7. Standing w/rear foot on wall

1. Supine, short lever w/heel tap (hamstrings) 8. Split squat w/rear foot on wall Coaching Points

2. Supine, short lever w/straight leg reach (hamstrings) 3. Supine, long lever w/heel tap (glutes) 4. Supine, long lever w/straight leg reach (glutes)

As you might predict, many will try to rush through these drills. And, when people rush, they do not notice the subtle tilts, rotations, and sways that the body goes through. The point of these drills is to notice these small movements, and to try to control them. Starting from the first exercise, supine short lever w/heel tap, I first let the subject just do the drill. I coach them by getting them into a good bilateral hemi-bridge. Once they are in position, I tell them to tap one foot on and off the wall/box. When they are done, I say, we’re going to do a second set, and during that set, I want you to pay very close attention to your body. I want you to notice if your pelvis moves in space in any way, shape, or form during the time where you are lifting the tapping foot. The

Page

83

subject notices that they were indeed shifting all over the place while trying to tap the foot. Now, I cue them to try to solve this problem. My primary coaching cue is that I want the subject to think about loading the foot that is going to stay still more and more, as they begin unloading their “tapping foot” more and more. Eventually, the tapping foot is going to become weightless as it unloads, and, if the stance foot has accepted maximum loading, the body should remain completely still while the tapping foot is in motion. This is a remarkably difficult drill, and will have you really re-appreciating your hamstrings and glutes once you put this kind of focused attention into its execution. As mentioned, if you’re able to find a wall with a ledge, your subject can put his or her feet flat on the wall and have his or her heels supported on the underside. Alternatively, with feet on a bench instead of a wall, the subject loses the sense of the wall against the soles of his or her feet, and, if he or she only has a wall, what’s missing is the anchor of pulling down into a stable object. In other words, this drill is hard to do without some kind of ledge set up. The side-lying exercise is a really great opportunity to engage both hamstrings simultaneously, and it is also an excellent drill for learning more about what it feels like to have alignment between femur, tibia, and foot for each limb. To do this properly, you really need some open space, allowing you to bend each leg at 90 degrees at the knee, while simultaneously having one femur flexed in front and the other femur extended behind in the set up. This is the ideal drill for someone for an upright split squat drill, because they are in the same position, but without the difficulty of managing gravity. I’m always looking for opportunities to connect concepts that will demonstrate tremendous carryover to other patterns, and this drill provides one of the best teachable moments I have found, particularly for front/back knee dominant exercises and locomotion drills. To run fast or split squat well, I need to have a

femur lined up nicely over a tibia, and a tibia lined up nicely over a calcaneus. When this happens, force is transmitted directly into the ground, and the ground reacts directly, pushing back through the leg complex. I often find myself telling people about hammers hitting nails with this drill. I’ll say that the best way to hit a nail into an object is to make sure the nail is lined up perfectly perpendicular with the object it is going to be driven into. I also want to make sure that the hammer is striking straight down into the nail. If the nail is out of alignment, or the hammer strikes at an angle, we’ll often see bending or torque on the nail, splintering of the wood, or dissipation of forces in a less than ideal manner. The calcaneus is the wood, the tibia is the nail, and the femur is the hammer. I want the calcaneus square with the ground, the tibia aimed straight down into the calcaneus, and the femur needs to strike straight down into the tibia. Returning to our ground drills, this is why I spend a lot of time having people really feel as much of their foot against the wall as possible, and thinking about how well their knee is lined up with their foot. When I spend a lot of time instructing people to line up their knees with their feet in this drill, I have to do much less of it when they are doing split squats or running. I truly love coaching the half kneeling position. I think there is a lot of juice that can be drawn out of the muscles without significant loading in this position, and a great deal of education that can be imparted on subjects about where their body is in space. I start people in half kneeling drills with their back foot pressed flush against a wall behind them. The cue I am constantly giving here is: “push”. I want the subject to push his or her foot into the wall behind them, and I want them to push their other foot into the floor below them. I remind people about keeping their knees over their feet in this drill, and asking them if they can put themselves in a position where they feel the greatest amount of each foot against the surface it’s contacting. I want subjects to put equal push into both feet, and I

Page

84

want them to think about pushing their back leg knee off the ground. Most people will quickly push their knee off the ground, and I do not say anything during their first attempt. While watching them, I see that there is typically a tremendous amount of sway, lateralizing of weight, turning of the pelvis, extending of the torso, and extraneous movement throughout the body. Before attempt number two, I tell them that I want them to notice their body during the execution of the movement. I want them to stop as soon as they feel themselves starting to shift in space. I want a statue to leave the ground. When subjects eliminate these extraneous movements, particularly lateralization of center of mass to one side, they feel a completely different level of muscle recruitment, and a newfound appreciation for how difficult it is to get up from a half kneeling position with just the muscles of the thighs and pelvis. Once people become proficient at this drill, quality split squatting and lunging is practically assured. Frontal, Bilateral, Low Load, Low Velocity, Moderate Duration, Core Pelvis This is the realm of exercise where the hip shift is introduced. With the help of the hip shift, we can find and feel the frontal plane muscles of the pelvis. The hip shift involves drawing back one side of the pelvis, while the other side of the pelvis goes forward. To picture it, imagine hovering above someone like a drone, and having X-ray vision. Picture being able to see down through the top of their head and all the way through their thorax, but you stop peering through at the level of their pelvis. You can see the outline of their pelvis, and, in some ways, it looks like the face of a clock. If your subject were to rotate his or her pelvis counter-clockwise, aka, to the left, this would be the motion we are going to call a left hip shift, and a clockwise rotation would be a right hip shift. Hip shifting without changing the orientation of the femurs necessitates engaging the frontal plane pelvis muscles. This is because, when we hip shift, we are bringing our center of mass closer to the femur on the side to which we’re

shifting. If I keep my right femur still and I hip shift right, my pubis is getting closer to my right femur, thereby shifting more and more of my body weight to the side I am shifting into, and loading the leg on that side with more and more weight. And, the frontal plane muscles create a powerful yielding action to accept the body mass on this side. In this category of exercises, we can see that we are following a fairly standard procedure for progressing positions by going from supine, to side-lying, to seated, to tall kneeling, to standing supported, to standing unsupported. When reading through this list, numbers 4 and 5 on this list might jump out at you, because you’ll see these referencing tall kneeling w/ stance side elevated. What this means is that I am going to be putting some kind of pad or thick towel underneath the knee on the side being hip shifted into. If you think back to sensorimotor competencies of the cardinal planes of motion covered in Part 2 of Chapter 3, one of the motor competencies of the frontal plane is that the pelvis should be able to move like a see-saw. Putting a pad underneath the right knee in a tall kneeling position will lift the right side of the pelvis. Perform this motion improperly (without a competent sagittal plane) often results in feeling one’s quadratus lumborum muscle engage in an uncomfortable way. The desirable outcome is being able to ascend one side of the pelvis at a time while feeling the obliques on that side along with the adductor, which describes a core element of competent frontal plane training. Sensorimotor competency in this category of exercises will be intimately tied to your ability to center your mass over each individual foot. If I am seeking to recruit my left adductor, I would be putting a pad under my left knee to ascend the left side of my pelvis. Simultaneously, I would be attempting to keep my nose over my left sternum, over my belly button, over my zipper, over my left knee. If I am able to center with sagittal competency, the adductor will fire with authority. If sagittal competency and centering are absent, it’s tough to guess at

Page

85

the various muscles that might be firing, but QL and TFL are likely suspects. As these bilateral symmetrical drills advance into standing with the foot elevated and not elevated, owning sagittal competency and being able to center the mass over the stance side foot becomes increasingly challenging, making possession of an invariant representation of frontal plane core pelvis competency critical. If you were to try to start with these drills, you would have virtually no chance at success. But, if you take your time and follow the appropriate sequence presented here, it will all but ensure success in these drills. Below is the list of progressions for frontal plane, bilateral stance, low load, low velocity, moderate duration, core pelvis exercises. Importantly, every exercise listed employs a hip shift, a requisite motion for training the frontal plane muscles of the pelvis:

4. Tall kneeling w/stance side elevated and feet on wall

5. Tall kneeling w/stance side elevated 6. Standing supported w/stance foot elevated

7. Standing supported

1. Supine w/hip shift

2. Side lying

3. Seated

8. Standing unsupported w/stance foot elevated

9. Standing unsupported Coaching Points Coaching frontal plane drills is like playing whack-a-mole. As you may (or may not) remember, this game involves a slanted table in front of you, which is approximately 4 feet wide by 3 feet deep. The table has about five holes in it, and in what seems to be a random

Page

86

sequence, plastic, “moles” pop up, as if coming out of a hole in the ground. The object of the game is to hit as many moles on the head as possible with a foam mallet that is attached to the table by a cable. While playing the game, you’ll notice that a mole will pop up on the far left side of the board, and then half a second later, one pops up in the middle, followed immediately after by two moles popping up on the right side of the board, and so forth. The game can be very frustrating, because, just as you’ve solved one “mole problem”, another, and then another, and then another problem pops up in front of you. With frontal plane drills, the subject has to retain sagittal plane sensorimotor competencies while hip shifting into one side, and centering their body mass over the foot on that same side. This results in some common missteps: Scenario A: The subject hip shifts into the appropriate side, but as soon as they do, their pelvis goes into massive anterior tilt. Scenario B: The subject hip shifts and centers their pelvis over their stance side foot, but their thorax is angled in the opposite direction and their head is centered over the non-stance-side foot. Scenario C: The subject hip shifts over the stance side foot, but the pelvis floats away from the stance-side foot and centers over the other foot. Scenario A can be particularly frustrating, because your subject will appear to be doing the activity properly, leading you to believe that they should be feeling all the right things. But, under the hood, he or she lacks sagittal competency every single time. In my experience, the most common culprits here are flexible females. Once you’re “onto” them, you’ll want to bring these folks back to the sagittal well and spend some time there. Oftentimes, the hamstrings of these subjects are highly stretched, making it hard to recapture control of the pelvis. Sometimes, the answer is more supportive shoes. Check out the PRI recommended shoe list, and get something that has a good amount of support, like the classic Asics Foundation 8.

With loosey goosey flexible bodies, starting at ground level with a solid pair of shoes is often your best bet. From there, coach the feet to a high degree. I often tell people to try to make their stance-side foot as heavy as possible through the heel as they hip shift towards it. In an effort to accomplish this, some folks will line up their calcaneus, tibia, and femur, and shift their center of mass over the foot. By providing a more concrete goal, this cue is effective at obtaining the desired alignment. One final centering cue I’ll note is asking subjects to try to put their noses over their big toes on the side that they are hip shifting towards. This will often fix some thoracic pieces, bypassing any direct mention of the thorax. Frontal, Front/Back, Low Load, Low Velocity, Moderate Duration, Core Pelvis I have special reverence for this particular pattern, stance, and plane, because I see so many examples of carryover here. In terms of gym exercises, this area of training is going to be the foundation for most of the frontal plane knee dominant and hip dominant exercises that I’ll coach and program, because these front/ back, frontal plane, pelvis core exercises are also ubiquitous in sports. I see pitchers going into the follow-through of their throwing motion here. I see a right cross in boxing. I see fieldgoal kicking in football. I see a wide receiver about to hit his move for a slant route. I see a mixed martial arts fighter throwing a front kick. I see an outfielder picking up a ground ball single with his glove outside his glove side foot to be in the strongest possible position to make a throw for a play at the plate. The list could go on and on... An occupational hazard of my profession is watching sports with a different set of eyes. I see some athletes struggling to get their pelvis into proper frontal plane positions, and I see others effortlessly hip shifting and transferring weight with incredible fluidity. There are so many cool drills that I want to do with people in other patterns, but as even professional ath-

Page

87

letes will remind me, if I do not start with this core pelvis pattern, in this stance, in this plane, all that sexy, fancy, super cool stuff will be done poorly, rendering it no longer sexy, nor fancy nor super cool. In this category, you’ll see that we start similarly to previous examples, with supine as the first position, then side-lying, and eventually making our way up to standing. In this section, however, there is a twist that requires further exploration. If you look at numbers 6 and 7, our half-kneeling exercises, you’ll see that they’re preceded by “retro step exercises” 4 and 5. As such, we’re breaking some of our previous rules, because we’re going to be doing a standing exercise with retro step components prior to a half kneeling drill, which is a ground-based exercise. In my defense: state troopers get to speed on the highway! Our very own state trooper squad car which gives us license to break some rules is powered by the fact that there are activities that are going to promote backwards motion, and there are activities that are going to promote forward motion. You always want to start with activities that promote backwards motion prior to activities that promote forward motion, and the retro step drills are backwards motion-promoting. Half kneeling and split squatting positions are ones that are going to promote forward motion. This will become more relevant when we get to hip-dominant and knee-dominant drills, but it will be easier to find and feel frontal plane pelvis muscles in the retro step compared to the half-kneeling position. When humans try to walk backwards, they generally adopt an ipsilateral pattern, where the left leg and left arm go backwards at the same time. When we walk forward, we typically adopt a contralateral pattern. The ipsilateral pattern is a more simplistic mechanical model as compared to the contralateral one. By subjects backwards rather than forward, we present them with a mechanical model that’s simpler, and hence easier to master.

The retro step is literally what it sounds like: you take a step backwards. When you do this, it orients your pelvis and thorax in the direction of the foot that you stepped backwards with. By simply focusing on keeping the femur straight ahead, we allow the retro step to create the hip shift for us. Retro-stepping with the left foot while keeping the femur aimed straight ahead creates a left hip shift, and vice versa for the right. Back to our list, note also that number 4 has an elevated stance foot. This is similar to what we discussed for the tall kneeling position in the previous section. In the tall kneeling example, I discussed putting a pad underneath one of the knees to elevate the pelvis on that side. Same concept here. You will simply retro-step backwards onto a small box (2” is a good height). The retro step with elevated stance foot provides a passive hip shift as well as a passive ascension of the pelvis on the stance-side foot. This simplifies what the subject has to worry about: maintaining sagittal competency and centering. So long as the subject maintains those two concepts, frontal plane musculature will naturally be engaged to the highest possible level. Half-kneeling and split-squatting are examples of forward-step drills. When we get to the knee-dominant section of this book, I will dive into why I view single-leg squats as retrostep-based drills, and split squats of all kinds as being forward step drills. These static, highly sensorimotor-dominant, core exercises are the cornerstones for learning the positional fundamentals for success with unilateral, knee-dominant drills, which we’ll get to in a bit. With the half-kneeling and split-squatting drills, you’ll see that the first progression of each involves having the back foot planted on a wall. The back foot on the wall provides an excellent platform to push off from. Pushing back into the wall causes a reaction force that drives us forward. This push with the back foot is also an excellent tool for promoting the hip shift into the front-side leg. With all of these drills, being successful from a sensorimotor competency

Page

88

standpoint is going to be based on maintaining sagittal competency, as well as hip-shifting and centering over the stance foot. With the retro step drills, the stance foot is the back foot. With the half-kneeling and split squats, the stance foot is the front foot. Likewise, the hip shift is more passive for retro step drills, and more active for forward step drills:

6. Half-kneeling w/hip shift and back foot on wall

1. Supine w/hip shift, short lever moving swing leg (heel taps) (hamstrings)

7. Half-kneeling w/hip shift 8. Standing w/hip shift and back foot on wall 9. Standing w/hip shift 10. Split squat w/hip shift and back foot on wall 11. Split squat w/hip shift Coaching Points

2. Supine w/hip shift, long lever moving swing leg (heel taps) (glutes) 3. Side-lying in corner w/hip shift

4. Retro step w/hip shift and stance foot elevated

5. Retro step w/hip shift

Front/back stance drills provide a great opportunity to coach on the pelvis movement during a hip shift. With these drills, one foot is going to be the stance foot, and that is the foot we are going to be hip-shifting towards. When doing these, I make subjects aware of their anterior superior iliac spine aka the prominent protuberance of bone on the front side of their hip. I’ll often have them put their hands on that spot on each hip, and let them use their hand to feel their pelvis rotate through space on each side, so they can familiarize themselves with how, as one side rotates forward, the other side is rotating back. I’ll go on to explain that, when I ask them to hip shift left, what I’m really asking them to do is shift the left hip back, while simultaneously shifting the right hip forward. I’ll coach them to move their left hands/hips backwards over their left heels, and their right hands/hips forward, and throw in a request for them to move their right hands/hips towards their left knees. As we do this, I’ll have subjects pay attention to the left knee. Does the left knee move laterally when you try to move your right hand/hip towards it? Typically, the left knee does move, and it moves further to the left and laterally rotates away from the foot. After the subject realizes that the knee is not staying aligned over their foot, he or she will start to

Page

89

see that it’s difficult to keep the knee over the foot when hip-shifting in that direction. I’ll cue them to try to close the distance between the left knee and the right hip by squeezing the left knee to the right. What I’m doing here is using the hip shift to approximate the distance between the ASIS and the knee. And, at a high level, the retro step provides a really great place to start coaching this concept. The half-kneeling and split squat positions, meanwhile, are great for connecting the drill to a movement from the subject’s sport. If I’m working with baseball players, I’ll often show them how the frontal plane front/back staggered stance forward step position really mimics the follow-through of a throw. As you may know or imagine, as soon as you connect a training movement with a sporting movement, you capture the interest of the athlete. Doing so teleports the movement from a foreign, boring weightroom drill, requiring them to obey your orders, to their familiar field or court, where they’re in charge. Frontal Lateral Core Pelvis The lateral stance is significantly more difficult compared to the other two. One of the main reasons for this is that we need to put a strong focus on what’s happening with the calcaneus of each foot. With all frontal plane drills, we are trying to have the subject center his or her mass over their stance foot, but when we use the lateral stance the difficulty of accomplishing this task becomes more extreme. The stance-side calcaneus is inverting and the swing side calcaneus needs to evert. When a calcaneus bone everts it shoves the center of mass in the opposite direction, such that, if the left calcaneus is everted, the body mass shifts to the right, and vice versa. If I am doing a frontal plane lateral stance core pelvis exercise, and I’m trying to center my body mass over my left foot, I’m going to be putting a strong focus on everything within my right calcaneus. This additional ankle component gives subjects more to consider with these drills, which can make their execution more difficult. For this reason, these drills are best saved for later stages of an

exercise program. In sports, the lateral stance presents itself incredibly frequently. The most dominant place we see the lateral stance is with change of direction movements, like a cross-over dribble or a wide receiver juke move. You also see the lateral stance in the follow-through of a baseball swing, a hockey slap shot, and as a pitstop on the way to mastering throwing mechanics. As a pitcher strides towards home plate, he or she is first in lateral stance, working to keep his or her center of mass back and not going too far towards his or her lead foot before it hits the ground. Once it does, the pitcher now swivels, shifting from lateral stance to front/back stance. The rotational power through the pelvis and thorax is derived from the transition from lateral stance to front/back stance. This is also the transition that we see when athletes go from a juke to an acceleration, such as when a basketball player shifts from a cross-over dribble to penetrating to the basket. When I think about the foundations of athleticism, smoothness, elusiveness, and unpredictability, I think of someone who can get into and out of a quality lateral stance. The core pelvis pattern is where we take the time to have an athlete get to know the stance, feel the way their body responds while in the position, and ultimately learn to control their center of mass under those (often challenging) circumstances. These exercises all feature a hip shift, which means the adductor magnus will be targeted. The other movement of the pelvis that will attack the adductor magnus is the see-saw movement. When one side of the pelvis is higher than the other in space, the adductor is heavily recruited on that side. With all of these drills, these two pelvic movements will be prominently featured. When one side of the pelvis is higher than the other, this means not only that a muscle is targeted on the higher side, but that another muscle is simultaneously heavily targeted on the opposite, lower side. That muscle is the glute medius.

Page

90

What follows is the list of progressions for frontal plane, lateral stance, low load, low velocity, moderate duration, core pelvis exercises. You’ll see that there are fewer exercises here, and also fewer positions from which to execute the movements. In this realm, we have side-lying, lateral-kneeling, and standing varieties. Word to the wise: do not let the small number of drills mislead you about the complexity of this realm of fitness:

but the other thing it is incredibly useful for is preventing the frontal plane abdominals on the same side from bunching up. When I’m doing frontal plane exercises, I want to move the ilium and the armpit closer together one side as I move them further apart on the other side. In this side-lying example, I’ll be trying to close the distance between my left hip and left armpit, while increasing the distance between my right hip and right armpit.

1. Side lying with top leg straight and supported

This drill is designed to recruit the left adductor, the left abs, and the right glute muscles. To get the abs, I am going to need to press the ground with my top (right) hand, and get in a quality exhale. The pressing and exhaling should bring my left armpit towards my left ilium, and recruit my left frontal plane abs. The folks from PRI do an incredible job of coaching these drills. Watching the 16 hours of video that came with their Myokinematics home study course, I felt like I got to know the host, James Anderson. He absolutely crushed the parts where he would be teaching exercises that would be side-lying frontal plane targeted drills. I specifically remember him telling the people he was working with to try to create a, “mouse house” on the down side abs, and this cue has been a money maker for me for years.

2. Side lying with top leg straight and unsupported 3. Lateral kneeling

4. Standing supported w/stance foot elevated 5. Standing supported Coaching Points If I am performing exercise number 1 in the list for this category, I could be lying on my left side, and my right leg would be up on top of a bench. I’ll hip shift to the left and recruit my left adductor. Now what I want to do is move my pelvis like a see-saw, by extending my top leg as much as I possibly can over the bench. By doing so, I move my right pelvis into the down position on a see-saw. When I do this, I’ll be abducting my ilium, and the right glute medius will fire. The glute medius is a great muscle for abducting the ilium and abducting the femur,

What this means is that you want to push the ground hard with your top hand, and make a little space between your lower abdominals on the side of your body and the ground. Picture the old Tom and Jerry cartoons with the little arched hole in the wall that the mouse would run into to hide from the cat. Create that with your abs on the ground-facing side and let the mouse run through that daylight. That move will approximate the downside ilium and armpit. The other thing I remember James Anderson talking about was reaching the top leg long, in other words, down, or away from your head. This action will distract the top side ilium from the armpit. I will also cue folks to shrug the top side shoulder towards the ear in an attempt to open up that top side, which, in tandem with closing the down side, is what we’re after here.

Page

91

As we cue subjects through these moving parts, we’ll also need some anchors. Those anchors are their feet. In my coaching experience, I find I’m constantly having to correct the position of the down-side foot, because the outside back part of the heel will spin away from the ground. To course correct this, I’ll frequently resort to weighing down that heel with a small sandbag, to keep it in contact with the ground... but sometimes an effective measure is to lightly step on the inside of the subject’s heel with my foot, to push the outside down into the ground. Transverse Bilateral Core Pelvis Our journey through the trainable menu of the pelvis is nearing its end as we make our way to the transverse plane. The primary target of the transverse plane is going to be the swing-side glute max. Thus far, we’ve spent a considerable amount of time talking about what is going on with the leg that is on the ground, but have yet to talk about the leg that is off the ground. That leg must obey the same rules as those previously demonstrated for the propulsion arc, in the context of which we discussed what’s going on at the arms as they go through an overhead reach arc. The legs would be no different. If you were standing on two feet, and started the action of doing a march, you would begin by picking one foot up off the ground. At the bottom of that motion, the leg would be in an expansion zone. If you continued to lift the leg off the ground, it would eventually get to 90 degrees of flexion. At that point, the leg would be at maximum of compression. If you continued to flex the leg well above that point, it would reach a point of flexion (around 120 degrees), where it would actually re-enter into expansion. When you are looking at someone in a short lever, bilateral stance position such as supine 90/90, both femurs are at 90 degrees of flexion, which appears to be putting both lower extremities in Zone 2 and compression. However, if you take a step back and look at the ankle, you’ll find it’s neither plantar flexed, nor dorsiflexed. So, in a lot of ways, this supine

90/90 position is a fairly neutral place to be from a movement strategy perspective. When I start to add a hip shift to a supine 90/90 position, I start to see subjects move into different regions of the propulsion arc with the two sides of their lower extremity. If I hip-shift someone to the left, and they own the position and do not let their femurs follow the pelvis, I can watch the left ankle go into more plantar flexion, and the right ankle go into more dorsiflexion. This means that the left lower extremity is being biased towards expansion, and the right is being biased towards compression. Interestingly, when they hip shift left, the muscles subjects will feel will be the left hamstrings, adductors, and IR fibers of the glutes, and they will feel the abduction and ER fibers of the glutes on the right side in this hip shift. As the lower extremity goes into more flexion, what they are feeling is a yielding action of the extension, adduction, and IR muscles on the left side, abduction, and ER. As the lower extremity goes into more extension, they’re also feeling a yielding action on the right side of the flexion, abduction, and ER muscles, adduction, and IR. The focus in these transverse plane pelvic drills is to feel the yielding action of the flexion, abduction, and ER muscles. The primary tissue will be the glute max, and the main motion out of the triad will be ER. These drills feature a hip shift, so frontal plane sensorimotor competencies will be involved, and form the foundation to which we’ll add the transverse elements. If you can understand how to coach the frontal plane from the previous section, you can get your subject in position for adding the transverse plane to the equation. I strongly encourage using objects as constraints that can assist in placing subjects into passive hip shifts during these drills. Passive hip shits allow subjects to focus more on the transverse plane swing side femur/pelvis, instead of focusing on maintaining the frontal plane piece here. The following is our list of drills for the progressions for transverse plane, bilateral

Page

92

stance, core pelvis. You can see that this list follows a fairly stereotypical presentation of supine with short levers, side-lying, supine with slightly longer lever, tall-kneeling, and then standing drills. The side-lying drill at number 2 is a personal favorite: 1. Supine 90/90 w/hip shift and w/swing side glute max 2. Side lying 90/90 with swing side glute max 3. Supine hook lying w/swing side foot elevated (passive hip shift) and w/swing side glute max 4. Supine hook lying w/hip shift and w/swing side glute max 5. Quadruped w/passive hip shift (elevated stance knee) and w/swing side glute max 6. Standing supported w/hip shift, w/stance foot elevated, and w/swing side glute max 7. Standing supported w/hip shift and swing side glute max 8. Standing unsupported w/hip shift and swing side glute max Coaching Points Here again, my recommendation is to extensively coach the feet. Make sure you anchor through the outside of the heel on the stance-side foot, and the medial arch of the swing side foot. This is PRI 101 of coaching, but also something you’ll see get screwed up time and again. Focusing on the key elements goes a long way towards blocking out the noise and helping subjects get it right. For these drills, your mantra should be: heel and arch, heel and arch, heel and arch! Does the subject feel them? If not, he or she is likely not in the best position, and has no reliable reference point relative to which to move. This is because we want to hip shift in the direction of the stance foot (the heel of which we want to feel), and away from the swing side (the arch of which we want to feel). If you have held onto your feet and you have successfully hip shifted, by all means, feel free to push your swing side femur laterally. In the right position, the recruitment of the transverse plane glute max will be incredible.

As mentioned, I love the side-lying number 2 exercise. I’ll position myself in front of where the athlete’s knees are, and put one leg about an inch in front of his or her knees. I will tell the athlete to shift his or her top leg knee into my leg and put pressure on my leg with that knee. I’ll check their feet, oftentimes having to press the outside of their down-side heel into the ground with my hand. I’ll ask the athlete to continue to put pressure on my leg with his or her knee, and then to try to move his or her knee up my leg. This is usually about the time the athlete’s eyes widen to the size of saucers, indicating that the drill is strongly and effectively recruiting their glute max. I will have to continuously remind the athlete to maintain pressure on my leg while doing this drill. By this point in the training process, the athlete should have a good idea of how to position his or her pelvis for sagittal and frontal plane competencies, meaning that his or her invariant representation of pelvic positioning is strong. Having done one of these drills, they usually understand the concept very well, and it is relatively easy to put the concept into upright activities. Always remember that you’re presenting someone with a model for how his or her body works. So, take your time, and thoughtfully choose a drill that’s likely to get the point across successfully the first time around. Once you’ve managed to bring the point home once, chances are you’ll have success in coaching this subject going forward. Transverse Front/Back Core Pelvis The classical position for transverse core pelvis drills, this stance is associated with running, and running is where the transverse pelvis shines. The late propulsion, concentrically-oriented, overcoming action transverse glute max is what powered us in upright running as a species. As you’ve seen me repeat, when it comes to the pelvis, you’ve got to think feet, because the two are tightly intertwined. A great visualization for this interconnection is that of a great push-off in late propulsion and its reliance on pushing off from the big toe.

When I’m walking and my foot hits the

Page

93

ground, I’ll first land on the outside of my heel. In the gait process, initial contact with the ground is when I’m in the greatest amount of inversion at the calcaneus and supination at the foot. After the initial heel strike, I’ll be rolling forward on my foot. As this forward rolling takes place, I am also everting my calcaneus from an inverted starting place, and pronating my foot from a supinated starting place. Eventually, my mid-foot hits the ground, followed by the balls of my foot, and, finally, my toes. As I go through this process, where more and more of the front of my foot and toes hit the ground, I will be increasingly everting and pronating. My big toe hitting the ground and starting to catalyze final propulsion marks the end of the height of eversion and pronation in the gait cycle. As I create the final propulsion and push off my big toe, I am reversing the process, inverting the calcaneus, and supinating the foot. Thinking back to previous examples that tie in with breathing, the ankle and the foot are no exceptions, and will be intimately tied to stereotypical positions associated with phases of the respiratory cycle. Inhalation is accompanied by the eccentric, yielding, supinating, and inverting phase of propulsion of the gait cycle, and exhalation by the concentric, overcoming, pronating, and everting phase of propulsion. When we’re talking specifically about getting the transverse glute max to fire, this phenomenon would be synced with the pushoff, and the transition from the most everted and pronated-possible position of the ankle and foot to the gradual inversion and supination process. The trick is to get the foot and ankle shifted to the medial side of the foot, drop the first ray of the big toe metatarsal onto the ground, and keep that part of your foot planted down while you then abduct and ER the femur. The progressions that follow are designed to ease this task as much as possible. These progressions are in side-lying to retro step to forward step order: 1. Side lying in corner w/swing side glute max 2. Standing supported retro step w/stance side elevated, and w/swing side glute max

3. Standing supported retro step w/swing side glute max 4. Standing retro step w/stance side elevated and w/swing side glute max 5. Standing retro step w/swing side glute max 6. Standing supported forward step w/stance foot elevated, w/rear foot on wall, and w/swing side glute max 7. Standing supported forward step w/stance foot elevated and w/swing side glute max 8. Standing supported forward step w/swing side glute max 9. Standing unsupported forward step (follow same sequence with legs as 6-8) Coaching Points In this list, I’m going to attempt to take a step back before going forward. The transverse glute max is perhaps the ultimate power player for what will drive a human forward in the gait cycle. That said, as you can see in the list above, the retro step lives in this grouping of exercises. As explained, the backwards gait mechanics make it easier to feel the hip shift, and the transverse glute max will push the subject from the opposite side, deeper into the hip shift. Feeling these sensations typically elucidate the concept at play. If I am doing a retro step drill in this category, and trying to shift into my left hip, I would think about rotating my left ASIS backwards over my left heel, while keeping my left femur straight ahead. If I do this, I should feel my left adductor. Stay in your left hip, but bring your attention to the right side. Let your right foot collapse into the medial side, and let your right knee move as far towards your left knee as you like. Really try to feel the medial arch of your right foot, and get the big toe solidly on the ground. Now, while keeping the weight of your right foot firmly planted through the medial side, try to externally rotate and abduct your right leg. You should feel that right glute kick in strongly. You should feel your right hip rotating forward, and really pushes your left hip into even more of a hip shift. If you are doing a rear-foot-on-wall forward step drill in this category, and your right

Page

94

foot is the back foot, you would be trying to shift into your left hip. In this case, you would be rotating your left ASIS backwards over your left heel, while keeping your left femur straight ahead. If you do this, you should feel your left adductor. Stay in your left side, but bring your attention to the right side. Bring the weight of your right foot against the wall into the medial side. Let the foot inwardly collapse. Try to squeeze your right knee behind your left knee. You’ll feel yourself hip shift more and more into the left hip. Now, while keeping the weight of your right foot on the medial side of the foot, try to abduct and externally rotate the right leg. This is where you will feel the right glute max, and you’ll feel the way this puts you even further into a left hip shift. The forward step with back foot on wall is my favorite of these drills, as one that really connects the core pelvis section with locomotion. Transverse Lateral Core Pelvis A lot of these drills look like the position of a speed skater at the end of his or her pushoff, as in the picture featured below. As we can see, the straight leg is the leg the skater pushed off with, which is the leg in which we’d want to find the glute max. The bent leg side is the one we would be attempting to drive the hip shift into. This is a position that can really exaggerate the end propulsion concept in the leg that is kicked out to the side, really targeting the transverse pelvic muscles.

The position of the speed skater in this picture provides a lot of insight into our lateral stance drills. Pushing herself from her right side to the left, she also demonstrates a greatly exaggerated late propulsion right leg, due to this phase of the propulsion cycle being prolonged by the environmental circumstances of a low friction surface like ice, combined with removal of much of the flight phase. You can really see the femoral abduction component of the late propulsion movement strategy prominently displayed here. Mimicking positions like this with exercise can allow us to selectively develop late propulsion pelvic mechanics, and to target late propulsion flexion, abduction, and ER tissues. The following is the list for lateral stance transverse plane, core pelvis drills. This progression series goes from side-lying to lateral-kneeling to standing drills. Subjects should be ready for this category of drills before attempting them, but improving sensorimotor competency for this category goes a long way for many sports movements. The position athletes get into whenever they are making a cut while changing direction and a transitional zone for moving into hitting a golf ball or a hockey puck (or, you name it), this is a ubiquitous position for rotational power: 1. Side lying swing leg supported w/swing side glute max 2. Side lying swing leg unsupported w/swing side glute max 3. Lateral kneeling w/swing side glute max 4. Standing supported w/stance foot elevated and w/swing side glute max 5. Standing supported w/swing side glute max 6. Standing w/stance foot elevated and w/swing side glute max 7. Standing w/swing side glute max Coaching Points

Fig 6.3 - Speed skater at the end of push off

With lateral stance activities, the athlete has their center of mass over one leg while the other leg is kicked out to the side like a kick-

Page

95

stand. It is often very difficult for the athlete to keep his or her pelvis over the stance-side foot. As a result, you’ll constantly see subjects trying to hip shift towards the stance-side foot, and the pelvis will leak laterally in space towards the swing side foot. When you are seeing this being demonstrated, go back to the Principles of Progressions to come up with constraints that prevent the pelvis from leaking away from the stance foot side. Use your own hands, which can serve as both a constraint and a reference for your subjects. I’ll often stand on the swing side and put my hand next to the swing side hip, and ask the subject to refrain from hitting my hand with his or her hip. Other times, I’ll physically guide the athlete’s pelvis towards the stance side foot. Or, put a box next to his or her stance-side hip, and ask him or her to keep the hip on that side in contact with the box. If it were easy, these tricks wouldn’t be needed, but it isn’t, so they often are. In fact, this position starts with side-lying because the pelvis cannot leak in space laterally when lying down on the ground on one’s side. The ground literally centers the us, and gravity prevents lateral shift away from the stance side foot and hip shift side pelvis. I keep subjects on the ground for a while with this drill, and, after I transition them to upright activity, I’ll typically keep bringing them back to the ground, to reinforce the practice of keeping track of the pelvis in space. Dominant Positions and Fitness Realms

•Dominant stance: Sport specific •Dominant plane: Frontal •Dominant load: Low •Dominant velocity: Low •Dominant duration: Moderate

While core exercises can create incredible levels of contractile activity for muscles of the thorax and pelvis, their focus is non-quantitative. Instead, they are subjective drills, which aim to improve sensorimotor competencies associated with the three planes. The key to core exercises is control. Core exercises are opportunities to teach important conceptual matters

that will relate to sporting movements as well as higher load, higher velocity training movements. A major key to success with core exercises is finding a way to connect the activity with the subject’s goals. If you can manage to do that, you will probably get buy-in from your subject. When it comes to athletic movements like running, jumping, throwing, and changing direction, the key plane for pelvic movement is the frontal plane. You set the stage for frontal plane competency by developing a sagittal foundation. If you stick to the basics and get to the point where your subject can nail frontal plane pelvis core exercises, you’ve already done an incredible job. It’s great if you get to throw some transverse icing on the cake, but the frontal plane is the show when it comes to core pelvis exercises.

07 Pattern 3: Core: Thorax Focus

Page

97

Pattern 3: Core: Thorax Focus

Chapter 7

Before he went to jail, Mike Tyson had the most dynamic ribcage in the history of sports. If you have a chance to catch some early film of him training and fighting, the power and ferocity of those punches will give you chills. The speed that he could bob and weave made him untouchable, and the look in eyes when he knew he was the baddest man on the planet gave him an aura of invincibility that made him an icon. By the time Iron Mike got out of jail, the iron had gotten a bit rusty. The big difference was that his ribcage stiffened. Great ribcages can flex, extend, side bend, and twist. A mobile ribcage can forgive a thousand sins.

our most important internal organs: the heart and the lungs. If something catastrophic happens to either of those objects, you’re surely dead. We need protection against impact from falls, and objects from the outside world hitting us, and we certainly need the contents housed inside the ribcage to stay within its confines. In an ironic sense, a great ribcage is one that can demonstrate freedom of motion.

When I think of the word cage, I think of a device that is made to keep something in, of something rigid with iron bars, leaving me with a hopeless, despondent feeling. Like it or not, I get where the name comes from. We need a structure that is supportive and protective for Fig 7.1 - Rib cage shown protecting the heart and lungs The rib cage should be able to expand and contract with the breathing cycle. I should be able to close the space between my ribs when I side bend in one direction, while I open the space between the ribs on the opposite side. I should be able to coil up like a snake via compression and transverse plane motion with my ribs. My ribcage should be able to anterior tilt and posterior tilt. My ribcage should be able to do it all. In the fitness, and strength and conditioning world, you’ll hear a lot of talk about the

Page

98

thoracic spine. Of course, the thoracic spine is important, but as far as the thorax is concerned, the ribcage is the show. In light of this, I look forward to a shift from talking exclusively about t-spine mobility to increasing our ribcage dialogue. Getting subjects to understand how to move their ribs via respiration, and how to bias air into certain compartments of the lungs is a physical skill most can learn, and use to improve their overall movement competencies and capabilities.

reduced, and pressure rises. If pressure rises past the pressure of the ambient air, then air will flow down its concentration gradient, and move from inside the lungs into the environment outside the body.

Anatomical Considerations, The Thorax I don’t think I’ve ever had my mind blown more than when listening to Bill Hartman explain the thorax. In his “The Intensive” course where I was in attendance, Bill began with the thorax to illustrate how joints work. It is easier to see the thorax than an elbow joint, so if we could understand something that was more observable, we could apply the same rules to joints we couldn’t see as readily. It begins with understanding pressure and volume. In the thorax, we can have high volume areas, but here, the rules are a little bit different than the inverse relationship between pressure and volume in breathing. When we are talking about the classical understanding of breathing, we are typically talking about the fact that, when I inhale, air comes in because my diaphragm concentrically orients. When the diaphragm concentrically orients, it flattens, and the dome that pushes up into the thorax descends. When the dome descends, there is more volume inside the chest cavity. When the volume of the chest cavity increases, the pressure of air inside the chest cavity decreases. If the pressure becomes lower than the ambient air pressure, then air will move down its concentration gradient, and go from the external environment to inside the lungs. When I exhale, the diaphragm eccentrically orients. When the diaphragm eccentrically orients, it forms a dome, and takes up more space inside the chest cavity. When the diaphragm takes up more space inside the chest cavity, volume is

Fig 7.2 - Diaphragm during inhalation and exhalation

What Bill is getting us to visualize about volume in this context is air moving into a region of the lungs/chest, and expanding that physical space. A region expanded by air wherein air starts to take up space can be said to be in a high volume state. The more expanded that a part of the lung is, the greater the volume in that area. When it comes to the thoraco-abdominal area, air being present in a region can increase volume, but so can fluid. As such, areas that are high in volume are going to be off limits areas for moving towards or into. Oftentimes, those high volume areas will also push the body in the opposite direction. A high volume area is one that is using an expansion movement strategy, characterized by the respiratory and skeletal systems being in an inhaled state, and the muscles assuming an eccentric orientation. This is not contradictory to previously stated material. When I say, “off limits areas for moving towards or into”, I’m referring to overcoming actions. Areas that are high pressure regions are those which are compressed, and hence, those with a concentric muscle orientation. Compressing and assuming a concentric orientation acts to reduce volume and increase pressure.

Page

99

The more a region is squeezed and shrunk, the greater the pressure that will build in it. High-pressure areas are also those our bodies are able to move towards or into (overcoming actions). If I want to send my center of mass to the right, I need to compress my right ribs. If I want to do a backbend and go into a wheel pose in yoga, I need to compress my posterior ribs. If I want to touch my toes with a forward bend, I need to compress my anterior ribs. Full movement in a given direction occurs when I’m able to create high pressure on one side of a joint, and low pressure on the other side of that joint, creating a concentric orientation on one side and an eccentric orientation on the other side. The movement will take place towards the concentric side. If you are concentric on both sides, it is a rigid system, where little movement is possible. If you are eccentric on both sides, it is a chaotic system, characterized by movement resembling a lava lamp, as fluid sloshes back and forth between two open sides. We used the thorax as our guide because it was easier to see. A good forward bend occurs with compression of the anterior thorax, and expansion of the posterior thorax. If you can exhale effectively and approximate the ribs in the front, and keep them approximated while inhaling, you will expand the posterior rib cage, and create a high pressure front and high volume back. This will allow you to toe-touch effectively. For an upwards and backwards full extension reach, you need to compress the posterior ribs with your exhale and keep them compressed while inhaling, to expand the anterior chest wall. This will create a high pressure posterior side and a high volume anterior chest wall, which will allow for full extension and posterior tilting of the thorax. The thoraco-abdominal region is one big synovial joint. You can watch and feel the way the thoraco-abdominal region works, and by doing so, gain incredible insight into all the synovial joints of the body. The movement system is a fractal system. If you can understand the rules that govern how one part moves, you under-

stand the rules that govern how all the other parts move as well. Anatomical Considerations, The Scapulae The pelvis is a little easier to understand than the thorax, in part because the former consists of fewer moving pieces. To review, we have our innominate bones connecting at the pubis, and the sacrum/coccyx in the back. With the thorax, we have the spine, the ribs, the sternum, and the scapulae. On the bright side, the scapulae and the innominate bones are fairly similar to each other. The sacrum and the spine are fairly similar to each other. The pubis and the sternum are fairly similar to each other. There’s just a lot more freedom of motion at the thorax as compared to the pelvis. And, nowhere is this freedom more apparent than at the scapulae. When Gray Cook came out with the joint by joint approach to training, everyone fell in love with the concept for its ease of use. This joint by joint approach to training posited that some joints are intended to be highly mobile joints and some joints are intended to be highly stable joints. The shoulder for instance is a great example of a joint meant to be highly mobile, whereas the lumbar spine is intended to be highly stable. Mobile joints need some stability, and stable joints need some mobility, but, for the most part, each should be able to display its dominant characteristic. The really cool part of the joint by joint approach to training is that mobile and stable joints would alternate with each other as you made your way throughout the body. If we start at the ankle and work our way up, we’d label the ankle a mobile joint, the knee a stable joint, the hip a mobile joint, the lumbar spine a stable joint, the thoracic spine a mobile joint, the scapula a stable joint, and the glenohumeral a mobile joint. This concept goes on to extrapolate that, when a mobile joint loses some of its mobility, what often happens is that it becomes more

Page

100

stable (stiffer), and the stable joint that is next in the chain has to pick up more mobility. That all sounds fine, except that when a stable joint increases in mobility, this is often a site of pain. If there is a site of pain, such as the knee, look to the joint above or below for the solution, as the pain site is often the victim of a problem that has roots elsewhere. To alleviate knee pain, you should first see if there is a limitation in hip and/or ankle mobility. If there is limited mobility at one or both of these joints, attempting to restore that mobility should be the first order of business. If you are successful in this pursuit, the knee will typically drop its attempts to pick up excess motion, which in itself will remedy the pain.

Fig 7.3 - Scapula sitting on top of ribcage

Reversing this thought process would apply to problems caused by limitation in motion at mobile joints. In these cases, it pays to seek a stability limitation at the stable joint directly above or below the mobile joint. When it comes to issues having to do with lack of shoulder mobility, a common fix is to enhance the stability of the scapula. I can remember hearing Eric Cressey being the first to say that a mobile humerus acting on an unstable scapula is like, “firing a cannon out of a canoe”. In such a setting, the brain will often know that, “firing a cannon from a canoe” will be threatening, so it will reduce motion potential and stiffen the shoulder. Recruiting muscles such as low trap and serratus anterior more frequently will serve to solve such problems.

Now might be a good time to share that

I’m not actually a subscriber to the joint by joint approach to training, because I don’t find it particularly helpful in my work. In my mind, every joint should have a certain range of motion, the norm of which I can look up in any anatomy textbook. Of far greater interest to me is the ability to measure the range of motion of joints in all of the available planes within which each can move. If I discover that a given joint does not possess expected range of motion, part of my work lies in attempting to restore the norm for range of motion to that joint. If I can improve the range of motion through the techniques I use, then I can train that subject using all of the available training patterns described in this book, not to mention that the subject would also gain the ability to properly execute sports movements. As explained earlier, I will use table tests to verify that a subject is eligible to enter “Motor Learning 101”, and improve his or her capabilities in his or her chosen movement activities. I do not use the terms mobility or stability, because they mean little to me. Instead, I use the term “range of motion”, because I’m able to actually measure it in degrees. Another term I use is “sensorimotor competency”, because I can in fact apply standards to and grade it on a binary scale. Back to the scapula, I have yet to hear mention of the fact that the scapulae sit on top of the ribcage. When you’re examining what is happening at the scapula, you have to be aware of the relationship between the ribs and the scaps. The ribs are the foundation on which the scapula rests and moves. Another way of thinking about it is to think of the ribs as the ground, and the scapula as a set of feet, trying to find the ground. The position and shape of the rib cage will impact the position and status of the scapula. When talking about what is happening at the ribs, we have to address what moves the ribs, and changes their shape. The answer is, of course, the lungs. But what moves the lungs? The answer to that is airflow.

Page

101

If you care about the status of the scapula but are unaware of the impact that airflow has on it, you’re missing some puzzle pieces. Air moving into the alveoli expands the lungs. The expansion of the lungs causes the ribs to push outward in a 360 degree manner. When the ribs expand posteriorly, they push backwards into the scapula. When the ribs push back into the scapula, the scapula will reflexively push back on the ribs. When a force pushes a joint in one direction, and the joint reflexively pushes back in the opposite direction, this is called Reactive Neuromuscular Training (RNT). Gray Cook is fond of putting bands around knees to create a force that would cave the knees in on the squat. Humans reflexively react to the band caving their knees in by pushing their knees out. He would say that the use of RNT reflexively stabilizes the system. So, if I’m after great humeral mobility on a stable scapula, but worried about firing a cannon out of a canoe, what I’ve really been looking for all along is air, to push the ribs back into the scapulae. As you already know, I’m not fond of using the terms mobility or stability, because, at any joint, a subject is either closer to or further from human norms for range of motion. You are either sensorimotor competent with planar movement, or incompetent in regards to said movement, either stronger or weaker. I am only concerned with that which I can measure, grade, or categorize within a binary system. In regards to the ribs, the scapula, and the humerus, I want to measure that from which I can make logical inferences, and then proceed to utilize interventions that change initial measurements in a demonstrable, desired manner. The scaps have a stereotypical inhale and exhale position associated with them. The scapular positions reflective of expansion and compression mirror those of the pelvis. The motion of the scapula that corresponds to extension, adduction, and IR of the superior ilium is upward rotation, making it the compression/exhale position of the scapula. This makes downward rotation the expansion/inhale position of the scapula, and the motion of the scapula mirrors the flexion, abduction, and ER

movement of the superior ilium using an inhale strategy at the pelvis.

Fig 7.4 - Scapula in downward rotaion Fig 7.5 - Scapula in upward rotaion

The humerus has stereotypical positions associated with expansion and compression that are fairly straightforward. Flexion, abduction, and ER are the expansion strategies of the humerus, and extension, adduction, and IR are the compression strategies of the humerus. We want the humerus to be capable of displaying full ROM for all expansion and compression-related motions. If the humerus is lacking any of the expansion motions, then full expansion of the upper extremity is not possible, and the same goes for the compression motions. In order for the humerus to be able to demonstrate human norms for these movements, the scapula needs to be able to go through its normal excursions. For the scapula to go through its full movement capabilities, it needs the rib cage underneath it to have access to the full archetype of expansion and compression. Moving arms is more about moving air and managing pressure than many of us real-

Page

102

ize. You can keep on trying to stretch your lats until the cows come home, but if you do not get air to move to expand and compress your ribs, nothing will happen. The propulsion arc is a huge key to tying the motions of the upper extremity together, and guiding us towards how to use this information to our advantage. We will examine the arc by talking about what happens when we bring our arms from a resting position down by our sides up through full shoulder flexion. Zone 1 will be from zero degrees of flexion up to 60 degrees. Zone 2 will be between 60 and 120 degrees of flexion. Zone 3 will be between 120 and 180 degrees of flexion. Zones 1 and 3 will be our expansion-biased zones, and Zone 2 will be our compression-biased zone. We will return to this topic and cover it in much greater detail in the vertical push chapter. For now, we’ll simply introduce the concept.

Fig 7.6 - Propulsion Arc

In Zone 1, we are flexing the humerus between zero and 60 degrees of flexion. This is an expansion-related zone. The primary site of expansion to create this flexion is the lowest part of the posterior zone of the lungs. The primary moving structure in zone 1 is the humerus. In Zone 2, we are flexing the humerus between 60 and 120 degrees. This is a compression-related zone. The primary site of compression is the mid-scapular region. The primary moving structure in zone 2 is the scapula. This is the only time during the propulsion arc for the upper extremity that the scapula is going through upward rotation. Once we reach 120 degrees of flexion, the scapula is done with its upward rotation/compression movement. In Zone 3, we are flexing the humerus between 120 and 180 degrees. This is an expansion-related zone. The primary site of expansion is the upper back, just below the cervical spine. The primary moving structure in Zone 3 is the humerus. The scapula is through with its movement contributions by the time we reach Zone 3. If you cannot get full expansion of the upper back, you will not be able to reach full shoulder flexion. The major takeaways from all of this are going to shine through in the coaching directions we give our subjects during core thorax exercises. I want to bias my wide infrasternal angle/compressed subjects towards reaching into expansion-biased zones, and I want to bias my narrow infrasternal angle/expanded subjects towards reaching into the compression biased zone. If I have compressed subjects reaching in the direction of Zone 1 or Zone 3, I’ll have them feature supination and ER with their reaching hands and arms. If I have expanded subjects reaching in the direction of Zone 2, I’ll have them feature pronation and IR with their reaching hands and arms. I’ll start my compressed subjects with reaching towards zone 1 before I progress them to Zone 3 reaches. If I can get my compressed subjects to reach towards Zones 1 and 3, and exhale with

Page

103

force while pursing their lips, I’d be giving them vital tools to help them recapture lost movement capabilities. If I can get my expanded subjects to reach towards Zone 2, and exhale effortlessly, with an open mouth, I’d also be giving them vital tools to help them recapture lost movement capabilities. Ultimately, we’re trying to take someone who is biased towards one of the respiratory archetypes and give him or her an activity that recaptures the opposite archetype. If the subject can recapture the opposite archetype, then they should have access to the movement capabilities that lie between the two archetype presentations. Thank you Bill Hartman, for making me think of the fractal nature of biology, and for letting me see all of this having first examined the thorax. My hope is that this book might assist your aim of raising standards and practices used in the fitness and rehabilitation fields through reinforcing and adapting your revolutionary model for systematic fitness development.

Sagittal Applications If you do not like coaching the sagittal plane, you are in the wrong line of work. Tempting as it may be, rushing through sagittal plane drills to get to the frontal plane is ill-conceived, because those frontal plane drills won’t work without a sagittal foundation. What we’re going to be looking for in the sagittal plane is humeral extension that can occur without a massive compensatory anterior tilt of the scapula, and humeral flexion that does not involve anterior translation of the humeral head out the front of the glenoid fossa, or compensatory posterior tilt of the ribcage and hyperextension of the spine. The goal is to be able to fully flex and extend your humerus without compensating at the sternum, ribcage, scapula, or spine. Have you ever seen someone try to press a bar overhead, but the only way they can accomplish the action is by arching their back to the highest possible degree? That’s a good example of compensation through the spine and ribcage due to an inability to fully flex the humerus. Have you

ever watched someone do rows, shrugging and rolling their shoulders forward in the attempt? You’re watching compensation at the scapula, for lack of humeral extension. When I am evaluating the sagittal capabilities of the thorax and the arms, I’m typically thinking about the following groupings of muscular activity: For flexion, can my subject get the serratus anterior to move the scapula into abduction (protraction) and upward rotation? Tight biceps or pec minor are often cited as causing anterior tilt of the scapula, which would limit upward rotation on an abducted scapula. This may certainly be true. When we have agonist and antagonist groups that exist on opposite sides of a faulty joint, one group is usually long and weak, while the other is short and tight. Be that as it may, the solution tends to be more complicated than simply stretching the short side and strengthening the weak side. Instead, what we need to do is root cause the culprit responsible for creating this short/long imbalance.

Fig 7.7 - Arm in flexion Many highly muscular lifters demonstrate limited shoulder ROM, and are incapable of full flexion and extension. Is there a plague of scapular dyskinesis running rampant in the highly muscled? In reality, their limited shoulder motion is probably being caused by the shape the ribcage has assumed. Though you’re unlikely to find this in an anatomy textbook, muscles can create forces that compress inwards on joints.

Page

104

We can think of the entire thorax as being like one big synovial joint, and there are muscles that create compressive forces inward from the front, back, and sides. The serratus anterior and external obliques compress inwards from the sides a bit like someone squeezing an accordion. The pecs squeeze you in from the front. The middle traps, rhomboids, and lats squeeze the posterior thorax inwards towards the front. The argument that is going to be made here is that a lot of people who lift heavy weights all the time are going to be creating anterior compressive forces on the thorax via the pecs and posterior compressive forces via the rhomboids, middle traps, and lats, and that this combination will squeeze the rib cage towards the middle from an anterior/posterior perspective, which would widen it side to side in the medial/lateral direction. When I think about the thorax during a normal human activity like walking, I think about how it has to rotate through space to help you go forward. You step on your right heel while walking, and your thorax is rotated right with your left arm swinging forward to assist the movement. When you land on your left heel, the opposite trunk rotation and arm swing occurs. In essence, the thorax turns back and forth over and over while we walk. I picture this almost like a car steering wheel having to turn, or a rocking horse, or one of those pirate ship rides at the fair. The rib cage should be rounded or barrel-shaped to help it roll back and forth through space when we walk and run. Now, imagine what happens to a ribcage when it is compressed from the front and the back towards the middle, and it widens out side to side. We change the shape from barrel to more like that of a pill capsule, or a rectangle, or a 2 x 4 board of wood. Picture a 2 x 4 trying to rotate back and forth through space. Think about riding the pirate ship fair ride if it assumed this rectangular kind of a shape. The ride would go straight up on the sides, and then it would come straight down until it gets to the bottom, whereupon it would rotate 90 degrees and explode straight ahead like a car on a flat track, only to get to the

other side where it would now have to take a hairpin turn and go straight up. That would be a hellacious ride. Can you imagine how much more energy it would take to power the rectangular pirate ship ride compared to the smooth arcing one we know and love? I bet the former ride would also be susceptible to greater wear and tear and require more frequent repairs as well. Have you ever seen a really jacked guy or a college wrestling team go for a jog? If you have, maybe you can picture what I am describing. There is a very stereotypical movement associated with seeing highly muscular people run. The motion is a little choppier. Usually the arms are sticking more out to the side. And all things being equal, very muscular folks are seldom known for their running economy and endurance running prowess. How does all of this relate to sagittal plane arm motions? In order to achieve full arm flexion, the scapula needs to be able to abduct all the way to the midaxillary line (under your armpit) so it can go through upward rotation. If your rib cage has undergone some compression-induced shape change, it will have flatter ribs on the back and the front, and it will be wider than it was before. On a narrower, more barrel-shaped thorax, the scapula needs to travel a shorter distance to reach the midaxillary line. On a wider, more rectangular shaped thorax, this distance is greater. The trouble is, you only get so much total distance of motion. If you have gone through all your available motion, you’re done and you can go no farther. The scapula is a bit like a car driving down a road, where the road is the ribcage. When highly muscular subjects are unable to get into overhead positions, often, the car isn’t the problem... the road is. And a short, rounded road makes for the best “trip” in our analogy, whereas a long, flat one spells trouble ahead. Big, strong people tend to also be wide, because being wide is a great adaptation for lifting really heavy weights. If you’re wide, your body will not rotate as easily, which is a good

Page

105

thing, since rotating while performing heavy compound lifts is often very bad news for the lifter. So, width is an advantage for moving more weight. If you have a wider base on the bench, you have a better structure to press away from. Stances in the squat get wider and wider as people get stronger. The sumo deadlift is quickly becoming the standard for moving maximal weight in powerlifting. The body will go through adaptations to gain this advantage. The exercise science research community has done a good job of documenting changes in muscle size and shape, but, somehow, we have missed the boat about stereotypical changes in the skeleton as a result of repeated heavy lifting exposure. Watch big, strong people try to swing their arms up and down or backwards and forward through space. Their motions will typically lack fluidly. At the bottom of the motion, where the humerus attempts to go into extension but doesn’t quite make it, it instead abducts, to be able to move backwards to a greater degree. At the top, it usually adducts with a flexed elbow, and the fingertips move towards each other. If you bench press over 400 pounds, give this a try and see what happens. I bet you’ll get to the top, and if you pause, your arms will be in a position for you to do a highly comedic overhead pirouette... Back to the structures in question, there is just too much real estate for the scapula to cover to allow the humerus to get into full flexion and extension. Here’s what I want you to try. Lie down on your side, and load some heavy stuff onto the side of your hip and your ribcage. I find weight vests and sandbags work best here, but don’t be afraid of going fairly heavy. I will often put about 150 pounds on the side of my hip alone. Just lie there for a few minutes and try to relax and breathe. You are essentially crushing your hips and your ribs towards the middle. If your problem is that you have gotten too wide, use some outside force (weighted vests, sandbags, etc) to make yourself narrower. See how you feel when you get up. I won’t be the least bit surprised if you witness demonstrable increases in ROM displays,

and have a much easier time performing the arm-swinging motion. Most of us have heard the time-tested adage that form dictates function. In other words, the shape of things determines the ways in which they can move, and the shape of the skeleton is the form that dictates the function of the animal’s movement. Though some look to fascia to solve movement woes, muscle is the driver of the movement bus, with fascia revealing the roads that the bus travels down, and the skeleton determining the roads available. So, if you really want to change the movement options available to someone, you’d want to reshape and reposition that person’s skeleton. Incidentally, the ribcage is one of the most malleable parts of our skeleton. Not coincidentally, scapular and humeral range of motion capabilities start to approach gold standards for table tests only when the cage features its optimal shape.

Frontal Applications Have you ever seen a lizard climb up a wall? Reptiles do an amazing job of closing one side of their ribcage while simultaneously opening the other side as they move through space. This ability to create alternating mirror asymmetry of the ribcage is a great representation of what we are trying to do for frontal plane thoracic mechanics. Of course, the skeleton of a reptile is a much older design than ours. As discussed in our introductory chapters, the way reptiles walk is somewhat similar to the frontal plane actions that fish use to swim, whereas quadruped mammals feature far less of this pronounced frontal plane thoracic action while ambulating. Very short limbs that shoot straight out to the sides of their body compared to most quadruped mammals, and bodies that are very close to the ground evidence skeletal shape differences that drive the lizard’s stereotypical and prominent frontal plane movements. Humans typically display a high degree of frontal plane thoracic activity during movements that implicate vertical reach. If you are trying to climb mountains, trees, or anything

Page

106

else, you’ll have to reach upwards with one arm at a time. In doing so, you’ll open the thorax on the side that you’re reaching with, and close it on the opposite side. Opening the thorax involves separating each rib from the adjacent one, and closing the thorax involves approximating the ribs on that side, as well as side-bending towards the closed side. We’ll also discuss shifting the center of mass side to side in respect to the frontal plane thorax. This involves the relative position of your sternum and belly button to each of your feet, as well as your head and pelvis. Think back to our frontal plane motor competencies, which revolve around centering the body mass over each foot. With centering, we want to have the nose over the sternum, over the belly button, over the zipper, over the stance side knee, over the big toe of that foot. It’s not uncommon to see the subject’s nose being positioned not over the big toe but, instead, leaning towards the pinky toe. Other folks list, positioning the zipper over their stance-side foot, while the sternum and nose careen towards the nonstance side foot. The cause of both leaning and listing can sometimes be traced to frontal plane thoracic mechanics. We should be closing the thorax on the stance side, and opening it on the other side. Opening the stance foot side of the ribcage and closing the other side will result in listing, while excessively closing the stance foot side of the rib cage results in leaning. From an anatomical standpoint, a few thoraco-abdominal muscle groups are key players in frontal plane factors. Namely, these are the transversus abdominis (TA) and the serratus anterior. When most people think of the TA, they think of it as the abdominal vacuum muscle, which draws your belly button in towards your spine. This muscle gained some attention in the 90s, when the literature was indicating that those with back pain displayed decreased activity of the TA. After that came out, everyone was drawing in at every possible moment that they could. As with any time when we myopically fixate on the role of one muscle, this explanation did not pan out. Where I see the TA shine is as a draw-in muscle, but when it

performs this function one side at a time. When the left side of the TA can draw in on the side of the body, this decreases abdominal volume, and allows the ribs to move closer to the ilium on this side, allowing the system to globally move its mass to the left. The serratus anterior originates on the medial border of the deep side of the scapula, runs laterally, wraps around the ribcage under the armpit, and eventually interdigitates with the external obliques on the front side of the body. The serratus wraps around the side of the body, and is almost like a hand grabbing the under-armpit. Most of the time when we talk about the serratus, we talk about it as a protractor and upward rotator of the scapula. But, when I think of the serratus from a frontal plane perspective, it also has the job of laterally shifting the thorax in the contralateral direction. The idea of lateralizing your weight through space is one that does not make its way into anatomical texts, though its relevance in the real world is paramount. Like any other movement, lateralization is also powered by muscles. The serratus anterior is the power player of the thorax for this function. When the right-side serratus anterior functions as a thoracic contralateral lateralizer (a handy term I absolutely just made up), I picture it as someone putting a hand under your armpit on the right side and shoving your thorax to the left. As we’ve already learned, being able to center is the critical concept with frontal plane related matters. The transverse abdominis on one side and the serratus on the other side are two really important frontal plane muscles for getting the thorax to participate in centering the entire body over the TA side foot. The TA participates in closing the abdominal space on its side, which reduces the volume of the abdominal viscera and fluid. The serratus on the other side forms a dome around the side of the ribcage under the armpit, and essentially rounds out the ribcage. We talked about the importance of a round-shaped ribcage earlier in this chapter. Part of the importance of maintaining a rounded rib cage stems from the ability to bias

Page

107

air into the alveoli that are found in that compartment of the lung. If I can bias air into the upper right lateral lung, this will increase volume in this space, which will push mass out of that space. Thoracic movement is a process of redistributing air, fluid, and volume into different compartments in order to shift the bones around in this space. Conversely, air, fluid, and volume are also shifted around via the movement of bones. Asking which came first is a bit of a chicken or the egg conundrum, but suffice it to say they impact one another. Increased volume in one area will create an eccentric orientation of the muscles in that region. Getting the muscle to start behaving in an overcoming manner to reach a concentric orientation results in a decrease in volume, which creates more space that can be filled. I prefer to work muscularly, because I can exert definitive, conscious control over muscle tissue, which can in turn move bones, altering the volume of that particular region of the skeleton. If I can exert control over the skeleton, now I can create mirror asymmetry, which leads to the ability to open one side of the axial skeleton, while simultaneously closing the other side from a frontal plane perspective. What is this ability to open and close opposite sides of the ribcage all about? Really, it comes down to being able to manage the fluid movement of the abdominal cavity and the air movement inside the lungs. You’ve got to be able to squeeze the air out of one side of the chest cavity and decrease the volume of air on that side to move the bones in that direction and center your mass over the foot on that side. You’ve got to be able to push fluids out of one side of your abdominal cavity to allow the ilium bone to elevate on that side, so you can center your mass over that foot. You’ve got to be able to put air and fluid into the opposite side so that it increases the volume there, which will push your body in the opposite direction. If I want to move myself to the left in space, I need to increase the volume of my right side (expansion). The great movers redistribute fluids and gasses in their body to the opposite

direction of where they want to go. Great movers take advantage of concentration gradients as well as action/reaction principles, to move themselves in the opposite direction of where their fluids and gasses reside and take up the most space. If you want to be great at change of direction, you better have an amazing frontal plane thorax, and if you want a great frontal plane thorax, you better be able to compress one side while you expand the other.

Fig 7.8 - Serratus anterior

Transverse Applications In regards to the thorax, the transverse plane is the show. Humans are creatures whose locomotion strategy involves a twisting trunk. When it comes to distinct human actions that separate them from other creatures, our bipedal walking and running style is one example, and two other big ones are our ability to throw projectiles, and our ability to punch. Apes can hurl things, and kangaroos are known for punching, but neither creature uses the same methods humans employ for these actions. The members of our species that throw rockets and can knock your head off your neck with a punch manage to create the power that they do, not from the arms, but rather with a powerful twisting torso as the driver of the arms through space. Transverse thoracic activity is a bit like the movement peak of the pyramid. When you

Page

108

see this motion capability being displayed, it is because everything else is in place. Yet, when I think of training transverse plane thoracic activity, I don’t wait until everything is perfect before introducing it. To me, thoracic rotation activity is a bit like pizza. When it comes to pizza, even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good. That said, contaminated pizza can still make you sick, and asinine rotational exercises can cause some serious injuries. But, having a basic understanding of the elements that drive transverse plane actions versus sagittal or frontal plane actions, you should be able to implement these principles pretty easily and effectively. Sagittal plane thoracic training generally revolves around owning the sternal position while recruiting the internal obliques to draw the ribs down and back in space. The latter is more elusive than it sounds, causing many of the folks I train to believe that they are getting their ribs down and back, when in reality, they are just moving their sternums towards their belly buttons, making their backs into the shape of a turtle shell. My job here is to get subjects to keep their sternums aimed at the level of the horizon, while simultaneously getting their ribs to move. I recommend attacking the sagittal plane first, using drills involving bilateral arm reaching in the proper region of the propulsion arc. Now that you can display sensorimotor competency of the sagittal thorax, let’s play with frontalism. To recruit ipsilateral TA, I need to simultaneously have one arm reaching up overhead, while the other arm reaches down towards the feet. If I want to maximally recruit serratus from a strictly frontal plane standpoint, I need to reach forward with my arm on that side. When performing a unilateral horizontal reach for the frontal plane trunk via serratus, I do not need to turn my sternum in the contralateral direction. Before we start doing that, we need to demonstrate an ability to control the sternum and keep it pointing straight ahead. Once you have demonstrated that you can control your sternum and lateralize your weight so that it can center over each foot, transverse trunk training can really commence at full

speed. The primary difference in training between transverse thorax and frontal thorax will come down to the direction in which you’re reaching your arms. If I’m focusing on training the frontal plane, I will be reaching vertically. If I am focusing on training the transverse plane I will be reaching horizontally. Most of this training will involve both arms moving at the same time, which is called alternate arm reaching. You can try it right now wherever you are. Reach upwards with your right arm while you reach downwards with your left arm. Do you feel the abs on the left side of your body work? Do you feel the way your ribs and pelvis on the left side approximate? If not, reach a little more. Now, reach forward with your left arm while you row your right elbow back. You are moving your left arm into a compression zone and your right into an expansion zone, so compress your left ribs. Do you feel your left abs fire? Do you feel your ribs and thorax twisting to the right? If not, reach and row a little more. Climbing, a primarily frontal plane thoracic activity, is based on vertical reaching, whereas punching and throwing, primarily transverse plane thoracic activities, are based on horizontal reaching. When it comes to muscles of the transverse plane, we have some important muscles that rotate the spine, and some important muscles that move the ribs. The low trap is the big player for thoracic spine rotation. The low trap is a contralateral rotator of the thoracic spine, whose attachment is on the spinous process of the thoracic vertebrae. The spinous process is the part of the vertebrae that projects backwards, off the backside of the vertebrae, resembling the mast of a boat. The low trap runs from the inferior border of the scapula to the spinous process of the thoracic vertebrae. The low trap is a bit like the sail of a sailboat, which attaches to the mast. From this perspective, when the right low trap activates for transverse spinal movement, it grabs onto the spinous process and pulls it to the right, which turns the front side of the body to the left. This is the primary function I am looking to accomplish via horizon-

Page

109

tal reaching for transverse plane spinal movement.

Fig 7.9 - Low trapezius

At the level of the ribs, I see transverse plane activity being a combination of internal obliques, external obliques, and TA, collaborating to accomplish the rotational phenomenon. To truly turn the trunk to its highest levels, I need to be able to coil and subsequently uncoil the body. When I think of coiling, this means that I am able to flex, side bend, and twist all at the same time. To coil, I need the internal obliques to draw the ribs down and back sagittally. To side bend, I need the TA to approximate the ribs with the pelvis on the side I’m coiling towards. To twist, I need the contralateral side external obliques to coordinate with the ipsilateral side internal obliques to rotate my ribs. Thoracic plane trunk activity is a logistical bee hive of muscular recruitment. This is why I focus on subjects feeling their ribs rotate in the sensory competency portion of transverse plane training. Training the Core Thorax Pattern

Available Planes: All Available Stances: All Available Loads: Low Available Velocities: Low Available Durations: Moderate and Long

Sagittal Bilateral Core Thorax

These exercises will involve bilateral

reaching. These are drills that can be customized for either a narrow or wide infra-sternal angle. In the confines of the model that is being presented here, I am basing my progressions on the assumption that the subject’s thorax is already neutralized, and that you are training the core thorax for fitness. To me, one of the big differences between fitness and rehabilitation is that rehab only puts people in certain, specific positions associated with restoring movement variability with the goal of alleviating the subject’s pain or discomfort. Training, on the other hand, puts subjects into as many positions as possible that can challenge the organism to adapt in ways that drive it towards specific sport or fitness goals. A great way to systematize progressions for core thorax exercises is to follow the propulsion arc. Start subjects with activities in Zone 1 (0 to 60 degrees of shoulder flexion), move to Zone 2 (60 to 120 degrees of shoulder flexion), and finally go to Zone 3 (120 to 180 degrees of shoulder flexion). When it comes to core thorax exercises, “reaching” is the key word we’ll come back to over and over. Reaching is going to equal abs. Cueing the reach will be covered in the coaching points section, but, rest assured, it will be the dominant movement in this realm of exercise. With sagittal bilateral core thorax exercises, the key was for the subject to feel his or her heels going backwards as the knees go forward. You could say that, with the core pelvis exercises, we are reaching the knees. With the core thorax exercises, we are reaching the arms. Core pelvis exercises also emphasized feeling the heels go backwards as the knees go forward. Similarly, with core thorax exercises, the thorax will be going backwards as the arms come forward. So, the key to creating the right list of exercises that progress appropriately is to put the subject in the best positions to facilitate owning this concept of reaching arms forward, and feeling the back go backwards. The following list is the progressions for sagittal bilateral core thorax exercises. The exercises go from supine, to seated, to tall-kneeling, to quadruped, to standing, to squatting.

Page

110

The decision to go to seated and tall-kneeling prior to quadruped stems from the difficulty of keeping your thorax back when your abs are aimed straight down at the ground. The quadruped position is a difficult place to put a subject whom you’re also asking to manage his or her thorax and abdominal region relative to gravity. Ergo, putting someone in quadruped positions too early gives rise to terrible planks, with backs assuming the shape of horse saddles or turtle shells: 1. Supine 90/90 hemi-bridge w/Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3 reach

2. Supine hook lying w/Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3 reach 3. Supine 90/90 glute bridge w/Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3 reach

7. Quadruped w/ heels on wall 8. Quadruped 9. Standing w/back on wall w/Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3 reach 10. Standing w/Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3 reach 11. Squatting w/Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3 reach Once we get subjects up into a seated position with their hands off the ground, I like to initially provide them with something they can feel in their hands on their reaches. Sometimes, I’ll use a resistance band that is hooked behind the subject to push against. Other times, it’s a foam roller positioned vertically, particularly in the tall kneeling position. Tall kneeling with a Zone 2 reach is a very challenging drill that can really ramp up core musculature. When starting out with it, I find that providing something the subject can feel with his or her hands can boost confidence and help own the position properly. As subjects get more comfortable with the position and demonstrate sensorimotor competency, I’ll have them remove hands from the roller and rely on nothing but their axial skeleton control to maintain position. The same assisted reaching ideas used in tall kneeling can be brought back in the more difficult positions (standing and squatting) with free hands. Coaching Points

4. Seated w/Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3 reach 5. Tall kneeling w/feet on wall and w/Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3 reach

6. Tall kneeling w/Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3 reach

With bilateral reaching exercises, I am always trying to teach strategy, focusing on the sternum as our main body landmark. The reason we reach is to shift the mass of the thorax backwards, and, when the thorax goes backwards, the abdominal muscles naturally fire. They do so because the sensation of the thorax moving backwards when in a standing position indicates to our brains that we might be falling on our backs. Optimally positioned on the front side of the body to prevent posterior falling of your thorax, your abdominals leap to the rescue. So for simplicity’s sake, let’s say that reaching equals thorax back, and thorax back equals abdominal recruitment.

Page

111

The question becomes: which abdominals? I believe that the answer to this comes down to determining the position of the sternum. With the sternum moving down towards the belly button, a forward reach will recruit rectus abdominis. If your sternum remains aimed straight ahead at the horizon, then you will be using your obliques. If you reach too far, this effort will drag the sternum down. I typically guide subjects through their full reach potential. When they start moving into the zone where their sternum moves, I slow them down, have them focus on what is happening, and notice the moment when they feel their sternum drop. Most can quickly learn to stop reaching just before the sternum is about to drop. When I am using the supported reach with the foam roller, I cue the subject very specifically for how I want them to remove one, and/or, both hands from the roller. Similarly to how I’ll coach the heel taps exercise in the sagittal front/back core pelvis exercise, I will get the subject to gradually load one hand into the roller and simultaneously unload the other hand from it. When done well, oftentimes, the unloaded hand does not leave the roller, or barely lifts off the roller. As we do this drill, I’ll remind the subject that I do not want their thoracic position to deviate even one millimeter, challenging him or her to remain still as a statue. When cued to keep the thorax still while moving their hands slowly, subjects quickly notice how much they shift, side bend, rotate, or bail out in one direction or another.

walls, perpendicular to one another in orientation. The subject simply places a foot on each wall. A pillow, a couple airex pads or a yoga block under the head should be provided for these drills. The following is a list of the sagittal front/ back core thorax exercises. These drills go from supine, to side-lying, to half-kneeling, to standing staggered, to split squatting. With the supine activities, we’re starting in short lever hamstring positions prior to moving to longer lever glute drills. Throughout, we also utilize opportunities for wall support for the feet, provided at every level of these exercises: 1. Supine 90/90 hemi-bridge w/stationary swing heel tap w/Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3 reach 2. Supine 90/90 glute bridge w/stationary swing heel tap w/Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3 reach 3. Side-lying reciprocal 90/90 in a corner w/ Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3 reach

4. Half-kneeling w/rear foot on wall w/Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3 reach

Sagittal Front/Back Core Thorax In our front/back sagittal core thorax exercises, the progressions follow along in a similar manner to what we saw with the bilateral stance. The primary difference in this stance is that we have the advantage of the side-lying reciprocal 90/90 position to take advantage of. This position can be hard to picture. Side-lying reciprocal 90/90 is basically a half kneeling position, but flipped sideways and placed on the ground, with the feet on a wall, or, rather, two walls. A corner of a room is essential for being able to do this exercise, as it provides the two

5. Half-kneeling w/Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3 reach

Page

112

6. Standing w/rear foot on wall w/Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3 reach



7. Standing w/Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3 reach 8. Split squat w/rear foot on wall w/Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3 reach 9. Split squat w/Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3 reach Coaching Points Though not listed here, do not be afraid to use hand-supported reaches for any of the non-ground-based drills. These are difficult positions to manage, and I recommend using the same cueing approach of lifting one hand at a time off the roller, increasing load into one hand while unloading the other hand. To set someone up for the half kneeling positions, I take advantage of the side-lying exercises quite a bit. In doing so, I really focus on the feet, ingraining the importance of getting as much of each foot to be in contact with the wall. In the case of these thorax drills, I’m going for abs as the primary muscle group. Interestingly, regardless of what sagittal muscles I’m going for, once subjects achieve great foot contact with the surface they’re on top of, they’re much more likely to successfully find and feel the appropriate muscles. Placing an object behind someone’s back and head on the upright drills help those who tend to drive their heads forward in the upright drills. PVC pipes work well, and I’ll often cue subjects to keep their butt, back, and head on the pipe. From there, I have them reach and breathe. I’ll cue them to try to exhale their back into the pipe without letting their sternum drop towards their belly button. This has really helped some gain sensorimotor competency in

this stance. Frontal Bilateral Core Thorax As stated earlier in this chapter, the primary difference between training the frontal plane and the transverse plane is the direction that you are reaching in. Frontal plane reaching is going to involve one arm at a time, reaching vertically. The arm reaching overhead is used to open the thorax on that side, while closing the thorax on the opposite side. Something that I will reiterate over and over with core thorax exercises is ownership over the sternum. When I start someone on sagittal core thorax drills, I have him or her reach in a manner that does not alter the position of the sternum by tilting it down towards the belly button. When I start someone on frontal plane core thorax drills, I have him or her reach in a manner that does not alter the position of the by tipping it side to side like a metronome hand. I want subjects to show me that they can open one side of the thorax, close the other side of the thorax, and keep the top and bottom of the sternum in the same vertical line during the process. The point of the early exercise progressions is to provide the simplest path for accomplishing that goal, while keeping in mind the other sensorimotor competencies of the frontal plane. The following is a list of the progressions for frontal bilateral thorax core exercises. These drills go from supine, to side plank, to seated, to tall-kneeling, to standing, to squatting. They feature the term “reciprocal arms”, which refers to having one arm reaching vertically while the other arm is reaching down in the opposite direction. Typically, the arm that is reaching down is bent at the elbow, so the cue will be to bring the elbow towards the hip, with that arm. With reciprocal arms, the objective is not to continue to keep moving both arms (which would make them “alternating arms”). Rather, the objective is to keep one arm reaching up, and the other reaching down for a certain amount of time/number of breaths/other desired measure. Later in the book, we will get to frontal plane vertical pushing and pulling. In those sections, we’ll encounter the term “alter-

Page

113

nating arms”, wherein both arms are moving continuously, and switching positions with one another: 1. Supine 90/90 hemi-bridge w/reciprocal vertical arms 2. Side plank w/short lever legs and top side hand on ground 3. Side plank w/short lever legs and top side hand reaching vertical 4. Side plank w/long lever legs and top side hand on ground 5. Side plank w/long lever legs and top side hand reaching vertical 6. Seated w/reciprocal vertical arms 7. Tall kneeling w/feet on wall and w/reciprocal vertical arms 8. Tall kneeling w/reciprocal vertical arms 9. Standing w/back on wall and reciprocal vertical arms 10. Standing w/reciprocal vertical arms 11. Squatting w/reciprocal vertical arms Coaching Points For all these drills, the crucial coaching point is control over the sternum. In the sagittal plane drills, we were looking to control the sternum to prevent it from tipping forwards or backwards like a rocking horse. In frontal plane drills, we are looking to control the sternum to prevent it from tipping side to side like a metronome. Recall from the Big 10 Principles of Progression that we are looking to start static. As in many other areas of training, for these thoracic core exercises, starting static, or creating appropriate focal points that remain still, increases sensorimotor competency potential and ability to optimize the drill. With all of the drills listed above, we want to start from a place of great vertical alignment of their sternum. From there, we challenge subjects to keep the sternum still in space while they execute these drills. Those who can create great reciprocal overhead reaching with mirror asymmetry at the ribcage and a static, frontal plane sternum “get it”, and can own their bodies during these drills. Once someone has developed that level of competency, we can

progress to drills that feature a dynamic frontal plane sternum. I coach the first exercise on the list almost as if I was having someone do a wall slide. I position them with the entire back of their arm, wrist, and hand of both arms on the floor. Assuming this position can be difficult, particularly for extremely tight subjects. In such cases, I will modify the drill in one of a couple of ways. One way to modify is to continue to widen the arms until the hands are very far away from the body laterally. If the person cannot get the back of his or her arms on the ground at all, you can put something under the arms, like a blanket, and have him or her slide the blanket up and down on the ground. I will also sometimes assist the subject with moving his or her arms. I’ll do this by gripping the wrist and helping to push and pull the arms into the desired positions. The side plank is a very useful drill in this plane and pattern. Being in the plank should strongly assist in closing the side of the thorax closest to the ground. Sometimes, having the top hand on the ground can cause problems with the sternum position, particularly in the sagittal plane. The reason for this is that subjects will often lack the ability to create this reach without tipping the sternum down towards the belly button. When I see this, I simply bring the ground up (so to speak) to his or her hand. I’ll use boxes to accomplish this task, and I’ll often stack them as high as 6-8”. When you get to the tall-kneeling drills and the subsequent progressions where subjects are up off the ground, you may need some hand assists for the down-side hand. Typically, I’ll put a short foam roller next to the body on the down side arm, and have subjects push down into that roller. This helps them maintain balance, keep their thorax closed on that side, and demonstrate better sensorimotor competency when we segue into the upright drills. Frontal Front/Back Core Thorax

In these drills, we’re after a display of

Page

114

sagittal competencies at the pelvis, and targeting the frontal plane elements of the thorax in a front/back staggered stance. In the prior category, displaying strong sagittal control over the pelvis was also a focus. If you do not have a sagittally-competent pelvis, and attempt to do frontal drills in the thorax, you are, “firing a cannon out of a canoe”. To ensure you’re not firing a rocket off a sinkhole, you need a solid base to push another object off of it. In the progressions for these frontal front/ back core thorax drills, we will be moving from supine drills to side plank drills to half-kneeling drills to retro step drills to staggered-standing drills to split-squat drills. There are a lot of positions for these drills. Same as for the previous group of exercises, control of the sternum in all directions is important, as is putting effort into reaching. With the side plank drills, you’ll see that there is only one version, which is a short-lever side plank, performed from a reciprocal 90/90 position with an extended top leg. This is a drill that can be performed well in a corner. In this drill, the bottom leg is flexed 90 degrees at the hip, and the knee is in front of you. The top leg is extended at the hip and flexed at the knee, creating the appearance of a half kneeling/split squat position. This drill works best when you can have both feet pushing into a wall. With the first side plank drill, bring the ground up to the subject if his or her position is being compromised by attempts to get his or her hand to the ground. There is a retro step in this grouping of exercises, which tends to put the pelvis into a frontal plane-dominant position. Though well and good if you’re going for a strong frontal plane pelvis, but that’s not the intended focus here. The following is the list of exercises for frontal plane, front/back stance, core thorax activities: 1. Supine 90/90 hemibridge w/heel tap w/reciprocal vertical reaching 2. Supine 90/90 glute bridge w/heel tap w/reciprocal vertical reaching 3. Reciprocal 90/90 side plank w/top leg extended, top hand on ground

4. Reciprocal 90/90 side plank w/top leg extended, arm vertical reach 5. Retro step w/stance foot elevated and reciprocal vertical reaching 6. Retro step w/reciprocal vertical reaching 7. Half kneeling w/back foot on wall and reciprocal vertical reaching 8. Half kneeling w/reciprocal vertical reaching 9. Standing w/back foot on wall and reciprocal vertical reaching 10. Standing w/reciprocal vertical reaching 11. Split squat w/back foot on wall and reciprocal vertical reaching 12. Split squat w/reciprocal vertical reaching Coaching Points These are exercises that are a good choice for athletes who do a lot of running that involves cornering. Cornering is not quite a change of direction, but is more like running rounded routes. You see cornering all the time in certain positions in sports like basketball and football. Perimeter shooters often have to display this ability when running around the baseline and then coming off screens to catch the ball on the wing. In football, we see this with receivers getting a ball on a reverse, or an edge rusher trying to get around a left tackle. Cornering is also important in baseball when base running. In all these examples of cornering in sport, being able to take advantage of leaning is very important. To corner effectively, you’ve got to be able to control the position of the fluids and organs in your thoraco-abdominal space. You’re always going to be moving in the opposite direction of the high volume of guts and fluids, which means you have to close one side and open the other. This also means that you will always be curving towards the closed side. These drills put subjects in positions that necessitate putting one foot in front of the other, as when running, and offer practice at closing and opening the sides of the thorax. Mastery of this ability at low velocities is a prerequisite for replicating it when the difficulty of the task increases due to increased velocity and/or force.

Page

115

For these drills, the coaching focus should be on the feet, the reaching, and the breath. Though each of these areas is applicable to practically any core exercise category, they are especially important here. The front/ back stance provides a smaller base of support than the bilateral one, and the thorax shifting back and forth laterally in space challenges our ability to maintain proper weight distribution over the feet. In absence of well-anchored feet, a quality sagittal plane pelvis is unlikely, without which one is destined to flail in the wind during both reaching and thoracic activity, accomplishing little as you do. Once you have your base, coach reaching to open and close the sides of the thorax, and breathe in a manner that furthers the ability to reach and open and close. Frontal Lateral Core Thorax There are a lot of drills provided for this category, but there are only three positions listed here. The most prominent position in this category is the side plank position, and the one in which many will permanently remain once this pattern, stance, and plane makes its way into their training algorithm. In my experience, any time the lateral stance appears, I know I’m going to have to coach intensively, and probably get very hands on. I’m reminded of the way my grandfather taught me to hit a baseball. He would stand behind me and put his hands on the bat alongside mine so we could swing together. The purpose of this “four-handed” swing was to ingrain me with the pathway for bringing the bat through. Similarly, coaching these drills requires getting hands-on with the subject’s pelvis, and guiding it through space from start to finish. When I look at these frontal plane, lateral stance, core thorax exercises, I see subjects changing directions in a shuttle run. In a core thorax drill, I’m freezing time right at the point of the change of direction. When we are upright and performing shuttle runs, everything is happening fast, and I want the person to just react instinctively. My only cues during a shuttle run will be “be an athlete”, “be aggressive”, “go get it”, “quick, quick, quick”, or, “hammer”. When it

is time to perform the core exercises, I’m hoping to slow cook the subject’s stance side adductors and frontal plane abs. I will never cue, “brace”, or “squeeze”. The most I’ll do is guide and instruct the subject to get into the right position. When the position is achieved, the muscles find the subject, not the other way around. If you truly appreciate the details of the most perfect cut someone can make in a shuttle run, you would simply recreate this position in all of these drills. The easiest place to start to recreate this position is in a side plank, with the top leg passively abducted (you would be cutting off the bottom leg in this scenario). From the side plank, the next available position is lateral kneeling, and finally, we come upright for a lateral squat position. The following is the list of frontal lateral core thorax drills: 1. Side plank w/top leg supported, abducted w/ short leg levers and top hand on ground 2. Side plank w/top leg supported, abducted w/ short leg levers and vertical reaching top arm 3. Side plank w/top leg supported, abducted w/ long leg levers and top hand on ground 4. Side plank w/top leg unsupported, abducted w/short leg levers and vertical reaching top arm 5. Side plank w/top leg unsupported, abducted w/short leg levers and top hand on ground 6. Side plank w/top leg unsupported, abducted w/short leg levers and top hand reaching vertical 7. Side plank w/top leg unsupported, abducted w/long leg levers and top hand on ground 8. Side plank w/top leg unsupported, abducted w/long leg levers and top hand reaching vertical 9. Lateral kneeling w/stance leg ipsilateral arm supported & contralateral arm vertical reach 10. Lateral kneeling w/reciprocal vertical reaching 11. Lateral squat w/stance foot elevated, ipsilateral arm supported & contralateral arm vertical reach 12. Lateral squat w/stance leg ipsilateral arm supported & contralateral arm vertical reach 13. Lateral squat w/stance foot elevated & reciprocal vertical reaching arms

Page

116

14. Lateral squat w/vertical reciprocal reaching arms Coaching Points As with previous exercise types that utilize a side plank, I want to see a sternum that is perfectly parallel with the ground, and devoid of compensatory pump handle down sagittal plane activity. To accomplish this with a top hand on the ground, it is likely that I will have to bring the ground up to the hand via boxes or some other object. For fans of coaching the Copenhagen side plank, this is the category of exercises to which it belongs, falling under progression numbers 3 and 4. If you can coach a Copenhagen with a hip shift and sagittal plane sensorimotor competencies, you will exponentially enhance this drill. With all of these drills, you want to strive for creating the see-saw pelvis movement, as well as the armpit moving towards the ilium bone that is raised up in space to maximally close the thorax on that side. To maximize the see-saw pelvis, I coach the subject to reach long through the swing side foot. I’ll often cue to reach the foot away from the armpit and the armpit away from the foot on that side. The lateral kneeling drill offers a nice transition between the ground and being fully upright. I’ll put one knee on a bench, or boxes, which should come up to just about the height of the subject’s knee. Kneeling on the one knee will flex it on this leg. For greater sagittal plane sensation, I’ll frequently put this kneeling, stance-side leg’s foot up against a wall. The leg that is not on the bench will be kicked out to the side in an abducted femur, extended knee position. Keep in mind that these drills are in the thorax core section and not the pelvis core section. While you could coach the hell out of these drills in a fashion that targets late propulsion on the leg that is kicked out, and early to mid-propulsion on the stance-side leg, programming these drills as thorax core activities

places the focus on the abs. Put the focus on the thorax, targeting which is predominantly accomplished by reaching with the arms. With the frontal plane thorax, the reaching direction is vertical: one arm going up, and the other arm going down. I require subjects to show me that they can accomplish this reach in these positions with planar competency without affecting the position of the sternum. Once the drill can be executed with a controlled, static sternum, move to executing it with a controlled, dynamic sternum. Transverse Bilateral Core Thorax Transverse thorax activity is essentially upper body locomotion drills slowed down to a snail’s pace. Given our upright style of gait, we are frontal plane pelvis pumpers, and transverse thorax twisters. If I want to completely focus on the transverse elements of the thorax, the most obvious stance to use is a bilateral symmetrical stance. In this stance, I can maximize the sagittal plane competencies of the pelvis, while keeping it in place and noting the rotational elements of the thorax happening above it. In order for one thing to move with sensorimotor competence, something else must stay still. To facilitate transverse plane thoracic activity, we will be performing drills that involve horizontal reaching with the arms, and we will demonstrate control over the sternum in the process. The sternum is one of the three, “S”, bones covered in PRI courses. These are the sphenoid, the sternum, and the sacrum, and all three are non-paired, midline bones. With most of our bones, there is a left and right counterpart, but this is not the case with the S bones. Being located at our midlines, the S bones also represent the frontal plane center of mass. One S bone represents cranial centering, another, thoracic centering and the third, pelvic centering. When we can get them to line up over each other with mirror asymmetry movement taking place around them, we are able to balance optimally over each foot, move extremely fluidly, change direction easily, and maximize economy for gait. When it comes to the thorax,

Page

117

we’re looking for the ability to keep the sternum fixed in space first and foremost, while creating mirror asymmetry movement of the ribs around the sternum. Once this ability is demonstrated, we can do drills that promote movement of the sternum. The same logic would apply to the other S bones. For transverse plane, bilateral stance, core thorax exercises, we have drills performed in supine, seated, tall-kneeling, standing, quadruped, and squatting positions. Quadruped drills come fairly late in this category. The reason is that these drills are incredibly difficult to perform in the quadruped position, requiring insanely powerful core control. Simply put: don’t rush folks through the progressions here. These drills are extremely difficult, and blowing through them really fast and sloppy robs subjects of getting any benefits from them. The following is the list of transverse bilateral thorax core exercises: 1. Supine w/reciprocal horizontal reaching 2. Seated w/reciprocal horizontal reaching 3. Tall kneeling w/feet on wall and reciprocal horizontal reaching 4. Tall kneeling w/reciprocal horizontal reaching 5. Standing w/back on wall and reciprocal horizontal reaching 6. Standing one arm support and opposite arm horizontal reaching and rowing 7. Standing w/reciprocal horizontal reaching 8. Quadruped w/alternating hand loading & unloading 9. Quadruped w/alternating hand lifts 10. Squatting w/one arm support and opposite arm horizontal reaching and rowing 11. Squatting w/reciprocal reaching Coaching Points Attempting these drills without a sagittal competent pelvis is a waste of time. When starting out on these drills, get the hamstrings to pull the pelvis under the body, keep the sternum still, reach slowly with an awareness for what the reaching does to sternal position, and ensure proper breathing. If there is no sagittal competency, the drill will feel completely worth-

less, but, if sagittal competency is maintained and sternal compensation is eliminated, the drill will be ferocious. With all of these drills, there is a progression from a static sternum to a dynamic sternum. The first paragraph explained the approach you would take with a static sternum. Ultimately, you do want to begin training a dynamic transverse sternum. When doing so, the key is connecting compression of the contralateral abdominal wall to the rotation. This means that if you want to rotate your trunk and sternum to the left, you will need to compress the right abs. The primary muscle group you are looking to reach a concentric orientation with is the right external obliques. You do not want to lose a control of the ipsilateral ab wall while creating rotation in that direction. The ipsilateral ab wall needs to still leverage the sagittal plane dominant internal obliques, and frontal plane dominant TA. With the supine drills, you can start with short levers in a 90/90 hemibridge drill and progress to longer levers in a glute bridge if you would like, which would denote a logical progression. Just keep in mind that the focus here is on the thorax, so find a supine position for the pelvis that is “good enough” and stay there so you can focus on the thorax. With seated drills, I’ve found that using a rowing ergometer is a great option. Sitting backwards on the rower, you can use the feet of the rower as reference for your subject’s heels, so that he or she is essentially doing an upright 90/90 hemibridge in a seated position. You can hook bands around the rower display panel behind him or her, and use those as resistance if you would like to provide RNT for the drill. I personally use the Keiser bilateral chest press machine a lot for the seated exercises. I like it because each hand moves independently, and there is a back rest on the machine that provides reference for where the user’s thorax, pelvis, and cranium positions in space. Coaching on the Keiser with the backrest also makes it easy to spot when subjects pump handle down their sternum during the drill.

Page

118

To me, the differences between transverse core thorax drills and transverse horizontal pushing and pulling drills amount to both exercise velocity and exercise intent. When pushing and pulling, my intent is that of moving external load, rather than exerting maximal control over my axial skeleton. During pushing and pulling drills, there is some attention on control, but it is minimal attention to the axial skeleton. By contrast, when doing core exercises, the amount of weight being moved is irrelevant, as the intent is on axial control. During core drills, there is some attention on moving arms, but it is minimal attention on the force or velocity of arm action. Transverse horizontal pushing drills may look exactly the same as transverse thorax core drills, but the subject’s focus is quite different from one to the other. Know the desired outcome of . each drill, and divide and conquer based on the unique intent of each.

1. Supine 90/90 hemibridge w/heel tap, w/reciprocal horizontal reaching 2. Supine 90/90 glute bridge w/heel tap, w/reciprocal horizontal reaching 3. Top leg forward w/short lever side plank, top hand horizontal reaching and rowing

4. Top leg forward w/long lever side plank, top hand horizontal reaching and rowing 5. Retro step w/stance foot elevated and reciprocal horizontal reaching 6. Retro step w/reciprocal horizontal reaching

Transverse Front/Back Core Thorax This is a category of exercise with a tremendous number of progressions, and a wide range of applications. To me, this category is the foundation for what the thorax does in walking, running, throwing and punching alike. Gait, along with throwing and punching, are universal human stereotypical movements, and critical movement patterns for our species. With these core exercises, we’re just accentuating these actions, and freezing time at critical points. If I was forced to choose which plane and stance was most important for the thorax, I would choose this category. But, be forewarned that this is another extremely advanced category, so, even though it is incredibly important, do not rush to get here. Instead, take your time building the foundation, such that, when you do arrive here, the subject is more apt to do the drill correctly and receive its benefit. The positions available for this category are numerous. For starters, we have supine, side plank, retro step, half-kneeling, standing, and split squat available to us. The following is the list of drills for transverse plane, front/back stance, core thorax activities:

7. Half kneeling w/back foot on wall and reciprocal horizontal reaching 8. Half kneeling w/reciprocal horizontal reaching 9. Half kneeling unloaded windmill w/back foot on wall

10. Half kneeling unloaded windmill 11. Standing w/back foot on wall and reciprocal horizontal reaching 12. Standing w/reciprocal horizontal reaching

Page

119

13. Standing unloaded windmill w/back foot on wall

14. Standing unloaded windmill 15. Split squat w/back foot on wall and reciprocal horizontal reaching 16. Split squat w/reciprocal horizontal reaching 17. Split squat unloaded windmill w/back foot on wall 18. Split squat unloaded windmill w/back foot on wall Coaching Points The half-kneeling windmill drill is one of my personal favorite exercises to coach. It is a drill that demonstrates how useless an activity can be when planar competencies are not observed, and how devastatingly effective a drill can become when competencies are present. Once subjects gain sagittal competency by way of feeling both heels and hamstrings, I center them in the frontal plane, have them twist the thorax in the transverse plane. Here again, I’ll often see eyes as wide as saucers, telling me the subject feels the real deal. Initially, this drill will typically require a lot of constraints, which I will often use my hands to provide. For instance, I’ll have to hold the subject’s hips laterally in space over the stance foot side (the front foot), while blocking his or her femur from laterally shifting outside his or her foot the minute he or she starts to reach for the ground with the down-hand. The toughest aspect of coaching these drills is tracking the pelvis laterally in space. Subjects will frequently allow the pelvis to drift away from the stance leg side, towards the swing leg side. The drifting pelvis is a lazy, non-muscular strategy employed in attempting to accomplish the task. Getting subjects to re-

main stacked in the frontal plane will force them to use adductors, glute med, and obliques all at the same time. Using those muscles simultaneously is difficult and energy costly… two things we humans generally find disagreeable. If the subject has yet to learn how to hip shift, do not bring him or her to this category of exercise. If he or she isn’t quite proficient at sagittal plane drills, he or she isn’t ready for this category, which is presented near the end of this chapter for a reason. Start at the beginning, and move towards it slowly and gradually, resisting the urge to eat dessert before dinner. Transverse Lateral Core Thorax Athletes like baseball players and tennis players get into this stance and frequently demonstrate rotation through the thorax in their respective sport. Observing how baseball players hit the ball, at the point of contact and midway through the follow-through, we find the athlete in the position referred to as “power L”. The power L is really a lateral stance with a transverse trunk moving the limbs and bat through the zone. Tennis players have to rotate their trunk with power all the time in their sport, and they do not get to choose which stance they will be in prior to their shot. Tennis players assume every imaginable stance, with every gradation in between the archetypical stances we focus on in the training world. Generally speaking, flat plane rotational actions like a baseball swing require the ability to transition between bilateral stances and lateral stances while featuring incredible torque through the trunk for high-level performance. Being able to get the athletes into the prerequisite positions for optimizing this type of rotational power is the job of the transverse plane lateral stance core thorax exercises. There are three positional options for these lateral stance transverse plane core thorax exercises. The starting drills are performed in a side plank with the top leg held in an abducted position. These drills can also be performed in a lateral kneeling position, as well as a lateral squat. The list of transverse plane, lateral stance, core thorax exercises is as

Page

120

follows: 1. Side plank w/top leg supported, abducted w short leg levers and horizontal reaching top arm

You need to have a frontal plane competent pelvis as your foundation for performing these drills. Any time you are in a lateral stance, you are automatically in the frontal plane for the pelvis. When we have a frontal plane pelvis, this means we need a hip shift, and a see-saw pelvis, with the high side of the see-saw on the side of the pelvis that we are shifting into. The tendency with these drills is for subjects to lose his or her hip shift while trying to reach the arms, particularly when it comes to the alternating reaches at the end of these progressions.

2. Side plank w/top leg supported, abducted w long leg levers and horizontal reaching top arm 3. Side plank w/top leg unsupported, abducted w/short leg levers and horizontal reaching top arm 4. Side plank w/top leg unsupported, abducted w/long leg levers and horizontal reaching top arm 5. Lateral kneeling w/stance leg ipsilateral arm supported & contralateral arm horizontal reach

Please note that these are the most difficult core thorax drills available, geared towards highly competent athletes of an advanced training age. Even if the subject meets this criteria, make sure he or she really needs these drills in his or her program. An offensive lineman does not need to have these drills included in his program. If you determine that this activity is critical for the athlete you work with, first make certain that he or she is competent in the sagittal plane for the pelvis and the thorax. Once he or she is competent sagittally, you need to make sure he or she has frontal plane competency for the pelvis. Lastly, also make sure the athlete is competent in the transverse plane in the other stances before moving to this stance. As you’re seeing, there are a lot of prerequisite boxes to check off before arriving at these drills, so do your best to not get over-excited and rush athletes here.

6. Lateral kneeling w/reciprocal horizontal reaching 7. Lateral squat w/stance foot elevated, ipsilateral arm supported & contralateral arm horizontal reach 8. Lateral squat w/stance leg ipsilateral arm supported & contralateral arm horizontal reach 9. Lateral squat w/stance foot elevated & alternating horizontal reaching arms 10. Lateral squat w/horizontal alternating reaching arms

Dominant Positions and Fitness Realms

Coaching Points



•Dominant stance: Sport specific •Dominant plane: Transverse •Dominant load: Low •Dominant velocity: Low •Dominant duration: Moderate

The transverse plane is the show when it comes to the core thorax pattern. Getting the trunk to twist effectively is key to many of the actions that were important to humans from an evolutionary perspective, as well as those that matter in many modern sports. Athletes who can rotate fluidly and with power are the ones

Page

121

who make jaws drop, and boast legions of fans. This ability to make the thorax twist has a couple of prerequisite cornerstones, namely axial sagittal competency and respiratory variability. Show me someone who has great sagittal axial alignment, who can fully expand and compress with ventilation, with a halfway decent anthropometric set up and fiber type, and I’ll show you someone who can likely rotate and successfully compete in many sports. Someone who has movement variability, knows how to breathe, can get into great core positions, and understands what his or her body is doing in space, this athlete can be trained at a high level with all the fun, dynamic patterns that will make up the remainder of the book. If you are invested in an athlete’s long-term development, and have the opportunity to guide this athlete from a young age, make sure not to skip over the foundational patterns covered in the first seven chapters of this book. Remember that breathing and core exercises develop the mind-muscle connection, which really allows subjects to understand where they are and how to control their bodies in space. And, once you and your subject have done the hard work of achieving that control and confidence, time to put in a twin turbo engine, and party!

08 Pattern 4: Locomotion

Page

123

Pattern 4: Locomotion

Chapter 8

As we’ve discussed, perhaps the most defining characteristic of the human animal is the upright stance with bipedal locomotion. The shift to being upright is what Darwin originally posited as the critical variable that led to the evolution of our species as it currently stands (pun intended). This chapter does not intend to overload you with the minutiae of the gait cycle. Instead, it is intended to point out all of the potential locomotion activities that we can possibly train, and how to go about training the really important ones. In this book, locomotion is going to be considered rhythmic, cyclical movements that are intended to move the organism through space. Examples of activities that fall under that description are walking, running, cycling, swimming, crawling, and climbing. This is by no means an exhaustive list, however, as there is an incredibly wide range of locomotion activi-

ties, and specific skill coaches would be needed to teach the intricate movements for some of its variants. For instance, not being a swim coach, I will not be covering technique or program design for swimming locomotion. Locomotion has a lot of training options to it, because, when you really start considering the category more carefully, many training activities begin to emerge. The one big limitation in the locomotion category is in the realm of stance, where only one option, the front/back stance is found. Other than this one constraint, there are a lot of examples of different activities that are good choices for training locomotion in different planes, and with different loading, velocity, and duration zones. For low load and low to moderate velocity activities, we can break our choices down into activities that make sense based on the plane that you are trying to target. In many instances, the design of the device you are training on, determines the plane you are targeting. The following list provides some common training tool choices for targeting each plane at low load, and low to moderate velocity: •Sagittal plane available options: Crawling, Spin Bike, Jacob’s Ladder •Frontal plane available options: VersaClimber •Transverse plane available options: Arm & Leg Bike, Swimming •Tri-Planar available options: Bipedal gait (walking and jogging) For low load and high velocity activities, there are some options for training locomotion.

Page

124

When the velocity reaches critically high levels, these choices all basically become drills that you perform in a sagittal manner. The most obvious choice is sprinting for most subjects who are not injured or overweight at time of training. In these cases, other low load, high velocity locomotion activities may be more suitable, including the VersaClimber, arm and leg bikes, and spin bikes.

rationale for categorizing crawling as a sagittal activity, I think about it in relation to how mammals evolved over time and differentiated themselves from reptiles. When you watch a mammal walk on all fours as compared to a lizard, the activities are very different-looking. Lizards use much more frontal plane axial skeleton activity, and mammals feature a more sagittal approach.

There is also the realm of moderate to high load locomotion. In this realm, you have loaded carries available to you. This chapter features a progressive implementation of specific loaded-carry drills. If you follow these recommendations, you will make the right drill choice for starting loaded carries, and progress subjects appropriately, up to the most difficult activities of this type.

When I think about mammals versus non-mammals, I often think about the approaches whales and dolphins take in the water versus the approaches that snakes and lizards take on land. The animals that evolved from fish—the classical frontal plane-utilizing, aquatic vertebrate animal—but migrated to land; continued to use this frontal plane strategy on the terrestrial surface. We can see this frontal plane strategy at its highest level in observing snakes, who are essentially “swimming” on land. Over time, terrestrial animals evolved new methods for locomotion. Being newer on the evolutionary scene than reptiles, mammals employ the sagittal style of traveling from point A to point B, which is distinct from the reptilian approach. Interestingly, not all mammals chose to stay on land. The animals that became dolphins and whales were mammals that returned to the sea, and they brought their sagittal style with them. As such (and as previously observed), you could say that dolphins “run” through water.

Training Locomotion Overview

Available Stances: Front/back Available Planes: All Available Loads: All Available Velocities: All Available Durations: All

Low Load, Low to Moderate Velocity Locomotion Sagittal Plane Options The header “Sagittal Plane Options” may be off putting in the context of locomotion, given that, strictly speaking, all locomotion is triplanar in nature. While its triplanar nature is technically true, for optimum training usefulness, it serves us to categorize movement into groupings that feature a dominant characteristic. In the case of sagittal plane locomotion training, three exercises fall in this realm: crawling, the spin bike, and the Jacob’s Ladder. Crawling is the type of exercise that critics would call highly multi-planar. To explain my

The primate lineage has gone from using a quadruped locomotion style to displaying a bipedal strategy with the advent of humans. Our knuckle-dragging primate relatives and other kinds of quadruped mammals do attempt to rear up on their hind legs and ambulate from time to time. When these non-human mammals attempt to walk with a bipedal strategy, they’re typically unable to fully extend and achieve a fully upright stance, and they typically rock back and forth in the frontal plane when they try to go forward. This excess swaying movement is compensatory frontal plane activity. Down on all fours, these mammals display high sagittal competency, but lose it when presented with the greater anti-gravity management challenge inherent in a longer-lever position. As we have

Page

125

covered, what we are seeing here is Jacksonian Dissolution at work. These animals can’t execute bipedal walking, so they try to swim. The same concept would apply to humans: if I ask you to crawl forward from a quadruped position, you’ll likely display sagittal competency in favor of aberrant frontal plane motion. When I drill crawling, I start subjects on their hands and knees, and just have them crawl forwards and backwards. To progress crawling, I’ll ask the subject to bring his or her knees one inch off the ground, but no higher. Most of the time, people bring their knees higher and higher, which brings their butt much higher off the ground, and the drill breaks down as the person starts displaying too much compensatory “multi-planar” movement. I use air quotes around multi-planar, because what you typically see is actually pseudo-transverse plane movement. I call it the pseudo-transverse plane, because, in reality, nothing is really rotating or dissociating. Instead, the center of mass orients back and forth, like a weather vane, with wasted, compensatory activity that is unproductive and indicative of fatigue accumulation. High level crawling is where body parts stay in line, and the body as a whole doesn’t shift or rock back and forth. When you see excessive accessory movement, shut the drill down, or return the subject back to his or her hands and knees to try again. The reason that the subject starts to display compensatory frontal/transverse movement in crawling patterns is because he or she loses sagittal sensorimotor competency. To prevent this, I would hold off on crawling patterns until your subject has been thoroughly trained on the pelvis and thorax core exercises from the previous chapters. This is in keeping with our “go from static to dynamic” principle of progression. Make sure the subject possesses the ability to do quadruped activities, with heels both on and off the wall, and can maintain position for adequate duration prior to making the move to crawling. Keeping sagittal centering is extremely difficult. People usually end up with either the skull or the thorax in front of the pelvis at some point during quadruped and crawling

drills. A focus on keeping sagittal centering will lead to proper execution of crawling drills. The spin bike is a popular device that requires very little knowledge or coaching prowess to use. Perhaps due the low level of skill involved, or the low impact on the joints, or their gregarious group nature, spin classes are a very popular exercise class. My recommendation for coaches who choose to train subjects using the spin bike is to find elements that can be quantitatively tracked, such as heart rate via a heart rate monitor. Alternatively, some bikes have built-in quantitative display panels that show you the level of resistance, the watts, and the distance traveled. But, if you can measure something, knowing this, subjects will typically put in more effort, and you as the coach will gain the ability to monitor their training volume and determine their exercise intensity. Essentially a ladder with wooden rungs on an inclined treadmill track, the Jacob’s Ladder is my personal favorite device in this category. Using this device feels like some kind of hybrid between climbing and crawling. The ~ 30 degree angle the piece sits on renders moving easier than climbing a ladder or crawling on the ground, twenty straight minutes of each of which would be brutal, if not downright impossible. That said, I do not want to give the impression that using this machine is a climb/ crawl in the park, so to speak. On the contrary, the Jacob’s Ladder is one of the most unforgiving pieces of equipment I have ever used, that would probably be welcome in any of the 9 Circles of Hell. But, the beautiful thing about the Jacob’s Ladder, is that most will automatically put themselves in a perfect sensorimotor competency position when using it, and will feel glutes, quads, and abs working like crazy when they are on the device. With zero coaching, this device simultaneously provides an incredible cardiovascular workout and a strong muscular response in some of the most critical sagittal plane muscles of the body.

Page

126

Frontal Plane Options For this category, only the VersaClimber comes to mind, making it uniquely indispensable for any gym. The VersaClimber makes you move the way lizards walk through space. The motion of the device creates closure of the rib cage on one side while separating the ribcage on the other side. I find a couple of features of the VersaClimber particularly valuable. The first is the ability to flip the foot pedals upside down. If you use the foot pedals in the normal position, you have to put your foot in a strap, which secures the front of your foot on the pedal, with your heel hanging off the back end of the pedal. Flipping the pedal over allows you to reverse the situation, positioning your heel on the pedal and your toes hanging off of it. For those who report knee pain when using the VersaClimber, flipping the pedals to get on their heels seems to alleviate it every time. The same clients who used this “fix” also reported feeling much more glute activity with the flipped pedal setup. The second recommendation I have for the VersaClimber is to make sure the user keeps his or her pelvis under the skull and thorax. Tiredness (or laziness!) can cause the butt to stick out and back on this device. When this takes place, the user cannot keep sagittal sensorimotor competency, and the whole exercise breaks down. Conversely, when you are on your heels and you stay stacked, the VersaClimber is both a tremendous cardiovascular tool, and a powerful frontal plane muscle-recruiting device. Transverse Options There are three options in this category; walking, jogging, and the arm and leg bike. I’m not going to cover walking and jogging here, as we’ll do that in a coming section of this chapter dedicated to sprinting, which will also touch on elements of slower-speed running. Instead, I’ll talk about the arm and leg bike here, a very common piece of equipment found in training

facilities. Common examples of arm and leg bikes include the Airdyne, the Assault Bike, the Echo bike, and the Keiser M5. I generally prefer the arm and leg bike over the traditional spin bike, because the arm and leg bike recruits much more muscle mass. With arm and leg bikes, I try not to do any coaching. That’s because, in my opinion, it falls into our aforementioned “pizza” category. This is a device that’s all about hard work, and very little can go wrong with it… so, like pizza, even when the workout is “bad” it’s still pretty good. The reason that the arm and leg bike falls into the transverse plane category is because of the heavy dose of forward and backward horizontal reaching with the arms as they follow the arm path of the bike. Alternating horizontal pushing and pulling with the arms, leads to the trunk rotating in space. This kind of trunk rotation happens pretty naturally on the arm and leg bike, all while the user receives a demanding cardiovascular training session. Be aware of just how demanding the arm and leg bike can be, particularly on those who are starting out on the less physically fit side. I would certainly stay away from this device early in a beginner’s training session, as the fatigue accumulated on it may compromise any following exercises you have planned. On the flip side, I would also stay away from putting a worn-out beginner on this machine towards the end of the training session… unless you want to make your client throw up (or clean it up)! Unskilled exercise participants will have few options available that will actually challenge their physiology to a really high level. Instead, technical limitations will often shut them down while performing an exercise, not to mention that beginners will lack both the skill and “horsepower” to disrupt homeostasis to an appreciable degree. The arm and leg bike may be an exception, given its combination of being low skill while offering sufficiently high resistance. With weak, out of shape novices, typically the loads that represent their one-rep max and their twenty-rep max are very close together, so you may as well go for that twenty-rep max. When used

Page

127

to capacity, the arm and leg bike, meanwhile, probably gets newbies closer to their thirty-rep max in leg exercises, providing tremendous stimulus, but, as cautioned, tremendous fatigue. Low Load, High Velocity Locomotion Sprinting I have been very fortunate to form a friendship with Derek Hansen over the past five years. We met while presenting at an event at Northeastern University. Since that first meeting, we have co-taught a seminar together, collaborated on papers, done a few joint podcasts, and enjoyed social outings. A high level track athlete in his youth, Derek ultimately became a speed development coach for athletes. Derek’s primary coaching mentor was the legendary Charlie Francis. Derek continues to work with athletes from a variety of different sports, including NFL players. He educates fellow coaches around the globe, and has recently created the Running Mechanics Professional certification, aimed at providing professionals in the areas of sport, fitness and rehabilitation with effective strategies and protocols for improving running performance and resiliency. The following is largely based on what I have learned from Derek over the years, as well as the treasure trove of knowledge that are the writings of Charlie Francis. For more information on this topic, I strongly recommend attending one of Derek’s teaching events if you can. Force Output Qualities that Factor Into Sprint Performance There are a number of strategies that the body uses to absorb and produce force. The human body is a viscoelastic, antigravitational, electrochemically-charged, membrane-divided meat suit, whose form and movement possibilities are constrained by the anthropometrics of the skeleton. When the organism moves at different velocities, or against different loading levels, different qualities of absorption and propulsion emerge. To explain these qualities, for a long time now, coaches have been using a classical speed-to-strength continuum, which

are somewhat distinct and separate from each other. The speed-to-strength continuum is based on trying to move either a joint, a segment of the body, or the entire body through space, with the intent of creating the greatest possible force and velocity. At one end of the continuum is speed, which is when the participant is moving in an unloaded or an extremely lightly loaded situation (like moving an arm with a boxing glove on the hand). In the expression of the speed quality, the participant will move a joint, segment, or entire body at the highest possible achievable velocity. At the other end of the continuum is strength, where the participant is loaded with the heaviest possible load that his or her system can support. In the expression of strength, the participant will move at an isometric or near-isometric velocity. As one moves away from speed and towards strength, he or she would be increasing load, and decreasing velocity. There are two zones in between speed and strength that are generally recognized. One is speed-strength, which is halfway between speed and the midpoint of the continuum. The other zone is strength-speed, which is halfway between strength and the midpoint of the continuum. Examples of activities that represent speed would be sprinting, punching, kicking, and throwing very light objects. Examples of activities that represent strength would be one rep-max pressing, squatting, and deadlifting. Speed-strength activities include medicine ball throws and static jumps without a counter-movement. Strength-speed activities would be dynamic effort method lifting (a la Westside Barbell) and kettlebell swings. With these different realms of the speed-tostrength continuum, the four different zones are considered to be separate from one another, and carryover from one to another region is extremely limited. Put another way: one would need to train activities that fall under the umbrella of each zone in order to develop

Page

128

that specific quality. Moreover, failing to train any of these four specific qualities will result in diminished fitness in that realm. Perhaps this is why these different realms are referred to as “perishable strength quality”. Now that we have a simple construct for looking at physical expression and dividing it into different realms, let’s look at Charlie’s delineation for these qualities. Charlie had five different realms of unique qualities, each of which needed development to improve a sprinter’s performance:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Strength Power Power-Speed Speed Special Endurance

points in a sprint. For instance, strength is the dominant quality for accelerating athletes out of the blocks, for up to about 10 meters. From 10 to almost 20 meters, power is the critical variable. From 20 to 30 meters, power-speed is the primary driver. From 30 to 65 meters, speed is the main thing that matters. Beyond 65 meters, special endurance is what allows the athlete to maintain speed, or prevent speed from deteriorating too rapidly. The National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) has a great definition of strength in its textbook, The Essentials of Strength and Conditioning. They say that strength is the amount of force that the body, segment, or joint can create at a given velocity of movement. This definition is far-reaching and useful, and facilitates discussions about perishable strength qualities. The strength quality that Charlie would call “speed” would be how much force we are creating at the highest running velocities. Our ability to express physical capabilities always comes down to how much force we can generate: force in certain positions, force at certain velocities, force in different environments, force in specific motor patterns, force in specific stances, and force in specific planes. The separation of strength qualities simply point out the fact that some are skilled at demonstrating force in one instance, but perhaps do not have the ability to demonstrate a lot of force under different circumstances. If you can determine what strength qualities are critical for a specific athlete relative to his or her specific goals, you’re on the right track. Next, you would have to perform a gap analysis.The gap analysis is a three-part process:

Fig 8.1 - Characteristics of the Lactic and Alactic Phases of Sprinting In the system that Charlie put forth, there were certain modalities and exercises that made sense to develop each of these perishable strength qualities. The other fascinating part about these perishable strength qualities is the idea that each plays a dominant role in different

Part One: Is the athlete measuring and training every strength quality that is important to him or her? Part Two: Does the athlete demonstrate a significant weakness in one of the critical strength qualities associated with his or her goals?

Page

129

Part Three: Will training the deficient strength quality improve this athlete’s fitness in that region, and will this fitness improvement translate to moving him or her towards his or her goal? The assumption is that, if you find a glaring gap in your training model and plug it up, things should get better from this point forward. Of course sometimes, transfer of training isn’t quite so cut and dry. Charlie had certain modalities of exercise for each strength quality that was associated with the various stages of sprinting. “Strength” goes along with the first ten meters, and exercises that improve that quality include: weights, electro muscular stimulation (EMS), single jumps, and medicine ball throws. “Power”, which goes from about 10 to just shy of 20 meters, is improved by exercises such as weights, multiple jumps in a row, box jumps (up only), and medicine ball throws. Activities that develop “Power-Speed”, which goes from about 20 meters to just shy of 30 meters, are box jumps (up and down off the floor), and medicine ball throws with hops, bounds, and short accelerations following the throw. “Speed”, which goes from 30 meters up to 65 meters and is primarily driven by the elasticity of tissues, is developed via depth jumps, medicine ball throws, bounds, and full speed runs that are less than 8 seconds in duration. Lastly, “Special Endurance”, which goes from 65 meters up to 200 meters, is developed through Special Endurance Type 1 runs, which are the fastest you can run distances that take you 8 to 15 seconds, as well as Special Endurance Type 2 runs, which are the fastest you can run distances that take you 15 to 45 seconds in duration, and finally, “A” runs, completed between 45 seconds and 2:30. As you can see, there are not a tremendous number of activities listed in the previous paragraph for improving the relative strength qualities associated with sprinting abilities. In getting to know Derek over the years, I’ve come to refer to him in my head as “the great gardener of the strength and conditioning field”. What I mean by this is that this guy prunes

away more useless drills than anyone I know. I, too, am a big believer in identifying wastes of time and getting rid of them, but I think Derek takes it much farther. A skill Charlie likely helped him hone. One of my favorite Charlie Francis quotes is “I re-examined every drill. If I couldn’t find a good reason for keeping it, it disappeared.” In other words, some of us are of the mind that creating “To Not Do” lists is much more effective than creating “To Do” lists. Avoiding that which isn’t helping or is detracting from moving towards the goal is just as important as doing what you should be, if not moreso. In this discussion of strength qualities and drills that develop those qualities, you have to consider the duration for which you can train to develop each quality. Charlie Francis called his program design model Vertical Integration. With the Vertical Integration system, every quality is trained all the time, but there is a focus on developing one quality at a time, while the other qualities are simply maintained. The level of the athlete would largely determine the quality to focus on, but, even with elites, at different times of year, the focus would be rotated to different qualities. When developing most beginner sprinters, Charlie would take a right-to-left approach. This approach is from the perspective of looking at a sprint as an observer. The athletes start on the left side of our visual field, and end it on our right. You would focus on the qualities that would allow them to sustain endurance early in their career, and gradually shift the focus increasingly left, where you would finish with a focus on things like starts, acceleration, and strength. Of course this doesn’t mean that the beginner athlete isn’t working on starts, acceleration, and strength in the early parts of his or her training career. These simply aren’t early-stage training focal points. Ultimately, you need to rotate the strength quality that is the focal point, and if you are going to be doing this, you should have some idea how long to keep one element as the focal point before rotating it out in favor of something new. Charlie provided some guidelines for how long he felt you could focus on

Page

130

specific qualities. For instance, with aerobic fitness, he felt that quality could be focused on and improved for over 24 straight weeks, the lengthiest fitness element for sustained improvement. The next lengthiest quality for sustained development in Charlie’s model is muscle endurance, listed at 20 weeks. Hypertrophy style lifting is next, coming in at 16 weeks. Speed Endurance, characterized by Type 1 and Type 2 Special Endurance runs, also gets a 16 week duration. Plyometrics, maximum speed work, and maximal strength lifting all have a shelf life of 12 weeks. Maximal strength EMS taps out at about 4 weeks.

for training that realm. For the other strength qualities, you typically just need to shoot for “good enough”. You’ll generally know you’ve gotten there for a given quality when further development of said quality starts to impair development of another equally or more important quality. As you decide on the strength qualities an athlete needs to focus on and an appropriate level of development for each, the last thing to consider is the most fitting drill selection for a given quality. If you have barbells and a track, let the barbells be your strength development tool and the track your speed development tool. Note that “crossing streams” isn’t necessarily wise. For instance, you can put a ton of effort into doing high velocity lifting, and drive tremendous volume into a given strength quality pathway, but in doing so, you have now also fatigued that pathway, possibly preventing your athlete from doing requisite track work. Rather than using hammers to put in lightbulbs, identify what you are trying to accomplish, and wisely choose the tools for the different strength qualities that you’ll be developing. The Nature of Accelerating and Decelerating

Fig 8.2 - Effective adaption periods, per training block As a coach, what you need to figure out is how far you have to develop any of these qualities for any given individual you’re working with. Do you need to bring a basketball player to the 99th percentile of where their hypertrophy could reach? Likely not, and, on the contrary, this may adversely affect the athlete’s career. With most of these qualities, you can get a high return on investment in the early stages of development, and then, as you get closer to the peak for each quality, you’ll enter diminishing returns for the effort being put in. If you identify the one strength quality that is of paramount importance, you may have to go deep into the realm of diminishing returns

During a sprint, no two steps will ever be the same, and you are either accelerating or decelerating with the step you are currently taking. The thing that determines whether you are going faster is the relationship between the speed that you are currently moving over the ground (the speed of the ground), and the speed of the current foot strike relative to the speed of the ground (negative foot speed). If you hit the ground with your foot, and the foot accelerates backwards (negative foot speed) at a rate faster than the current speed at which you are moving, then you accelerate. The amount of ground contact force is the determinant of negative foot speed. Whenever your foot hits the ground while you are running, there is always an initial deceleration of the foot, and you must overcome this deceleration rapidly, and with great force, to create sufficient negative foot speed to accelerate. As you move faster over the ground, the amount of time you have to create

Page

131

ground contact force and maximize negative foot speed decreases. Those who will be able to run very fast have the unique ability to create tremendous force in very little time. As such, the ability to sprint effectively is really based on the relationship the athlete has with the ground. A slow jog results in movement that might be thought of as sinking into the ground, whereas, the sprinter explodes up and over it. This ability to display an upward-thrusting, verticality-based relationship with the ground is related to ground contact time. When you go faster, there is less ground contact time per stride, and less time spent on the ground for the entirety of the race. Mind you, this reduction in ground contact time is not consciously sought out by the runner. Less ground contact time is the outcome of running faster, not the explicit means by which you achieve running faster. The other variable that is strongly linked with ground contact time is hip height. To understand hip height, think of watching someone run from a profile view. When you’re watching them go by you, does the height of their hip come to

Fig 8.3 - Relationship between hip height and ground contact time

baseline and only go up, or do they shrink at points while they run? Hip height is based on where the foot contacts the ground relative to the center of mass while running. When the foot hits the ground out in front of the center of mass, hip height decreases. When the foot strikes the ground right under the body and creates great negative foot speed, hip height stays high and only gets higher, which is what we want to see from runners. The foot striking out in front of the center of mass will cause it to be on the ground longer, which ultimately leads to more breaking time; and increases the difficulty of creating enough force to generate negative foot speed that exceeds the speed of the ground. To understand sprinting, we need to understand the dynamics of the ground. The faster that a runner is moving over the ground, the less resistance the ground provides. At the starting blocks, before the runner begins moving, the ground provides its greatest amount of resistance. On the bright side, when the ground provides high resistance, it’s easier to push on it, to overcome the speed of the ground with negative foot speed, and thereby accelerate. As you start going faster in a sprint, the ground begins to offer less and less resistance. As resistance from the ground decreases, the legs can cycle through faster and faster. This is a lot like riding a bicycle with gears. The start of a sprint would be like being in high gear, where there’s a lot of resistance, it’s easier to pedal hard, and a significant amount of acceleration is generated by each pedal stroke. Think about going fast on a bicycle, and switching it into first gear. Now, there is practically no resistance on the pedals, and your legs can whip around at an unbelievable speed. The problem with the bike in first gear is that there is no resistance to push against, making it fairly difficult to accelerate, particularly if you are already going fast. In order to prepare someone to run faster, we must first understand how to prepare him or her for the variables and obstacles that present themselves during the task of sprinting. In other words, to understand how to attack low load, high velocity locomotion, we need to

Page

132

be aware of the speed of the ground, negative foot speed, ground contact time, hip height, and the resistance of the ground. Charlie Francis recommended increasing the overall strength qualities of the runner, while simultaneously embedding the most optimal sprinting technique possible. In later chapters, we’ll cover the optimal way to train patterns like throwing, knee dominant, hip dominant, triple extension, and pushing and pulling. As for the remainder of this section on low load, high velocity locomotion, let me walk you through the technical elements of drills and running form that I have learned from Derek. Technical Elements and Coaching Points Involved with Sprinting During the course of their training, the skills taught to runners would be aimed at increasing hip height, reducing ground contact time, increasing ground reaction forces, improving elastic return from foot strike, increasing negative foot speed, and reducing the time it takes to run a given distance. Importantly, there are mechanical considerations that either promote or impede each of these variables. The direction and emphasis of arm and leg swing are two of the most important factors that the coach imparts on the athlete. What happens with the arms and the legs will impact the orientation of center of mass, and what happens with the orientation of center of mass will affect the nature of limb swing. When examining the swing of the legs, picture the shape that would result if you traced the direction that the foot moves as it finds the ground, pushes off the ground, circles backwards and up, comes forward again in preparation for the ground, and then makes ground contact again on the next step. Does the foot trace the shape of a circle, or more like an extremely flattened ellipse? The shape that Derek is looking for is the circle, the problematic shape being the flat ellipse. When the runner’s foot “draws” the latter, this is due to an excess of backside mechanics at the legs, while the circle shape is facilitated by the appropriate amount of front side mechanics.

Fig 8.4 - Vertical displacement Backside mechanics refers to the activity that is happening when the foot and leg is behind the center of mass. This results from the runner pushing off the ground with his or her leg going backwards, behind the torso. If you do this excessively, the foot goes too far backwards, and generally fails to arc very high on the recovery, which often results in the foot reaching farther out in front of the center of mass on the next step. This “overreaching” happens as a compensation for the other leg’s excessive backside mechanics display. When one limb goes too far back, the other will go too far forward. And hitting the ground too far out in front means losing hip height, spending too much time on the ground, losing too much potential elastic energy as heat, reducing negative foot speed, decreasing potential ground reaction forces, and, as a result of all of these impeding forces, running slower. It’s certainly worth noting that spending too much time on the ground, reducing elastic energy, and spending more time in the yielding

Page

133

muscular action of absorbing force, can also increase the time and opportunity for the mechanism of injury for things like hamstring strains to occur. When your legs are going too far out behind you, this will pitch your center of mass too far forward, promoting the action of falling. The center of mass needs to remain up, never falling forward. “Front side mechanics” refers to the activity that is happening when the foot and leg is in front of the center of mass. This is what happens during the swing phase of the running stride when the runner is in preparation for hitting the ground on the next step. The emphasis in proper front side mechanics is on keeping the center of mass up and back. When the center of mass remains in this position, foot strike occurs almost directly underneath the center of mass. When this is the case, hip height is maintained during early and mid-stance, and then increased on push-off, and ground contact time is minimized. In response, the elastic return from foot strike is maximized. The powerful elastic return springs the foot up, which creates a high heel-recovery position on the backside, with full knee flexion. The shape the foot traces as it goes through the entire stride is our desired circle, facilitating maximal efficiency. By contrast, picture the ellipse shaped stride, and think of how much horizontal action, and space, is being used. These would be long, slow, dragging steps. The foot never gets high enough to drop straight down on the ground like a hammer. The hip never gets high enough to assist the foot coming down into the ground with authority. The ellipse-shaped foot path running mechanic is like pulling yourself through the ocean in hip-deep water. The circular shaped running stride, meanwhile, raises the hammer up high, and drops it straight down into the ground at maximal speed, achieving incredible contact force in minimal contact time. A good portion of my coaching on running mechanics amounts to aiding the runner in creating the circle instead of the ellipse. The cue that Derek gives over and over is “up” or “lift”, and generally avoids the terms “down” and “push”.

Interestingly, the more the ground reaction forces increase, the faster the athlete sprints. Yet, we do not want to coach them to try to strike down into the ground, as doing so is more likely to encourage the ellipse-shape footpath, bypassing the right hip height or heel recovery height for the foot to drive down into the ground with force. When the athlete thinks “up”, on the other hand, the resulting mechanics and shapes generate increased ground reaction forces, and decreased ground contact time. When coaching the athlete running posture, you want them to think “tall”. Helpful imagery here is having the athlete picture a string pulling the middle of his or her head straight up. The other major posture-centric cue is to ask athletes to look forward instead of at the ground. When you’re looking to create the appropriate arm actions, there are a couple of things to consider. Firstly, the arms should be in about a 90 degree position. Secondly, the arms should rotate around the shoulder joint. A lot of people turn into elbow flexors and extenders when they are trying to use their arms, which may be handy for karate or trying out for Top Chef, but is an error when trying to run fast. Getting people to figure out how to hinge at the shoulder can be challenging. The arms should go through a full range of motion, where, at the top, the hand is at the height of the nose, and is next to the glute at the bottom. Telling folks to go from cheek to cheek can help some achieve full ROM. At the top of the ROM, the hand should come towards midline, and be in line with the nose, or at least close to it. Once the runner is demonstrating full ROM and appropriately using his or her shoulder joint, you want to tell them to focus on driving their arms up. Coaching runners from their arms is a strong approach to take. If the runner is driving the right arm mechanics, oftentimes, the legs will be brought along for the ride. The other advantage of focusing on the arms is the athlete’s ability to see his or her swinging hands out in front of the torso while running. A tendency to watch out for is that of creating too much elbow flexion at the top of the arm swing in order to get the hand up as high as the nose. By exces-

Page

134

sively flexing the elbow, the athlete decreases his or her shoulder flexion range of motion. Getting the arms to go through full ROM with the focus on the “up” direction will help create appropriate hip height during a sprint. A great drill that illustrates this concept is long seated arm swings. When the athlete swings their arms with maximal intent and maximal velocity, his or her butt will bounce up and down off the ground.

Fig 8.5 - Hip mobility and rotation towards the centerline As athletes progress in their mechanical proficiency, we can start to incorporate the “down” cue for arm mechanics. When the hand has reached the top of its arc, it’s time to pull it straight down. Thinking “back” in this scenario is likely to drive excessive backside mechanics, and lead to improper foot position on the next ground contact. The up and the down cues, however, create a very powerful oppositional stroke, setting the stage for an extremely powerful sprint performance. The sprinter who can leverage outstanding arm mechanics to display tremendous power while maintaining relaxed shoulders that do not shrug up towards the ears is likely highly mechanically proficient. Again, the coaching takeaway is that the arms should always lead the legs, and not vice versa.

When coaching the athlete at the level of the lower body, the go-to cue will once again be “up”, only, now, you’re cueing the athlete to bring the feet up. Marching, skipping, or high knees running drills will often feature too much plantar flexion. To move them towards dorsiflexion, you can ask runners to bring up their shoelaces. The more the runner can raise one foot with speed and authority, the harder the other foot will push down to assist its counterpart. So, is there such a thing as “too high”, which might result from an excessive focus on the “up”? The answer here is yes, and the perpetrators tend to be less experienced athletes. During marching or in-place running drills, such athletes will sometimes bring their knees up well past 90 degrees. When observing the athlete create simultaneous hip and knee flexion in an attempt to raise his or her feet, notice the horizontal position of the knee. When the athlete starts flexing the hip, the knee goes forward. As he or she continues to flex the hip up to about 90 degrees of flexion, the knee continues to move forward. When the athlete passes 90 degrees, the knee now starts to cycle back towards the body, and is moving backwards relative to its forward-most position. The hip flexion angle associated with the most forward position of the knee should be the maximal height reached by the knee. Once you identify this maximal height, the next task is to increase the frequency with which the athlete can bring each leg up to that position. The same thing would be true of the arms, though it is quite rare to see that much shoulder flexion during running drills. The main problem with the arms is that when the athlete focuses on “up”; they begin to lose full ROM, and their extending arm does not go low enough (which, in my humble opinion, has the comical appearance of training to enter a cow milking contest). The other common error is to bring the hands back towards the face too much. When runners look like they’re trying to brush their hair with their hands, cue them with “up and away”; to get those hands back down in front of the face.

Page

135

Fig 8.6 - Examples of Mach drills Average sprinters run 100 meters in about 11.5 seconds. Elite sprinters run the 100 in 10 seconds or less. In Charlie Francis’ writings, he states that average sprinters spend approximately 5.68 seconds of their 11.5 second run with their feet in contact with the ground. Elite sprinters spend approximately 1.9 seconds out of 10 with their feet in contact with the ground. There’s about a 16% difference in the time it takes for the average and the elite sprinter to finish the 100 meters, but there is about a 300% difference in how much time they spend in ground contact time, likely accounting for the biggest comparative difference between the populations. The drills that you would use to help runners improve their upright top speed running mechanics generally fall into the categories of marching, skipping, “A” runs, and “B” runs. Originally developed by Gerard Mach, these are also the primary drills that Derek recommends. You can easily find more information on these “Mach” drills and refine your ability to coach them. Here is the list of drills that you can use to develop running mechanics in a progressive manner: 1. Long seated arm action 2. In place marching 3. Forward marching 4. Skipping 5. Run in place Low amplitude limbs to high amplitude 6. High knee runs forward Frequency with low amplitude moving to high amplitude 7. Short sprints (lower velocity)

Acceleration drills 8. Longer sprints (higher velocity) Starts and Acceleration An elite sprinter can observe some general rules to come out of the blocks. The angle between the hip and the knee on the front leg should never be less than 90 degrees, or less than 120 degrees for on the back leg. Angles smaller than these for the front or back leg are indicative that the hips are too low or too far back in the start position. Instead, the hips should be high, and in front of the front foot. To ensure that the hips are at the right height, you should see an approximate 45 degree angle between the hip and shoulder in the start position. The stronger the athlete, the greater the possible angle between hip and shoulder, as weaker athletes will not be able to handle an extreme body angle in the start position. The easiest way to change the body angle is to play with the hand width position. Widen the hands to increase the angle, and narrow them to decrease it. The decreased body angle comes closer to mimicking the upright start position, which is also optimal for children. The head position can simply be one that’s comfortable for the athlete. Again, the critical component of coming out of the blocks is the position of the hands. The hand that will be the forward hand on the first stride needs to flick off the ground and move in the direction one wants to go. This hand should move in a straight line forward to avoid creating an arc motion, which doesn’t optimize speed.

Page

136

foot placement is critical, and relatively similar in setup, regardless of whether we are talking soft or hard starts. The feet should be about hip-width distance apart. The back foot should not be too far behind the front foot. The tips of the toes of the back foot should be at the same level as the back of the heel of the front foot. A lot of people want to put the back foot much farther behind the front foot, because they report feeling stronger and more stable in this position. The trouble is, strong and stable doesn’t necessarily equal fast. Starts are a lot like a golf swing. Putting the athlete in the right setup, and then simply allowing the natural motion of the body to take place often facilitates the best possible outcome.

Fig 8.7 - Starting block set position With regard to how you coach the initial acceleration steps, you should not do much to change what will happen naturally. Focus on starts training tends to come later in an elite sprinter’s development. Non-specific strength training will have the greatest impact on improving start capabilities early in the athlete’s career. The major points with teaching acceleration concepts to athletes is to get them to swing their arms effectively through full ROM with a focus on the “up”, as well as relaxing and being efficient. The drills you choose should facilitate all of the above, without requiring too much conscious thought from your athlete. With these drills, you will generally bring sprinters from soft starts to hard starts in a progressive fashion. Soft starts involve starting from an upright position, with the feet as the only points of contact with the ground, aka “2 point starts”. Hard starts will feature the hands and feet in contact with the ground, aka “3 and 4 point starts”.

When dealing with all forms of starts,

With the softest of soft starts, the athlete is standing up, in a front/back staggered stance, the upright-most stance for taking off in a sprint. Instruct the athlete to have a little bend to their knees, and have their hands out in front of them. The latter is critical. The athlete will keep both hands out in front, and reach forward with them. This will work to drag the body along, behind the hands. Leaning forward will ready the runner for takeoff on cue. As soon as this cue is received, the same-side hand of the forward leg should be flicked up and forward. This movement of the hand and arm will trigger the back foot to step forward, propelling the athlete through the initial acceleration steps. Except in cases where egregious movements may result in a performance drop, allow the athlete’s natural movements to dominate. Look out for the athlete appearing “too tight”, and encourage him or her to relax if so. Otherwise, stand back, and allow the athlete to independently practice and tune his or her starts. As starts gradually progress from softest to increasingly harder, you may see more bend in the knees, particularly the front knee. To achieve upright technique, use the same approach of having the hands out in front, and reaching the arms forward. Keep in mind that the lower the center of mass, the less soft the soft start will be. Likewise, if your athlete is recovering from any kind of Achilles injury, you may want to avoid the harder start positions.

Page

137

Play it safe with the softest of soft starts to avoid putting eccentrically-oriented force strain on that tissue.

Fig 8.8 - Example of falling start

acceleration training. That said, as with any good periodized training system, some variation of starting position is also a good idea, which allows you to change up, and hence increase, the stimulus you are providing to the athlete. The push-up start position is a tremendous training tool for developing hard starts. An excellent push-up start position drill is one where you put the athlete in the top of the push-up, have him or her comfortably step one foot forward, and then take off. For the takeoff, remember to cue the athlete to flick up the same-side hand as the foot he or she stepped forward. The result of putting sprinters into this position and giving that singular cue is generally a pretty perfect-looking acceleration, enabling the sprinter to “be the hashtag” (as shown in the diagram below).

Fig 8.9 - Example of pushup

The medicine ball is a great tool for helping develop soft starts. Doing a medicine ball chest throw from a soft start prevents overthinking start technique. With the med ball throw, the arms will go forward in a way that creates momentum that correctly drags the body behind them. From there, the athlete accelerates forward, naturally and properly. As hard starts are concerned, the hardest of them is a start off the blocks on a track, and the least hard is a push-up position hard start. With your progressions, go from least hard to hardest. The higher the hips in the starting position, the harder the hard start. In working with a given athlete, you’re likely to uncover his or her start position sweet spot, and you will likely stick with that for his or her

Fig 8.10 - BeTheHashtag concept Relaxation Getting powerful athletes to be able to sprint while staying extremely relaxed is perhaps the most important—and surprisingly difficult—thing to accomplish. Some coaches talk about this ability as that of quickly inhibiting muscles once you facilitate them. Whether or not this is physiologically possible is very unclear. What is clear is that, to attain highest speed potential, the athlete has to experience a rapid state change. This state change may

Page

138

amount to the cycling back and forth between the expansion and compression strategies. Or, maybe this state change is electrical. Or, one of muscular orientation. The reality is that we haven’t been able to definitively identify the nature of this state change from a research standpoint, so, for now, we just don’t know. Charlie Francis talked about how sprinting is all about relaxation and rhythm, how it’s a dance between the athlete and the ground. In his writing, he indicated that the biggest error he typically saw sprinters make is tightening up their shoulders. If he could get someone’s shoulders to drop while maintaining an upright body, a lot of other technique improvements would follow. When things look right, they look fluid, which wouldn’t surprise Bill Hartman, who believes the body to behave according to the principles of water. Being able to move pressures and volumes and fluids around the body in the right direction, at the right time, in the right position, seems to lead to fluidity. And some body shapes and orientations allow their owners to accomplish this more easily than others. Certainly, most of us have the ability to improve in our mechanics via proper training. It’s a thing of beauty to watch Derek Hansen almost immediately improve an athlete’s running mechanics. The interesting thing is that he does this by saying little, but putting the athlete in the right setup, and giving him or her just one thing to think about at a time. Not having to think about too much at once facilitates relaxation. Rather than unload a plethora of knowledge about the sprint pattern, he allows the athlete to learn the activity on his or her own. Imitation isn’t only the sincerest form of flattery, but an amazingly effective tool for improving one’s coaching. Whatever your coaching area of expertise or interest, find “the great ones” in this area, shadow them at work if you can, and then imitate the heck out of them in your own work. In time, you’ll appreciate the finer details that explain why their strategies work so well, but, until then, learn from the best, and fake it till you make it.

Moderate to High Load Locomotion Loaded Carries I find loaded carries to be a fairly controversial topic in the realm of fitness and movement quality development. To me, training loaded carries makes you better at loaded carries, with limited to no carryover to any other task or adaptation. Now, there are great professionals in the fields of rehabilitation and fitness development who would adamantly disagree with me on this. And, in fairness, I’ve seen carefully selected positioning of loaded carries change table test results for range of motion, which is hard to argue with. I’ve also seen fitness beginners gain a lot of confidence for lifting heavy weights through carrying around heavy farmer’s walk handles. I’ve seen elite professional strongman athletes carry well over a thousand pounds at blistering speeds. Yet, in spite of all this, and in spite of having personally competed at a high level in the sport of strongman, I still view loaded carriers as a poor choice for most people’s goals. In short, I don’t see carries as being as good as traditional compound lifts for hypertrophy, or traditional compound lifts for strength development, or core exercises for changing movement capabilities, or conditioning exercise for running. To me, loaded carries belong on the Island of Misfit Toys in the world of training. I don’t think they’re “bad” by any means. But, if you were to ask me to recommend a drill to develop a specific fitness quality, I would probably choose something different from loaded carries under every single circumstance, except for the circumstance of training to be better at loaded carries. Let’s say you are someone who disagrees with me, and you see incredible return on investment from including loaded carries in your program. Let’s say you see carryover from doing loaded carries to trying to continue to run forward in football when you have people hanging off of you trying to tackle you. Let’s say you believe in the concept of gap analysis within program design, and that, by filling in this

Page

139

loaded carry gap, every other element of their fitness will improve. Let’s say you like EMG results a ton, and, seeing QL readings skyrocket in some study, you get super excited about this effect of loading the walking motion. Let’s just say you’re gung-ho for putting weight on somebody and making them go from point A to point B… what’s the best way to progress this concept? The list I’ve got here is based on using implements, and positioning those implements in ways that will decrease the likelihood of somebody going into an excessive extension pattern through the spine and thorax during the carry. This is an interesting list, starting with the duck walk. No, this isn’t the low squat position duck walk your high school football coach may have made you do. In strongman, the duck walk involves carrying what looks like a cartoon detonator for an explosive with your hands between your legs. This carry basically puts you in a position that is about three quarters of the way to lockout in a sumo deadlift, and keeps you there as you try to carry the object from point A to point B. As you might imagine, this drill makes for some comical walking. You rapidly waddle from side to side like a windup toy, or, of course, a duck. Some might think that this is an odd choice for where to start training, but the constraints imposed by the shape of the object and its position relative to the body do prevent an exaggerated chest up and forward position, placing emphasis on abs and glutes. Every other exercise that follows the duck walk involves bringing the hands further and further out to the side, and then up in an arc of flexion, moving the humerus from Zone 1, to Zone 2, to Zone 3 in the propulsion arc. Here is the list of progressions for loaded carry exercises: 1. Between legs carries (duck walks) 2. Side handle carries (farmer’s carries) 3. Front rack carries (Zercher, sandbags, etc.) 4. Shoulder supported carries (yoke walk) 5. Overhead carries (overhead yoke, waiter’s carries, etc.)

Coaching Points While the degree to which I doubt the efficacy of loaded carriers in improving overall fitness cannot be overstated, please don’t get the idea that I’m advocating for coaching light carries, held with “perfect posture”, while strolling up and down the floor. To get any benefit from them, if I am going to include carries in someone’s program, I want them to be heavy, and I want the participant to be aggressive. My two biggest “carrier coaching points” are telling athletes to look to and past the finish line, and quickly move their feet. In the same way that the elderly stare at the ground in front of them to help visually anchor and stabilize themselves, most athletes will immediately start looking at the ground in front of them when they do a carry. In regards to moving the feet fast, I don’t care about the size of the steps you’re taking, which will be bigger when the weight is light, and smaller when the weight is heavy. But, all I care about is that the steps are being made in rapid succession of each other. At a certain point, the load will be too heavy to go fast. When this happens, I coach channeling being tough and aggressive. Limit weight loaded carries are a test of heart and will.

Fig 8.11 - Example duck walks

Page

140

The athlete who is to be successful with limit weight loaded carries will often need to go to a very demanding, even dark mental place. With heavy carries, something is going to feel like it’s going to give. Maybe the grip with farmer’s carry. Maybe the back with the yoke. Maybe the abs with a Zercher carry. Maybe the glutes with a duck walk. Maybe the mind with any of them. To that end, cultivate the attitude that physical constraints should always limit athletes before their minds do. If there was one implement that I would avoid if I were using carries with athletes, it would be the yoke, and most fellow strongman competitors would vote it as their least favorite. Typically the heaviest event in all of strongman, a lot of back injuries and broken spirits alike have been left in this implement’s wake. As a result, many of us view it as a reminder that, just because we can lift something, doesn’t mean doing so is smart, let alone carrying it from point A to B. My related reservation about the yoke is that using it with athletes ultimately invokes the ego, and ego tends to extinguish caution, and, in the worst cases, promising careers. With that, keep the load on carries fairly moderate, and work on speed. Most strongman athletes do exactly this in their training, imposing time caps for traveling a given distance with a particular implement. You train with loads where you can stay within that time. If the athlete is unable to cover the requisite distance within the established time cap, he or she needs to go down in load, and work up to the heavier one. This makes sense on a lot of levels. Nobody wins a carry event by going slow, so training for it should also emphasize an aggressive timeframe, not to mention that non-excessive loads are more forgiving on the skeleton. Dominant Positions and Fitness Realms

Dominant plane Transverse thorax Frontal pelvis Sagittal limbs



Dominant stance Front/Back Dominant load Goal specific Dominant velocity Goal specific Dominant duration Goal specific

This list is probably the biggest cop out in this book, because it’s one of those “it depends” lists. How could it not, though? If you are a marathon runner, you’re going to be training at different velocities and durations than a sprinter, and different loads than a strongman. With locomotion, the one common denominator is that it will be done from a front/back stance perspective under all settings. What I would like for fellow coaches to take away from this is that sprinters and marathoners should not train the same way, strongman athletes and sprinters should not train the same way, and so on. Specificity will always rule the day, and those who fail to recognize that will make up excuses for why they consistently fail to dominate. Size, shape, genetic potential, and preparedness are the major contributors to overall success rates, but, of these, preparedness is the only variable the athlete can significantly alter. The ever-present challenge for coaching athletes is making sure to avoid training exercises that do not aid the athlete’s goals, while emphasizing high and consistent effort towards the ones that do. Because successfully motivating the athlete’s level of effort will vary from one to the next, optimal exercise selection, and, perhaps more importantly, suboptimal exercise rejection, becomes our vital function as coaches.

09 Pattern 5: Change of Direction

Page

142

Pattern 5: Change of Direction

Chapter 9

Few American and Western sports feature full speed running for extended periods of time. Instead, the athlete spends most of the game stopping, starting, accelerating and decelerating, and rarely moving in straight lines. The fitness industry has responded to this phenomenon with speed and agility camps, and devices like agility ladders. Because many sport coaches see a resemblance between these agility drills and the movements required of their athletes in their given sport, they gravitate towards agility training as the most specific and effective training their athletes can get. Supporters of “gap analysis” point out that the majority of time playing the sport involves demonstrating agility qualities, so focusing on these during fitness development time is redundant. In their view, fitness development time should instead be spent on training the athlete to produce greater force, and become more

robust and well rounded by filling fitness gaps associated with his or her sport. In addition to examining fitness quality gaps, coaches have found that improving the ability to change direction may be better facilitated by certain weight room training than by agility drills. This is because, rather than requiring “fast feet”, ground contact times are actually driven by slow speed strength. And, what do I think? I think that improving an athlete’s change of direction abilities emerges from his or her ability to optimally shape-change his or her thorax and pelvis. This is to express tremendous force absorption and production, as well as the ability to optimally position him or herself for change of direction challenges. Change of direction coaches remind me a lot of good golf swing coaches, in that they both emphasize setup as the most important element of success. Using the right stance and grip are the main components of a desired outcome, which will often come about as a result of simply allowing the club to “swing itself”. Similarly, possessing requisite range of motion and strength ensures the ball’s flight path features the optimal shape, and can hence travel farther. When hearing Lee Taft speak on athleticism, movement expression, and change of direction, I hear a similar message. The organism will always perform the most effective execution of the task. The coach’s challenge is to put the athlete in a starting position that maximally facilitates the athlete’s natural instincts to optimally perform the task at hand. By the same token, the setup is where many athletes—and, by extension, their coaches—go wrong. Optimize the set up, and the expression of the sport

Page

143

movement you’re after will likely emerge. If we stop to think about it, experienced and wise as it may be, your “coaching brain” is likely no competition for the billions of years of human evolution that are informing your athlete’s physical and spatial-navigational movements. What we coaches can bring to the table are drills with built-in constraints, which force the athlete into desired positions, featuring optimal arrangement of the body. From there, to promote technical mastery of given movement, we can stand back, and let the athlete’s natural movements flow. If you’re considering a focus in this realm of fitness development, do yourself a favor and check out Lee Taft’s work, and/or attend one of his seminars. To become a great coach in this realm, you’ll want to immerse yourself in that world. Chris Chase, who currently works with the Memphis Grizzlies basketball team, is another invaluable resource for great information and advice on change of direction coaching.

Physical Factors Related to Change of Direction Cal Dietz, the strength and conditioning coach at the University of Minnesota who is best known for developing the hockey players there, is also the author of Triphasic Training, which has become one of the more popular books in the strength and conditioning field. Utilizing the 5-10-5 “Pro Agility” test, Triphasic Training documents substantially greater improvements in athletes using an eccentric and isometric-focused strength training program, versus those using typical agility training. (Sidebar: in this section, I’ll be using the word “eccentric” to refer to lowering a weight.) Though peer reviewed literature about the effects of strength training on agility and change of direction abilities is sparse, a few studies have been conducted. Sheppard and Young (2006) conducted a review of the characteristics associated with the concept of agility. They concluded that physical

factors, such as strength, power, and technique play a role in being able to display agility, and that factors like visual scanning technique, visual scanning speed, and pattern recognition associated with anticipation are major factors in agility. McBride et al. (2002) found that squat jump training at both 80% 1RM and 30% 1RM significantly improved agility performances. Keiner et al. (2014) demonstrated that long term strength training for soccer players (two years) led to improved change of direction capabilities compared to players who did not strength train. Strength then appears to be an important contributing factor for agility and change of direction capabilities. Change of direction challenges involve being able to decelerate the momentum of the body mass going in one direction, and redirect the body mass in another direction. Some changes of direction require a complete stoppage of the body’s momentum prior to redirection, while others require cornering actions, characterized by continuous movement as the body shifts directions. Incalculable change of direction nuances aside, all such maneuvers will be characterized by strong yielding and overcoming actions. An underdeveloped element of muscular contractile behavior will compromise change of direction ability. In Triphasic Training, Cal attributes incredible improvements in change of direction capabilities to focused eccentric and isometric training methods of the aforementioned specialized strength training program. Likewise, he notes that force plate analysis of higher-level athletes revealed a very specific shape on the activity graph that plotted their eccentric-to-isometric-to-concentric- contractile movements. These elite athletes had rapid eccentric activities, miniscule time spent in the isometric phase, and a quick concentric action. While lower-level athletes also displayed quick concentric actions, their eccentric and isometric actions were slow and prolonged compared to their higher level counterparts. As such, Cal posited that the most important thing he could do is improve the eccentric and isometric capabilities of his athletes. He viewed the foun-

Page

144

dation of developing these capabilities as the ability to absorb and hold significant amounts of weight. Once this foundation was in place, training would focus on using faster and faster eccentric and isometric lifts. Completion of this second stage should then result in significantly improved abilities in change of direction capabilities, which is indeed supported by findings in the relevant literature. To me, the ability to cut, corner, juke, dodge, cross over, and break ankles can’t necessarily be attributed to just one quality. If you spend time around high-level athletes, you’ll probably find that some of the most elusively agile athletes have largely avoided the weightroom, and that many of the strongest weight room frequenters are not the most elusive. Now, I am not dismissing the weightroom and the many, career-long benefits of consistent strength training. I’m just pointing out that there doesn’t appear to be a one-to-one correlation between strength and change of direction capabilities, suggesting that strength training isn’t the sole predictor of these capabilities. From what I’ve heard about Allen Iverson’s weight room utilization, he was not particularly fond of training, and essentially never did it. Yet, this man may be the most elusive individual in basketball history, and his crossover dribble is one of the most unstoppable moves ever displayed on a basketball court. It could be that Iverson’s rate of yielding force production was off the charts, and that this variable is fully responsible for his agility abilities, but my guess is that other variables are involved. If there’s more to change of direction than absolute strength, the next logical argument to be made is that perhaps relative strength is the most significant factor at play. I consider this an intelligent argument, on which I will briefly touch here. The greatest degree of absolute strength will be displayed by your offensive linemen and sumo wrestlers, but these guys won’t fare well in change of direction challenges against your running backs and defensive backs, who will certainly beat the offensive linemen and sumo wrestlers in relative strength testing. Relatedly,

we would probably see differences in relative strength measures between Division 3 and Division 1 defensive backs, as well as differences between college kids and pros. So, while we won’t delve into it here, relative strength is probably highly correlated with ability level in football, as well as change of direction testing performance. But, there’s yet more to the change of direction success equation. Athlete scouting reports provide useful nuance about an athlete’s change of direction capabilities, irrespective of said athlete’s relative strength. One athlete’s report might mention that he “has to rely on closing speed in coverage”, while others may cite “great linear speed, but can’t separate on routes”. These reports describe athletes who struggle with “level change”: rotating their bodies, and being able to get in and out of breaks. They will test every degree as talented as those who are beating them out at their position. One differentiator is their lesser ability to shapechange their thorax and pelvis to the same extent as the most dominant players. Another is a lesser ability to direct fluids and pressures inside their bodies, and yet another is a lesser ability to recognize athletic patterns as their more agile direction-changing peers. There are limitless limitations for moving in the optimal fashion required by a given sport. A coach’s job is to tease out the most likely limitation a given athlete is bumping up against. Maybe he or she truly isn’t strong enough. Do you have some relative strength standards that may be indicative of this? Maybe he or she lacks the ability to create certain shapes and get body segments into specific positions that serve to maximize the technique required for the change of direction demands of his or her sport. Do you have table test standards to determine if they lack the potential to position their body appropriately? Could this athlete have some cognitive pattern recognition deficits, resulting in inadequately slow or suboptimal responses to environmental stimuli? Can you create standardized tests to quantify the athlete’s knowledge of specific game situations and tactics that go along with those events?

Page

145

When assessing change-of-direction capabilities, this book aims to examine strategies, orientation, and action, as it relates to a given task. Findings have suggested that improving muscular strength through resistance training also improves change of direction. Strength training is a compression-dominant phenomenon. What probably helps athletes in agility tests is the ability to maintain a concentric orientation while performing yielding actions during change of direction tasks. When you maintain a concentric orientation in a yielding action, you reduce the yielding ROM. By reducing yielding ROM, you decrease the time spent going in the yielding direction, which would lead to reduced ground contact times. Actual in-game change of direction capabilities may necessitate the simultaneous ability to get into eccentric orientations while performing the yielding action of a change of direction task. If the athlete is unable to get into the eccentric orientation of the relevant yielding tissues, this would impair his or her change of direction potential. The solution here would be to continue to monitor relevant table tests of joint ROM throughout the athlete’s training career. If the athlete begins to lose critical joint motion as a result of improving strength, this could be the canary in the coal mine, to suggest that the ability to create an eccentric orientation could be getting compromised. For certain cuts, the athlete is best served by holding a concentric orientation during the yielding action. Other circumstances may require achieving an eccentric orientation. Great athletes have the ability to assume either orientation during their yielding actions. The ability to call upon the right orientation at the right time for the appropriate task is probably the differentiating factor for expressing change of direction capabilities. First, ensure that the athlete has the ability to use all strategies, orientations, and actions. From there, skilled coaches can develop the combinations of orientations and actions that best serve the athlete’s most needed sports movements, including his or her change of direction needs.

Change of direction ability should be developed by training with specific drills. The takehome for this chapter is that we have probably over-emphasized a single mode of training for developing this ability. If you ask me, we should always try to understand the underlying components of what allows a phenomenon to be expressed, and target the rate-limiting factor for optimal expression of the ability. What we should not do is assume every athlete is inhibited in his or her ability to express a quality by the same underlying limiting factor. We should also attempt to improve this ability by coaching athletes on the ideal starting position for success in the skills demanded by a given sport, and then step back and allow their natural abilities to take charge. Explain the intent of the task to the athlete, let the athlete compete, have fun, and be aggressive in the drills, and you’ll probably have success. Once armed with the requisite movement potential tools, the athlete will typically self-organize to accomplish the task to the best of his or her abilities. General Guidelines to Follow for COD Progressions When starting change of direction training, there are some basic guidelines to follow that will minimize problems, help speed up acquisition of learning great technique, and set the stage for reaching optimal expression of this ability. Change of direction is not vastly different from other motor patterns for fitness development, but there are a few quirks to this particular pattern. The four big change of direction coaching progressions follow: 1.Start with focusing on stopping 2.Start with shorter distances of acceleration (slower top speed) With the exception of slideboard (where longer distances equal less impact velocity) 3.Increase distance progressively 4.Track volume on number of starts and stops, as well as yardage accumulated 5.Increase volume progressively

Page

146

Everyone wants to get right into getting in and out of cuts in their change of direction training, but I would recommend first having your athletes learn how to come to a complete stop. Once an athlete has that down, they can then move onto mastering how to reaccelerate out of their break. Cal Dietz did a great job of pointing out to the performance coaching world that we need to do a better job of focusing on eccentric and isometric-specific strength training. This “focus on the stop” recommendation reflects a similar concept. The recommendation also fits well into the model proposed here, as this is another way of saying: “Start static before progressing to dynamic”. The other element that I am trying to focus on with this recommendation is paying homage to the fact that change of direction training relies so heavily on putting the athletes in a great starting position, and allowing them to spontaneously display their athleticism. So, on the other end of the spectrum, “Focus on the start” teaches the importance of the proper static positioning to move out of. Next up, “Start with shorter distances of acceleration” is another way of recommending graded exposure to progressively greater forces in the athlete’s training. If you permit the athlete a five yard zone to start and stop in, they will reach a lower top speed than would be achievable in a 15 yard zone. The only exception to this is the slide board. With the slide board, the further the lateral barriers are from each other, the more time there is for friction to decelerate the athlete before coming in contact with the wooden foot barrier. There is probably a point at which increasing the distance between start and stop lines doesn’t matter, as most athletes will probably be unable to accelerate beyond 25 to 30 meters, and change of direction zones longer than this are uncommon. Increase distances progressively, and keep these intensity changes in mind for calculating changes in training volume, to minimize the negative side effects of excess training load spikes. When tracking change of direction training volume, you should account for the number of starts and stops, as well as the total yardage of movement accumulated. Admittedly, I

do not have an exact mathematical formula to provide for this. I would simply suggest data tracking yardage in one column, and stops and starts in the other. Stay away from dramatically increasing both at the same time. Yardage will express total mechanical work. Starts and stops will express the cyclical transitions from overcoming, to yielding, and back to overcoming, in which the athlete will engage. These cycles are incredibly demanding on an athlete’s musculature. The effects of direction-change cycles on an athlete’s system are more difficult to interpret than total yardage accrued, but counting them will aid better determinations for quantitatively progressing change of direction training. Training Change-of-Direction Overview

•Available Stances: All •Available Planes: All •Available Loads: Light and Moderate (weight vest on slideboard) •Available Velocities: Moderate and Fast •Available Durations: All (slide board for long duration)

Sagittal Plane The available options for sagittal plane change of direction training are drills done from the bilateral stance and the front/back stance. All drills will be done at high velocity, and duration will be short and moderate. With bilateral stance drills, this will involve starting the athlete in the “athletic position” accelerating out of that position, then decelerating, and coming to an isometric athletic position/bilateral stance on the change of direction/stop line. With front/back stance drills, the athlete will start in a soft start position, accelerate from this position, decelerate, and then come to an isometric front/back stance at the change of direction/stop line. With sagittal plane drills, we have sprintto-stop, sprint-to-backpedal, backpedal-to-stop, and backpedal-to-sprint drills as our available

Page

147

options. You cannot do sprint-to-sprint drills at the change of direction line, because this would involve a turn at the change of direction, as well as getting into a lateral stance. With sagittal plane drills, you will be facing the same direction at all points in the drill, as these drills are linear at heart. Here is the list of sagittal plane change of direction drills:

want you to be aware of is the ability to level change. To stop, I need you to be able to drop your center of mass. I’m going to need you to break down effectively to decelerate, stop, and change direction. If you’re going to sprint really fast, I need you to think ‘Up!’ If you’re going to slow down quickly, I need you to think ‘Down’. Get down, break down, chop and drop.”



Frontal Plane

Bilateral symmetrical Sprint to stop Sprint to backpedal Backpedal to stop Backpedal to sprint Front/Back staggered Sprint to stop Sprint to backpedal Backpedal to stop Backpedal to sprint

Coaching Points Her research on internal versus external coaching cues gained Gabrielle Wulfe recognition. The most popularized amongst her findings is that external cues are generally going to be more helpful to athletes than internal cues, which can actually be detrimental to performance in many instances. If you want to make a tennis player much worse at hitting the ball, ask her to focus on what she’s doing with her wrist during their swing. Instead, prompting the athlete to focus on elements outside his or her body, and generally explaining any task, as well as intent with which it should be approached, are recipes for coaching success. Give the athlete a direction to move in and an attitude to bring to the job, and paint mental pictures of the expected shapes his or her body should take during the drill, and positive results will consistently follow. The task for all change of direction drills is pretty straight forward: to go back and forth between two points as quickly as possible. The intent that I like to have athletes bring to this task is that of being competitors. “Just win, baby. Like a jungle cat, I need you to be relaxed, yet aggressive, supple, powerful, light on your feet, ferocious. The other approach I

To me, the frontal plane is the show when you talk about change of direction, elusiveness, and being able to break ankles. There are all kinds of jukes that are done in sports. Sometimes, athletes will do stop/start moves that are sagittal in nature, sometimes athletes will do spin moves and pivots, but most of the time, lateral jukes are the weapon of choice. I view the shuttle run is the most natural drill in existence for training change of direction. If you were going to try to go back and forth between two points multiple times, the shuttle run method would always be the approach that you would take. The cut on the shuttle run is always the lateral stance, and the change of direction is always dominated by redirecting pressures and volumes inside the body in the frontal plane. There are special circumstances and contexts where athletes choose to use other moves to fake out their opponents with sagittal or transverse change of direction moves, but, when push comes to shove and you’re trying to go back and forth as fast as you possibly can, it’s the ability to change direction in the frontal plane that dominates. The archetype for frontal plane change of direction is Barry Sanders. Sanders was like a human pinball, and he made NFL defender’s look silly when they tried to tackle him. When you look at still shots of Sanders making moves on opponents, you can actually see his full ability to compress one side of his body and expand the other side. The positions Sanders was able to get into at full speed are beyond belief, all while NFL linebackers were trying to kill him, no less. We’re talking positions most of us would fail to achieve in a low stress, static situation. Frontal plane change of direction truly is the

Page

148

ability to sequester volume to one side, while simultaneously compressing the opposite side of the body. If you really want to know what that looks like, watch a Barry Sanders highlight reel, and then do an internet search for images of Sanders in the middle of his cuts. There are more available options for training change of direction in the frontal plane than there are for the sagittal plane. All three stances are available. Sprinting, backpedaling, and side-shuffling are the available modes for getting through space. You also have the slide board as an additional tool. When we talk about velocities, we will generally still be working in the high velocity range, but if we are doing slide board for an extended period of time, the velocity can move down to a moderate range. When it comes to change of direction and working in the long duration domain, the slide board is the only tool and approach I would recommend. It removes all ground contacts from the equation, and is pretty easy on the body. If you did long-duration shuttle runs, you would probably be so sore the next day that you wouldn’t be able to get out of bed. That said, accumulating 30 plus minutes of slide board work in a training session is certainly not something that is unheard of for trained individuals, and I have personally accumulated more than that without incurring severe DOMS the next day. There is a lot of bleedover between transverse and frontal plane work with change of direction. If you are rotating your whole body to get into and out of cuts, you’re going into the realm of transverse… but the general idea is that some drills are more frontal/transverse than others, and they will be categorized into one of those two planar domains, depending on which is more dominant. As a general rule of thumb, side shuffling places the drill into frontal plane dominance. The following is a list of available options for frontal plane change of direction work:



Bilateral Side shuffle to stick Side shuffle shuttle Front/Back Sprint to side shuffle Back pedal to side shuffle Lateral Sprint to shuttle run stick Shuttle run Ladder drills (Icky shuffle variants) Side shuffle to sprint Cross-over step to sprint Slideboard

Fig 9.1 - Person that is shuffling in the frontal plane Fig 9.2 - Person on the slideboard

Page

149

Coaching Points The most common cue coaches will give for changing direction and coming in and out of brakes is to “stay low”. Being able to drop center of mass allows for rapid deceleration and stopping ability. Insufficient strength and joint range of motion access are the two common culprits behind the inability to get low, and get in and out of breaks. And, if either weakness or positional insufficiency are at play, more agility work is probably not the right solution for improving agility performance. Those who struggle with change of direction can benefit from diagnostic tests, to help identify the main limiter of performance. The table and the barbell are two good tools for this. Can the athlete demonstrate close to human norms for joint range of motion? Can the athlete yield with a heavy barbell and hold it still at any point in the range of motion? Can the athlete perform fast yielding actions with a barbell, and stop it like a statue at any point in the range of motion? You don’t need a force plate and a laboratory biomechanics camera setup to get a good idea about what the athlete is lacking. If you believe your athlete is strong enough and has the joint range of motion potential to be able to perform change of direction tasks well, there are a few other things that may be holding him or her back in the actual performance of the task. Some of the common factors I’ve encountered are improper footwear, inappropriate training surface, and lack of competition. If the interaction between the athlete and the ground is compromised, so is the athlete’s ability to demonstrate a high level change of direction capabilities. First, make sure you have an appropriate floor on which to do change of direction work, and do not take risks here; you do not want people slipping, turning ankles, or wiping out while doing these drills. To reduce risk of slipping, check your athlete’s footwear for proper lacing and sufficient tread. Injuries resulting from an inappropriate training surface or footwear are largely avoidable, and certainly something fitness professionals should take care to avoid on our watch.

As for creating a competitive environment for the change of direction work, we typically get more from the athletes we train when they’re competing against other athletes. If they’re sheltered from competition throughout their change of direction training, they’re unlikely to ever go as fast as they could, and hence likely to leave a lot of training adaptations on the table. Transverse Plane When I think of great transverse-plane change of direction and agility, I think of the great post players in NBA history. The person who comes to mind first is Hakeem “The Dream” Olajuwon. Olajuwon made other centers look foolish as he pivoted towards and away from the baseline before going up and under, or faded away with a jumper. Hakeem’s signature “dream shake” is one of the most unstoppable moves in NBA history, right up there with Kareem’s one and only “sky hook”, Jordan’s fade away, and Harden’s step back. Olajuwon’s footwork was second to none, and at 7 feet tall, the speed and fluidity of his reverse pivot seemed unfair to opposing defenders. Similarly, my archetype for transverse plane change of direction is the Dream Shake. If you remember Hakeem “The Dream”, you know exactly what I’m talking about. If not, and you appreciate poetry in motion, do yourself a favor and look it up. Transverse plane change of direction involves being able to pivot from a static start, and then either accelerating out of that position, or decelerating your momentum in a given direction, followed by pivoting into a change of direction. My conviction is that the ability to orient and control one’s sphenoid, sternum, and sacrum in the transverse plane is what makes for great pivoting. Can these structures turn like a weather vane through space? Are they able to link up and work together, as well as separate and dissociate from each other? In order to pivot at full speed and go in a given direction, all three must work together. To fake a pivot in one direction and then go the other, these central “S” bones need to be able to dissociate from

Page

150

each other. All three stances are available for transverse plane change of direction drills. These drills are all about being able to pivot into some form of acceleration (sprint, back pedal, or shuffle), or decelerate from some form of acceleration into a pivot change of direction. Here is the list of available options for transverse plane change of direction training: Transverse plane available options

Bilateral symmetrical Pivot to sprint Pivot to shuffle Front/Back staggered Sprint to Pivot Back pedal to Pivot Lateral staggered Side shuffle to Pivot

around quickly, the body will follow. In wrestling, you hear: “Control the head, and you’ll control the body”. By the same token, you need to let your eyes direct you into and out of your turns on a motorcycle; look where you want to go, and the bike will follow. Rotating, pivoting, and turning with optimal efficacy are also movements where the head controls the body, and the eyes can guide you where you want to go. Technique aside, the use of spin moves in sports also demands confidence and aggressiveness. When you see a mixed martial artist go for a spinning back kick or a spinning back hand, you know you’re watching a confident fighter. When a hockey player attempts a spino-rama, in that moment, that player isn’t holding back. A running back who spins on a linebacker in the A gap is out to dominate the game. When pulled off as intended, transverse plane change of direction can be downright spectacular. But, if something goes wrong during their execution, they can also leave the athlete particularly vulnerable, as they require momentarily giving up some control. You might not see something coming, or miscalculate one of the many moving parts of performing these moves. One thing’s for sure: you cannot be unsure of yourself during a spin, nor doubt its outcome. Dominant Positions and Fitness Realms

Fig 9.3 - Person going from back pedaling to a reverse pivot Coaching Points Pivoting quickly hinges on the ability to get the head around fast. If you are going to be doing pirouettes, you need to have a visual focal point you can find when you spin back around to your starting position. Before you turn, you should think about where you plan to look at the end of your turn, and practice finding that object as quickly as you can. If you can get the head



Dominant Plane: Frontal Dominant Stance: Lateral Dominant Load: Low Dominant Velocity: High Dominant Duration: Short to Moderate

Evolutionarily speaking, change of direction is based on the relationship between predator and prey. In sports, sometimes a player is the predator, and sometimes the prey. Both individuals need to be able to demonstrate change of direction capabilities. Are you evading or pursuing? This is not exclusive to offense or defense. Sometimes, a football player on offense is seeking to get a defender slightly off balance, and then run straight through his chest. Sometimes, the defender is setting up the offensive player, to strategically move him or her in a direction

Page

151

that allows the defender to close the gap, and close on the offensive player in a specific way. Nature endowed us with quick responses, rooted in the relationship of pursuit and evasion. Thanks to this gift, without conscious thought on our parts, our bodies will do the exact best thing they know how so as to survive. Sports exploit these built-in fight or flight responses, though, unlike nature, often allow players to change roles midstream, being the predator one minute and prey the next. So, if the instincts are a given, what an athlete may lack is pattern recognition of specific situations, and intelligent tactics for ensuring the desired outcome therein. Back to nature: juvenile lions aren’t masters of the hunt on day one. They have yet to learn from veteran members of their pride the craft of taking down prey animals. As such, the targets their chosen targets are prey animals that find themselves out of position, the young, the weak or the injured, all of which likely lack good evasion tactics. As an ambush predator, the lion carefully sets up her position before unleashing her attack. Instinctively, she knows that, if her starting position is suboptimal, the subsequent takedown may leave her—and hers—unfed. Every animal has its hustle. Alligators will pretend to be very slow, and then explode at their prey like a bolt of lightning. Some animals pretend not to be looking, and then strike. Sports, too, often utilize deception, and effective change of direction is a kind of deception. You need to work on your craft. You need to get into the game and recognize the patterns. You need to learn to set up your opponents to fall into your traps. You’re likely catching on by now that change of direction greatness isn’t all about athleticism. Yes, athleticism is incredibly helpful. But, as the movement pattern of this chapter is concerned, athleticism alone is insufficient without craftiness, timing, and the set up.

References: Keiner M, Sander A, Wirth K, Schmidtbleicher D. Long term strength training effects on change of direction sprint performance. J Strength Cond Res 28: 223–231, 2014. Mcbride JM, Triplett-Mcbride T, Davie A, Newton R. The effect of heavy- vs. light- load jump squats on the development of strength, power and speed. J Strength Cond Res 16: 75–82, 2002. Miller MG, Herniman JJ, Ricard MD, Cheatham CC, Michael TJ. The Effects of a 6-Week Plyometric Training Program on Agility. J Sports Sci Med. 2006 Sep; 5(3): 459–465. Published online 2006 Sep 1. Sheppard JM, Young WB. Agility literature review: Classifications, training and testing. J Sports Sci 24: 919–932, 2005.

10 Pattern 6: Throwing

Page

153

Pattern 6: Throwing

Chapter 10

Darwin believed that the key evolutionary step our ancestors took towards the presentation of modern humans was the transition to upright, bipedal movement. This step unlocked our ability to perform a slew of distinctly human activities, including running, dissipating heat, using tools, and cooking. In my opinion, throwing should be included in the discussion of movements that differentiate humans from other animals, because no other animal has the capability of launching projectiles with the velocity and pinpoint accuracy that we do. Some men have the ability to send small projectiles hurtling through the air at over 100 miles per hour, and can consistently hit small targets from distances of greater than 50 feet away. While smaller, slower, unable to jump as high or defend ourselves with sharp claws, teeth and other armour characteristic of our animal brothers, we are the only animal on this planet that can throw. And, from both an offensive and a defensive perspective, this ability is a weapon that’s second to none. When we think of the hunting style of ancient

humans, we typically think of the persistence hunting method. We would slowly run down animals in the peak of heat in the middle of the day in Africa. These animals would eventually overheat, collapse, and then we would go in for the kill. I don’t know about you, but I’m not taking my chances with a scared, dying zebra up close. That thing is a very strong, very muscular, wild African horse, and if it lashes out and kicks me, I’m in bad shape. As such, I would prefer to keep my distance, and pepper it with rocks until I’m sure it’s dead. But, once that happens, buzzards may circle and then swoop in for a piece of the action, and hyenas may get wind of a fresh kill. I’m going to need to defend my prey from these would-be thieves, again without getting close to them. Again, my chosen method for accomplishing all this would be to throw some rocks. A common complaint about modern athletes is that they are entirely overcompensated financially for what they do. I don’t share this complaint, because I can’t help but feel that we are paying modern athletes for their ancestors’ contributions to our survival as a species. If you happened to have someone in your tribe who could throw a sharp rock at 90 mph with great accuracy, they would be the “breadwinner” on whose skill the tribe would perpetually rely for its next meal. Maybe that’s why we watch, awestruck, as modern athletes throw baseballs at 100 mph—what we’re really seeing is a gift that would have fed us, and defended us from predatory animals thousands of years ago.

The Biomechanics of Throwing and Striking Throwing, punching, kicking, and striking objects with sticks and clubs are very similar actions. They involve the proper rotational se-

Page

154

quencing of hips, abdomen, thorax, shoulders, and appendages to drive the whip-like movement used to launch a projectile through space. When we create the stereotypical act of human projectile propulsion, we typically see the two sides of the body simultaneously perform opposite actions. When an athlete throws a baseball, the movement will be initiated with a windup, followed by a preparatory or cocking phase, then by a drive phase, wherein the athlete will actively accelerate his or her throwing arm towards the target to project the ball through space. Lastly, this motion will be followed by a follow-through phase with the throwing arm. When examining an athlete throwing a ball, you will see the ipsilateral arm and leg featuring the same movement strategies at the same time. So, if the glove-side arm is in a slot associated with compression in the propulsion arc, the glove-side leg should also be in a compression region of the arc, using compression joint actions. When you see one side of the body using a specific strategy, the other side of the body will be using its opposite. In the cocking phase, the glove-side arm will be pronated, internally rotated, and extended, while the throwing hand will be supinated, externally rotated, and flexed. The athlete will enter the drive phase of throwing, and the arms will switch joint actions. The glove-side arm will begin supinating, externally rotating, and flexing. The throwing arm will begin pronating, internally rotating, and extending.

Fig 10.1 - Different stages of a baseball throw

The lower extremities will work with the upper extremities to accomplish the task of throwing. During the cocking phase, the glove-side leg is in the air. The glove-side leg is somewhere in the middle of the propulsion arc, which is a compressive zone. Therefore, the primary actions on this side are compressive in nature. The glove-side leg will move towards the target, and eventually make contact with the ground. As the glove-side leg moves towards the target, it is moving further away from the mid-zone of the propulsion arc, and, at the moment the glove-side leg makes contact with the ground, that leg firmly enters early propulsion. When the glove-side leg hits the ground, this unequivocally triggers the drive phase of throwing. The glove-side leg is now externally rotating, flexing, and abducting. Meanwhile, the throwing hand-side leg is doing the opposite, engaging in late propulsion behaviors during the cocking phase of throwing, and pushing off with a powerful display of abduction, external rotation, and supination. The moment the glove-side leg hits the ground, the throwing-side leg begins to lift off the ground, increasingly undertaking compressive strategies by internally rotating, and powerfully adducting. At the point of release of the ball, the throwing hand-side arm and leg should be at maximum compression. The compression, concentric orientation of the muscles, and overcoming muscular actions of the throwing hand-side arm and leg are what launch the baseball through

Page

155

space during the drive phase of throwing. After release, the athlete enters the follow-through. The glove-side arm and leg of the body need to continue expanding, creating an eccentric orientation of the muscles, and a yielding muscular action, to help decelerate the throwing-side arm and leg. The windup phase is dominated by the expansion of the throwing hand-side arm and leg. By providing sufficient compression during the windup, the glove-side arm and leg assist the acquisition of proper throwing-side expansion. The drive phase of throwing is dominated by the compression of the throwing hand-side arm and leg. By providing sufficient expansion during the drive phase, the glove-side arm and leg assist the ability to reach maximum compression of the throwing side. The follow-through phase is dominated by the expansion of the glove-side arm and leg. By providing sufficient compression during the follow-through, the throwing hand-side arm and leg assist the acquisition of proper glove-side expansion. Both sides of the body fluidly work together during the throwing motion, to maximally prepare it for the throw, actually project the object, and then decelerate it afterwards.

Training the Throwing Pattern Available Options In the fitness environment, there are a few modalities available for training the throwing pattern. The primary tool that is used in most facilities is the medicine ball. You also have the ability to do chops and lifts with a stick or rope attached to a cable machine. Other options to train this pattern include sledge hammers and maces, along with kettlebells, kegs, and sand bags. Some gyms supply equipment for punching and kicking, like bags and mitts. Sagittal Bilateral, High Load, Moderate Velocity, Short Duration Within the quantitative limits of this available option, you have a few choices of drills that make sense. The choices are all very similar

to throwing events that you would see in something like the Highland Games, or in the sport of strongman. You can do activities like throwing kegs, sand bags, or kettlebells in an overhead direction, and potentially over bars. These drills feature the athlete swinging the object down between the legs, and then explosively launching it up and back over the head. These are fairly simple drills that generate great power, and are fantastic for synchronous, high rate-offorce development muscular actions. The order of progressions for these bilateral stance, high load, moderate velocity, short duration throwing activities is:

1.Heavy medicine ball overhead throw 2.Kettlebell overhead throw 3.Sandbag overhead throw 4.Keg overhead throw

Coaching Points Rhythm, sequencing, and timing are all critical to these types of throws. When looking to do one throw for maximal height, the athlete will want to take a few preparatory swings to feel the way the object swings down between the legs, and how it feels when traveling through its upward arc in the overhead direction. Once he or she feels out the movement’s rhythm and plots its path, the athlete is ready to launch the projectile. The connection between the feet and the ground is critically important here. You want the feet to be well-anchored to the ground throughout the throwing motion, but particularly at the time of the object’s launch. Coaching guidance here is “Be aggressive, and throw the object with the intent of trying to send it into outer space.” After the follow-through, the athlete’s feet should still feel very rooted in the ground. The only way to throw something very high off the ground is to push your feet down into it, which necessitates maintaining the connection between ground and feet. When it comes to larger objects like kegs, being able to maneuver the object between the legs on the downswing can be challenging. For kegs, the key is to feature ulnar deviation of the wrist at just the right time,

Page

156

meaning flicking the wrist towards the pinky side of the hand at just the right moment of the downswing, to prevent the keg from hitting the ground, instead quickly propelling it through the legs. Doing this dramatically increases the speed of the keg as it moves through the throwing zone, keeps the keg unencumbered on its swing path, and maximizes the ability to throw the object. Throwing is a bit like sprinting, in that, staying too tight is a recipe for failure. Even for heavy throwing, you need to figure out how to relax and be rhythmic. Yes, it’s very difficult to be relaxed when you’re trying to run as fast as you possibly can, or heave something very heavy. Yet, this is precisely what’s required to be good at the task, which requires very quick bursts of unbelievable initial force and compression, followed by relaxation, natural flow and expansion. You can always spot a stiff in throwing and sprinting events, and you can bet they’re going to lose out to athletes who can toggle the phase change that allows force and relaxation to alternate. Sagittal Bilateral, Low Load, High Velocity This is a realm that is primarily dominated by medicine balls thrown with a chest throw or an overhead throw. The only other drill that can live in here is a light overhead medicine ball throw. When examining chest throws and overhead throws, we can start in positions that train basic sensorimotor competencies, and then parlay those skills into progressively more challenging drills. When you examine the progressions for the throws in this category, you will see that they go from sitting to kneeling to standing to squatting. Something else to keep in mind is that you would always do the chest throw variation before the overhead throw. While both are linear throws, it is much easier to keep sagittal plane competencies with the chest throw variation. My recommendation would be to start with chest throws with the number one progression position, then work on overhead throws in the number one progression position before moving on to number two in the chest throws list. The following is the list of progressions for sagittal

plane, bilateral stance, low load, high velocity throws: 1. Seated w/heel contact (rower)

2. Long seated w/feet pressing into box

3. Long seated 4. Tall kneeling w/feet on wall 5. Tall kneeling

6. Standing

Page

157

7. Semi-squat

8. Deeper squat

Coaching Points When coaching any of these positions, once the subject is seated, kneeling, standing, etc., cue them to get tall through the middle of their skull. Next, ask him or her to reach for the wall with the ball without losing any height. Then, have him or her exhale as much air as possible without losing any height. Now, ask them if they can feel their abs and hamstrings. If they nod affirmatively, that’s what you want (If they’re answering you, they haven’t fully exhaled)! Next, have the subject inhale, while keeping their height, as well as the position of the abs and hamstrings, and throw the ball. This is the sequence I personally use to cue these drills: get tall, reach, exhale, find and feel, inhale, maintain, and, finally, throw. At first, this is a little cumbersome, and mistakes are common. But, after a few sets, things start to fall into place, at which point you can challenge your subject to run through this sequence at a faster pace. Eventually, it becomes automatic and the sets move fluidly.

With the first drill, which requires sitting on a rowing ergometer, I sometimes put a band around the subject’s trunk, and then loop the other end of the band around the far end of the rower behind him or her. This utilizes RNT, providing some resistance for the subject to pull against. It’s also a surefire way to engage the hamstrings. When subjects keep their height, and find abs with their reach on this drill, they will be highly primed to throw with power. Oftentimes, people are amazed at the power of their throws as a result of this drill. And, once they’ve mastered it, they know what to find and feel to make subsequent throwing drills just as successful. For seated drills, you can prompt the subject to “get tall” by asking them to push their butts down into the ground. This helps subjects find their ischial tuberosity (sit bones), to serve as points of contact on both sides. Similarly, for kneeling drills, you can cue folks to push their knees down into the ground, which will often quickly and effectively engage the hamstrings. In fact, you know you have your work cut out for you with subjects that do not immediately feel hamstrings with this cue in this position. That work is to help them develop sagittal plane sensorimotor competencies, which highly flexible subjects will often need. Don’t be in a rush to get to other planes with these subjects. It might be difficult for them to figure out the sagittal plane, but, once they do, a bevy of positive ripple effects will ensue. Sagittal, Front/Back, Low Load, High Velocity, Short Duration These drills will be limited to linear throws. The positions available here include half kneeling, retro step, standing staggered step, split squat, backwards lunging, and forwards lunging. There is a big gap in ability needed to do the first progression versus the last progression in this category. Being able to properly do an overhead throw from a lunge step requires a tremendous amount of athleticism and fairly advanced training age and competency. You will get incredible results

Page

158

from many of the early exercise progressions, so don’t be in a rush to get to the end of the list just because those exercises look fancy. Find the drill that lives at the subject’s ability level, and maximize the adaptations you get from that drill. The following is the list of progressions for sagittal plane, front/back stance, low load, high velocity, short duration throws:

6. Split squat w/back foot on wall

1. Half kneeling w/back foot on wall 7. Split squat 8. Backwards lunge

2. Half kneeling 3. Retro step 9. Forward lunge 10. Forward lunge w/back foot on wall Coaching Points

4. Standing staggered w/back foot on wall

5. Standing staggered

“Getting tall” is the first order of business in these positions. From there, coaching through the feet is really critical, as is identifying the target muscle in each leg. Look for every opportunity for great foot contact with the floor or a wall behind the subject. If I manage to get subjects tall, with full foot coverage on the ground, I get most of the competencies I’m looking for. From there, I follow the previously presented sequence: go after the same reach with the ball to get abs without losing height, inhale while holding sensation of proper muscles, and throw. Now, the question is: which muscle am I going after on each leg? If someone is in a half-kneeling position, the front leg is flexed at the hip, with the foot flat on the floor. The back leg’s knee is on the ground, and the sole of the foot is pointing backwards. That makes the target tissue of the front leg the

Page

159

hamstring, and the target tissue of the back leg the glute. Hamstrings are the hip extensors for a flexed hip. Glutes are the hip extensors for a leg that is near terminal extension. I’ll often cue the subject to try to drag the floor backwards with the front heel, and try to bring the back pocket down towards the back of the knee on the back leg, all while not losing any height. The other motor competency red flag is whether the sternum goes into a down pump handle position. This undesirable sternal motion is usually what drives the loss of height, and is usually accompanied by a turtle shell-shaped back. The retro step that is featured in this series is not one that creates a hip shift. One simply takes a step backwards with one foot, keeping the hips and shoulders square. From there, the trick is to distribute slightly more weight to the back foot than the front foot, and sink down into a slight squat with the back heel as the primary reference point.

Within this category of exercise, linear throws and rotational throws are available options. What will make these throws frontal plane is the hip shift involved. That said, there’s absolutely bleed-over into the sagittal plane for linear throws, just as there’s a transverse plane element in rotational throws. Once you start doing rotational throws, it’s a drill that could just as easily be called a transverse plane drill. To avoid redundancy, the progressions below are only listed as frontal plane drills, all of which are also pelvis drills. Linear throws are sagittal thorax, and rotational drills are transverse thorax. The drills listed below only include the position in which you’re putting the subject. My recommendation is to start with linear throws in each position, and then progress to rotational throws: 1. Tall kneeling w/stance knee elevated, feet on wall, & w/hip shift

While executing the lunge steps and throws, you are looking to keep height through the thorax and skull. The common motor errors that you will see are as follows: 1.Demonstrating too much trunk lean. 2.The hip goes into a hinge (rides along with trunk lean). 3.The angle of the back leg features a negative thigh angle that is excessive (you’re looking for the thigh to be close to straight up and down). 4.The knee does not track forward enough on the front leg (you want to see dorsiflexion and shooting forward of the knee). 5.The front foot does not pronate enough (first ray doesn’t drop, big toe doesn’t have good contact with the ground). If you get a subject to move into a great lunge with an ankle that dorsiflexes, a back hip that extends, and a body that looks like it could drop down in a very tight elevator shaft, you’ve got some body working at a very high level in front of you. Frontal, Bilateral, Low Load, High Velocity, Short Duration

2. Tall kneeling w/stance knee elevated, and w/ hip shift 3. Tall kneeling w/hip shift 4. Standing w/stance foot elevated w/hip shift

5. Standing w/hip shift

Page

160

6. Semi-squat w/stance foot elevated and w/hip shift

of the femur, which is just following the pelvis. Cueing them through the inside edge of the foot will commonly result in a cascade of properly executed movements, saving you both a lot of time and frustration. Frontal, Front/Back, Low Load, High Velocity, Short Duration

7. Semi squat w/hip shift 8. Squat w/stance foot elevated and w/hip shift 9. Squat w/hip shift Coaching Points When coaching the frontal plane from the tall kneeling position, I tell subjects to increasingly load the knee on the hip shift side, and increasingly unload the knee on the side opposite the hip shift. This cue typically helps the subject center over the stance-side knee, and begin to rotate into the hip shift-side hip. This same cue works really well for standing and squatting positions, with the only difference being that you’re now asking subjects to load the shift-side foot and unload the opposite foot. When I am coaching rotational throws, I have a few go-to cues that typically work. First, I get my subject to center, “Load the stance side and unload the opposite side.” Second, I ask him or her to bring the ball to the pocket, and then to bring both the ball and the pocket towards the wall behind him or her. This cue typically results in a hip shift of the stance side, allowing the thorax to rotate nicely over that hip, and setting the subject up for a powerful throw. Oftentimes, I’ll see the weight going excessively to the outside of the subject’s foot. In those circumstances, I’ll guide him or her to plant down hard on the inside edge of the foot, and keep the big toe down on the ground. When you see a subject with the weight on the outside edge of the foot, you can all but guarantee that he or she isn’t maintaining control over the position

This category includes linear and rotational throws. All throws done in this category will feature a hip shift, which makes them frontal plane throws. The positions we have available to us are a retro step, half kneeling, standing staggered, split squat, backwards lunging, and forwards lunging. This is a large number of positions, and a big gulf to cross from the early progression drills to the late progression drills. A significant amount of strength, athleticism, motor learning skill, and training time needs to be cultivated and invested in before someone is going to be able to perform moving lunge variations of these throws with proficiency. Here is the list of drills from the frontal plane, front/back stance, low load, high velocity, short duration, throwing category of exercise: 1. Elevated stance foot retro step w/hip shift

2. Retro step w/hip shift 3. Half kneeling w/hip shift and w/rear foot on wall

Page

161

4. Half kneeling w/hip shift 5. Standing staggered w/hip shift and w/rear foot on wall

6. Standing staggered w/hip shift 7. Semi-split squat w/hip shift and w/rear foot on wall 8. Semi-split squat w/hip shift 9. Split squat w/hip shift and w/rear foot on wall 10. Split squat w/hip shift 11. Backwards lunge w/hip shift 12. Forward lunge w/hip shift

Coaching Points This is one of my favorite categories in all of exercise, and drill number one is one of my favorite exercises available therein. Both in my own training and that of my subjects, I feel like I’m constantly reverting to early drills from the progression lists. Many of these early progression drills are fairly easy to execute, stimulate a great response, and facilitate continued learning and improvement on their underlying concept. My advice with most of the drills throughout this book is to not be afraid of going back to earlier progressions, even if you’ve become proficient at some of the later ones. When you return to them, you’ll probably find

that there’s more water in those early wells. The other thing that you may find is that most of your clients will not get sick of the early exercises as quickly as you may become sick of coaching them. You’re going to train ten to twelve people per day, one-on-one, or sixty to eighty in small group training, and witness the same exercises being performed over and over. Make that hundreds of people if you’re working with big groups or teams. The thing to remember is: just because you’re sick of seeing it and coaching it, doesn’t mean that the subjects actually doing the drills are. If you keep this in mind, it’s easier to think twice before switching a drill to the next level of progression. For some, these front/back throws will come easier than the bilateral throws. Every pattern will have its own little quirks. Throwing isn’t something that people do much of in a bilateral stance, so it can lock the action up a little bit. Staggering the feet can help make throwing feel a bit more natural. The cues will not be dissimilar from those recommended in the previous section: “Load the foot on the side of the hip shift, and unload the foot on the other side. Bring the ball to the pocket, and then bring the pocket back.” These will help promote thoracic and hip rotation to the hip shift side. The word “coil” helps get some subjects to move in the right direction. Also, having subjects reference the inside edge of their foot on the side that they are rotating towards will help keep the femur centered, and should help lend more power to the throw. Frontal, Lateral, Low Load, High Velocity, Short Duration Proper execution of the backswing of a slap shot or a golf swing relies on the same concept as the setup for the throws in this category. The backswing for these kinds of movements involves lateralizing one’s weight over the hip shift-side foot, and having the other leg guide the subject into the windup. The windup lateralization towards the backside (hip shiftside) foot sets the stage for the pelvis to lateralize towards the frontside foot, as the body is ro-

Page

162

tating to drive the stick/club through the impact zone. The lateralization of the pelvis towards the backside foot on the windup and towards the frontside foot through the impact zone is a primary driver of power for these rotary activities. All of these lateral stance drills are great devices for teaching this concept and training athletes to maximize this ubiquitous movement strategy. Both linear and rotational throws are available in this category. The positions available include lateral kneeling, lateral staggered standing, lateral squatting, and lateral lunging. Being able to properly step into a lateral lunge and then execute a throw from there is one of the most difficult exercises around. The throws in this category are the most difficult, and the lunge is the most difficult drill within this category. Make sure your subjects are fully ready for it before embarking on this exercise. The following is the list of drills for the frontal plane, lateral stance, low load, high velocity, short duration category of throws:

4. Elevated stance foot lateral semi-squat w/hip shift

5. Lateral semi-squat w/hip shift 6. Lateral squat w/hip shift 7. Lateral lunge w/hip shift

1. Lateral kneeling w/hip shift Coaching Points

2. Elevated stance foot lateral standing w/hip shift

3. Lateral standing w/hip shift

While my cues rarely change that much from drill to drill, and from category to category, a given subject’s challenges may get magnified by certain categories of drills. The ability to lateralize one’s body weight is the big challenge in this category, as frontal plane centering is a very difficult thing to do. Add trying to throw a medicine ball on top of the difficulty of trying to center, and now you’re going to see all sorts of breakdowns. The two most common errors are seeing the head and thorax leaning outside the base of support, and a variation of listing, where the pelvis lateralizes away from the hip shiftside foot, while the thorax rotates over the hip shift-side foot. A lot of times, video is the best tool for illustrating what you’re trying to communicate, yielding quick and effective adjustments. If not, you go back to the basics found in the Big 10 Principles of Progression. References and

Page

163

constraints are incredibly useful in this category. I’ll place an object at hip height, right in line with where the outside of the hip shift-side foot is (which is a reference point). I’ll ask the subject to lateralize his or her weight until the side of the hip hits the object. I’ll have the subject windup for the throw and maintain that contact. This will prevent listing, and lateralizing the pelvis in the wrong direction. Simultaneously, I will sometimes have an object outside the knee on the hip shift side, to prevent the femur from lateralizing too far on the hip shift side, and going laterally over the pinky side of the foot (which is a constraint). When it comes to errors involving the position of the skull, there are two big ones. First, it may lean outside one’s base of support. When lateralizing weight and centering over one foot, the neck should be side-bent in the opposite direction of the supporting foot. When centered over the left foot, the neck will be laterally flexed to the right. When centered over the left foot and the neck is laterally flexed to the right, it will appear as though the head is straight up and down. This is all part of the zero-sum phenomenon of frontal plane centering. When I see someone who is leaning, oftentimes this subject has not managed to create lateral flexion in the neck to offset the thoracic side-bending in the direction of the stance-side foot. When I see this, I’ll often pause the subject, and readjust his or her head with my hand. When cueing to get proper offsetting lateral flexion in the trunk and neck, I’ll cue from the armpit and the ear. If the subject is trying to lateralize over his or her left foot, I’ll cue left armpit to left hip, and right ear to right shoulder. I give these cues when I have pulled the subject out of the drill, and I am trying to show them what they’re doing wrong in a slow and controlled manner. I’ll have them focus on feeling certain things, like a heavy stance-side foot, for instance, and how these factors influence the movement in question. Then, when they throw, I’ll typically have them focus on that foot, bringing the ball to the pocket, and the pocket to the back wall… and then simply throwing the ball. The second error I’ll see with the skull is on the

windup, when the subject lets his or her neck turn with the body. Instead, the subject should be looking in the direction of where they want to throw, not turning all body parts at once, without dissociation. When I see that, I’ll focus on telling the subject to keep his or her eyes on the target. Sometimes this works. Other times, it’s less successful. In these cases, I find myself putting my hands on the subject’s head, and manually turning the neck so that he or she is looking at the target wall. Being able to dissociate the neck from the thorax on these kinds of swinging drills is very difficult. Part of the reason is probably that the ball is heavy, so people need to tense up to be able to deal with it. This tension causes many to clench their jaw and recruit a lot of neck muscles, and a tense jaw and neck is very difficult to rotate and prevent from following the thorax. When athletes try to muscle up on golf swings and baseball swings, the outcome is usually not as good. The same line of thinking probably applies to medicine ball throws, which I’ve found tend to look much better when I cue subjects to focus on being smooth, as opposed to trying to throw the ball through the wall. When subjects relax and move smoothly, the dissociation is better, the impact of the ball into the wall is stronger, and, bonus: they tend to not complain as much about stiff necks and backs afterwards!

Frontal Pelvis, Transverse Thorax, Front/ Back, Moderate/Heavy Load, Low Velocity, Moderate Duration When I see kettlebell windmill drills, I see a lot of the elements that live in throwing and striking activities being done in slow motion. In my mind, windmills are the heavy, slow version of throwing. I would also say the same thing about the initial sit up motion involved with a Turkish get up. Throwing well is all about a high functioning pelvis in the frontal plane and a high functioning thorax in the transverse plane. You could say the same thing about a lot of other

Page

164

patterns, but throwing takes these to a higher extreme. Windmills really maximize the pelvic and thorax components, and clearly display when either is lacking. In this category of drills, every activity will be a windmill, performed from some variation of the front/back stance. The different positions available here include half kneeling, standing staggered, and split squat. Here is the list of drills available for the frontal plane pelvis, transverse plane thorax, front/back stance, moderate to heavy load, low velocity throwing pattern: 1. Half kneeling windmill w/rear foot on wall

2. Half kneeling windmill

3. Standing staggered windmill w/knee support and rear foot on wall 4. Standing staggered windmill w/rear foot on wall

5. Standing staggered windmill 6. Split squat w/rear foot on wall 7. Split squat Coaching Points These drills are the ultimate for demonstrating how ineffective an exercise can be if it lacks sensorimotor competencies, and just how devastating it can be when all the elements of this model are followed precisely. With all of these drills, the front foot is going to be your hip shift side. You need to get the subject to center his or her weight over that front foot, rotate into the front hip, and maintain this as they rotate their thorax, to maintain the bell in a vertical direction while the unloaded hand reaches for the ground. To center the weight over the front foot, the pelvis needs to lateralize to the side of the front foot. When this is done while the position of the femur is maintained, the amount of adductor and glute med that they feel can be shocking. When the pelvis is held in this position and the thorax rotates fully, the oblique recruitment is incredibly strong. Before we start, I like seeing subjects perform a windmill, uncoached. Once they’ve demonstrated it, I’ll ask subjects to hold the bottom position, where their unloaded hand is on the ground. Here, it becomes apparent that, almost invariably, the pelvis has not lateralized in the appropriate direction. I’ll scoop around their hips and manually lateralize the pelvis so that the zipper is centered over the front foot big toe. It’s not uncommon to see eyes the size of saucers when they feel the adductor and glute med engage with the lateralization. I’ll push the hips away from being lateralized to demonstrate how these muscles disengage as a result, and re-engage when I pull them back into being lateralized. From this experience, subjects can learn just how important it is to center the mass over the stance foot in order for the pelvis to lateralize. The sensation from lateralization only occurs when they’re also in a hip shift over the front foot. If the hip shift is absent, you can lateralize as much as you want, and get nothing from it.

Page

165

It’s very difficult for people to properly lateralize and hip shift, while maintaining control of their femur in space. I often find myself simultaneously lateralizing the pelvis, assisting with the hip shift, and blocking the femur from going outside the base of support. As the subject learns the activity, I’ll gradually remove the input of my hands as references and constraints. If you are working with throwing athletes, I think this category is incredibly valuable. You can really spend some time in the positions that occur during a throwing motion, and develop the strength and integrity of the tissues in those positions with these drills. You will also probably affect table tests and joint range of motion favorably with many of these drills, which can improve an athlete’s ability to freely and easily go through their sport actions. It often pays to slow an athlete down, and make him or her really own the positions of their sporting motions, especially when these are fast. Fitness professionals should not be trying to tinker with the way that a high level baseball player throws, but we can help him learn his pelvis and thorax, and have him begin to understand how the drills we do in the gym can help him get into positions that will improve performance in his sport. The other major thing we can do to help these athletes is get them to rotate into their opposite side. During follow-through, right-handed throwers rotate into their left hip thousands and thousands of reps over. In gym training, it is often highly beneficial to develop the muscles that would move in the opposite direction of those heavily necessitated by their sport, to create some level of balance in the body. Frontal Pelvis, Transverse Thorax, Lateral, Moderate/High Load, Low Velocity, Moderate Duration Most throwing and striking activities involve transitioning between front/back and lateral stance to some degree. In the training environment, we have the opportunity to hone in on specific positions that occur during a sporting action, and train appropriate tissues at those points. My philosophy is to put delib-

erate practice into each critical detail that can be trained at particular points in the season/ off season timeline. Improving the pelvic and thoracic mechanics in each distinct stance for throwing/striking athletes at different loading and velocity zones represents such critical details of the training plan. The fitness professional’s job is to take athletes who are unable to execute the mechanics required of them, and unlock the joint actions they previously did not have access to. Once the fitness professional has done her job, the sport coach should be able to do his. And, once in possession of requisite joint actions, strength and ranges of motion, all the athlete has to do is simply play the sport, and take direction from the sports coaches. When you start to understand fundamental biomechanical concepts, you begin to see quite a bit into the mechanics of different sports. This insight may tempt you to start coaching athletes on their sporting mechanics. My advice? Don’t. The sport coaches will possess the right cues and tactical approach for the sporting actions based on the years of experience in that specific area. Instead of trying to do their job, I recommend starting an open dialogue with them. Ask the coach to show you what he or she wants the athlete to do, versus what the athlete is currently doing. Listen to critiques of certain athletes. If you can both look at still shot photos and video of the athlete executing the movement, this will really get you working on the same page. Analyzing areas for improvement together will enable you to formulate a cohesive training plan, not to mention demonstrate that you are on the “same team” as both the sport coach and the athlete, and just as invested in improving his or her game. In this category of exercise, all drills will be windmills. The stances that you will have available to you are lateral kneeling and lateral squatting. These positions put an unbelievably high level of demand on the pelvis. Featuring a hip shift from a lateral stance position under load, with a strong transverse thorax action happening above, these drills will put enormous

Page

166

yielding stress on the adductors and glute medius. For sports that have groin injury concerns, like hockey, these drills can serve as great preventative measures. The following is the list of exercises found in the training category of frontal plane pelvis, transverse plane thorax, lateral stance, moderate to high load, low velocity, moderate duration throwing: 1. Lateral kneeling windmill w/stance foot on wall 2. Lateral kneeling windmill 3. Lateral semi-squat windmill 4. Lateral squat windmill Coaching Points These drills are about as strong a stimulus for the pelvis in the frontal plane as anything possibly could be. When first beginning them, it doesn’t take a lot of weight to get the job done. The positioning alone will force even formidable athletes to work to their limits. So, rather than worrying about the amount of weight that’s in the athlete’s hand, for starters, spend time just coaching this position. I’ll use many of the aforementioned throwing cues for these drills as well. I’ll cue the person to increasingly load the stance-side foot and unload the other foot, to help center the weight and shift into the hip. I’ll often use my hands as references and constraints to lateralize and shift the pelvis into the right spot, while preventing the femur from going into the wrong spot. To assist in more dramatically rotating the thorax, I’ll also provide male athletes with some reference at their chests. That reference will often be the side of my head. When I’m using my hands to move the pelvis and femur, I’ll usually position myself on the athlete’s hip shift side, at an oblique angle, slightly behind him or her. While keeping my hands on the hip and leg, my ear is usually right around sternum level. As the athlete is trying to rotate his thorax in my direction, I’ll put my ear right in the middle of his chest. On his next inhale, I’ll tell him to direct air into his chest, to push me away from him, and to use that inhale to help him rotate further into the movement. This is a

surprisingly helpful cue, typically resulting in a dramatic increase in thoracic rotation. The other big puzzle piece for improving thoracic positioning, recruiting the obliques, and rotating the thorax is how you coach the arms. I try to encourage the athlete to reach the arms as far away from the body as he or she possibly can, and make sure the athlete can get the down arm flat on the ground. If the actual ground is too far away, and they cannot successfully get there with a flat hand, I’ll simply use objects to build the ground up to them. Once within reach, I encourage them to forcefully push the ground away with their down hand. While they are pushing the ground away, you can coach the breath. You want them to exhale, and feel the ribcage close on the downside hand. On the inhale, you want the downside, closed side of the ribcage to stay closed. You want to promote air going into the chest on the upside hand side, because the body will always rotate away from volume. As such, putting air into the frontside will cause rotation to the back. I’ll encourage the upside hand to reach upwards assertively, which should help open the upside ribcage, and promote airflow into the lungs on the frontside, generating rotation in the proper direction. Dominant Positions and Fitness Realms: • Dominant Plane: Transverse thorax Frontal pelvis • Dominant Stance: Front/back and Lateral Transitional • Dominant Load: Low • Dominant Velocity: High • Dominant Duration: Short to moderate If you are working with rotational athletes, and you train them like bodybuilders, powerlifters, or weightlifters, you probably aren’t maximizing their training time, and you might even end up hurting their performance. Oftentimes, the athletes who throw really hard or hit the ball the farthest have no bulging muscles or ripped abs, and are unassuming in appearance.

Page

167

But, when the time comes for them to strike an object, it’s poetry in motion, though theirs is an ominous poem about spin, whips that crack at the point of impact, and devastation left in their wakes. If you are training to be a bodybuilder, this chapter may not be for you. I don’t know if anything in these pages is going to strongly resonate with you or impact your performance. But, if you’re a golfer, baseball, soccer, or hockey player, then this chapter is one you want to understand and master. If you are going to turn and smash objects, you do not want a pelvis and thorax that is highly compressed in the anterior-posterior direction, but rather some roundness to your shape. From there, we want to be able to send you through the propulsion arc with great mechanics, and with tissues that are properly developed for all regions involved. I want you to be able to expand in your backswing and follow-through. I want you to be able to compress in the strike zone. I want yielding IR muscle competency and development in your backswing. I want overcoming IR muscle competency and development in your impact zone. I want you to have yielding IR muscle competency and development in your follow-through. Any athlete who has all of that going for him or her must have worked with some fitness coaches who were worth their salt.

or kick 50-yard field goals… this is it. While getting stronger at the basic lifts early in an athlete’s career makes for a nice foundation, at a certain point, specificity will rear its head and remind us that it is king. You just don’t hit and throw things from a bilateral stance in the sagittal plane. For throwing and striking activities, frontal plane pelvis, transverse plane thorax, transitioning between a lateral stance and a front/back stance, at high velocity and for short durations is where it’s at.

As the fitness world currently stands, the content in this chapter represents one of its gaping black holes. If you are reading this, you are an early adopter of trying to understand these kinds of biomechanical and training concepts, as few fitness professionals do. If this chapter helps get more of us thinking about this stuff in a systematic, anatomically-informed way, that’s all I can ask. Developing a frontal plane competent and powerful pelvis and a transverse plane competent and powerful thorax is the show for a lot of sporting actions. If you want to hit a golf ball over 300 yards, or throw a baseball over 90 mph, or be able to hit home runs over 400 feet, or be able to knock someone’s head off with a punch, or hit 100-mile-per-hour-plus slap shots,



11 Pattern 7: Triple Extension

Page

169

Pattern 7: Triple Extension

Chapter 11

Way back when, in the beginnings of American exercise science, early pioneer researchers were trying to establish how to measure fitness. It was easy to see that some people were more physically capable than others, yet how do you really define and measure this quality? Early on, they attempted some very interesting tests. These included the classics, like a sprint, a distance run, and a throw of an object for distance. The rail walk is an example of one of the “weird ones” among the tons of fitness tests that were devised, where participants had to walk along a singular railroad track for a given distance, spin around without falling and walk back. After some trial and error, fitness pioneers discovered that some of their tests could be used to predict the results of others, while others lacked this predictive power. The early pioneers ultimately concluded that the broad construct of fitness is an amor-

phous, undefinable one, but recognized that its subcomponents lent themselves to being more readily defined, identified, and measured. They identified these as cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, and body composition. The subsections of these subcomponents included speed and power. They found that the parlor trick type tests, such as the rail walk, did not relate to any realm of fitness. These things were simply random skills that someone could possess with varying levels of practice. The five major subcomponents of fitness, however, came about as a result of the emergence of statistical correlation between certain types of tests. When these early fitness researchers plotted out all the test scores, they started to see that, if you were good at five mile distance runs, you’d likely be good at a ten mile run as well. Conversely, your five mile distance run score would not necessarily have a high correlation with how much you could bench press. These researchers created a correlation score cutoff point, which was r = .70. If tests were correlated with each other at or above .70, then they were measuring the same physical fitness subcomponent, as this level of correlation means an over 50% shared variance between tests. Tests results whose correlation was below .70 were concluded to be measuring different fitness subcomponents. These researchers started to see that there were clearly qualities that commonly rode along together. One such convoy they identified were activities that involved triple extension of the lower body. Triple extension of the lower body involves extension of the hip, knee,

Page

170

and plantar flexion of the ankle. This triad of motions works together when we perform explosive activities. It was clear to see that those who could jump high would also be the ones who would sprint fast, change directions well, and demonstrate proficiency in sports that involved high levels of speed and power. I find this information to be very interesting in today’s social media-driven fitness climate, where we might see bizarre balance obstacle courses that look like a human version of the game Mouse Trap. Or, people standing on top of physio balls and trying to squat weight or perform some other asinine drill that has the same likelihood of falling on its face as does the Jenga tower after move 75. Or strange ring exercises by wannabe gymnasts that look more like a scene from the movie Hell Raiser than anything that belongs in the gym. I’ve seen handstand after handstand after handstand, posted by people who believe that handstands will cure shoulder ailments, dramatically improve overhead lift performance, and give them better posture and movement proficiency. People are also trying to jump onto the highest possible boxes for box jumps, where all they are doing is testing how well they can pull their feet up to their necks. I’ve seen plenty of clips of high box jumps with people jumping onto leaning towers of stupid, where the boxes go flying as soon as the feet hit, and people end up on the ground in a plow position, as if they were choke slammed by The Undertaker. The early pioneers of exercise science did the math to figure out that random movement skills are just random movement skills. If you want to learn one of those skills, go right ahead, but know that it won’t have carryover to other skills.

The Mechanics of Triple Extension Triple extension, which relies on the extension of the hip, knee, and ankle to perform explosive propulsion activities, involve high levels of compression in the middle of the propulsion arc, and follow through into late propulsion at the end of the arc. These activities typically

involve some kind of a transition from yielding action, to halting action, to overcoming action. In a very common demonstration of triple extension such as a bilateral stance vertical jump, we would see this series of actions taking place, where its performer will start standing tall, then do a counter movement, where they descend down, then decelerate to stop the descent, and finally propel themselves upwards, off the ground and through a flight phase. The height that the athlete reaches will be based on the amount of force he or she can put into the ground relative to his or her body mass. This force is a combination of contractile muscle contribution and elastic energy. Force is the quantifiable representation of that which tends to change the motion or state of rest of matter. Work is force expressed through a measurement of displacement. Power is the rate at which a quantity of work is performed. The degree of efficacy an athlete brings to sporting activities such as running and jumping are dependent upon the ability to demonstrate force, work, and power. The force, work, and power that are demonstrated by humans during sporting activities are the result of utilizing energy from the frictional pulling of muscles and the storage and release of elastic energy by the connective tissues. Net force transmitted by muscles results from summation of released elastic energy, and the mechanical work of muscular contraction. Elasticity is the measure of how readily a body will reform after being deformed by stretching, compression, or twisting. Elastic energy is defined as the capacity of a body to do work during reformation. The power production that occurs during a vertical jump is due to a combination of muscular force production and the utilization of elastic energy. A.V. Hill created the 3-component model of musculotendinous behavior, which explains the role of elastic energy in human movement. The three components are the contractile element (CE), the series elastic component (SEC), and the parallel elastic component (PEC). The

Page

171

CE exerts active force as a result of shortening activity. The SEC stores, and later releases, elastic energy. The PEC stores elastic energy in parallel to the contractile components of a muscle. The SEC exists within the tendinous tissues, and within the muscle fiber itself. The importance of the SEC’s existence within muscle fiber is that, when cross bridging of the contractile elements occurs, and a stretch is applied, elastic energy can be stored within the cross bridges. The first action that takes place when there is a singular muscular twitch is that the CE takes slack out of the SEC. With increased firing activity of the muscle, external work may be accomplished.

Fig 11.1 - A.V. Hill 3 Component Model Fig 11.2 - (SSC) A: Preactivation B: Stretch C:Shortening

The stretch-shortening cycle (SSC) is the process that occurs when muscle tissue is stretched to cause yielding tension immediately before an overcoming contraction is performed. When an isolated muscle is stretched immediately prior to contraction, work output of the muscle is increased nearly three-fold. This

increase in work output of a prestretched muscle is due to buildup of force development, storage and release of elastic energy, potentiation of contractile machinery, and reflex contributions. Power output demonstrated during running consists of the combination of the intrinsic properties of muscular contraction and the storage and release of elastic energy in relevant leg musculature. When examining human running, the contractile component of force production from the associated musculature provides the impetus for the initial gains in running velocity up to 5 m/s. The subsequent increase in running velocity beyond 5 m/s is due to the storage and release of elastic energy. Vertical jump distances following a counter movement are greater than those characterized by an equal amount of time to build isometric muscular force preceding the overcoming action. Improved overcoming actions following counter movement are the result of increased time for cross-bridge activity, and the utilization of stored elastic energy. In regards to stored elastic energy, SSC activities that are shorter in duration rely more heavily on the reuse of elastic energy than do longer lasting SSC activities. Individuals with greater percentages of type II muscle fibers may have an advantage in utilizing elastic energy in SSC activities. The yielding phase of a SSC movement involves the generation of potential elastic energy. During yielding actions, fast twitch fibers are predominantly recruited, because the Henneman Size Principle does not apply to the order of recruitment during yielding actions. As such, individuals with high fast twitch fiber makeup, who possess a greater percentage of fast twitch fibers, can store more potential energy during the yielding phase of a SSC activity than those with low fast twitch fiber makeup. There are two classifications of SSC activities, fast and slow. Slow SSC activities are associated with large angular displacements of the ankle, knee, and hip joint, longer contraction times

Page

172

and a ground contact time greater than 0.25 s. Fast SSC activities are associated with less angular displacements, quicker yielding-overcoming coupling, and feature ground contact times of less than 0.25 s. During countermovement, tendinous and muscle tissues are stretched. In the overcoming phase, muscles and tendons behave slightly differently, in that, while the tendinous tissue contracts very quickly, the muscle tissue responds in a manner that appears to be isometric in nature. Stiffness is the property designed to resist an applied stretch, or the relationship between the deformation of an object and a given applied force. The term “leg spring stiffness” is used to represent the collective stiffness of all lower limb musculoskeletal structures, which includes muscles, tendons, and ligaments. The spring mass model is used to analyze leg spring stiffness. The stiffness of the spring mass model consists of two distinct kinds of stiffness: vertical stiffness, and overall stiffness. Vertical stiffness refers to the redirection of downward velocity of the body during limb-ground contact. Logically, when dealing with a condition such as the vertical jump, the vertical stiffness is synonymous with overall leg stiffness. Stiffness and use of elastic energy by the PEC, SEC, and tendons changes depending upon activity of the musculature. During a passive stretch, the stiffness of the PEC is 100 times less than that of the SEC and the tendon. Furthermore, during relaxed movements, the stiffness of the PEC is significantly less than that of the SEC and tendon. During relaxed movements, the tendons do not experience a large deformation in structure, while the PEC receives the majority of the deformation. When examining active movement, the stiffness of the muscle tissue and the PEC increases substantially. In fact, the stiffness of the PEC during active movement greatly exceeds that of the tendon and SEC. Because the stiffness of the PEC exceeds the stiffness of the tendon and SEC during active movement, the tendon and the SEC is the location for appreciable deformation, while the PEC is not. This means that, during passive stretch and relaxed movement,

the storage and utilization of elastic energy resides in the PEC. But, during active movements, where muscular activity increases, the storage and utilization of elastic energy occurs at the tendon. Those with greater musculotendinous stiffness demonstrate greater strength in concentric and isometric bench presses. Those with greater knee joint stiffness demonstrate greater running velocity. Those who have greater leg stiffness demonstrate greater running economy. Those who have greater ankle joint stiffness require less ground contact time at all running speeds. Finally, those with greater leg stiffness require less ground contact time on depth jumps. Runners who have lower ground contact times have less flexion at the knee and hip during ground contact phases. The potentiation benefits of stretch-shortening activities depend on the amount of time spent in the transition between the yielding phase, which involves absorption of elastic energy, and the overcoming phase, which involves utilization of elastic energy. When there are delays between the storage of energy and the attempted utilization of energy, more energy will be lost in the form of heat. In A.V. Hill’s 3-component model, the initial force development of a muscle is transmitted to the SEC. In essence, the SEC demonstrates slack during the resting condition, necessitating the muscle to rid itself of slack in the SEC in order to enable movement of the skeletal system. The delay in force transmission from muscle tissue to the actual movement of bones after the removal of slack of the SEC is evidenced by the electromechanical delay (EMD). EMD is the span of time between the electrical excitability of muscle tissue and the mechanical response of the muscle. The time between yielding-overcoming coupling is much greater when a muscle is in an eccentric orientation compared to a concentric orientation. This helps explain why those who feature less hip and knee flexion during ground contact time have a lower amount of ground contact time.

Page

173

Motor responses are triggered by the cell bodies of the alpha and gamma motor neurons found in the ventral horns of the spinal cord. Alpha motor neurons innervate the extrafusal fibers in skeletal muscle. Alpha motor neurons provide the electrochemical impetus that causes muscular contraction under voluntary and reflexive conditions. A linear relationship has been identified between the number of alpha motor neurons that fire for a particular muscle and the resulting force production from that muscle. Gamma motor neurons carry the electrochemical signal to the intrafusal fibers within the belly of a muscle. The structures found in the intrafusal fibers are referred to as muscle spindles. Muscle spindles are proprioceptive organs that detect changes in the length of skeletal muscle. When a muscle is stretched with great velocity, the muscle spindles will recognize this and send an afferent signal to the spinal cord. That afferent signal will reach the dorsal root of the spinal cord. When the spinal cord receives the afferent signal from the muscle spindle, a twotiered response occurs. Interneurons are specialized cells in the spinal cord that interface between afferent and efferent signals. Renshaw cells, which are a type of interneuron, process afferent signals from muscle spindles and send excitatory impulses to the alpha motor neurons of the agonist that was stretched. Upon receiving afferent information from muscle spindles, type Ia interneurons send

Fig 11.3 - Gamma and Alpha motor neurons

inhibitory impulses to alpha motor neurons of antagonist muscles. To use an example, when the muscle spindles in the gastrocnemius are quickly stretched, the muscle spindles will send an afferent impulse to the spinal cord. When the interneurons in the spinal cord process the afferent message, the Renshaw cells will send an excitatory message to the alpha motor neurons of the gastrocnemius, and the Type Ia interneurons will send an inhibitory message to the alpha motor neurons of the tibialis anterior. Decreased neural activity to antagonists results in increased force production capabilities of agonists. Training the Triple Extension Pattern Available Options

Available Planes: All Available Stances: All Available Loads: All Available Velocities: High Available Durations: Short and Moderate

Sagittal, Bilateral, High Load, High Velocity, Short Duration, Olympic Lifts Mike Boyle refers to this high load, high velocity, triple extension realm of fitness as “heavy ballistics”, a name that makes me just want to run through a brick wall. There have been a lot of categorical thinkers in the world of fitness and sports performance training, but possibly none more so than Coach Boyle. One

Fig 11.4 - Interneuron

Page

174

thing that Boyle has always tried to get across is that it’s great to be categorical in thinking, but you still need to have a specific tool that you can use/coach within each category. In this very interesting realm of heavy ballistics, what tools do you have to choose from? The list is surprisingly short. To qualify something as a ballistic exercise, it has to involve a projectile. The projectile could be an implement, like a ball, or it could be the body, being propelled off the ground. When you are performing a ballistic exercise, there is always a specific sequence of firing and inhibition between agonist and antagonist muscles. Agonists are the muscles that act as the prime movers for an action. The prime mover of an action is the muscle that produces the most significant contribution towards creating a movement. Muscles that contribute to performing a given movement in a more secondary role are referred to as assistant movers. There is also a special class of assistant movers known as emergency muscles that contribute to movement, but these are only engaged for movements that generate maximal force. Antagonist muscles are those muscles that act in direct opposition to agonist muscles. The net force of any movement is based on the trade off of forces that emanate from the action of the agonist and the counteraction of the antagonist. There are two distinct categories of cooperative muscle action: cocontraction and ballistic movement. Cocontraction refers to movement where there is simultaneous and continuous contraction of agonist and antagonist muscles. Movements that occur during cocontraction feature a net movement that results from the forces of the agonist overpowering those of the antagonist. Ballistic contractions are short, high force muscular impulses that feature passive limb movement which continues as a result of momentum, after the contraction itself has ended. During the ballistic contraction of limbs, a triphasic or “ABC” pattern of muscular activity is in effect. During the ABC pattern, an initial large

burst of agonist activity is followed by a shorter breaking period of antagonist activity. The initial burst of agonist activity provides the impulse that propels the limb or body segment. The antagonist breaking phase is utilized to slow the velocity of the limb or body segment when it nears the end region of ROM. The purpose of the breaking phase is to protect against musculoskeletal injuries. After the breaking phase of the antagonist, a final clamping phase of agonist activity ensues, finishing the movement. A distinction amongst ballistic exercises hinges on whether or not the activity utilized the stretch-shortening cycle. Recall that this cycle involves the aforementioned reflexive neurological physiology. If you are seeking to improve physical output in tasks that use the stretch-shortening cycle, then it must be involved in the training drills that you are using. If you only use ballistic drills that do not feature the stretch-shortening cycle, your training will lack specificity for improving ballistic performance that does use this cycle. So what we are really after in this very distinct category are ballistic exercises that feature a stretch-shortening cycle, and other ballistic exercises that do not feature a stretch-shortening cycle. The only exercise that everyone can probably agree is a heavy ballistic that features a stretch-shortening cycle is an Olympic lift. When it comes to heavy ballistics that probably do not feature a stretch-shortening cycle, some strongman training exercises are great choices.

The Basics of Olympic Lifts (Weightlifting) The sport of weightlifting entails two lifts: the snatch and the clean and jerk. Weightlifting is a weight class sport. An individual wins his or her weight class if he or she lifts more combined weight in the snatch and the clean and jerk than the other competitors. Weightlifting exercises have been shown to be amongst the most forceful and powerful exercises that can possibly be performed.

Page

175

According to the NSCA text The Essentials of Strength and Conditioning, weightlifting exercises are ideal for the following physiological training adaptations: recruiting high threshold motor units that power all major joints of the body, improving rate coding, causing training adaptations in the fast twitch muscle fibers at all major joints of the body, increasing bone mineral density at the spine, hip, and wrist (all the critical areas for osteoporosis), improving intermuscular and intramuscular coordination, and developing active range of motion, particularly within joint angles considered to be within the flexibility deficit. Biomechanical Considerations of the Snatch and the Clean The following information is based on Medvedev’s A System of Multi Year Training in Weightlifting. The snatch and the clean are almost the exact same exercise. The snatch involves bringing the barbell from the ground to overhead in one continuous motion, whereas the clean involves bringing the bar from ground to the front of the shoulders in one continuous motion. There are, however, three major differences between these motions: 1.The grip for the snatch is wider than the grip for the clean 2.The torso angle at the start of the lift is more acute (farther from 90°) for the snatch and more obtuse (closer to 90°) for the clean 3.The catch is overhead in the snatch and at the shoulders for the clean These three differences aside, the phases of these exercises are identical. The snatch is a two-hand, two-foot barbell exercise. The individual must lift a barbell from a static position on the ground to overhead, in one fluid movement. Once the barbell leaves the ground, you cannot stop it during any point before you catch it overhead. The snatch can be broken down into a start position, followed by three distinct periods and six distinct phases.

The clean is part of the clean and jerk

exercise. The clean and jerk is a two-foot, two-hand barbell exercise, that involves lifting a barbell from a static position on the ground in one motion to the shoulders, and then in another motion to overhead. The clean refers to the motion of lifting the barbell from the floor to the shoulders. The jerk refers to the motion of lifting the barbell from the shoulders to the overhead catch position. Like the snatch, the clean can be broken down into a start position, followed by three periods and six phases. Here is the breakdown of the start position for the snatch and the clean. The athlete stands with feet at hip width (or slightly closer) with a natural, symmetrical external rotation turn of the toes to the side, relative to the center of the bar. The metatarsophalangeal (toe knuckles) joints are situated precisely under the bar. The shins are angled to the side, along the same direction as the feet. The knees and hips are flexed until the athlete can grab the bar with the hands (the bar is on the ground, at the height of a standard bumper plate). The hand spacing for the snatch is roughly twice the width of the athlete’s shoulders, or the width of the shoulders plus the length of the arm held straight out to the side. The hand spacing for the clean is shoulder width. The grip used is a “hook” grip (fingers wrapped around the thumb). The back is slightly arched in the lumbar spine. The head is held in the same plane as the torso. The starting motion is called The Pull, which is broken into two phases. Phase I is the athlete’s interaction with the barbell, up to the instant it is separated from the floor. Phase II is the Preliminary Acceleration of the barbell. Phase I begins the instant that force is applied to the barbell, and ends the instant the barbell is separated from the ground. (In the following sentences, “IBS” stands for “the instant of barbell separation”). At the IBS, the arms are straight, the shoulders are slightly in front of the bar, and the athlete is flat-footed. The objective of Phase I is to link the rigid torso of the athlete to the barbell via straight arms. After IBS, the

Page

176

barbell should move off the ground in a vertical direction, with a slight drift back towards the legs. Phase II lasts from IBS to the first maximum extension of the athlete’s knee joints. The instant this phase is completed, the barbell should be at the athlete’s knee level. The athlete’s posture in this position is as follows:

1.The shins are in a vertical position 2.The shoulder joints have shifted farther forward of the vertical line of the bar 3.The arms are straight 4.The athlete’s feet are flat on the floor

The objective of Phase II is to move the barbell and the body of the athlete into the best possible position to create tremendous force production prior to the movements of the second period. The barbell has shifted 40-70 mm towards the athlete from its original position on the floor. The knee extensors have worked dynamically, while the muscles of the torso have worked statically. The Second Period, called The Explosion, is divided into two periods: Phase III, The Amortization and Phase IV, The Final Acceleration. Phase III begins the moment the athlete’s knees begin to flex, following the ending of Phase II at maximal knee extension. This maximal knee extension created a stretch on the hamstrings, which leads to a stretch-shortening cycle. Phase III ends when the knee joints reach their position of largest flexion, as the shoulder and elbow joints are in the same vertical line as the bar and the feet are flat on the floor. The objective of Phase III is to maintain the optimal interaction between the body and the bar, and to continue the momentum of the Pull phase. Phase IV, The Final Acceleration, aka, The Second Pull, aka, The Pull, begins from the instant of the largest knee flexion and continues up to the moment of the largest extension of the knee, hip, and ankle joints (triple extension). At completion of this phase, the posture is as follows:



1.The legs are completely straight and the athlete is standing on the toes 2.The trapezius muscles are actively trying to elevate the scapula (shrug) 3.The elbows are flexed

The objective of phase IV is to achieve maximum vertical barbell velocity, and get the barbell to the greatest possible height, utilizing the power of the legs and torso. This is accomplished by the instantaneous switching from The Amortization phase to The final Acceleration. The Second Period of the snatch and the clean is where the stretch-shortening cycle takes place. In weightlifting, this feature is sometimes also referred to as the “double knee bend”, which is the element that’s really responsible for creating the triple extension element of these movements. The Third Period lasts from the maximum extension of the joints of the lower extremities, up to the instant the barbell reaches the maximum height for the lift. This period is broken into two phases: Phase V, The Squat-Under and Phase VI, The Supported Squat-Under. The objective of Phase V is to constantly interact with the bar: to push away from it, to switch from The Explosion to The Squat-Under with maximum speed, and to rearrange the legs instantaneously. Phase VI is executed from the maximum height of the lift, up to the instant the barbell is fixed in the squat position. The objectives of Phase VI are: 1.To fix the apparatus in the supported squat position 2.To utilize the maximum mobility in the joints without deviating significantly from the initial area of support. The recovery from the squat position should proceed smoothly, without pause, where posture is as follows: The athlete’s torso angle should be either vertical, or in line with the angle of the shins The arms should be straight above the head with the snatch, or with the humerus parallel to the floor with the clean The center vertical line of the bar should

Page

177

be directly over the middle of the foot.

barbell vertically over the head.

Following the squat-under, the athlete stands up with the bar. Once the athlete finishes the support squat-under phase, and has received the bar in a deep squat position, the athlete then has to stand up with the bar. The act of rising from the deep squat catch to a standing to position is referred to as The Recovery.

The Third Period is also broken into two phases: The Non-Supported Squat-Under (Phase IV) and the Supported Squat-Under (Phase V). The third period lasts about a half second in total. Phase IV comprises approximately a quarter of a second of that, starting with the maximum extension of the knees, and ending when the barbell reaches its maximum speed. The athlete rearranges the legs, either in the sagittal plane (split jerk) or in the frontal plane (squat jerk, where the legs get slightly wider). The objective of Phase IV is to rearrange the legs with maximum speed, and to correctly position the arms, torso and legs. Phase V lasts from the instant the barbell reaches its maximum height, up to the instant it’s fixed in The Squat-Under position. Phase V lasts an average of a quarter of a second, and its objective is to create a rigid interaction between the athlete and the barbell. From this point, the athlete must recover from this position, and end by standing straight with the feet next to each other. If the athlete has performed a split jerk, the athlete steps backwards, with the front foot first, then steps forward with the back foot until the feet are even. After a squatjerk, during Recovery, the athlete stands from the squat.

Biomechanical Considerations of the Jerk We are going to focus more on the jerk in the vertical push section of this book, but we’re going to touch on it in this weightlifting biomechanics section. The jerk involves moving the barbell from the anterior shoulders to above the head in one motion, and is divided into five phases and three periods. The jerk is the final part of the classic clean and jerk. The First Period of the jerk has 1 phase, the Half-Squat. The half-squat lasts from the instant the knees begin to flex to the instant the barbell reaches its maximum downward velocity. The objective of Phase I is to create a rigid interaction between the links of the “athlete-barbell” complex, and to lower the barbell vertically prior to driving it back up. The Second Period is broken into two phases: The Braking Phase (Phase II) and The Final Acceleration (Phase III). The Second Period usually lasts less than half a second. Phase II begins the instant the barbell reaches its maximum downward velocity, and concludes at maximum degree of flexion in the knee joints. The Braking Phase is over when the barbell has been lowered a distance of 8-12% of the athlete’s height, and decelerated to a speed of 0. The objective of Phase II is to stop the half-squat and set the stage for straightening the knees as quickly as possible. The weight should be supported by the middle of the athlete’s feet. Phase III lasts an average of 0.25 seconds, from the maximum flexion of the knees to their maximum extension. The objective of the Thrust is to create maximum speed of the leg and arm extensors, and to drive the

The Hang Start Position and Power Catch Positions Both the clean and the snatch can be performed by starting in the hang position. This means that the exercise does not start from the floor. Instead, the exercise starts with the athlete already holding the bar in his or her hands above the ground. When in the hang, the motion starts from either just above or just below the patella. Both the snatch and the clean can end by catching the barbell in the “power” position. This means that the athlete does not catch the bar in a deep squat, but, instead either catches it overhead, or by squatting under the bar and catching it on the anterior shoulders, but only into a “quarter-squat” position. Otherwise,

Page

178

these are no different.

Fig 11.5 - Power catch position Fig 11.6 - Hang position

letes who are not competitive weightlifters. My advice is to end your progressions with hang power cleans and hang power snatches with those respective exercises. The following list of progressions is fairly close to the types of basic recommendations that you’ll get from big groups like USA Weightlifting (USAW), and the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA). I would definitely recommend that all aspiring strength and conditioning coaches attend courses offered by groups such as these, to learn the fundamentals of weightlifting and how to coach weightlifting movements. Here is my list of progressions for teaching and training clean and snatch based movements: 1. Teach catch position and hang position first 2. Hang to triple extension 3. Hang to shrug 4. Hang to high pull 5. Hang power catch 6. Hang to full catch 7. Hang below knee to power catch 8. Hang below knee to full catch 9. From ground to power catch 10. From ground to full catch

When working with athletes who are not competitive weightlifters, it is highly likely that you will spend the majority of your time using hang start and power catch position variations of the clean and snatch. You will eliminate the technical elements involved with being able to get the barbell from the ground to above the patella (which gets them into the hang position), and the technical elements of properly receiving the bar in a deep squat catch position. Weightlifting movements are already highly technical, and the learning curve is significant for athletes to perform them with proficiency. These positional “shortcuts” allow for circumvention of much of the teaching time and create a direct route to the stretch-shortening cycle phase, which is where a heavy ballistic stimulus actually gets provided. It is hard for me to conceive of a situation where I would think it necessary to perform full weightlifting movements with ath-

Coaching Points I’ve found my greatest success in coaching basic weightlifting movements by first showing the athlete the positioning associated with the beginning of the movement and the end of the movement. Once they’ve seen these, the cue is to “go from the beginning to the end”. Observing the athlete’s execution of this challenge gives me a glimpse into the athlete’s natural attempt at tackling it. Assessing the athlete’s approach, I take triage of errors, which we can then focus on fixing. Coaching is about problem solving. And, to be a problem solver, you need to first be a problem identifier. Here are the two broad problems I’ve repeatedly encountered with execution of weightlifting movements: Group 1, composed of those who never get close to hip extension in the explosion phase of the movement (whose

Page

179

members sometimes do a little bunny hop knee flexion jump move), and Group 2, aka, your reverse curl folks, whom I like to call my “the leave the swing at the park” group. In the explosion phase of the exercise, these guys will swing the bar way out away from the body, then loop it back towards the shoulders, and usually catch it with a big crash on the collar bones. Some lifters make both of these errors, and some make others during Olympic-style lifts, but let’s just stick with our two groups for our purposes here. I typically make Group 1 move slowly when doing exercises 2 through 5 in the progression list, to help get their hips through on the explosion. Having a PVC pipe handy for these drills makes it easy to stop the athlete at various points and have him or her find and feel the static positions. These also tend to be the same people who pull the bar early with their hands and arms, so I’ll commonly make them hold the PVC pipe in the crooks of their wrists during these drills. So, for example, when doing a hang to shrug, they’ll start by holding the PVC pipe in the crooks of their flexed wrists, in a solid hang start position. From there, they will smoothly extend to an upright position, while dragging the bar up their legs with straight arms. They’ll continue to smoothly extend, until they reach plantar flexion and find themselves up on their toes. At this point, they will shrug their shoulders with straight arms, while keeping the bar against their bodies. When they have reached this top position, I’ll have them pause and hold it. I’ll tell them to take a mental picture of how this feels, so they can find it again on their next rep. On that next rep, I’ll have them go through the same sequence, but with a little more speed. I’ll continue this process of having them going through the same sequence with progressively more speed, until they are comfortable with how it feels, and I am comfortable with how it looks. From there, we will go on to the next progression, where I’ll re-employ the same approach. To start, we go through the movement slowly and smoothly. Stop and feel the end point of the drill. If everything felt and looked right on

the previous rep, add speed on the next, until we have a well-executed drill. Those who don’t get their hips through are typically in a rush: slow them down. They may not like going slower, but higher quality training will be their reward. For the “leave the swing at the park” group, to prevent them from looping the bar way out in front of themselves, I put things in their way. Typically, I’ll put my hand about 4 or 5 inches out in front of where their chest is going to be when they reach full extension in their explosion path. I’ll ask them not to let the bar hit my hand, which fixes the unwanted swing for a tremendous number of these offenders. And, the risk of actually getting smacked by the barbell is low for the coach: it’s only happened to me once out of thousands of trials. This approach also illustrates how we can implement a very simple constraint to surmount a potentially difficult coaching problem. You’re going to see some bonus problem groups as well. You’ll have those who like to receive the barbell in a position where they just split their legs out laterally rather than squat under the bar to catch it. I call this group “The Starfish”, and go back to constraints with them as well. I put a couple of 2.5 pound plates about 6 inches outside of both feet when they are in the hang position, and I caution them not to land on those plates… because they’ll break their ankles. With this constraint in place, would you believe that nobody has ever stepped on the plates, squatting under and catching the barbell with proper leg placement instead, 100% of the time. The final group are the elbow down, kung-fu grip clean catch folks. These people love to catch the bar with closed fists. They want to feel control over the bar at all times, and they can’t fathom letting go. I simply keep them in the catch position until they get their elbows up and let the bar roll into their fingers. I don’t care if we have to spend 5 minutes per rep doing this. We’re either going to do this one thing properly, or do nothing else all day. I take this attitude into the way I coach this, and explicitly

Page

180

share it with the person I’m working with. Persistence and determination are often key ingredients to preventing subjects from reverting back to bad, lazy habits. Bilateral, Sagittal, High Load, High Velocity, Short Duration, Strongman, How to Progress Strongman movements that feature triple extension do not reach the same velocities as weightlifting exercises, and they probably lack a stretch-shortening cycle. That said, they also do not feature the technical complexity of weightlifting. If you have appropriate equipment and a background in performing and coaching strongman exercises, then you have very good heavy ballistics training alternatives at your disposal. The triple extension movements from strongman that are available are from the clean and jerk and press-based exercises, and the loading movements. When examining the progressions for strongman triple extension movements presented here, what you can see is that they start with the loading movements, and then move on to the clean and jerk and press movements. The loading exercises feature a triple extension without the need to catch/receive the object on the shoulder(s). Keeping the catch out of the exercise reduces the complexity of the drill. As we progress, we add a catch, changing the drill from a loading movement to a clean. From there, we progress the drill, by adding a jerk to the movement (which may be unnecessary for athletes not competing in strongman). Here is the list of progressions for bilateral stance, sagittal plane, high load, high velocity, short duration, strongman, triple extension exercises (the sandbag comes first in the progressions because it is more malleable and easier to pick compared to the stone): 1. Sandbag from ground to box/over bar 2. Sandbag from ground to shoulder catch 3. Stone from ground to box/over bar 4. Stone from ground to shoulder 5. Axel power clean 6. Axel power clean to press/jerk 7. Log power clean

8. Log power clean to press/jerk 9. Circus dumbbell clean 10. Circus dumbbell clean to press/jerk Coaching Points Sandbag and stone loading/shouldering exercises feature a similar sequence:

1.Pick 2.Hoist to thighs 3.Reposition for explosion 4.Explosion 5.Finish

On the pick, the athlete stands over the sandbag or the stone, straddling the object such that the feet are at the object’s midpoint. From there, the athlete bends over, and positions his or her fingers under the implement. The athlete should attempt to get his or her hands under the implement as much as possible, which is a task that makes it impossible to avoid rounding the back. So, instead of the typical chest up, butt back, shoulders back and down position, the opposite is required here. The athlete needs to get the chest on the object, and reach the arms so as to hug it, as roundly as possible. Getting the hands all the way under the object is ideal, as is wrapping the body around it, to assume its shape with one’s thorax and arm shape. Roundness is the key shape for picking strongman objects. The proper arm action is reach and wrap. The proper body action is get tight to the object and create as much contact with your chest and abdomen as possible. To pick a heavy stone or bag, you need to try to become one with the stone or the bag. Like in “Rock, Paper, Scissors” where paper beats stone, the only way you’re going to dominate stones is to cover them and wrap them up. Once the ideal athlete-implement interaction has been achieved in the setup for the pick, the athlete needs to actually lift it off the ground. To pick strongman objects, one needs to squeeze them, hard. Lifting in general is about pressure, but there are different kinds of pressure. Pressure can come from pushing

Page

181

on something until it budges, but it can also come from squeezing it together. This second method of creating pressure is what you need to think of when it comes to strongman picks. The athlete needs to be a boa constrictor on the implement, and try to squeeze the life out of it in order to pick it. To hoist the object up to the thighs, there is very little to think about. Squeeze, lift, and be aggressive. This is a lower level of technicality than weightlifting in the First Period, and more like working on a farm. The athlete has to get down to the object, grab it, stay tight to it, and get it off the ground. While hoisting, losing body contact or squeeze is a no-no, as doing so allows the implement to move, and possibly get away. The athlete needs to keep the implement as still as possible. Once the object has passed the knees, to finish this phase of the exercise, the athlete just needs to get it onto the thighs, and squat down with it. If the implement is light, one can stand it up, position it on your thighs, and then squat down with it. If it’s very heavy, such that it’s barely feasible to get it past the knees, the athlete can drag/roll it up the thighs until it’s in his or her lap. After the object has been maneuvered into the lap and the athlete has squatted down with it, this marks the next phase of the exercise: repositioning for the explosion. While in the bottom of the squat position, the athlete is going to want to reposition the arms, to get them higher up on the object. With stones, you typically try to get your arms up over the top of the stone, though this approach is more geared towards taller athletes, while shorter ones will often position their (shorter) arms lower. The primary objective of this position is to position the object against the chest and squeeze it into the chest as much as possible. You do not want the primary contact point of the object to be too low, such as on the abdomen, but rather high up on the sternum. Once the athlete has properly positioned him or herself, we’re ready to execute the explosion phase of the movement. This is where the triple extension part of the movement lives. This is

a natural, athletic movement. Bringing some awareness to the sternum/chest is probably a good idea, but, otherwise, do not over-coach this. The common error with the explosion phase is that people are going to try to use their hands and arms excessively. Instead, the body should drive the action. The hands and arms should continue to try to squeeze the object. The lifter wants to be thinking about squeezing the object backwards through the chest. Now, he or she simply tries to raise the chest up as high and as fast as possible, to explode the object upwards. The finish for these loading/shouldering movements is context-dependent. If the object is being placed on a box or over a bar, the finish needs to feature driving forward at the top. Again, the chest is the focus. To finish, the legs and body should be used to drive the chest forward at the top, and drive the object over the lip of the box or bar. Heavy loading exercises may necessitate having to keep fighting to get the object on top of, or over, the final destination. This means continuing to push forward primarily with the chest, as well as getting the hands under the object to help push it forward. In strongman shows, sometimes the box/bar is very high, sitting at above the athlete’s head height. When dealing with that kind of situation, pushing with the hands is key to finish the loading. I would recommend avoiding extreme heights with loading exercises for non-strongman athletes. The risk of hyperextension and objects coming back on the athlete are too high for very little, if any, extra reward. With shouldering drills, the loading motion simply continues, until the object has come to a rest on top of the athlete’s chosen shoulder, and the athlete’s hands are on top of the object. Shouldering finishes can provide true specificity for wrestlers, as these movements mirror those required to elevate one’s opponent as high as one’s shoulders, in preparation for an explosive takedown. When it comes to the clean and press and jerk exercises, the technique can be very differ-

Page

182

ent from classical weightlifting exercises. The primary implements in strongman for clean and press are the axel, the log, and the circus dumbbell. Each of these implements has its own unique features that requires different technical and tactical approaches. Aside from a much thicker grip, an axel seems very similar to a barbell at first glance. But, there is another big difference between the two, which is that the axle does not rotate. With barbells, the main part of the bar spins independently from the sleeves. With premium weightlifting bars, like those made by Eleiko, the bar rotates with incredible speed and smoothness. To me, the lack of bar spin is the bigger of the two differences between these two pieces of equipment. The lack of rotation of the axel makes receiving the implement very different. It is much more difficult to squat under and catch an axel that does not rotate than a barbell that does. From an invariant representation standpoint, if you can properly clean a barbell, you’ll be able to figure out how to clean an axel, and you’ll learn the differences pretty quickly, as the basic mechanics are the same. The adjustments you’ll have to make will be timing-related, grip-related, and feel-related. The lack of rotation of the implement is going to feel like something grinding compared to the smoothness of a barbell. The fat grip is going to make the transition into the explosion feel slower. The log comes in as a higher progression compared to the axel, because the catch position of the log features much more spinal hyperextension compared to the axel. While the mechanics of cleaning an axel are very similar to cleaning a barbell, cleaning a log is a completely different experience than cleaning a barbell or an axel, and one that bears more similarity to loading a stone than to cleaning a barbell. The pick position for a log is similar to the start position of a deadlift. We’re after a fairly flat back, with straight arms that reach down and grab the handles of the log. The athlete then deadlifts the log off the ground, and gets it to

hip height. Once at hip height, the log needs to get pulled up the thighs, and into the lap. Once the log is in the athlete’s lap, the athlete squats down with it, and repositions the arms and body. In the squat position, the athlete then pushes the chest into the log, bends the elbows and tries to get them up as high and back as possible. In this position, the log gets pulled into the chest with the hands and arms. When exploding the log up, the athlete needs to use the body to power the action, as he or she continues to pull the log into the chest with the hands and arms. Nearing the top of the explosion, the elbows start to roll under the log, as the log rolls up higher on the chest into the neck. To properly explode the log up and receive it at the top of the motion, the athlete needs to extend every relevant body part, including the neck. So, at the top of the motion, the athlete needs to catch the log on the front of the shoulders, against the top of the chest, and into the throat. The neck should be hyperextended, with the athlete looking up and back. The elbows should be up and in front of the body, in the catch position. This is a challenging position that can make many feel like they can’t breathe, which can lead to lightheadedness. As such, I would also definitely recommend staying away from logs for heavy ballistic training for athletes not involved in strongman or related sports. The circus dumbbell is the third primary strongman object that can be used for training clean and jerk movements. Intended for cleaning up and catching on the shoulder, the circus dumbbell movement requires a greater rotary component. There are a couple of different styles of both clean and jerk using a dumbell. One of these styles of dumbbell clean is a bit of a hybrid between a kettlebell clean and a barbell clean. To clean a dumbbell, the athlete will position it between the legs, but then stand back from it, similar to the setup for a two-hand kettlebell swing. The athlete will grab the handle of the dumbbell with both hands, lift it off the

Page

183

ground, and swing it back between the legs, same as at the bottom of a kettlebell swing/ clean. From there, the athlete will explode the dumbbell up to the top of the shoulder. This is the part of the lift where its style begins to differentiate. Some will clean it with a hip-dominant approach, similar to cleaning a kettlebell. Others will actually bring the bell to the thighs, and use the extension of the knees to propel the dumbbell off the thighs and up to the shoulder. The second approach is similar to the explosion phase of loading drills. In this “off the thighs” approach, when in the bottom of a squat, the athlete positions the dumbbell vertically on the thighs, and keeps the arms bent and in, tight to the body. From there, the athlete creates a vertical explosion with the legs, which propels the dumbbell upwards. Keeping the arms bent and tight to the body shortens the distance the dumbbell needs to travel up to the shoulder. During the explosion phase, there is a point at which the athlete transitions from having both hands to having just one on the dumbbell. This takes place as the dumbbell is near the apex of its upward flight from the explosion, which also marks the switch from the explosion phase to the catch phase. The catch is made with one hand and features two styles. With the catch of the dumbbell at the top of the clean, there are two main styles. The first style is referred to as “the boombox” style, and necessitates catching the dumbbell on the shoulder, with one end of it resting against the side of the head, up against the ear. The other is the “behind-the-ear” style, in which the elbow stays pointed up and faces laterally, which gets its name from its similarity to the position of the arm of someone perching a boombox stereo on the shoulder (which, believe it or not, is how we listened to music on the go back in the 80s and early 90s, before technology became increasingly more compact). Keeping the elbow high is the most important part of the catch, and the most critical piece of the setup for the boombox-style jerk and press.

With the behind-the-ear style catch, the dumbbell will be angled so that the thumb side grip end of the dumbbell is posterior to the pinky end of the dumbbell. When using dumbbells with squared-off ends, the boombox style catch can work, but rounded-end dumbbells can render the boombox style logistically unfeasible. The behind-the-ear style is typically also the preferred dumbbell catch position for longer dumbbells. A much rarer style, the neutral grip position is the third, and seldom used, dumbbell catch position. With the first two primary styles of catching, a high elbow position and ownership are critical parts of the technique. When preparing for the jerk after the catch, the elbow needs to remain still. Most losing dumbbell jerks are victims of an unstill elbow. Meanwhile, those who are able to focus on keeping the elbow high and still during the dip and drive phases of the jerk set themselves up for success. Again, the invariant representation of the essence of a jerk or press should take over, reminding us, with slight adjustment of the elbow position, anyone who can jerk a barbell can figure out how to jerk a dumbbell as well. Low Load, High Velocity, Short Duration Now, we arrive at the section of this chapter dedicated to jumping. With jumping, we have all stances and planes available to train in. Our focus here is going to be placed on training jumping from the perspective of maximal output repetitions, so low-amplitude methods will not be featured. From the perspective of tissue preparation for high intensity stretch-shortening cycle activities, building a volume foundation with low-amplitude drills, like jump rope, ankle hop, and pogo hop, is a great approach. Joel Jamieson does an amazing job explaining where to include low-amplitude stretch-shortening cycle drills into his training programs, and Derek Hansen also utilizes ankle hops quite a bit, for developing ground interaction skills for running. Sagittal, Bilateral, Low Load, High Velocity, Short Duration

Page

184

There is going to be a common order to the sequencing of drills for all of these low load, high velocity triple extension activities performed in different stances and planes. The first thing you’re going to do is choose activities that allow for learning of landing mechanics in the easiest and best way possible. From there, you will introduce more downward acceleration of the body mass from gravity prior to landing. After that, you will progressively reduce the ground contact time between landing and takeoff on subsequent jumps. To put all this in practice, first, when applicable, have the athlete jump up and land on a box. After box jumps, you will have the athlete jump up and over a hurdle, and stick the landing on the ground (or box) on the other side of that hurdle. Following that, the athlete will jump up and over a hurdle, and upon landing, perform a small bounce on the ground prior to the subsequent jump. After jumps with bounces, the athlete will perform repeat jumps up and over a hurdle, with minimal ground contact time between jumps. The next progression would entail the athlete standing on a box, stepping off, and sticking the landing on the ground (depth drops). The last progression would be depth jumps, where the athlete steps off a box, hits the ground, and immediately jumps. The first drill in the sequence of sagittal plane, bilateral stance, low load, high velocity, short duration, triple extension exercises is the box jump. The biggest problem with box jumps we currently have in the fitness space is the faulty belief that the higher the box, the better. This is an unnecessarily dangerous and unproductive way to perform box jumps, which completely defeats the purpose of why boxes are used in the first place. The point of using a box jump is to make the landing as easy as possible. The box brings the landing ground up higher so that there is less time for gravity to accelerate the body down towards the actual ground. The challenge of landing centers on the amount of gravitational acceleration the jumper can handle while continuing to demonstrate proper

landing mechanics. The longer the duration of the fall, the greater the challenge. With a box jump, practically no time should be spent falling, because the feet meet the box at the apex of the jump, before gravity can start pulling the jumper back down. This entire concept fits in perfectly with some of the Principles of Progression. Besides minimizing the difficulty of managing gravity, the box jump also allows for starting static before going dynamic in respect to the acceleration of the body downward, all of which maximizes the odds of an optimal landing. Landing correctly in jumping drills is not as easy as it seems. When assessing landings in my coaching, I look for axial skeleton alignment, fitting sagittal plane motor competency standards, and arms down by the sides, parallel to the plane of the thorax. The hips and knees should be in slight flexion, and the focus should be on preventing the heels from hitting the ground. An athlete who can land like this positions him or herself for immediate execution of a subsequent athletic movement. This position is what coaches have long called “the athletic position”. To avoid cueing excessive extension, I am not aggressive with cueing “chest up, butt back, shoulders back and down”, but I do steer athletes towards the shape and placement of the athletic/ready position. The sequence for these jumping drills is one that I’ve primarily derived from Mike Boyle’s organization of jumping progressions. His approach is tried and true, logical, sequential, and one that I rely on in my own coaching. While my approach differs from his in a few ways, the thought process behind it has been heavily influenced by his. The following list is the progression order for sagittal plane, bilateral stance, low load, high velocity, short duration, triple extension exercises:

Page

185

1. Box jumps

2. Jump over hurdle to progressively lower boxes

3. Jump over hurdle to ground & stick 4. Jump over hurdle to bounce to second jump 5. Repeat jumps over hurdles 6. Depth drops

7. Depth jumps Coaching Points Proper landing mechanics should be emphasized at the outset of jumping drills, especially when first embarking on them. Proper landing position is the athletic position, which features sagittal axial skeleton centering, along with a modest level of hip flexion, knee flexion, and plantar flexion. The plantar flexion aspect is the one I want to emphasize here, which means that, upon landing, the landing should

feature no contact between the athlete’s heels and the ground. Coaches that have trained under Mark Verstegen’s Athlete’s Performance turned Exos system learn to cue athletes to land “so that someone could slide a credit card under your heels”. A worthy cue to borrow for helping athletes think about landing during jumping drills. When thinking about all the physiology associated with the stretch-shortening cycle, the architecture of the muscle-tendon unit (MTU) must be considered, being the primary variable we’re looking to manipulate. When forces interact with tissues, as they do when someone lands on the ground from a jump, the tissues will deform. However, due to relative stiffness differences between tissues, there will never be equal degrees of deformation in all tissue types. Instead, whichever tissue demonstrates the least mechanical stiffness will be the tissue that deforms the most. Due to its dynamic nature, muscle tissue is the primary tissue that determines the ratio of inter-tissue relative stiffness. When not powerfully contracting, the muscle will exist at a low level of mechanical stiffness, and is easily deformable. When muscle is powerfully contracting, it changes to a high level of mechanical stiffness, and it is very difficult to deform. When you are walking slowly and your foot hits the ground, the muscle is not contracting at a high level, so a great deal of muscular deformation takes place. By contrast, when you are sprinting maximally, the muscle is contracting at an extremely high level, allowing for much less muscular deformation during ground contact. When the muscle is incredibly stiff and not deforming much, tendons will be deforming a great deal more. The tendons are the primary elastic tissues of the body. Those of us who demonstrate great bounce have the ability to create great muscular stiffness, enabling great tendinous deformation and elasticity. When thinking about triple extension stretch-shortening cycle activities, the big tendons that we want to deform are the Achilles and the patella tendon. This is why we want to land in knee flexion, with the heels off the

Page

186

ground. To passively crash onto the heels, one needs no tremendous contractility of the gastrocnemius and soleus muscle. The absence of high levels of calf-muscle recruitment results in the absence of deformation in the Achilles. On the contrary, preventing the heels from hitting the ground upon landing highly recruits both the calves and the quads. And, powerfully recruiting these muscles increases their stiffness, making the stiffness of the muscles surpass that of the tendons. And, once the big tendons are the more elastic tissue, they deform, gathering their elastic energy, and utilizing it to power the subsequent jump. Arm placement is the other major consideration for the landing position. The arms should land in an extended position, so that they are in line with the thorax, with the hands down by the sides. Essentially, the arms should be in the position that optimally supports immediate performance of the next jump. Arm swing is often underestimated as a powerful vehicle for propelling the body off the ground and into higher jumps. If that sounds familiar, give yourself a pat on the back for recalling the running mechanics section of the locomotion, that underscored the importance of arm swings in moving the body. I’ll often use the long seated arm swing drill, covered there, to illustrate how we can lift our whole body off the ground with just arm swing. This usually provides enough conviction that powerfully moving the arms through the jump zone can make a big difference. But, until we find the right landing positions for the arms after a single jump, great arm swing for subsequent jumps is out of the question. Med ball slams can be good drills for demonstrating the requisite arm action at time of landing, which is to get them down and back quickly, primed for landing mechanics training. When I coach bounces and repeat jumps, I tend to be a little bit more aggressive with the way I speak and cue, because I need my subjects to be quick off the ground. My recurring cues are: “Don’t let your heels hit”, “Arms down”, and “Get up quick”. Step one is: focus on the heels. Step two: get the arms in the right spot. Step three is getting off the

ground quickly. As previously cautioned, do not give any kind of internal cues to drive jump height, but rather reinforce that the only thing to think about is going up or forward. In the progression list provided for this set of drills, along with most of the other types of jumping, you’ll see that final progressions are depth drops and depth jumps. These are the most advanced types of stretch-shortening cycle exercises, and should only be used with those who are highly athletic, and of advanced training age. Depth drops refer to standing on a box, stepping off, and simply landing on the ground with proper form. Depth jumps involve standing on a box, stepping off, and jumping off the ground again, as quickly as possible after landing impact. There is no need to rush to these drills. If you are making progress on jumping performance with the earlier progression drills, continue to do those until they stop yielding improvements. The other thing to be aware of with depth drills is that heavier athletes will receive a much stronger stimulus compared to lighter athletes. With this in mind, these types of exercises may be ill-advised for athletes over 250 pounds, and, if used, excessive volume should be avoided. In other words, be selective about including these exercises, and do so only when working with the appropriate athlete, who demonstrates tremendous competency on all previous drills, returns from which have begun to diminish, necessitating extra stimulus for optimizing this stretch-shortening quality. Sagittal, Front/Back, Single Leg Jumps, Low Load, High Velocity There are two types of front/back stance jumps: single leg jumps and split squat jumps. For the single leg jumps, we will follow the same progressions as those used for sagittal plane bilateral stance jumps, the only difference being that the boxes we jump on, the hurdles we jump over, and the objects we drop off of will be lower, since we’re training one leg at a time.

When comparing unilateral limb training

Page

187

and bilateral limb training, there are a few topics to note. One is the bilateral deficit. If I were doing dumbbell biceps curls with doing arms, I might only be capable of five reps with forty pound dumbbells. But, if I were to train one arm at a time, I might find that I can do eight reps with my right arm, and eight with my left with the same forty pound dumbbell. This is generally what we witness across the board, with any exercise that can be done one limb at a time. The sum of weight I could do for 1RM with my left arm, plus the weight I could do with my right is always greater under unilaterally-focused conditions than the 1RM weight of the same exercise done under bilateral conditions. How are we to apply this bilateral deficit reality to training? The initial thought is that we do every exercise one limb at a time, which will pack more punch in each individual rep. Producing more force in a given repetition means recruiting more muscle fibers, specifically more fast-twitch muscle fibers, driving greater adaptive changes to the tissues. And, more adaptive changes means being bigger, stronger, faster, and jumping higher. Though seemingly sound, this theory has some logistical issues. First, every athlete (and coach) must realize that doing every type of exercise on one foot instead of two, or with one hand instead of two, necessitates training sessions that are twice as long as they would be with simultaneous limb training. Secondly and importantly, in a lot of instances, the unilateral version of the exercise puts the athlete in a more unstable position than its bilateral variation. And, the more unstable one’s position, the more energy is being diverted from the prime movers and sent to the stabilizers and accessory muscles, diverting power from the motion actually being trained. The other factor to consider is that training experience inversely correlates to the bilateral deficit. The legs of someone who can squat six hundred pounds produce an obscene amount of force, and that’s true whether we measure this force one leg at a time or both at the same time. Now, some would say that doing more unilateral training could potentially widen the bilateral deficit, which would be

desirable, because sports are generally played on one leg at a time. This is how we run, and change direction, and do many other things. Bilateral strength is seen as superfluous by this camp, because the majority of time, in the majority of sports, we do not find ourselves in a symmetrical, bilateral place. Though this remains a subject of debate, my stance on it is that classical training patterns should be included in everyone’s training templates. I divide these training patterns into three primary groups. Group one is breathing and core. Group two is running, jumping, throwing, and changing direction. Group three is lifting for hips, knees, pushing, pulling, and explosion. Each of these groups dominates specific competencies. Group one’s is sensorimotor, control, and changing skeletal orientation and range of motion capabilities. Group two’s is speed, elasticity, and reactiveness. Group three’s is force production and muscular development. As long as you are moving the subject towards the outcome associated with the group the pattern falls into, then you are doing your job. Choose an activity that fits the ability level of the individual you’re coaching, as well as one you are proficient at coaching, and which makes sense in the available training environment. The model presented here represents what I consider an organization of drills, sequenced to increase the probability that the exercises they are training will be properly performed. Proper exercise performance in turn maximizes the trainees’ adaptations, while mitigating adverse exercise side effects. Don’t get too caught up in opinions, theories, and ideas. Instead, always strive for movement competency, and base that competency on the standards outlined here. Likewise, keep in mind that the goal is never to progress to the most advanced exercise(s) within any drill category simply for the sake of doing those drills. Advancing to the next exercise progression is only wise if the activity you were doing has reached a significant plateau, and other performance markers for the athlete have also

Page

188

reached a plateau. If numbers are moving in the right direction, continue what you are doing. Be aware that numbers in one group moving in a given direction may impact numbers in a different group. If a major league baseball pitcher’s horizontal pushing is substantially improved, but at the cost of decreases in shoulder flexion, horizontal abduction, and external rotation, that is not ideal. Create profiles of acceptability, and ensure that you stay within them.

2. Single leg jump over hurdle to stick

Back to the subject at hand, one leg (or hand!) versus two isn’t likely to make a significant difference. Don’t be a slave to other people’s opinions on training concepts, but, rather, see what works in your setting. This book is meant to provide you with the full playbook of available choices. Some choices may be perfect for your setting, and others may be inapplicable. Regardless, have some standards and measurements that override opinions. Follow the numbers and the results.

3. Single leg jump over hurdle to bounce to jump over hurdle 4. Single leg jumps over sequential hurdles 5. Single leg depth drop

The single leg jumps featured here will progress from box jumps, to hurdle hops, to drops off of objects. It is a very similar sequence to the bilateral stance, sagittal plane jumps. The following list is the sequence for front/back stance, sagittal plane, single leg jumps, triple extension activities: 1. Single leg box jump



6. Single leg depth jumps Coaching Points The reduced stability of single leg jumps dramatically increases the difficulty of performing these drills, and their increased difficulty is especially evident on the landing. The focus should be placed on the landing for these drills, particularly when getting started. When executed properly, landing in an athletic position without the heel hitting the ground is incredibly muscularly demanding. Focus on the landing in training is incredibly beneficial for developing eccentric strength, and eccentric rate of force development. Eccentric force capabilities are typically underdeveloped in most, and are associated with improvements in performance markers. In this model, we’re actually less concerned with eccentric strength and eccentric rate of force development, but rather, the ability to maintain a concentric orientation of the muscles

Page

189

while performing a yielding action. This is not a subtle difference. The maintenance of a concentric orientation during the yielding action is the mechanism by which the athlete can optimize requisite movement. Those who maintain the concentric orientation during yielding actions are those who will demonstrate greater quantitative stiffness, and demonstrate greater rates of force development overall, while those who struggle with maintaining it will lack reactivity, and display lower performance on the quantifiable markers that represent high levels of athleticism. Put another way: tremendously explosive athletes are those who keep their concentric orientation on triphasic movements more so than athletes who lack pop. By keeping the heel from hitting the ground on landings, we are creating the proper triggers for driving desired training effects. This cue will help athletes keep the calf muscles in a concentric orientation, which can help them absorb force rapidly, and expedite the amortization phase as well as the transition to an overcoming action that’s needed to power the subsequent jump. The big hole in the operation is going to be the yielding phase, which is why teaching and focusing on landing elements is so important. Getting carried away with how high the athlete can jump is unfortunately all too common, and unfortunate because this isn’t the stage of the movement that yields the most important adaptations for this pattern. If I had a nickel for each time I heard that repeat jumps are easier than jumps with the bounce in between, I’d have quite a few… except that, repeat jumps are only easier when done incorrectly. By the same token, folks likely find the bounce jumps more difficult to do because their execution is harder to screw up, so odds are they are doing these right, and feeling their true muscular demand. In fitness development, before we can target maximal output, I first need to confirm the subject can exercise necessary control over his or her body, as well as the exercise implements we’re using. If I put the focus on output first, then the mechanics will be suboptimal, and bad habits will be developed. To stick a landing, or to demonstrate

the small bounces in between hurdle hops, you have to demonstrate control. In this particular instance, we need to first establish control over the muscular orientation of the lower leg. Demonstrating control is difficult, but brings the subject increasingly closer to proper drill execution. Those who’ve done this painstaking work will not fall for the illusion that the bounce-between hops are more difficult than the repeat jumps. Sagittal, Front/Back, Split Stance Jumps, Low Load, High Velocity The first time I watched the video Freak of Training I was enamored, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys incredible displays of power and athleticism. This video featured the drills used by Coach Jay Schroeder to develop Adam Archuletta, who played safety in the NFL for over a decade. Coach Schroeder started working with Archuletta at a young age, guiding his training to prepare him for college, the NFL combine, and ultimately for playing in the NFL. The video features some really amazing plyometric drills, and Archuletta’s physical capabilities are practically beyond belief. What jumped out at me (pun intended!) was how much they drilled landing and jumping from the split-squat position. There are some really unique drills in there, such as low squat foot jumps that may get you thinking about how you coach your plyometric training. The split squat position can be very effective for plyometric training, and many of the same options are available from this stance, with the exception of box jumps. The distance between the feet in the split stance landing may be greater than the surface area of the top of the box, and jumping forward a substantial distance is required to properly arrange the feet on top of a box, all of which adds an unnecessary layer of complexity. Instead, simply start with jumping and landing on the ground. With these jumps, you will see that there are split squat jumps, and there are also split cycle jumps. The split cycle jumps are a progression over the split squat jumps. This list specifically

Page

190

differentiates between split squat and split cycle jumps. You could make a reasonable argument that you could perform exercise 6 as the second level drill in a training program. I’ll leave it up to you to determine whether you want to go all the way through the split squat jumps before introducing the split cycle jumps, or if you want to do both versions of sticks before progressing to both versions of bounces, and so on. The following list is the order of drills for sagittal plane, front back, split stance jumps: 1. Split squat jump to stick

2. Split squat jump to bounce to jump 3. Repeat split squat jumps 4. Split squat depth drop 5. Split squat depth jump 6. Cycle split squat jump to stick 7. Cycle split squat jump to bounce to jump 8. Repeat cycle split squat jumps 9. Cycle split squat depth jump Coaching Points Keeping the front heel off the ground is going to be a critical element of all of these drills. The other big piece is keeping jumpers from creeping their feet too close to each other on subsequent jumps. Many will start off in a decent split position, but after a jump or two, “drift” into drills that look almost like bilateral stance jumps. This is something to harp on when starting with the first progression of sticking the landing. Make sure you are adamant about maintaining distance between their feet, and you will set the tone for keeping a good level of separation in future, more demanding drills.

One logistical factor that is often neglect-

ed is how to step off the box for the depth drops and depth jump versions of these exercises. We do not want to step off straight ahead off the box, as doing this may cause the back foot to hit the box behind it, either while in the air or once on the ground, both of which could cause problems. Instead, have subjects step off the box sideways. The final coaching point to consider is that we do not want these drills to become a pure hip hinge/back extension version of jumping. What we want is for them to mimic the split-squat jump more than anything else. Some will perform these drills without changing their knee and ankle angle whatsoever. They will simply hinge at the hip, and angle the thorax forward, then extend the hip and back to go up. While hip hinging and forward thorax angling should take place, there should also absolutely be a knee flexion and extension moment during these drills. Frontal, Bilateral, Low Load, High Velocity With these jumps, the jumper will be facing perpendicular to the direction he or she is jumping towards. So, when performing a perpendicular-facing box jump, the jumper would not be facing towards the box. Instead, the box would be at the jumper’s side, and he or she would jump up and onto it without changing the orientation of where he or she is facing. There is no midair rotation on these jumps, so the jumper continues to face forward from beginning to end of the motion. In other words, the jumper is always oriented sideways, relative to the direction in which he or she is projecting him or herself through in space, which makes this a frontal plane drill. Subjects should be very comfortable with box jumps, hurdle jumps, and any other implement being employed before doing these drills. The added complexity of not facing towards the implement one is jumping up onto or over creates a significant increase in added difficulty for these drills. The exact same sequencing of progressions applies these drills as that used for sagittal plane bilateral jumps. Here is the

Page

191

order of activities for frontal plane, bilateral stance, low load, high velocity, triple extension exercises: 1. Perpendicular facing box jump

ground, we want good arm swing to help drive the body through space, and we want to be able to demonstrate good control as well as a static stick, before we worry about dynamic reactivity. Perhaps out of fear of hitting the box with a step-off approach, or in an effort to get more height for their landing (or both), some athletes will try to jump up and away from the box to get to their landing on depth drops and jumps. As mentioned, we want the athlete to step off the box sideways rather than jump off the box, so look out for this, and coach these folks to laterally step off the box.

2. Perpendicular facing hurdle jump to lower box landing

Frontal, Front/Back, Single Leg Hops, Low Load, High Velocity

3. Perpendicular facing hurdle jump to stick 4. Perpendicular facing hurdle jump to bounce to jump over next hurdle 5. Perpendicular facing sequential hurdle jumps 6. Perpendicular facing depth drop 7. Perpendicular facing depth jump

These drills will all feature hops, performed while facing perpendicular to the object the athlete is jumping onto or over. Let’s remember that a jump is defined here as an exercise where the jumper both takes off and lands on two feet. A bound, on the other hand, is an exercise where the jumper takes off with one foot, but lands on the other. Finally, a hop is an exercise where the jumper takes off and lands on the same foot, one foot at a time. All of the drills in this section are hops, and all of them are all single leg variants. Consequently, the athlete needs to take off for each hop in the medial and lateral direction, and ensure the same volume for each direction, for each foot.

Coaching Points Many will first attempt these drills too tentatively, likely anticipating a dropoff in height comparable to sagittal plane jumps. To mitigate this, introduce these drills with what you think might be an excessively low box jump, to illustrate that there is not going to be much in the way of dropoff on these types of jumps. This typically lifts anxiety associated with attempting them, allowing subjects to approach them full steam ahead. This drill requires all of the same types of focus as other triple extension jumping drills. We want to prevent the heels from hitting the

The order of progressions for these drills are the same as the single leg sagittal plane hops. These hops will feature going up onto a box, over a hurdle, and then following drops from objects. Here is the list of frontal plane, front/back stance, single leg hops, low load, high velocity, triple extension exercises:

Page

192

1. Perpendicular facing single leg box hop

is a hard thing to get people to do. Instead, you’ll see subjects crashing down, letting their heels hit, failing to use muscle to absorb force. As coaches, it’s our job to be vigilant, and get our athletes to firm up any areas where they may not be applying maximum effort, or may be letting bad habits seep in. This is a realm of drill where temptation towards laziness seems particularly strong. Instill that the landing is the most important part, and get subjects to work hard to stick. Lastly, get them to respect the bounce. Do all this, and you can go home knowing you’ve truly trained this pattern.

2. Perpendicular facing hop over hurdle to stick

Frontal, Lateral, Low Load, High Velocity

3. Perpendicular facing hop over hurdle to bounce to hop over next hurdle 4. Perpendicular facing hop over sequential hurdles 5. Perpendicular facing depth drop 6. Perpendicular facing depth hop



Coaching Points The landings on these hops are incredibly unstable, so, to stick these, subjects have to work very hard to prevent the heel from hitting the ground. Because of this tremendous amount of muscular effort involved, using these as introductory drills for light triple extension would be physiologically overwhelming. As with the preceding drills in this pattern, emphasize technical mastery before you maximize landing difficulty. Subjects will often try to avoid the bounce in this progression. Instead, they will try to go right to the repeat hops over the hurdles. If you see this, slow them down and get them to bounce. The landing components of these drills are where all the work lives. Really using concentric orientation and yielding action work

This category of drills belongs to bounds. Bounds involve projecting yourself from one foot, and landing on the other. In Mark Verstegen’s Athlete’s Performance model (now Exos), he created a truly genius delineation between different kinds of plyometric activities, categorizing some as having vertically-focused amplitude, and others as horizontally-focused amplitude. A box jump is normally a drill with a vertically-focused amplitude, and a long jump is one with a horizontally-focused amplitude. I encourage fellow coaches to adopt this added categorization, and be aware that you can manipulate any plyometric drill to have a more vertical or a more horizontal focus. Bounds are an example of a movement that can change dramatically depending on whether the trajectory of the propulsion has a vertical or horizontal focus. Few progressions reside in this category, which is a realm of triple extension training that typically does not feature a box. The reason is that using a box to bound up onto often just encourages the reaching of the up leg instead of the desired propulsion from the down leg. The first few drills in this category are frequently referred to as “Heidens”, after the great speed skater, Eric Heiden. These are drills that he used in his training for speed skating, and his popularity created an ongoing association with these lateral bounds. To take full advantage of available training for this realm of fitness, these drills should be done with both a verti-

Page

193

cal and horizontal amplitude. The final drill in this category is referred to as “Russian stairs”. Resembling the first obstacle from Ninja Warrior, Russian stairs are slanted boards, between which athletes bound back and forth. Here is the list of progressions for frontal plane, lateral stance, low load, high velocity, triple extension exercises: 1. Lateral bound to stick 2. Lateral bound to bounce to lateral bound 3. Repeat lateral bounds 4. Russian stairs Coaching Points These drills involve a strong frontal plane pelvis, supplemented by transverse plane thorax contribution. In order to be able to create explosion on these drills, subjects need to be able to lateralize their body weight over the stance side foot as well as coil their thorax, to assist in creating a hip shift. This yielding windup preceding the overcoming explosion out of the position is what makes these drills come alive. These drills also bear a high resemblance to coming out of a break on a change of direction drill. These are best coached with high energy, because athletes need to perform them with the same. They need to coil, and explode out of their coil. Simply going through the motions on these drills results in getting little back from them. But, with some extra intent and effort, their outcome is significantly improved. Focusing on the inside edge of the foot that’s being landing on and bounding from is key here. Doing so enables the athlete to maintain the femur in an optimal position, as the pelvis lateralizes and rotates over the top of that femur. If the weight gets too lateral on the foot, the femur is lost in space, and the subject usually demonstrates a center of mass that’s too far laterally over its base of support. The problem with this is that it renders one unable to stick the landing. Instead, subjects who’ve fallen into this end up hopping around before they can stick and perform the subsequent bounce.

Finding and owning the big toe-side of the foot is the major key to success on these drills. The reason that the inside edge of the foot is such a focal point is that, when we lateralize and coil, we are going into ER, flexion, and abduction of the landing foot, while trying to maintain a concentric orientation of the IR, extension, and adduction muscles. Holding the inside edge of the foot will set the stage for keeping this concentric orientation. In essence, the inside edge of the foot is to frontal plane triple extension what prevention of heel contact with the ground is to sagittal plane triple extension. Inside edge is critical for change of direction as well. We’ll talk more about this when we get to that particular pattern, but, for now, suffice it to say that those who can change direction laterally at a very high level do so through the inside edge. Transverse, Bilateral, Low Load, High Velocity I’m proud to say that, to my knowledge, these transverse plane jumping drills are distinctly my own creation, which I’m excited to share with anyone who can employ them in their own professional or personal training repertoire. The primary aim of these exercises is to create rotation through the thorax. They work to accomplish this rotation by bringing both arms over to one side of the body in preparation for the jump (the counter-movement), as opposed to having each arm swing down at its own side of the body. The first drill in this category is a trunk twist box jump. To create trunk rotation to the left prior to jumping up, the subject would perform the counter-movement of bringing his or her right elbow to the outside of their left knee. Every jump in the transverse plane sections will feature trunk rotation during the counter-movement. The first grouping of progressions involves a trunk twist on the counter-movement only. The second group of progressions features a trunk twist on the counter-movement, and then a contralateral trunk twist on the landing as well.

Page

194

The names for some of these drills can be a mouthful, but you will see that each name precisely describes the movement entailed in that drill. For instance, the first drill in the upcoming exercise list is called “trunk twist to neutral landing box jump”. This means that the counter-movement involves a trunk twist, but the landing does not involve a trunk twist… one simply lands as he or she would in a sagittal plane bilateral box jump. If you scroll down to number three, you’ll see that it is called “trunk twist to neutral landing bounce to ipsilateral trunk twist jump”. This one features thoracic rotation in the counter-movement prior to the jump. The subject will land and get into a bounce the same way we would with a bilateral sagittal bounce landing. Prior to the next jump out of the bounce, he or she will trunk twist to the same side as we did on the first jump. Moving along to number seven, you’ll see that we’re back to a box jump, but rather than landing like one would in a bilateral sagittal box jump, the subject is now landing in trunk rotation. In this seventh drill, upon landing, the trunk is rotated in the opposite direction of the counter-movement trunk rotation. The following list is the order for transverse plane, bilateral stance, low load, high velocity, triple extension exercises: 1. Trunk twist to neutral box jump landing

2. Trunk twist to neutral landing jump to stick

3. Trunk twist to neutral landing bounce to ipsilateral trunk twist jump 4. Trunk twist to ipsilateral twist repeat jumps 5. Trunk twist depth drop (land in the twist) 6. Trunk twist depth jump to neutral landing 7. Trunk twist to contralateral twist landing box jump

8. Trunk twist to contralateral jump to contralateral stick 9. Trunk twist to contralateral bounce landing to trunk twist jump 10. Repeat contralateral jumps 11. Trunk twist depth jump to contralateral landing Coaching Points These drills are found in the transverse category, but they recruit a large amount of frontal plane pelvis for proper execution. To ensure subjects are keeping a solid base of a pelvis and femur underneath a twisting trunk, there are a couple of cues I leverage for these jumps. To ensure that the pelvis and femur are in an appropriate position, it is very important for the subject to maintain pressure down through the inside edge of the foot on the side of the hip shift. The hip shift will tend to lateralize the weight, and cause excess supination of the foot, which can in turn help to create an eccentric orientation of the yielding muscles. To keep the weight on the inside edge of the foot during the hip shift, the athlete must possess a high level of strength and control, because the momentum of the trunk twist and hip shift will serve to peel the inside edge of the foot off the ground, and blow the femur out laterally. The other major cue I use during the trunk twist is for subjects to bring the contra-

Page

195

lateral elbow over and outside the knee on the side of the hip shift. The transverse thorax action is not a slow, controlled or highly mindful movement here. Instead, we’re looking for the athlete to twist with high velocity and explosion, which can be aided by some type of external cue. I tend to focus on the relationship of the elbow to the knee, by inviting subjects: “When twisting left, try to bring your right elbow outside your left knee”. I like this cue both for encouraging a powerful thoracic twist, and for keeping the femur centered over the foot. If the athlete is performing a drill where they need to land with a contralateral twist, to get the benefits of the landing for this drill, they’ll need to be encouraged to get their elbow over to the other side with speed and authority. These transverse plane jumping drills are very similar to getting in and out of a cut with change of direction work. One needs to post on the inside of the foot that is one’s primary deceleration/re-acceleration foot. One needs to coil and uncoil one’s torso over the foot that one is posting on. To be successful, one needs to get in and out of one’s break very quickly. Subjects who think about these jumps as vertical oriented cuts are more likely to succeed at them. Transverse, Front/Back, Low Load, High Velocity, Short Duration: The jumps featured in this group are all performed from a split-squat start position. The split squat position is much more difficult to manage with a trunk twist and hip shift than it is in the bilateral stance. Despite the difficulty of these drills, these are truly dynamic exercises that create an impressive explosion in athletes who are competent at executing fundamental biomechanics positions. These drills are organized in a very similar way to previous groupings. We’ll be going from jumps to sticks, to jumps with bounce landings, to repeat jumps, to depth-based activities. We’ll also be going from trunk twists only on the counter-movement, to trunk twists on both the counter-movement and the landing. The following is the list of progressions for transverse

plane, front/back, low load, high velocity, short duration, triple extension exercises: 1. Trunk twist split squat jump to neutral stick

2. Trunk twist split squat jump to neutral landing bounce to ipsilateral twist split squat jump 3. Repeat ipsilateral trunk twist split squat jumps 4. Trunk twist split squat jump to contralateral twist stick

5. Trunk twist split squat jump to neutral landing bounce to contralateral split squat jump 6. Repeat contralateral trunk twist split squat jump 7. Trunk twist split squat depth drop 8. Trunk twist split squat depth jump to ipsilateral landing 9. Trunk twist split squat depth jump to contralateral landing Coaching Points Many of the aforementioned concepts also apply to these jumps. We want to prevent the heel of the front foot from hitting the ground when landing. We want to own the inside edge of the foot, when trunk-twisting and hip-shifting over that foot. We want to try to bring the right elbow to the outside of the left knee when trunk-twisting and hip-shifting left (and vice ver-

Page

196

sa), to encourage maximal coiling. If you see subjects who are unable to control their femurs, steer them away from these drills, which are characterized by high torsion and twist. Appropriate handling of torsion is great for driving training adaptations and improving force production capabilities, but poor mechanics can be dangerous where torsion is involved. If you’re unsure whether or not your subject is up to the task, choose from the plethora of simpler triple extension drills from this chapter. And, when you do choose these particular drills, make sure you are choosing them only for those who would benefit from their inclusion, and have the prerequisite capabilities to properly execute them.

following is the list of transverse plane, lateral stance, low load, high velocity, short duration, triple extension exercises: 1. Lateral box jump over to stick

2. Repeat lateral box jump over 3. Lateral box jump over to stick w/med ball

Transverse, Lateral, Low Load, High Velocity, Short Duration Every exercise in this pattern will be some form of lateral box jump-over. The athlete will have one foot up on a box, and will use that foot to propel him or herself up and laterally, such that the other foot also lands on the box. In these jumps, athletes will be jumping in a perpendicular direction to the one they face. If one’s left foot is on the box, the right foot would start on the floor. One would push down through the left foot, to jump up and to the left, over the box, and land with one’s right foot on the box. One would then repeat the process, by pushing down through the right foot to jump up and to the right, so that the left foot lands on the box and the right foot on the floor next to the box, bringing him or her back to the drill’s starting position. These drills offer only a few options for their performance. We will begin by performing lateral box jump-overs to stick, and then we will progress by repeating lateral box jump-overs. We can advance the exercise further by adding resistance, and medicine balls are our equipment of choice for these drills. For all drills in this group, thoracic rotation is essential for creating optimal power and jump height. If the left foot is on the box, the windup to create power will be the thorax twisting to the right side. The

4. Repeat lateral box jump over w/med ball Coaching Points In my mind, these drills are simply vertically directed shuttle runs. When one’s right foot is on the ground, he or she is making a cut that is going to send him or her back to the left, and vice versa. If one approaches it this way, and uses the thorax to help create this approach, he or she will demonstrate greater explosiveness than would be possible when thinking about it as jumping up and over. This is a great drill for golfers, because the lower body activity during a golf swing is very similar to the process of making a cut. This is something that a brilliant physical therapist, Michael Kay, imparted upon me. Mike currently operates out of Scottsdale, AZ, and does a lot of work with professional golfers. He pointed out that a backswing is getting into a cut, and the downswing when going into the

Page

197

follow through is coming out of a cut. If you understand how to cut, you know what to do with your lower body during a golf swing. When you start to think of things this way, you start to see that this statement is quite a ubiquitous one. Striking, throwing, and bounding actions are all about creating quality cuts. Cutting is always going to involve owning the inside edge of the outside foot, while the pelvis goes into a hip shift over that foot, and the thorax rotates in the same direction. This is the process of properly coiling your center of mass over your stance foot, while maintaining a concentric orientation of all the yielding muscles. When it comes to movement that will launch a projectile, this is the way it’s done. One starts with a sagittal base, shifts to create frontal plane centering, and once these two prerequisites are met, coils the body in the transverse plane. Whoever can create this kind of position can also likely unleash hell. Dominant Positions and Fitness Realms:

Dominant Plane: Sagittal Dominant Stance: Bilateral Dominant Load: Low Dominant Velocity: High Dominant Duration: Short

It would be easiest to claim that dominance for this realm is sport-specific, aka “it depends”. Not one for ambiguity, I take the stance that triple extension is best demonstrated and developed in the sagittal plane, with a bilateral stance. This is the plane and position in which we find ourselves when trying to create a maximal vertical jump, or a heavy Olympic lift. When contemplating these dominance realms, I’m always looking for the most natural go-to, that would be employed by the majority when tackling a given motor task. If you are trying to jump as high or as far as you could without a running start, you would choose a sagittal motion from a bilateral stance. Triple extension will be a revealing pattern for how explosive someone can be. To dramatically improve bench press strength or

distance run times, an athlete has to work hard, and be gritty. While most people can dramatically improve their slow velocity strength and aerobic performance, demonstrating great triple extension capabilities likely necessitates genetic ownership of relevant gifts. These gifts are also known as a high percentage of fasttwitch muscle fibers, and a skeleton shaped in an optimal way for expressing this pattern. Someone who lacks these predispositions likely also lacks the hardware for becoming highly proficient at triple extension. By no means is this to say that those of us on this list should just give up, because the quest for self improvement will always yield us benefits, but leaving out the role of the genetic component when discussing this movement pattern is dishonest. As a coach, whether or not you’re training the triple extension-gifted, you’ll want to do it within a well-constructed overall program, and focus on body composition, heeding the old track and field saying: “Fat don’t fly”. Athletes looking to maximize the ability to jump would do well to get lean while maintaining strength.

12 Hip Dominant

Page

199

Hip Dominant

Chapter 12

All of the movement patterns we’ve covered so far—breathing, core exercises, locomotion, change of direction, throwing, and triple extension—have been ones dominated by body control and athleticism. Now, we come to the hip-dominant pattern, aka, hinging, which is the first pattern in this book that falls squarely in the realm of lifting weights. We can visualize the relationships between these patterns as a Venn diagram, where some aspects of most or all movements will overlap with each other, while others will diverge from the rest, and stand apart.

into a given direction.

Weight lifting is more so the latter, being a unique athletic endeavor. While most types of athletic performance benefit from athletes staying relaxed and “fluid”, lifting weights requires athletes to learn how to “get tight”. Our model encapsulated this tightness in the macro movement category of compression. Weight lifting is all about creating pressure, constricting, squeezing, and, ultimately, about hydraulics and pistons moving fluids into particular regions of the body, to displace bones and body segments

Mechanical Considerations of the Hip-Dominant Pattern

To be a great lifter, one has to learn how to clamp muscles down on blood vessels, to turn one’s periphery into an exoskeleton that won’t bend while attempting to move heavy objects through space. And, arguably even more challengingly, one has to learn how to endure the sensation that one’s head may pop off from all of that tightness. If I had to pick one lift that’s capable of pushing the body to its peak of compression and pressurization, I’d pick the deadlift.

If you have ever coached in a personal training or sports performance setting, you probably understand that getting someone to sit his or her hips back into a hinge position is a lot easier said than done. You may have used teaching approaches like trying to get these subjects to sit their butts back into a wall behind them, or maybe you put a band around their hips and pulled them backwards. You’ve probably thoroughly explained the difference between the squatting down and hinging back movements. And, finally, you may have found yourself getting exasperated when seeing subjects continue to round their backs like jumbo shrimp, or dorsiflexing and knee-flexing ten miles to get down to the bar, with zero hip involvement. “Come on, people!” you may have found yourself thinking. “How hard is it to just sit your hips back?” When I think about the essence of a hinge, I think that it’s about getting the pelvis to translate backwards through space, to incline the trunk forward, and bring the hands down, towards the ground. After sitting back, the

Page

200

pelvis goes forward through space, to erect the trunk to lift an object. The movement is not one of folding the trunk forward via a lever at the acetabulum, which results in its performers resembling a lawn flamingo tipping forward and back. Instead, a true hinge is defined by the entire pelvis moving backwards on the way down, and forward on the way up. Hinging should be done with a back that is relatively flat, as opposed to one that’s significantly exaggerated into hyperextension, or features a significant amount of flexion anywhere along it. Hinging correctly paves the way for significant development of the glute and hamstring hip extensor muscles, as well as the development of back muscles, as these counteract weight. A powerful movement which develops tissues and stresses the body to the highest possible degree, the hinge movement can also be a scary one. This may explain why it’s so often butchered by a large number of amateur weight lifters. In order to be able to hinge properly, one needs to tip the pelvis before sitting back. So, what’s the right way to tip the pelvis forward? Serge Gracovetsky is the author of the book The Spinal Engine, in which he postulates that it’s the spine (not the legs) that moves the pelvis. He began his hypothesis by examining the movements of people without legs. He noticed that if you filmed their movements and then rewatched the video from hip-level and up, it appeared very much as though these folks were upright and trying to go forward on their ischial tuberosities, or, in other words, as though they were walking on legs. This discovery led him to collect data which supported his theory. The central thesis of the Spinal Engine concepts is the idea that the spine is the catalyst for all of our movements. The spine will drive the pelvis, the shoulders, and so forth. So, if hinging requires the pelvis to tip forward before it can slide back and into the bottom position of this exercise, it must be the spine that tips the pelvis forward to initiate this motion.

Posterior compression of the spine is the requisite action to accomplish this. The likely answer to what causes the presentation of anterior pelvic tilt in humans is that it is driven by posterior compression of the spine at, and above, the sacrum. In order for the pelvis to go backwards in space, the sacrum is the key part that needs a nutation moment imparted upon it. This nutation moment can be brought about by moving the sacrum itself, or by tipping the entire pelvis forward, in an anterior tilt presentation. When the sacrum moves into nutation, it creates an eccentric orientation of the posterior pelvic floor, and a concentric orientation of the anterior pelvic floor. The eccentric orientation of the posterior pelvic floor allows for significant ROM in the posterior direction. If the sacrum cannot be anteriorly oriented, the ability to sit the hips back will be impeded by a concentric oriented posterior pelvic floor, and some form of compensatory action must take place in order to hinge.

Fig 12.1 - Sacrum and pelvis in anterior tilt The compression and anterior orientation and nutation of the sacrum relies on exhalation. Those who will struggle with the hinge will be those who tend to be biased towards an inhalation presentation, whereas those who should have strong hinging ability will be biased towards exhalation (unless there is some compensatory action that alters this). Between the deadlift and the squat, aka, the two big weightroom lower body patterns, we can say that the deadlift is our exhale-dominant pattern, and the squat is our inhale-dominant pattern. Getting

Page

201

into the proper positions and maintaining great form in the deadlift is closely tied to matching one’s body to all of the compression and exhalation strategy-based joint positions and bodily actions. Here is the list of these mechanical actions, associated with the exhalation strategy:



Exhale Internal Rotation Extension Adduction Dorsiflexion Pronation

This list is incredibly useful, because it actually contains all of the cues and passive constraints needed for coaching the hinge. So, when a subject isn’t translating the pelvis back properly, I could potentially cue him or her to exhale while sitting back, which should help. I could also potentially put something under the subject’s toes, to put them into greater dorsiflexion, which should help. I could cue this same subject to focus on crushing the big toe side of the foot into the floor while they sit back, which should help. I could put a yoga block between the subject’s thighs, right above the knees, which should help. I could put a towel under the medial arch and tell this subject to crush it while sitting back, which should help. Finally, we could use a kettlebell, holding onto the horns, which would put the subject’s arms into internal rotation, which should also help. I prefer the use of external devices to excessive verbal instructions for correctly positioning my subjects’ bodies, because this helps them learn how movement should feel. Once I see them do something properly, I ask them if they noticed any specific feeling, and, often, they do. I then have them resume that position, and really pay attention to the feeling, as a way of teaching them to associate certain feelings with positional checkpoints. This reliance on particular sensations at these particular checkpoints during a motion creates a feedback loop for verifying its proper execution. I’d actually go so far as to say that, rather than learning “positions”, we actually learn feelings.

When executing the hinge, I want my subjects to feel the weight distribution through their feet, or the tension in their hamstrings, at the bottom of a hinge. I want them to feel the difference between being a “pusher” and a “puller” on the ascent of a hinge. As internalized guides go, my voice and cues can’t compete with sensations a subject can actually feel. So, when teaching movement competency, I want my subjects thinking less, and feeling more. My voice will only make them think, but using references and constraints will make them feel. Once subjects are proficient at using requisite feelings as cues to move into the right positions, we can talk strategy, optimization, and so forth. But, whatever the subject’s stage of competency, in my opinion, great coaches tend to talk less, and not so great ones, more. Training the Hip-Dominant Pattern Available Options



Available Planes: All Available Stances: All Available Loads: All Available Velocities: All Available Durations: All

Sagittal, Bilateral, Low Load, High Velocity Two-handed kettlebell swings, two-handed cleans, and two-handed snatches are the exercises that fit into this category. As soon as you go one-handed with kettlebell drills, a transverse plane element gets automatically added to them. Kettlebell swings, cleans, and snatches have some bleedover with throwing and triple extension-based activities, but they are more hip-dominant than they are any other category. At age nineteen, I was coached in mixed martial arts by a man named John Burke, who was also like a father figure to me. John grew up in Foxborough, Massachusetts, not far from my hometown of Cape Cod, and had trained martial arts for most of his life. John himself was trained by a couple of guys named Frank and Dennis, who

Page

202

had fought in the Vietnam War, and had spent a considerable amount of time in Asia after their service. While there, these guys learned judo, jiu jitsu, muay thai, and kung fu. They called what they taught kung fu, but were in reality teaching mixed martial arts before it had this name. The school where John learned this “kung fu” was very small, and the training that took place there would quickly get branded too barbaric for today’s children and adolescents. There were two other guys who trained alongside John at this school, Jeff and Tom Martone. Tom has since become a Florida police officer, working in the riot control division, and Jeff, one of the earliest pioneers of kettlebell training in the United States. And me, at nineteen, well, I was struggling. Uneducated, aimless, and plagued by behavioral problems, I was going nowhere, at least nowhere good. What I did have was mixed martial arts. I had a coach who believed in me. I had teammates who were great people. And, I got introduced to a great fitness professional, the aforementioned Jeff Martone. On this particular week, John asked me to set some extra time aside because his friend and old training partner, Jeff, was going to be visiting. Jeff knew a lot about fitness and getting in shape to be a great fighter. This sounded good to me, because I loved to train, and wanted to maximize my fitness. So I meet Jeff, and he has these bowling balls with handles, and he’s saying that these are his preferred training tools. I’d never seen a kettlebell before in my life, but, lucky for me, I’ve always been open-minded, willing to learn, and ready to work hard. Jeff explained that the kettlebell was a tool that was primarily used in Russia, and that there were “swing” exercises and “grind” exercises that I could learn. The swing exercises would help with power coming from the hips, and the grinds would develop body control, grip strength, shoulder stability, and rotation through the pelvis and thorax. I watched Jeff do the kettlebell drills he was going to teach me and the other fighters, and it was like watching poetry in motion. The

man displayed strength and power, but doing so with striking smoothness and economy of movement. I was curious about his history with this implement. Jeff shared that he had been to Russia, where he participated in kettlebell competitions, and met Pavel Tsatsouline, whom Jeff befriended, and eventually helped immigrate to the US. Pavel had been associated with kettlebell training and developing fitness in military personnel, and he was creating quite a movement within the fitness industry. Through Pavel, Jeff rode the early wave of kettlebell training in the US, and went on to do fitness development for special operations soldiers in the US military. So, as fate would have it, I was learning from a true master at an age when I was too young and dumb to realize it. Don’t get me wrong, I gave Jeff my undivided attention and utmost respect, took constant notes, and soaked up the experience like a sponge. It just wouldn’t be till later that I would fully comprehend my good fortune. Fast forward to me as a professor, teaching at Brooklyn College, and Jeff teaching the Crossfit kettlebell instructor certification course at a Crossfit gym nearby. At one point, he asked me if I would be able to come over and help him teach the course. Now older and wiser, I felt so honored and appreciative of this golden opportunity, and Jeff didn’t let me down. An outstanding presenter, his weekend seminar was also incredibly well organized. The instruction was on point, and all attendees left much more proficient at their kettlebell lifts. Whenever I teach seminars, I channel Jeff that weekend, specifically the way he made everyone feel good about themselves while keeping them on task, and offering constructive criticism. The sequencing of drills that Jeff laid out for learning swing and Olympic variation lifts is very similar to what you would get in a course taught by Strong First nowadays. The difference between the organization in Jeff’s material and what you’ll see here is that I am categorizing these exercises by plane. The sagittal plane-based drills are found in this grouping of exercises. The drills here go from swing-

Page

203

based activities to cleans, to snatches. The following list is the order of exercises for sagittal plane, bilateral stance, low load, high velocity, hip-dominant drills: 1. Two-hand Russian swing

2. Double KB Russian swing 3. Two-hand Power swing 4. Double KB Power swing 5. Double KB Clean

6. Double KB Snatch

Coaching Points Simon Sinek’s book Start With The Why was all the rage when it came out. Its primary message was that, if you want people to

do something, you need to explain why they should. So, why should people do kettlebell swings, cleans, or snatches? What particular qualities do these exercises develop? When people do kettlebell swings, cleans, and snatches, they aren’t typically trying to do a one rep max. Instead, they typically do them for higher reps, or for longer time periods, but don’t usually give every swing or snatch 100%. Instead, people do a little pop to get the bell into the proper position, which is an effort that requires pacing to repeat over and over. The kettlebell swing is almost like the golf swing of resistance training exercises. It needs to be infused with strength and power, but also requires the athlete to be relaxed while performing it. One needs to let the bell swing itself to some degree. In other words, one needs to let the bell reach its proper position in the back swing, before generating high propulsion power just at the right moment during the upswing, and allowing the bell to reach its proper position in the follow-through. These swing motions aren’t used to build a ton of muscle mass, or to reach the highest level of neurological synchronization and rate coding, or for maximal rate of force development training. Swings aren’t the best choice for getting people to be able to jump higher, run faster, or to get jacked. So why would anyone do these types of exercises? Swings develop power endurance. Though this phrase might sound like an oxymoron, it’s not, and many sports require it for successful performance. Boxing, for instance, is a power endurance sport. The majority of punches that boxers throw are neither at full power, nor at an “aerobic” level. This is because each punch is a balancing act between exhibiting power and conserving energy. Boxers need to learn how to create the most amount of power that they possibly can while staying relaxed. Such punches are typically more accurate and sustainable, while still dramatic enough to knock out opponents.

Power endurance is more ubiquitous

Page

204

in sports than we may think. Though far less glamorous than the highlights, a crucial part of the game in most sports is wearing down the opponent(s), which means knowing how to stave off fatigue. Most popular sports to play and watch are fast, but not maximal speed. And, though we’re not talking marathon running levels, most require fatigue resistance. To put it another way, the majority of sports involve brief circa-max explosive efforts, followed by a recovery period, followed by more semi-explosive efforts, which cycle repeats over the course of sixty to ninety minutes of total game play. Aerobic and phosphogenic physiological development is critical for most athletes, which, once mastered, just leaves proficiency at sport-specific movement tactics. The common thread that connects most athletic endeavors is that of learning how to be fluid while creating explosive actions, and learning restraint is critical for preventing excessive fatigue by this fluidity/explosiveness pattern. This restraint for periodically explosiveness movements amidst fluid ones is what kettlebell swing exercises are designed to teach. Kettlebell swings reside in the no man’s land of physiological concepts. Somewhat nebulous and hard to categorize, they’re also tricky to measure in an empirical setting. But, be that as it may, anyone who’s participated in combat sports, tennis or many others will tell you about the near-maximally explosive efforts required at every exchange, and the vital role of stamina throughout the game. This stamina has to be learned. A phrase I’m fond of using to describe certain activities is “Two stones, no birds exercises’’. If my thinking was perfectly concrete, I might apply this phrase to swings. But, in reality, I believe that there is a lot of gray area in the world of training, that’s hard to fully appraise and appreciate. I believe that swing-type exercises populate the very cloudy, yet very real and useful, territory of power endurance. I will not describe the entirety of a twohand kettlebell swing here, as any number of videos can demonstrate the basics of the movement. Instead, I’ll talk about the big errors you

might see, and how I go about correcting them. Probably the biggest is when the bell comes too close to the ground as it is swinging back towards the swinger. Instead, the bell should be high in between the legs on its downswing. When the bell swoops too low, it is almost always the result of the swinger not being patient enough with the downswing. One has to learn to wait until the bell is almost going to hit him or her in the genitals before allowing the hips to break and hinge backwards. By contrast, when the swinger manages to keep the bell high in between the legs, a short, crisp, quick backswing will result, along with what appears to be a much more effortless upswing, powered by the harnessing and release of elastic energy. Akin to “different strokes for different folks”, different cues may be most effective for different athletes. You’re looking for great hip hinge action where the pelvis travels backwards in space, and the torso angles forward during the action. Some subjects won’t get enough hinge and inclination of the torso. I’ll offer this group the simple external cue to touch their fingers to their butt at the bottom of the swing, which has “cured” the movement for many of my subjects. The final major error is failing to create sufficient drive on the way up. The first drill that Jeff Martone uses to fix this problem is a box squat jump. He’ll have subjects squat down on a bench, focus on sitting their hips back, and then jump off. He’ll instruct them that this kind of impulse is what he’s looking for out of them in the up part of the swing. Believe it or not, most subjects can intuitively transfer the sensation of this drill to their upswing drive. When subjects have a pretty good idea of how to swing the bell properly, as well as the intent to create explosion on the way up, I try to teach them how to “optimize the up”. The trick is simple: patience. The impatient attempt to create their hip explosion right from the back of the swing, which is too early. Instead, one needs to wait for the bell to swing forward on its own for about three or four inches, and only then start to create hip drive. The idea is to allow the

Page

205

passive energy of the bell to do as much as it possibly can before the swinger has to use his or her own active energy. By waiting for the bell for the requisite amount of time, the swinger also gets closer to the sweet spot for creating maximal compression in our propulsion arc. Recall that, for many swinging actions, like that of a golf club or a baseball bat, the midzone is the strike zone. It’s no different for the kettlebell swing. These cues and recommendations apply to all drills on this sagittal plane, bilateral stance kettlebell swing, clean, and snatch activities list. That said, thus far, they’ve been provided with only the Russian swing (exercise number one) in mind. While the Russian swing comes up to chest height, the American swing drives the bell more forcefully, and the end of the up part of the swing is overhead. I do not recommend this drill because the risk is not worth the reward. If more force is desired without resorting to American swings, Russian swings with a heavier kettlebell are my recommendation. The power swing is an adaptation of the Russian swing. Here, once the bell reaches the top of its swing height, the swinger actively pulls it down, creating more velocity on its downswing. This increased velocity necessitates demonstration of more yielding muscle activity, and greater yielding rate of force development compared to the Russian swing. All aforementioned technique-improvement recommendations also apply to the power swing. With both the double KB Russian swing and the double KB power swing, the difference is in what happens with the arms as compared to the two-hand swinging of a single bell. Whenever you have one kettlebell being held in one hand, you have to follow the (literal) rule of thumb, which says the thumb must point in whatever direction the kettlebell is moving. If the kettlebell is going up, the thumb of the hand holding the bell needs to be up. If the bell is going down, the thumb needs to be aimed down. When this is done, the arms end up rotating externally on the way up, and internally on the way down. One of the primary reasons for the

rule of thumb is to help avoid injured elbows on the way down. If the arms came down externally rotated, and the elbow was to hit the swinger’s leg, this could potentially hyperextend the elbow, and leave the swinger with a broken arm. Conversely, when internally rotated on the downswing, the elbow of the arm that hit a leg would simply go into flexion, sparing any broken bones. In addition to the rule of thumb for double swings, another good rule is keeping the bells close together, so much so that they might touch. If the bells are far apart, the potential for hitting the leg on the way down is increased, as is losing control of the bell at some point during the down or upswing. The bells are built with durability to spare, designed to withstand occasional collisions with each other. It is probably wise to learn the single-hand kettlebell clean and snatch before the two-hand variation. There are a few keys to optimizing technique for all kettlebell clean variations. One is that the fundamentals of the hip mechanics of the swing carry over into the clean. The rule of thumb pertains to this movement as well. The positioning of the elbow is perhaps the biggest piece of the clean technique puzzle. The elbow needs to stay tight to the body, to prevent the long, loopy bell paths characteristic of a clean where the elbow has drifted away. The objective is to start the clean the same way as a swing. Let the bell be high in between the legs at the bottom of the downswing, creating the propulsion impulse in the strike zone. After the propulsion impulse has been created, the elbow needs to remain pinned against the body. This will cause the bell to flex the elbow, and bring it up to the body via a straight line trajectory, where it will need to be caught. This should happen at upper chest height, and the hand catching the bell should receive it with the thumb touching the junction of the sternum and clavicle. In this position, the elbow will be bent, and the base of the bell will be touching the back of the wrist, the chest, and the biceps. On the way down, the elbow should be pressed against the body. The hand will turn to point the

Page

206

thumb down, which will rotate the arm, and the bell will swing down and through the legs. As a final point, the grip plays a big role in determining whether the bell is crashing into the swinger’s forearm and leaving the back of his or her wrist black and blue. Gripping too tightly will cause the bell to rotate slowly, and come down crashing on the back of the wrist. To receive it properly (and painlessly!), one can think of holding the bell with the same intensity required to hold a bird: not so tightly as to crush it, but not so loosely that it can fly away. This tip will definitely save the forearms an excessive beating. The snatch is a swing where the hand pushes up and away at a 45 degree angle at the top of the swing, following through on the bell’s momentum. This creates a terminating arc, which ends with the bell being caught overhead. The motion is different from a classical Olympic lift, but is initiated in the same way as the swing, propelling the bell upwards. The snatch requires more power than the swing, because it needs to reach a higher end point. Rather than thinking about pulling the bell up with the hand, as though starting a vertical lawn mower, the movement is one of pushing up and forward at the top of the swing, and then allowing the bell to find its way back to the wrist. As with the clean, we want to let the momentum of the bell do the work, as well as conjure up the same “holding a bird” grip imagery. To reverse the pattern and lower the snatch, a very specific arm action is required. The action should be similar to that of a tractor trailer driver pulling the horn of the truck. The athlete will need to catch the bell at the top of the snatch, with palm facing forward. To lower the bell, the hand gets turned, placing the athlete in a neutral grip position, where the palm is facing in a medial direction, and the thumb is facing posteriorly. From there, the movement is to bend the elbow, and let the arm drop, allowing the elbow to come in contact with the ribs. From this position, which is nearly identical to the clean catch, the elbow needs to maintain contact with the body, and the athlete needs to follow the rule of thumb as the bell swings down and through the legs, just like on the downswing of a kettlebell

swing. This is a graceful motion, where the bell cascades down, like a waterfall. Transverse, Bilateral, Low Load, High Velocity While many fundamental resistance training patterns lack great choices for low load, high velocity training, the kettlebell drills contained in the hip-dominant pattern fall squarely into this quantitative realm. As previously contemplated, neither the most explosive, nor the heaviest, nor optimal for the development of aerobic capabilities, the swing is a gray area exercise, a pure middle ground. So, why choose to train in the middle ground? In the Charlie Francis model for training sprinters, the idea was to either run really fast, or really slow, but nowhere in between. The middle is too intense for recovery, and it is too slow to learn to run faster, went the thinking. Train your white, fast fibers to be as white and fast as they can be, and your red, slow fibers to be as red and slow as they can be, but don’t cross wires. And I don’t disagree with this philosophy… for sprinting, which is at one extreme end of sports. Defined as “the competitive athletic sport of running distances of 400 meters or less” sprinting is characterized by a single, relatively short burst of intense activity. By contrast, the demands for soccer, or mixed martial arts and many others are more variable. The demands for mixed martial arts are more variable, and a lot more... gray. I’m not here to knock—or elevate—any particular sports, or claim to have any definitive answers on the kinds of training that will yield optimal development of every kind of athlete, let alone specific individual. Depending on these variables, some might prefer training at extreme ends of the spectrum, while others may gravitate towards training in the middle. Whatever the preferred approach for any given case, as coaches, the best we can do is keep an open mind, and never stop questioning, trying various (reasonable) strategies, measuring, and isolating the ones that work. One handed swings, cleans, and snatches are

Page

207

the exercises available in this category. This is a reasonable order for their progression, as both movement complexity and the amount of force necessary to get the bell to reach its peak height increases in this order. Here is the list of exercise progressions for transverse plane, bilateral stance, low load, high velocity, hip dominant exercises: 1. Single hand swing

2. Single hand power swing 3. Single hand clean

4. Single hand snatch Coaching Points With teaching the swing, clean and the snatch, it is much easier to teach the single hand variations before going to the two hand version. This way, the athlete can focus on just the one bell instead of both at the same time. There is also less load to contend with, which by itself can greatly ease the learning process. If you want to use the swing as a drill that can transition to the snatch, the action of the swing arm becomes important. At the top of the swing, a well known move can be employed,

of drawing the bell back towards the body with the hand and arm. “Drawing” is the operative word to describe this motion of guiding the bell back at the top of the swing, as it should feel almost like opening a desk drawer, or using the hand to draw back curtains so as to look out the window. In the snatch, that drawing back action takes place very quickly at the peak of the bell’s flight phase, just before the athlete punches through at the 45 degree angle to create the catch. Keeping the elbow tight to the body continues to be the way to go with the clean. This will keep the bell’s flight path close to the body, and shortens the travel distance between the bottom and top of its swing. The snatch descent will feature the same kind of “truck driver pulling the horn” start. The bell will fall, and the elbow will come to the body. From there, the bell descends in the same manner as the clean. The arm internally rotates, as the hand pronates to get the thumb facing down, while the arm and bell swing down and back between the legs. The bell should swing and stay up high at the hips, to allow elastic return on the upstroke. The final moving part for single hand swings, cleans, and snatches are the feet. If the bell is in the right hand, and is swinging down and through the legs, a subtle left hip shift will result. As this occurs, we want to be careful not to lose elastic energy, or create suboptimal, lateralized femur positioning. To keep the femur centered over the foot, if the bell is in the right hand, I’ll typically coach a subject to plant on the inside edge of the left foot. This will fight the lateralization of the left femur on the hip shift. By staying centered, we will create a great position for the yielding action recruitment of the left adductors, hip extensors, and internal rotation glute fibers. This rapid yielding activity will set the stage for use of the stretch-shortening cycle to power the upswing. Sagittal, Bilateral, Moderate to High Load, Low to Moderate Velocity We have now reached the section where we will talk about heavy hinge exercises. A lot

Page

208

of coaches get excited about fancy new biomechanics pieces like hip shifts and rotating thoraxes. In this excitement, it’s possible to lose sight of the value of the big, fundamental, basic strength building movements. If you are a fitness professional, don’t quit your day job, and don’t forget that you need to load, impart stress, and get your clients stronger. Heavy hinging will stress every tissue in your body, develop the big hip, thigh, and back muscles significantly, and cause remodeling of the skeleton to a high degree. The hinge is one of the most powerful movements the human body is capable of making, and when it is not present in a resistance training program, that program is severely lacking. As old age nips at our heels, the best way to escape its grasp is to maintain as much muscle mass, bone density, and aerobic fitness as possible, for as long as possible. While all of the complex mechanisms behind these three components of vitality may not be known, we do know that the organism which possesses them also possesses competency of movement, self defense, and acquisition of sustenance for its survival. Evolutionarily speaking, these are good things for any organism to have. The critical areas for bone density are the hip, the spine, and the wrist, which account for the majority of fractures in elderly populations. The lower the bone density, the greater the likelihood of a fall resulting in a fracture in one or more of these places. Moreover, a hip fracture in an elderly person spells frighteningly low odds of survival. This debilitating injury creates a vicious cycle, causing immobility, which leads to further inactivity, atrophy, loss of bone mineral density, and reduced aerobic fitness. As harsh as it sounds, the rules of survival do not bend for the elderly, the injured, or the troubled. They dictate that, in order to live, organisms need to continue to move. And to experience physical stress. And force their bodies to respond, grow, be resilient, and remain viable. Those organisms that don’t play by these rules lose at the game of life.

Those who aren’t ready to lose or resign, but wish to make themselves more rugged, to increase bone mineral density, gain muscle mass, and stress their cardiovascular system, can look to the heavy hinge. A hinge will stress the hip, spine, and wrist to a significant degree. The hinge will recruit massive swaths of muscle tissue, and force a coordinated, synergistic firing of propulsion muscles along the backside of your body to hoist weights off the ground. Those who wish to remain high-functioning for a long time to come can turn to the deadlift. The introduction of the hinge is all-important: I do not want to give my subjects the wrong drill to start. I do not want to give them too much weight too soon, and stress their systems more than what they’re ready for. I want to select a drill that allows them to effectively get into the right position, load their hips, and move that load along the right trajectory to foster adaptation without causing problems. The following list is the progressive scheme recommended for sagittal plane, bilateral stance, moderate to high load, low to moderate velocity, hip dominant exercises: 1. Load coming from behind (pull through)

2. Load positioned between feet towards heel (kb)

Page

209

3. Load positioned surrounding person (high handle trap bar)

4. Increase ROM (low handle trap bar…be careful of bar sway) 5. Load positioned in front of person (barbell) 6. Increase ROM (snatch grip, deficit set up)

Coaching Points When I think about the position of the bottom of a deadlift, I imagine the position in which gorillas spend most of their time. The hips are back, the back is flat, and the arms are hanging down towards the ground with the eyes looking slightly forward. Great conventional deadlifters look like gorilla silhouettes to me. What’s a not-so-great deadlift? One where the back is significantly rounded by the effort of picking up the weight. Firstly, I don’t care who you are, or what deadlift technique you’re using: if the weight is heavy enough, it can break you down. Secondly, an error in the setup or the bar path can predisposes the lifter for a serious problem. Let’s switch gears here to talk about the proper way to set up for a deadlift. (I’ll

skip sumo setups in this book, as I am not well versed at them, and do not see a compelling need to use them in the training of non-powerlifters.) The crucial element of the deadlift setup is to get in position for sitting the hips very far back, while keeping the sternum in a very neutral anterior/posterior orientation. The reason to move the pelvis very far back is to maximize the length of the muscular moment arm, aka, the distance between the contracting muscular tissue, and the implement that is being lifted against gravity. In the deadlift, the primary muscles doing the lifting are the hamstrings and glutes, which basically means the hips. The implement is the barbell, and the barbell is going to be positioned above the middle of the feet. The leverage that the lifter has relative to the barbell is the horizontal distance between the muscular moment arm of the hip, and the position of the barbell on the floor. There are other joints involved with hoisting the barbell off the ground, such as the ankle and knee, so looking at the deadlift from a purely reductionist standpoint of how far back the hips are, relative to the barbell, is admittedly overly simplistic and error prone. Nevertheless, the hip is the most important joint for deadlifting, so adequately leveraging it is critical for proper execution of this exercise. What would prevent one’s hips from sitting far enough back? Earlier in this chapter, we covered that the ability to hinge is a pattern that is dominated by the exhalation strategy and its corresponding joint actions. As such, creating posterior compression that would drive the sacrum into nutation is required for the pelvis to be able to sit back. When you are coaching, you will likely encounter both athletes and general population clients who are absolutely clueless about being able to get their hips to sit back in space. Use as many of the exhalation biases as you can to help them hone this fundamental piece of the puzzle. Assuming someone is able to nutate the sacrum and sit the pelvis back in space, what else might prevent this subject from optimizing the deadlifting setup? The big one I see are attempts to retract the shoulder blades, likely stemming from the belief that “chest up, butt

Page

210

back, shoulders back and down” is a cure-all. Not so for the deadlift, the reason being that assuming this position draws the hands further away from the ground, which will require more knee-bend to get down to the bar. And, the greater the knee-bend, the more the pelvis moves forward in space, and working at cross purposes of the aforementioned sit-back efforts. So, when coaching the arms, I coach the opposite of “retract the shoulder blades”, cuing subjects instead to “reach for the bar”. Now, the question is: how far? The answer? As far as possible, short of affecting the position of the sternum. Once this threshold is crossed, the sternum will go into a down pump handle position, causing excessive (and potentially problematic) rounding of the back. I’m looking for the sternum to remain in a neutral pump handle position, in tandem with the longest downward reach one can possibly muster with the arms. I do not coach shoulder blades down, or arms squeezing down into armpits, to engage the lats. I’m not worried about engaging lats during the deadlift, because they’ll do so automatically when picking up a heavy barbell. Crudely put, the role of many upper body muscles during the deadlift is to prevent the bar from ripping your arms off the body. To prevent this from happening, the brain and body are going to engage all the right muscles of the trunk, scapula, and humerus. In short, there’s no need to specifically coach their recruitment, which is inherent in this lift. In fact, deliberately trying to engage the lats by squeezing the arms into the armpits will result in the bilateral action of the lats lifting the chest and sternum, and thereby reducing the length of one’s reach. As with the pulled-back shoulders, this reduced reach length will force more knee flexion to lower the body towards the barbell. Instead of trying to squeeze the arms into the armpits, I cue my subjects to push themselves away from the bar without dropping the sternum. I want to see protraction of the scapula, and retraction of the posterior rib cage. If the sternum does not down-pump handle while this happens, the skull and pelvic floor should stay

in alignment with each other, and a beautiful, sagittal sensorimotor-competent deadlift should commence. The feet are the other key area I focus on for the deadlift. I find that many lose good contact with the medial side of the foot when they go into a hinge position. As noted, the deadlift represents the peak of exhalation/compressive activity. When things go wrong, it’s often due to inhalation strategy compensations. At the feet, the main inhale-compensatory action tends to be supination, particularly with very strong lifters. The remedy is to continue to find the inside edge of both feet while sitting the hips back, and press the big toes down into the ground. As for how hard to push down the big toe, I have been telling subjects to imagine that they are pressing down on the world’s tiniest gas pedal, to accelerate at 15 miles per hour, in a parking lot. This seems to work, and subjects typically report feeling much more hamstring (particularly medial hamstring) engagement when implementing this cue. By this point, the subject should feel more secure in the pocket of the deadlift setup. In regards to the actual lifting of the bar, I find myself repeating that I’m looking for the subject to be a pusher, not a puller. Instead of pulling the bar off the ground using the upper body, I want the subject to push the floor with his or her feet. I come at it from this angle to encourage building of internal pressure, which, coupled with pushing into the ground, serves to move enormous amounts of weight, more with the hamstrings and glutes and less so with the back. The progressions that were put together here for you are designed to help you help your clients to get into the right positions for this setup. The pull-through makes it extremely easy to sit the hips back in space. The challenge here is maintaining thoracic position. As the cable moves back into its starting position and the subject goes deeper into the hinge, I’ll have him or her push the cable towards the floor, to create a reach. Simultaneously, we’ll monitor the position of the subject’s sternum, making

Page

211

sure to avoid a down pump handle position during the reach. The pull-through’s application to the deadlift is that it teaches subjects how to push themselves away from the bar with their reach. It’s also my favorite drill for teaching the hinge. It gives my subjects the feel of their hips going backwards in space, and gives me an opportunity to coach the upper extremity as the focal point. Next in progression, kettlebells allow for abundant, low-risk practice for the deadlift. Even for those with horrendous form, for whom you’re terrified at every moment of their hinging efforts, the lower load of a kettlebell significantly reduces risk compared to a heavy barbell. Let subjects take their time with kettlebells here. They can get used to the movement, accumulate a lot of reps, get coaching, and minimize the risk for early injuries in their deadlift training. If you can set the stage for the effective execution of hinge exercises, and can generate training adaptations and improve fitness with this pattern, you will be doing a great service to its users. As much of the world becomes increasingly reliant on technology and falls prey to a sedentary lifestyle, we drift further from our wild, rugged ancestors, and their big, strong backs, glutes, and hamstrings. And, while most of us are grateful for our creature comforts, worrying that a fall could kill us is unacceptable. Luckily, those willing to do some heavy lifting can have the comforts without the worry. Sagittal, Front/Back, Moderate to High Load, Low to Moderate Velocity The single leg deadlift may be one of the best exercises in existence. Or one of the most over-hyped exercises in existence. Or the most butchered exercise in existence. No other exercise has the potential to simultaneously be either a giant waste of time or the best use of training time as the single leg deadlift. Personally, I’ve never walked into a commercial gym and seen a good single leg deadlift. Almost always, it’s just someone reaching for the ground, a dumbbell in one hand, while

the leg that is off the ground turns outwards beyond 90 degrees, with the pelvis completely lost in space. Seemingly nobody stays square with their hips and hinges backwards. At best, you see human lawn flamingos, holding tiny dumbbells, and likely believing that they’re gaining something from this movement. In my perfect world, upon walking into a gym, I’d see regular folks in success-oriented setup positions, lifting reasonable loads driven from the motion of the pelvis, which would be traveling horizontally through space. The use of constraints and references are critical elements that are ubiquitous throughout this book, but perhaps no realm of exercise exemplifies this more than the single leg deadlift. To reduce the degree to which someone’s position renders him or her “lost in space”, we need to reduce his or her spatial options, and provide very clear guidelines for what to feel at different checkpoints of the movement. What you’ll see in the list of progressions for single leg deadlift variations is that different implements are used at different levels of progression. What you’ll also see is that you’re going to start with the lifted foot on a wall, behind the subject. We’ll reencounter the back foot on a wall in the knee-dominant section, when we get to split squats. That said, its application to single leg deadlifts is likely the most useful one this technique offers. Even though I have options in this progression series that involve no foot on the wall, I’m almost to the point in my coaching career where I want to mandate the back foot on a wall with single leg deadlifts, every time. As soon as that foot hits the wall, the amount of muscle the subject feels working goes through the roof, and the performance of this exercise improves beyond belief. Of course, you’ll be the judge, but I think you’ll find the “rear foot supported by wall” variations to be real game changers for single leg deadlifts. The following is the list of progressions for sagittal plane, front/back stance, moderate to high load, low to moderate velocity, hip dominant exercises:

Page

212

1. Single leg deadlift w/Pentagon bar w/rear foot on wall 2. Single leg deadlift w/Pentagon bar 3. Single leg deadlift w/DBs w/rear foot on wall 4. Single leg deadlift w/DBs 5. Single leg deadlift w/Barbell w/rear foot on wall

When lifting “in the open”, and with freedom vs locked-in implements, the lifter has to rely on internal abilities to maintain good form and own spatial positioning. Expending energy on these areas means having less of it for the actual lift, so using a slightly reduced weight is expected as progressions advance. There are pros and cons to this. From a motor learning perspective, the lifter will be challenged to a greater degree, which may have some carryover to playing sports in open space. Now, for a bodybuilder, whose predominant interest in the exercise is to the end of adding muscle tissue to his or her frame, removing constraints and/or references, or changing level lengths, or letting gravity do its worst may all be counterproductive, if attained at the cost of lifting less weight.

6. Single leg deadlift w/Barbell

Lifters need to stay square with the shoulders and hips when performing single leg deadlifts. As noted, putting the foot on a wall will largely clean up this most common error. Once shoulders and hips stay square, the next error that will present will be that of purely flexing at the hip joint instead of displacing the pelvis backwards, to create their hinge. To reuse my beloved analogy, this is where our lawn flamingos come in, tipping forward and back from their hip joint. These folks will feel hamstrings working, but they will not be maximizing the execution of this pattern until they actually sit their hips back. To accomplish this, you may need to resort to as many exhalation joint biases as possible. Because it’s easier to squat on a downhill, and hinge on an uphill, one of my go-to strategies for helping those who struggle with sitting their hips back is to elevate the toes on a backwards positioned heel wedge.

Coaching Points The single leg deadlift with the Pentagon bar and the rear foot on the wall is such a great exercise that there may never be a need to go beyond that drill for this realm of exercise choices. The Pentagon bar supports high load, while providing an extremely grounding, solid framework. The user generally feels nothing but the right tissues, which this setup works to an unbelievably high degree. The remaining choices on this list are largely there as workarounds for those who do not have access to a Pentagon bar, to which you can attach to a landmine device. In the Pentagon setup, the bar keeps your shoulders square, and having your foot on the wall makes it much easier to keep your hips square. Performing single leg deads with this kind of positioning with significant load placed on the skeleton yields tremendous benefits to the owner of said skeleton. Within the confines of this model, progressions are based on taking away constraints and references over time, as well as changing lever lengths, and increasing the difficulty of one’s relationship with gravity. Switching from the Pentagon bar to implements like dumbbells and barbells as well as taking one’s foot off the wall are some such progression step examples.

Frontal, Front/Back, Moderate Load, Moderate Velocity This is really our first opportunity to talk about lifting weights with a frontal plane emphasis. When coaching core exercises that involve a hip shift and a frontal plane emphasis, I am the sensorimotor police: I won’t let anyone get away with anything that isn’t as close to optimal as we can get it. Once we’ve transitioned to the resistance training-dominant patterns, I back off

Page

213

on how crazy I need to be with optimizing every little element of positioning, as positioning for lifting weights just needs to be “good enough”. So, what’s “good enough” positioning? In my mind, it shouldn’t be ugly or glaringly problematic, and should certainly resemble the drill I’m trying to accomplish. Another litmus test to think about is whether an educated coach who happened to walk in the room would be able to quickly identify the exercise my subject is performing. But these may all take a back seat to the most important measure of success, which is the subject’s feedback about the exercise. Did he or she feel the correct tissues being worked, like the hamstrings, adductors, and glute med on a frontal plane single leg deadlift? If so, and it looked okay from my vantage point, we’re good to go. There is bleedover between the patterns, which I categorize and separate to make life easier within this model. From a big picture view, however, Very little is clear cut, completely independent, wholly black or white without at least some gray edges. In reality, the concepts in this book are interconnected and definable by spectrums and gradients. It is emphasis and intent that can shine the floodlight on some area of a gradient versus another. With lifting weights, the intent is to move external load within certain confines. With core exercises, the intent is to assume a very specific body position, and prevent the body or body segments from moving out of their desired positions. Both core exercises and weight lifting exercises require control, either of one’s body, or of external objects. Of course, one needs to be able to control one’s body in order to make it move external objects… so there is a bleedover between core and resistance training there. One needs to be strong enough to be able to hold one’s body in very specific shapes during core exercises, but this strength is often best developed by moving external objects… so there’s more bleedover there. Being a great coach necessitates a clear, hierarchical organization of priorities, and the ability to shift between them by modifying drills and exercises depending on the one that’s currently being addressed.

All of the drills that are performed in this realm of exercise will feature a hip shift into the side on which the single leg deadlift is being performed. This hip shift has to be significant enough to recruit the adductor and glute med on that side. The recruitment and sensation of the adductor and glute med working during the hinge is a must for any exercise to remain in this category, versus veering into sagittal hinging. Here is the list of progressions for frontal plane, front/back stance, moderate load, moderate velocity, hip dominant drills: 1. Retro step, stance foot elevated w/hip shift A. Pull cable/band across body towards stance foot B. Anterior reach C. Anterior load (cable works great) D. Side handle load 2. Retro step, flat ground w/hip shift Same progressions as 1A-D 3. Forward step, rear foot on wall Same progressions as 1A-D 4. Forward step, rear foot unsupported Same progressions as 1A-D Coaching Points You’ll notice that the progression list features drills performed in a retro step and those performed in a forward step. You can do retro step drills with the hip shift side foot elevated on a box, and you can do them with the hip shift side foot on the floor, at the same level as the other foot. You can do the forward step drills with the back foot on the wall behind you, or you can do them with the back foot unsupported. The elevated hip shift side foot on the retro step drills provides that passive ascension of the innominate bone on the hip shift side. The elevation of the innominate bone on the hip shift side is a frontal plane motor competency. The back foot pushing into the wall on the forward step drills makes it easier to shift into the front-side hip. These references and constraints will make your job much easier when developing fitness in this highly challenging realm.

Page

214

The pattern you’ll notice in this list is that there are four different implement styles for the resistance, and that all four are used in every circumstance. So, each “parent” progression on the list has four “child” progressions nested within it. I strongly encourage sticking to this four-step process at each level. We start off with a cable or band that is pulled across the body towards the hip shift side. This is a classic RNT method, which is part of the Principles of Progression. Pulling an implement across the body like this works wonders for centering the axial skeleton over the stance side foot, and for increasing the hip shift. I highly discourage starting with any other approach for this, as leveraging RNT for this drill will make everyone’s lives—or least these training sessions—easier. The next step is to layer in an anterior reach. I”ll often have my subjects turn their back to the direction a cable or band is coming from. This is actually another application of RNT. When the subject hinges his or her back, he or she pushes the weight forward, and that weight doesn’t need to be heavy in order to be effective. Likewise, I’ll frequently smoothly transition from the cross-body pull into the anterior reach, especially for those who report their tensor fascia latae firing up. Let me speak to why I’ve listed the cross-body pull before the anterior reach in this list. Firstly, unless the subject is centered, it’s not a frontal plane drill. Secondly, unless the subject is sitting his or her hips back, it’s not a hinge. Both criteria need to be met in order for the exercise to qualify as a frontal plane hinge, but, in my experience, the frontal plane part takes priority. In order for something to go backwards, the hips, in this case, something else has to go forward, in this case, the hands. Providing RNT to the forward-moving object assists the backwards-moving object in going in that direction. The anterior load features the same hand and arm movement as the anterior reach. The difference between the two is that, with the anterior reach, one is working against the resis-

tance on the hinge back, while working against the resistance on the hinge up with the anterior load. In the anterior load scenario, one is facing the cable or band. The cable guides the hands forward on the way down, necessitating the use of the strength of one’s hips to return to an upright position, against the resistance on the way up. The transition between the anterior reach and the anterior load is usually a very smooth one. Side handles are a nice loading strategy for those who’ve gained basic competence at these drills. I’m fond of the “bus driver” cue for this exercise, where I’ll tell subjects that they are the bus driver, and the dumbbells are their steering wheel, which I ask them to steer towards the hip shift. Doing so assists in getting deeper into the hip shift, better centering one’s weight over the hip shift foot. I have them continue to steer the wheel towards this side the entire time. I tell them that I want them to be as heavy as they possibly can be on the foot that is on the hip shift side, and many come to see that “steering the wheel” towards that side noticeably assists with the desired outcome. The last progression places the barbell in front of the lifter, and many find that this drill is eased by the Jefferson deadlift grip position. With this setup, the bar goes between the legs, which is especially useful for the forward step variation of this drill (as the retro step variation leaves no room for it). When coaching the Jefferson grip position, the bus driver cue can be reused, again prompting subjects to “steer the wheel” towards the hip shift side. Arm length can prevent some athletes from using a Jefferson grip position, in which case a standard deadlift grip will work. The reason that the Jefferson is preferable is that it’s harder to “steer the wheel” in a conventional deadlift grip position, where the subject must shift the hips without the assistance of the load, as when it’s maneuvered in that direction by the Jefferson position. Frontal, Lateral, Moderate Load, Moderate Velocity

This is our last domain within the hinge

Page

215

category. As is always the case, when we run into the lateral stance with frontal plane movement, the difficulty spikes, so we want to ensure that the concept of the hinge is well-ingrained before using these drills. Candidates should be restricted to only those who have demonstrated frontal plane competency elsewhere, and will actually benefit from these particular drills in their programming. For many athletes, like those sprinters for instance, this realm of fitness is by and large unnecessary. But, when working with rotational athletes, this might be a great choice. Ubiquitous throughout sports, the hip shift is how we decelerate when we are going into a cut or following through after throwing a ball. The hip shift is how one goes into the back swing of a golf shot, a baseball swing, or a slap shot. In sports, you see the transitions between the different stances happening very fast and fluidly. In training, we get to cherry pick the “snapshot moments” of various sports movements, and focus on their very specific mechanics. These lateral stance, frontal plane hinges develop strength in the tissues that are involved with moments in such sports movements. Unfortunately, I don’t believe we in the fitness industry have done a good job targeting the specificity of the deceleration fibers that allow us to get into cuts. We’ve danced around these fibers, and approached training them with exercises like eccentric squats, and Hatfield split squats. Even still, the hip shift remains elusive to too many a gym-goer, and the lateral stance is rarely featured. I believe that training the hip hinge in the front plane could yield some amazing results for the right athletes. Here is the list of the exercise progressions for frontal plane, lateral stance, moderate load, moderate velocity, hip-dominant exercises: 1. Stance foot elevated w/hip shift A. Pull band/cable across towards stance foot side B. Anterior reach C. Anterior load D. Landmine…eccentric towards stance leg

side (perpendicular to body) E. Side handle load 2. Stance foot flat Same progressions as 1A-E Coaching Points We’ve got two primary variations of these lateral stance hinges: hip shift side foot elevated, and hip shift side foot flat. The first provides the passive elevation of the innominate on the hip shift side, which assists with the motor competencies of the frontal plane. Both variations use the same series of implement progressions. The first is the cable/band being pulled across the body, which leverages RNT to help with centering and hip shifting. The second implement is the anterior reach, which helps with the posterior displacement of the pelvis on the hinge. The third, the anterior load, provides resistance on the up part of the hinge movement. The last implement is a side handle, usually performed with dumbbells. The fourth implement, the landmine, is an implement not featured in the front/back stance variations. This is a perfect implement to use here, with the lateral stance exercises. Placing a barbell in a landmine arcs the barbell up and away as it’s being pushed up, and brings it down and towards the lifter on its downswing. As the coach, you can take advantage of this arcing motion, to assist subjects with getting into their hip shifts for lateral stance drills using the landmine. Set up the direction of the barbell so that, on its downswing inside the landmine, the barbell is coming to the outside of the hip shift-side leg. Just think about it from the point of view of someone running a shuttle sprint, and needing to stop on the line. The landmine should be arcing down towards the line. The hip shift-side foot would be the foot that hits the line. On the way up, the sprinter would be coming out of the cut, and trying to accelerate in the opposite direction. Basically a loaded cross-over dribble, this is a beautiful drill for those who have to constantly change directions laterally.

Page

216

Owning the inside of the foot is absolutely crucial for these drills. As one increasingly hip shifts and lateralizes body weight over the hip shift side foot, the tendency is to lose this foot to the lateral side. The work is in staying planted through the big toe side. To increase the hip shift, one can also direct the knee of the non-hip shift-side leg in the direction of the hip shift. To do so, it helps to visualize turning that knee towards the space in the middle of one’s stance. While this is happening, the idea is to evert the calcaneus on the non-hip shift side foot, so as to assist with lateralizing the pelvis towards the hip shift side. Warning: doing these drills correctly may result in the sensation that one’s butt is going to be ripped off upon moving into the hinge: Dominant Positions and Fitness Realms:

Dominant Plane: Sagittal Dominant Stance: Bilateral Dominant Load: Moderate to Heavy Dominant Velocity: Slow to moderate Dominant Duration: Short to Moderate

This is a pattern still ruled by the meatheads, and one where getting “cute” doesn’t pay. The primary benefits of mastering the hinge are changes in strength, muscle mass, bone density, and ability of the body to deal with stress. Once a subject has developed these components to an acceptable level, and his or her specific sport goals demand the strengthening of both tissues and movement competencies in the frontal plane, the dominance of this pattern may shift. As discussed, of course, the relative number of such athletes is probably very low, though they are out there. If you possess these tools alongside all the others in your coaching arsenal, you have that many more to choose from on a client-by-client basis.

13 Knee Dominant

Page

218

Knee-Dominant

Chapter 13

What is the squat? Is it a movement pattern (or just the position a toddler gets into when about to poop his or her diaper)? Here’s are some other multiple choice musings about it: • Is it a test of strength? • Or the most effective way to build muscle mass in the lower body? • Or one of the surest ways to test one’s will and fortitude? • Or is it an exercise that’s brutalized by half repper wannabe commercial gym goers? • Or one you can’t load unless you score a 2 on a made up movement test? • Or one that has to be done with a barbell on your back? • Does it open up the hips? • Will it hurt the knees? • Is it bad for the back? • Should it only ever be done with the toes pointing straight ahead, or can (or should?) they be turned out? • Should one be able to do it with at least two times one’s body weight before doing plyometric training?

• Is it best to train it by squatting to a box? • Is there some magic to applying an overhead variation to it? • If one can’t get all the way down, are the ankles the limiting factor? • Does it require a twenty minute mobility preparation to perform? • Should the toes never go over the knees when performing it? • Is it a contentious exercise in the fitness community, prone to trigger strong emotions when a professional’s preferred execution of it is challenged? While, as you may have guessed, I agree with some of these characteristics but not others, within the scope of this work, let’s think of the squat as the bilateral stance, knee-dominant movement pattern featured here. I’ll cover what I’m looking for in the squat, and how I coach it, but I am not a powerlifting or weightlifting coach. As a personal trainer and a strength and conditioning coach, I tend to use the squat to help grow lower body muscle mass, and improve force production into the ground from a performance perspective. From a movement quality perspective, I tend to use the squat to help teach people mechanical competency of the feet, ankle, knees, hips, thorax, shoulders, neck, and skull. I aim to coach my clients to make their squat as “squatty” as possible, to adequately differentiate it from their hinge. Frustratingly, many will tend to squat when they are hinging, and hinge when they are squatting.

Mechanical Considerations of the Knee Dominant Pattern As a sweeping, broadly generalizing statement, we are going to say that the squat is our primary inhalation lower body movement,

Page

219

and the deadlift is our primary exhalation lower body movement. Before we work from this broad assumption, let’s review some reasons why the above statement is too absolute and concrete. With these fresh in our minds, we’ll circle back and defend the usefulness of this statement.

skeletons, but have resorted to an inhale compensation in the lower body. These folks are often strongly ER-ed at the femur, and feature supinated feet. For them, the sumo deadlift is the simple choice, maximizing their skeletal anatomy, and using it to lift enormous amounts of weight.

Firstly, you will never be fully inhaled or exhaled. Both strategies of resisting gravity, and moving around on this planet to interact with the environment are both happening simultaneously to some degree. Each of us will be biased towards one as being more dominant than the other. Let’s think of the concept as operating on a gradient as opposed to a light switch being on, or off. Secondly, going through a deadlift or a squat requires traveling through some parts of the range of motion dominated by the exhale strategy, and others dominated by the inhale.

For full range of motion squatting, one needs to possess skeletal inhalation-based capabilities. At the bottom of a true, full-depth squat, the two femurs will be flexed beyond 120 degrees, while the trunk remains relatively vertical. Hence, the inability to create appropriate expansion will prevent the squatter from getting down into this position.

My biggest sporting bias is being partial to those involving swinging bats and clubs and striking round objects. I tend to understand most movements as having a “backswing” part, a “strike zone” part, and a “follow-through” part. The backswing and the follow-through are the expansion-dominant zones, and are dominated by yielding actions. The strike zone is the peak of compression, where the exhalation and overcoming action rules. I understand other movements by analyzing them in terms of the locations of their backswings, follow-throughs, and strike zones. Applying this analysis to the squat, the backswing is the bottom of the squat, the strike zone is the midzone, and the follow-through is the top. The deadlift doesn’t have much of a back swing. The bottom of the deadlift is still in the strike zone, and the top is the follow-through. One doesn’t need to possess full skeletal inhalation-based capabilities for full range-ofmotion deadlifting. A highly “compressed” individual can still possess the movement potential to execute the movement at a high level. Many super strong individuals have exhaled axial

At the top of the squat, the lifter’s femurs are as highly extended as they will be at any point in the motion. On the descent, the femurs will begin to flex. Between starting position and up to 60 degrees of flexion, the lifter will be in a zone that is biased towards inhalation. As flexing increases between the starting position and approach towards 60 degrees, the inhale/ exhale gradient gets shifter more towards exhalation, but the bias is still in favor of the inhale at this point. Beyond 60 degrees of flexion, however, the scale gets tipped in favor of the exhale as the dominant strategy. Going from 60 to 90 degrees of flexion serves to increasingly empower the exhalation strategy and weaken inhalation. At 90 degrees, the exhalation strategy reaches its peak. Flexing beyonding 90 towards 120, weakens the exhalation strategy, returning favor to the inhale, though exhalation still remains the dominant strategy here. Surpassing 120 degrees of flexion puts us back into inhalation-dominant territory. Traveling through the range of 120-150 degrees to achieve absolute full range of motion of femoral flexion, the inhalation strategy grows, and reaches its peak at the end of this range of motion. Reversing the squat to come back up is simply a matter of repeating this same sequence in reverse.

Page

220

Before explaining what is expanding in the inhalation zones and what is compressing in the exhalation zones to enable these movements, I want to briefly illustrate this concept. In one extreme population, you typically see very strong, but very tight people. These are individuals who are strongly compressed, and cannot create adequate expansion, and hence cannot physically reach full depth on the squat. On a table, we’re talking about 90 to 100 degrees of hip flexion. When they get to the bottom of their squat, they run into a brick wall. On the other end of the spectrum, you have another extreme population, which is very weak, but incredibly flexible, demonstrating seemingly unlimited range of motion via table tests. Ask them to squat (either just body weight or lightly loaded), and they will often descend at warp speed, and crash into the bottom, then frequently hinge their way up from the bottom of the squat. Ask them to go slow and control their squat, they begin their descent just fine, but when they reach the strike zone, they start to shake like Bambi on ice, and then, all of a sudden, they just collapse and fall to the bottom of the squat. They can comfortably hang out there, but cannot push themselves back up, with control and a vertical thorax, in a true overcoming squat presentation. Each of these populations is lacking something. Now we have to explain what you need at each zone to be able to properly sequence and demonstrate as close to the archetype of the squat as we can get. Your organism deals with external forces all the time, the prime example of which is gravity. Your organism also deals with internal forces all the time, the prime example of which is pressure. Internal pressure comes primarily from the movement of fluid inside of our bodies, but air within the thoracic cavity is also a major player. The overwhelming majority of what constitutes your mass is water. When discussing pressure, the other variable that must always be included is volume. Movement is the result of forces acting on matter. Matter assumes shapes that allow different movement outcomes to take place when forces act on them. Spheres can roll. Tops can spin. Blocks

can slide. Evolution has come up with brilliant strategies to take advantage of how to sequester matter in one direction and wall it off from going in another direction. At the most basic level, this is accomplished by the cell. As we may recall from biology class, the wall around the cell is called a membrane, which is a selectively permeable structure, allowing some things in and keeping others out. Cells typically maintain an ion gradient, created by a high ion concentration, either inside or outside the cell. At critical moments, they allow for a reversal of the concentration gradient. When this ionic reversal happens, there is a state change, and either an action, or a shut off of action takes place. Nature seems to favor state change as a movement strategy. Flood to drought, ebb to flow, wax to wane… expand to compress. When you can alternate between these states, a level of balance occurs, and things carry on. When one state edges out its opposite, harmony gives way to stagnation. Examining things at a slightly larger, say organ-sized level, we continue to see some similar movement strategies. The heart has a systole and a diastole phase. Systole is when the heart empties, and diastole is when the heart fills. You could say that systole is the exhale phase of the heart, and diastole, its inhale phase. You could say that systole is the compression phase of the heart, and diastole, its expansion phase. What exactly allows appropriate filling and emptying to take place at the level of the heart? The answer is, a highly functional inter-ventricular septum. The septum provides a wall, and the chambers provide a cavity that can fill and empty. And, a well-functioning cavity (such as the intracellular space) requires a wall (septum or membrane) that is structurally sound. PRI’s creator, Ron Hruska was the source from which I learned about this relationship between chambers and septums. I’ve heard Ron speak many times, and on many of those occasions, I’ve walked out, awe-struck, by some bit of profundity that rocked me to the

Page

221

core. And none has shaken me more over the years than this one.

position and create the requisite shape places specific movement outcomes out of reach.

For a ventricle to expand, the chambers need to demonstrate compliance, and the septums need to demonstrate stiffness. My nostrils have the ability to flare because my nasal septum is tough. Cells may take in nutrients and swell if the cellular membrane is sound. Problems arise when the stiffness of the septum is lost. Typically, the first sign of trouble is when the ventricle begins to fail to fully empty itself. This paves the way for an over-expanded chamber, which can result in heart disease. As soon as this happens, we have to seek stiffness elsewhere. We search more and more distally for stiffness in our quest for control. With a heart, this may be a vessel, and with a whole body, this may be superficial muscles.

A squat is an upright pelvis that moves through space like an elevator, and oscillates between expansion at the top, compression in the middle, and expansion at the bottom. When the pelvis cannot oscillate between those states during a squat, then some form of compensatory movement will take place somewhere in the system to try to make up for this.

Biological systems are the perfect representation of fractal geometry. Everything in biology is based on a smaller, simpler rule. Complexity emerges with modernity and addons to the older, simple rule… yet, the foundational rule continues to hold. Finding the oldest, most simple rule is always the challenge. Once we’ve found the most basic, simplest representation of a phenomenon, we can seamlessly extrapolate it to its more complex, dynamic and modern expressions. A thorax is a cell. It has a membrane of a ribcage, a sternum, and scapulae, and a chamber of lungs. A pelvis is a cell. It has a membrane of a sacrum, innominates, and a pubis, and fluid and organ-filled cavity for a chamber. A skull is a cell. It has a membrane of cranial bones, and the brain for a chamber. The ability to maintain the integrity of a membrane/septum, as well as allow for the oscillation of a chamber, is the most basic level of biological movement. My goal, both in this book and outside of it, is to present things this way, and show that, when a structure representing a chamber and septum relationship is correctly positioned and shaped, it will drive certain, highly specific movement outcomes. Put more gravely, the inability to assume the requisite

Osteopathic textbooks classify bone movements and positions via inhale actions and exhale actions. Cranio-sacral therapy is based on this same classification system, of matching respiratory actions with joint actions. These relationships are great outcroppings of the simplest of movement rules, that of chambers expanding and compressing, depending on the movement of matter occupying a given volume of space, and moving down its gradient into space. Our unceasing combat with gravity is armed by manipulating internal pressures via either expanding or compressing, to allow us to move on this planet of ours. The expansion and compression strategies are both present at all times, and acting somewhere on a gradient relative to one another. Where you expand and where you compress results in the configuration of your bones relative to one another. The configuration of your bones determines your overall body shape, and that shape determines the movement options available to you for the accomplishment of any given task. The osteopathic representation of the spine and pelvis features stereotypical positions of inhale and exhale. An inhaled pelvis features posterior expansion at the coccyx (counter-nutation), posterior compression in the mid-sacrum (nutation), which drives pressure forward into the pubis and expands the anterior pelvis, and posterior expansion at the superior sacrum (counter-nutation). An inhaled pelvis features nutation of the innominate, which expands the space between ilium and sacrum. This is the generally open shape of the pelvis, which allows it to expand as the diaphragm flattens during its inhalation phase, and pushes fluids

Page

222

and organs inferiorly. I liken the diaphragm to the atrium of the heart, and the pelvis to the ventricle. The atrium creates a downward force to push fluid into the ventricle during its inhale (diastole), so as to fill the ventricle. The diaphragm creates a downward force to push fluid into its receiving chamber (the lumbo-abdominal-pelvic-femoral cavity) during its diastole (inhalation), so as to fill the pelvis. The inlet of the pelvis at its superior border is open during the inhale to permit matter to move down into its space and occupy its volume. This causes the pelvic floor to descend, and assume an eccentric orientation to accept the fluid and organs. The movement of the squat can be analogized to lifting and lowering a bowl of water up and down, without tipping the bowl forward, back, or side to side, all of which would cause the water to spill. The spilling of this metaphorical water is an indication that true expansion was not achieved, and some form of compensation took place instead. Squatting deeper and deeper without compensation results in filling the bowl with more water. With more water in the bowl, the bowl becomes more stable. Just as with our bowl of water, which would be filled from bottom to top, we can think of the beginning of the descent of the squat, between starting position and 60 degrees of flexion, as the first splashes that will fill the bottom of the bowl. The filling of the bottom of the bowl is the expansion of the coccyx, which is associated with an expanded pelvic floor. As the squatter descends past 60 degrees and approaches 120, he or she needs to be able to demonstrate compression. The compression that is taking place is based on the stiffness of the mid-sacral space, which is the peak of the kyphotic curve of the sacrum. We could say that it is already expanded, and working to prevent further expansion. This region acts as a wall that drives pressure forward, done by providing a nutation moment. The pressure going forward creates an anterior expansion at the pubic symphysis. This anterior expansion at the pubic symphysis is analogous to creat-

ing a pump handle up action at the sternum in the midzone of lifting the arms overhead. If the sacrum is behaving with nutation, then, relative to this, the innominate will be counter-nutating. If the innominate is counter-nutating, it is going through internal rotation. And, when an internal rotation action is taking place, then we would consider the midzone of the squat to be a compression-dominated area. The dominant movement that takes place in the midzone is the counter-nutation of the innominate. This is analogous to the upward rotation of the scapula being the dominant movement within the midzone of lifting the arms overhead. The squatter is creating tension in the midzone of the squat to prevent his or her pelvic floor from falling out from under him or her. While still descending, those who are properly owning this portion of the squat could stop and go right back if they wanted. This is the zone of true ownership, requiring maintenance of one’s shape, and resistance of being forced into some human version of a lava lamp. The midzone is the site of pressurizing the canister, and seeing what it can take. When we get past the midzone, we once again need to expand. This will take place as we go beyond 120 degrees of hip flexion. Now, the expansion will take place at the top of the sacrum, which counter-nutates. If the sacrum resumes counter-nutating, that means that the innominate is nutating. If the innominate is nutating, then an external rotation-based activity is taking place, which is associated with expansion. The most common form of problem with the squat is excessive posterior compression. Whether this compression was at the upper back or lower back, if excess posterior compression took place somewhere, the result will be that the pelvis, as a unit, was pushed forward and goes into anterior tilt. When the pelvis goes into an anterior tilt, creating a concentric orientation at the anterior pelvic floor, its owner is prevented from reaching full depth in the squat. In other words, our metaphorical bowl was titled forward and spilled out of the

Page

223

front, thwarting that sought-after elevator motion. When the water goes out the front, this signals the presence of a concentric anterior pelvic floor, which is actually the prerequisite for a hinge. As you may have seen coming, this is how folks end up with the aforementioned hingey squat. Given that shape change leads to movement change, the upright, open position of the pelvis needs to be maintained in order to create an eccentric pelvic floor, which is the prerequisite for the desired “squatty squat”. The tricky part about all this is that keeping the pelvis in the right position implies having to do the same for the thorax. “Chest up, butt back, shoulders back and down” used to be the go-to cues for basically every exercise ever performed in the weightroom . In large part, these cues came from a combo of fear of causing a protrusion of the nucleus pulposus out the back side of the intervertebral disc, and a fear of injuring knees by having them go over toes. If we close the back, thereby creating posterior compression, the disc contents can’t leak out the back. The trouble is, creating posterior compression drives the entire structure of the pelvis into anterior tilt. And, as you’ll recall from our earlier discussion, in anterior tilt, the pelvic “bowl” will spill out the front, preventing the full expansion/inhale position of the bones. The squatter will also have to compress harder through the posterior thorax to remain upright, and this compression will necessitate compression elsewhere to remain upright, particularly if we are adding load to the system. When the pelvis tilts forward due to posterior thoracic compression, it presents a great position from which to hinge. It makes sense to sit the hips back from this place, and that is what we have figured out how to do. But, let’s realize that, when the pelvis as a whole tilts forward, this orients the femurs into internal rotation, which is a no-go for pulling off a squat. If one is going to remain upright while squatting, one has to create a significant inhalation/expansion/ER/ abduction/supination/plantar flexion-based compensation through the femurs, ankle, and feet. An exhaled thorax, on top of an exhaled pelvis,

with compensatory inhaled femurs, ankles, and feet is the modern, accepted squat position. So, fear of hurting discs and knees leads to compressing the back, which in turn leads to compression of the pelvis. This form paints the squatter into a corner, that of having to spread the floor, screw the floor out, and push the knees out laterally while sitting the butt back. In my opinion, this domino effect is backwards thinking, that layers compensation on top of compensation, all catalyzed by a misplaced fear. A powerlifter who needs to maximize every available compressive strategy to move the greatest amount of weight should hinge his or her squat. But all the non-powerlifters out there should probably make their squats as squatty as they can. To do this, they must appropriately position their thoraxes and pelvises in accordance with the inhalation strategy. They’ll have to avoid the posterior compression of the thorax that drives the pelvis into anterior tilt, and let their knees go over their toes. They’ll have to move their hips through space like an elevator rather than a lawn mower. If we as fitness coaches can teach these movements, then I have faith that we can make squatting squatty again. Training the Knee Dominant Pattern Available Options

Available Planes: Sagittal and Frontal Available Stances: All Available Loads: All Available Velocities: All Available Durations: All

Sagittal, Bilateral, Moderate to High Load, Low to Moderate Velocity We start off with perhaps the most universal training big rock, the squat. I hope for this section to be highly useful for personal trainers, strength and conditioning coaches, and rehabilitation professionals alike. First, let me assure you that I am not trying to change your

Page

224

“what” here. If anything, I’m going to be trying to change your “why” and “how”. This is something I have heard Bill Hartman say many times, and this statement increasingly resonates with me the more I think about it. Most fitness professionals include some form of squat exercise in their training. The differences arise in how we coach it, and why we included it in the first place. I want my fellow professionals to think of this drill as something that trains the entire propulsive arc, and can allow us to pinpoint and focus on whatever zone is most difficult for a certain person/population. Within the confines of this “why”, the squat could still be used to develop hypertrophy and strength… which should now be thought of as existing under the umbrella of the propulsion arc. As for how I want folks to squat, that will be based on the propulsion arc as well, and it will also provide a sequential list of the best place to start for a squat exercise, and how to progress the squat appropriately. I want squatty squats. I want thoracic expansion and pelvic expansion. I want full ROM. I want a stacked axial skeleton. I also want the ability to capture the pelvic floor and raise it during the concentric activity in the strike zone of the propulsion arc. I want to help tight people reach the bottom and expand there. I want to help loose people create a concentric pelvic floor, own the strike zone, and raise themselves out of the strike zone under total control. One has to compress somewhere in the squat. The most important place is the pelvic floor, during the up portion of the squat in the strike zone region of the range of motion. Those who cannot compress the pelvic floor during the up portion of the squat will compress the back, and hinge their squats. I want the elevator-looking squat, because it increases the probability that it will be the pelvic floor, not the back, that expands and compresses. Shape determines direction of movement. This is why I want what I want. I want to give folks a map to performing outstanding squats right out of the gate. Once someone has it, I want to see him or her continue to perform squats that look almost identical

to one another from there on out. Once good form is achieved, the only variations from this point are increases in load, as well increased difficulty of handling the load, based on where it’s placed on the body. One of the easiest things you can do to help people perform vertical, squatty squats is to provide them with a heel wedge to stand on. That is an option for every single one of these exercises listed below. The following list is the series of progressions for sagittal plane, bilateral stance, moderate to high load, low to moderate velocity, knee-dominant exercises: 1. Reaching squat (hands, or plate reaching) 2. Anterior load on heel wedge (e.g., goblet) 3. Zercher position

4. Front Squat (possibly skip w/wrist pain and limitations)

5. Hands holding rack w/Safety bar on back (Hatfield squat) 6. Safety Squat (Transformer bar preferably… long handles)

Page

225

7. High bar Back Squat

8. Low bar Back Squat

9. Overhead Squat

Coaching Points In the pursuit of getting full ROM proper squats, what you say is important. I start subjects off with a stance that is comfortable for them, which is usually somewhere around hip to shoulder width. The toes are pointed forward, but a slight out turn won’t kill anyone. From there, I tell them to get tall while feeling the weight in their heels. Now, I want them to exhale all of their air, without losing any height or shifting their weight. The anterior ribs should compress down, back, and in, but the sternum should remain pointing straight ahead. Follow-

ing a complete exhale, I want my subjects to perform a nasal inhale, with the tongue on the roof of the mouth. Do not let the anterior ribs fly up, forward, and out on the inhale. They should feel the inhale create an up pump handle sternum and expansion through the back. Now, they are ready to start to descend. On the descent, the body and skull should be as motionless as a statue. We’re going for a “straight down” descent of the body and hips, as the knees reach forward over the toes. As the knees go forward, the ankle increases in dorsiflexion, which brings pronation along with it. So, while the knees go forward, the squatter needs to fight to feel the big toe and the whole inside edge of the foot right back to the heel. When I look at the relationship between the foot, the ankle, the tibia, the knee, and the femur, I want it to look like a hammer hitting a nail straight into a block of wood. The femur is the hammer. The tibia and ankle is the nail. The foot is the wood, which should be level. The tibia and ankle should be going straight down into the foot. The thigh should be lined up and striking straight down into the tibia. With such a relationship, we send the optimal, vertically-directed line of force into the ground. We reduce torsion and torque, which would lead to undesirable varus or valgus side effects. The subject should continue reaching the knees forward, and finding more and more of the inside edge of the foot, to maintain this relationship of the legs, ankle, and foot during the descent, right up to about 120 degrees. As the subject increases depth beyond that point, he or she now has to bring the knees back towards the body, as the glutes are brought towards the heels. Those who can maintain a vertical body and stacked axial skeleton with the glutes bordering on the heels have descended into a full ROM squat. On the ascent, the tendency for many is to compress their back and hinge their way up. While this is a strategy that can move a lot of weight, we’ll leave our hinging movement for deadlifting. I want to see the body come straight up out of the bottom of the squat like it’s in an elevator shaft. To do this, the squat-

Page

226

ter needs to be a pusher, and not a puller. He or she can think about keeping the middle of the top of the skull aimed at the ceiling, and pushing the feet straight down into the ground. When someone is just learning the squat, force them to go slow. Most will try to go fast and seek the path of least resistance, aka back compression and hinging. If we can steer subjects away from this path, the motor competencies of the sagittal plane will be in place, and they will feel their abs on, as well as the pelvic floor being captured by the glute max in a concentric manner. As I’ve advised before, it helps to minimize the number of things to give a subject to think about when cueing. The big ones for the squat are pushing steadily through the entire foot, and keeping the middle of the skull moving straight towards the ceiling, both of which generally work very well. I highly advise using tempo with new clients. Make them go slow, and make them have to listen to the tempo to prevent them from talking and interrupting the training process. After all, quiet subjects are that much more likely to actually hear your coaching. If people are going slow, you can have them feel and notice things. Failing to control speed makes our jobs as coaches a lot harder. If you are dealing with wide infrasternal angle/compressed people, I advise putting the focus of the squat on the bottom. Have them spend time at the bottom, breathe there, and work their way into the true end of the range of motion. If you are working with narrow infrasternal angle/expanded people, I advise putting the focus of the squat on the middle. Have them spend time in the middle, not collapse or compress their back, and get them to breathe in this spot. When compressed people hit a good inhale at the bottom, they experience expansion of the skeleton. When expanded people push all of their air out in the middle, they usually shake like crazy, but begin to understand how to use their muscles to support their body, and leverage compression.

Sagittal, Front/Back, Retro Step, Low, Moderate, and High Load, Low to Moderate Velocity There will be two types of front/back stance knee-dominant exercise categories. One will be a retro step group, and the other will be a forward step group. The retro step for knee-dominant is the essence of the single leg squat. The forward step group for knee dominant is the essence of the split squat and lunge. Single leg squatting is extremely hard. The social media world of fitness has no shortage of ugly single leg squats. People perform pistols on beaches, in parks, in gyms with kettlebells, and perhaps even in meadows with hopes of being Insta-famous, riding on their lackluster sensorimotor incompetent, single leg efforts. If you can do any kind of a true, squatty squat variation of a single leg squat, you demonstrate impressive, quantitative fitness at a high level, as well as supreme sensorimotor control. The aim here is to lay out how to go about this elite exercise, and provide a reasonable starting point, and subsequent path, to benefiting from single leg squat work. With the single leg squat exercises provided here, we will follow a very specific sequence of positioning load, to first make it easy to achieve desirable sensorimotor outcomes, and then make it more difficult for subjects to own their bodies so as to maintain those sensorimotor competency. We will do this by first having subjects reach their hands forward. Then, we will have them hold weight in an anterior loaded position. Following this, we will have them move their hands to their hips. Then, we will have them hold weight in a side-loaded position. From there, we can simply add load to their entire system by putting a weight vest on them, and having them repeat the process of progressing the positions of the hands and arms. The following list is the sequence of progressions for sagittal plane, front back stance, moderate load, moderate velocity, knee-dominant exercises:

Page

227

1. Single leg squat to box w/anterior reach

hands on hips 8. Single leg squat to box w/weight vest and side handle load 9. Single leg squat off box (follow same implement order as 1-8) Coaching Points

2. Single leg squat to box w/anterior load (e.g., goblet, Zercher)

3. Single leg squat to box w/hands on hips

4. Single leg squat to box w/side handle load

5. Single leg squat to box w/weight vest and anterior reach 6. Single leg squat to box w/weight vest and anterior load (e.g., goblet, Zercher) 7. Single leg squat to box w/weight vest and

There isn’t much difference between the way I coach single leg sagittal squats and how I coach bilateral squats. One of those small differences is the setup. When we get to the frontal plane single leg squats, having the off leg out in front of the stance leg will become a more important feature, though we still want to feature it here to some degree. Start by having subjects stand tall in a bilateral squat stance, and simply sliding the non-stance side foot slowly forward along the ground. Allow the weight to shift more and more into the stance side foot. The nonstance side foot may only travel an inch or two forward relative to the stance side foot. One only needs it to shift forward to the point where they feel like about 70 to 80% of their weight is on the stance-side foot. Now, you want them to try to pick their non-stance side foot off the ground. Have them think about increasingly loading their stance-side foot, while increasingly unloading their non-stance side foot. Maybe their non-stance side foot leaves the ground, and maybe it doesn’t. Either way, they’ll feel how this attempt puts almost all of your weight on your stance-side foot. Now, your subjects are ready to start the actual squat movement. The squatter is going to want to reach the stance-side knee forward to begin the descent. This will require the squatter to display dorsiflexion. Allow pronation of the foot to accompany this dorsiflexion. This will involve finding and feeling more and more of the inside edge of the foot and big toe on the stance-side foot on the descent. Just as we did with single-leg squat, we are looking for the hammerto-nail-to-wood relationship of femur, to tibia, to ankle and foot here too. Most people will be able to maintain control as they descend to about the midway strike zone. While the goal is to reach full ROM, that is an incredibly difficult thing to do. That said, I’ll always take one de-

Page

228

gree of ROM that is correct over an enormous excursion that isn’t. Start subjects off by having them single-leg squat to a box or a bench, and put the box as high as it needs to be for them to do the drill properly. Then, progressively decrease the height of the box to challenge them. Before progressing from anterior reach to anterior load, employing these box/bench drills is best for most. For any given subject, you as the coach will determine whether to continue to increase ROM, or challenge them with loading position and heavier load. When you see ROM increases start to stagnate, I would recommend shifting the focus to loading strategy. When you see load start to stagnate, I would recommend shifting the focus back to working on increasing ROM. As I’ve expressed, getting bilateral squats with full ROM without posterior compression and hinging compensation is very difficult. Getting someone to do all of this on one foot is almost impossible. More advanced subjects will likely reach the strike zone and come back up with good form. Given the difficulty of this realm of exercise, that is a perfectly acceptable, highly beneficial goal to help your clients reach. Sagittal, Front/Back, Propulsive Step, Moderate to High Load, low to moderate Velocity This realm of exercise also falls prey to incorrect progression perhaps more than any other. For instance, doing walking lunges on day one isn’t uncommon, but is quite problematic, as the resulting soreness will prevent maximizing subsequent gains. Even if you are the greatest biomechanics coach in the world who manages to use the greatest cueing and teaching methodology ever, I maintain that walking lunges on the first day of someone’s training in this realm is a poor choice. While research on delayed onset muscle soreness is inconclusive around mechanisms,

it is pretty clear that eccentric stress is the big soreness driver. A walking lunge, or even just a forward lunge, is an exercise with an incredible eccentric demand. The entire body weight— and then some, with the loaded variety—is accelerated forward, where it needs to be caught and supported by one leg, and then lowered, with control, into a position of deep knee flexion. Considering the mechanics of this exercise, the lunger has to decelerate and stop a lot of momentum using only one leg. As such, all else being equal, it carries much more eccentric stress than a properly loaded bilateral squat. Don’t get me wrong: I’d love to get everyone to the point where they can do forward and walking lunges properly, and receive an appropriate training response to the exercise. Indeed, getting to either of those exercises is the goal of this pattern. I’m simply asserting that, to achieve this goal responsibly, we need to start at the appropriate place, and gradually, sequentially progress from there. When you look at the progressions list provided in this section, you’ll notice some trends. First, you’ll see that we provide a wall behind the back foot with stationary split squats. Propped against the back wall, the foot receives a sagittal reference that seems to help people stay in a “squattier split squat” promoting position, dramatically increasing muscular recruitment. Second, you’ll see that we start people with an anterior reach, before an anterior load, before a side carry load, and so on. The position of the reaching and the loading is done in a way that makes it as easy as possible to keep one’s center of mass back. At the outset, I’m looking to make it easy to keep the center of mass back, and then progressively challenge subjects with positions that make it increasingly challenging to keep the center of mass back. When first introducing a movement, I want to solidify a lot of technically beautiful reps, to drive the invariant representation of that movement. This will ensure that the subject continues to recreate the movement correctly when executing its more challenging variations.

Page

229

Third, you’ll see that we go from front foot elevated split squats, to split squats, to rear foot elevated split squats, to moving lunges. With the split squats, when you do front foot elevated, that is the least amount of weight on the front foot. Split squats with neither foot elevated is more weight on the front foot compared to front foot elevated split squats. Finally, rear foot elevated split squats are the most amount of weight on the front foot for all split squat versions. Lunges require more eccentric forces on the front foot; however, backwards lunges are significantly less compared to forward lunges. Here is the list of progressions for sagittal plane, front/back stance, forward step, moderate to high load, low to moderate velocity, knee dominant exercises. 1. Front Foot Elevated Split Squat w/back heel on wall A. Anterior Reach B. Anterior Load (e.g., goblet) A. Side carry load 2. Front Foot Elevated Split Squat A. Anterior Reach B. Anterior load (e.g., goblet) C. Side carry load D. Front rack E. Back shoulder load 1. Safety squat bar & hand support on rack 2. Safety squat bar, High Bar position, Low Bar Position D. Overhead Position 3. Split Squat w/back heel on wall (follow same implement progressions as 1A-D) 4. Split Squat (follow same implement progressions as 2A-D) 5. Rear Foot Elevated Split Squat (follow same implement progressions as 2A-D) 6. Backwards lunge (follow same implement progressions as 2A-D) 7. Forwards lunge (follow same implement progressions as 2A-D) Coaching Points I want my split-squatters and lungers to resemble English butlers trying not to spill a tray. I want to see a very vertical body with

shoulders and hips square, with lots of bending at the knees and ankles during split squat and lunge performance. The biggest error is excessive posterior compression during split squats and lunges. Most people incline their thorax way forward, and hinge their way out of the bottom. I want to see the shoulders being stacked right over the hips, and staying that way during these drills. If you manage to do this, the reps will not be fast. They will, however, be incredibly muscular. I’ll discuss technique and tactics as they apply to split squats, but the same ideas also apply to the moving lunges. In your set up, the hips and shoulders should be square. The hip on the front foot side will often end up in front of the other hip. When you witness this rotation, draw the front hip back until it is even with the other hip. Once people are square, cue them to get tall. When viewing someone from the side, you want to see the shoulders stacked over the hips. Even in the setup, many will have the shoulders in front of the hips. When subjects begin descending into the split squat, you want them to remain upright and tall through the thorax, while they level-change, and get lower as they bendthe ankle and knee. I want to see the path of the knee demonstrate a propulsion arc during the exercise. As the subject descends from the top to the strike zone, I want to see the knee travel forward. For the knee to travel forward, the ankle and foot are increasing dorsiflexion and pronation. As the descent continues past the strike zone, you should see a reduction in dorsiflexion. As subjects approach the bottom of the split squat, I will cue them to pull their butts to their heel and their knees to their chests. Throughout the entire split squat, I want to see the hammer-tonail-to-wood alignment of the thigh, shin, ankle, and foot. Make sure subjects stay square in the hips while they descend into their split squat, which is when the front hip will often rotate way forward. The concentric phase of these exercises is the most difficult. Those who stay upright and

Page

230

manage to get their front knees to go forward while bringing their butts towards their heels achieve the desired pelvic position, underneath the thorax. This position affords great opportunity for creating an overcoming muscular action on an eccentrically oriented pelvic floor. Most will regrettably forego this strategy in favor of compressing their backs and hinging up. Preventing your subjects from falling into these compensatory movements is likely the biggest challenge you’ll face with this exercise. On the up, I do not want to see the hips or thorax move backwards, but, rather, I want to see the axial skeleton move straight up like an elevator. The fact that doing so will probably prevent full ROM on the up is fine by me. So long as the subject manages to keep hips forward and skeleton stacked on the up, he or she should experience the movement becoming increasingly muscular the higher he or she goes. When you put all the pieces together for the concentric portion of this exercise, it is hard to believe how demanding and effective it is. The rear foot-elevated split squat will feature more forward trunk lean compared to the other variations of these drills. My personal preference is a very vertical positioned split squat, so I tend not to use the RFE variation very often. In your coaching, you will determine how much leeway you’re willing to accept. Frontal, Front/Back, Retro Step, Low to Moderate Load, Low to Moderate Velocity This realm of exercise involves frontal plane, single leg squats. These drills provide a tremendously high yielding action stimulus to the adductors and glute medius. These exercises require a hip shift, as well as centering one’s weight over the stance-side foot prior to going through a single leg squat motion. In my coaching, I strive to distinguish core exercises from the non-core ones. As previously shared, when coaching a core exercise, I am the sensorimotor police. If any positional error is visible, I get to it, so that, with time, it gets locked in as perfectly as possible. When it’s not a core exercise, I subscribe to

the “good enough” policy. Here, the drill has to generally look right, and the athlete has to be reporting back to me that they feel the right tissues. If “good enough”, then we continue to do it. The list of drills that we have for frontal plane, single leg squats is pretty simple. We have the ability to perform single leg squats with the stance foot elevated, and we have the ability to perform single leg squats with no elevation of the stance foot. Each domain facilitates different ways of loading the exercise. The loading options start with those that offer the easiest approach for competent execution of the movement, and move towards more challenging and higher-loaded variations. Our loading options start with a band/cable pulled across the body towards the stanceside foot. This is a great use of RNT, and really helps people center and hip-shift on the stance side. Once someone gets the feel for being centered and hip-shifted while performing a single leg squat, he or she generally understands the concept, greenlighting more challenging forms of loading for the drill. Note that option E is bolded. With that option, I use the Keiser Air Squat machine, which we have at Hype Gym (in NYC), out of which I operate. With that piece of equipment, I am able to load this exercise fairly substantially, while keeping it easy for subjects to stay centered. And to think that some claim that machines are somehow less functional! The following is the list of progressions for frontal plane, front/back stance, retro step, low to moderate load, low to moderate velocity, knee dominant exercises: 1. Single leg squat to box w/back foot elevated w/hip shift A. Pull band or cable across body towards stance foot B. Anterior reach C. Anterior load D. Side handle load E. Keiser air squat load 2. Single leg squat to box w/hip shift (Front foot stays on the ground) Same progressions as 1A through 1E

Page

231

Coaching Points I cannot overstate the value of exercise 1A here. This drill is one of the best illustrations of this exercise concept, as well as uses of constraints and RNT that I have found. The retro step up onto the elevation (2-3 inches is perfect), passively starts subjects off with a hip shift and the see-saw pelvis. From there, the action of pulling the band across the body and the utilization of RNT centers folks. Once centering and a hip shift are combined with sagittal competence, the appropriate muscles fire. Once the appropriate muscles are engaged, they need to stay engaged the subject performs a squatting motion. Not to sound like a broken record, but I do not care how far people squat in the beginning. I will take one centimeter of competent squatting over large excursion trash. Rushing will frequently occur, in the hopes of getting the exercise over with. Telltale rushing signs are extending and compressing the back, coming out of the hip shift, or losing centering. You’ll know something went wrong if the subject finishes the set fast, acts like it was no big deal, and thinks the drill was a waste of time. People get out of these drills what they put into them. Not surprisingly, those who invest little attention, effort, and awareness, get little back, while those who stay engaged, remain locked into the positions, and try hard, get quite a lot. When you are 1A, you can modify the drill for compressed people and expanded people fairly easily. Both populations can benefit from a heel wedge under the stance-side foot. Have your compressed people grab the band/ cable with a supinated grip, and your expanded people, with a pronated grip. Overall, the knee-dominant pattern is biased more towards expansion, so looking for opportunities to bias exercises with ER concepts will increase the probability of favorable outcomes. When doing these drills, folks will ofen let their head follow their hips and bodies. Make sure you have people dissociate their necks from their bodies. The easiest way to do this

is to have someone continue to look straight ahead while rotating the body. Frontal, Front/Back, Forward Step, Low to Moderate Load, Low to Moderate Velocity This category of exercise involves frontal plane split squats and lunges. These drills highly remind me of a pitcher’s late cocking-torelease-point phase of the throw. At this stage of the throw, pitchers get into the position of being in a front/back stance, with the pelvis facing home plate, the front knee in flexion, while hip-shifting towards the front leg, and allowing separation between the pelvis and thorax. Immediately following, the pitcher rotates the thorax towards the front leg side, and the arm explodes through the throwing motion before entering the follow-through. The idea of separation of the pelvis and thorax is a big deal in the baseball world, the golf world, and the hockey world. The pelvis rotates towards the front side leg first, and there is a delay before the thorax follows it. The great ones show this dissociation and separation, versus moving like a block, all parts simultaneously traveling together. These split squat and lunge drills are very helpful for trying to put this concept into a resistance training exercise. The first thing we’ll do is make sure that the subject can actually create a hip shift, and in doing so, allow the thorax to move with the pelvis. As we progress, we’ll practice shifting the pelvis independently from the thorax, to achieve the aforementioned separation. In the progressions for frontal plane split squats and lunges, we see a very similar sequence as we followed for the sagittal plane drills. We will start with split squats. The split squats will go front foot elevated, to flat ground, to rear foot elevated, gradually distributing a greater percentage of weight towards the front leg. We will also go with band/cable across the body, to anterior reach, to anterior load, to side handle load, to a specialized machine that allows significant loading to be incorporated.

Page

232

Once we get to anterior reach, we can now involve separation between the pelvis and thorax. The following list is the sequence of progressions for frontal plane, front/back stance, low to moderate load, low to moderate velocity, knee-dominant exercises: 1. Front foot elevated split squat w/hip shift and rear foot on wall A. Pull band/cable across body towards stance foot B. Anterior reach C. Anterior load D. Side handle load E. Keiser air squat 2. Front foot elevated split squat w/hip shift Same progressions as 1A-E 3. Split squat w/hip shift and rear foot on wall Same progressions as 1A-E 4. Split squat w/hip shift Same progressions as 1A-E 5. Rear foot elevated split squat w/hip shift Same progressions as 1A-E 6. Backwards lunge w/hip shift Same progressions as 1A-D 7. Forwards lunge w/hip shift Same progressions as 1A-D Coaching Points We’re looking for people to be able to do squatty split squats while they get into and maintain a hip shift with these drills. These are very challenging exercises with a lot of moving parts. To refrain from overwhelming our subjects, we need to give them no more than just a couple things to think about at a time. The obvious choices are the front foot and the opposite side hip. I would not try to do these drills until people have demonstrated the ability to perform the sagittal split squats at a high level. Once those are nailed, these can be peppered into the equation. In the setup, I want subjects tall through the axial skeleton, skull stacked on the thorax, stacked on the pelvis. From there, I want to see a strong hip shift, during which the focus

is the stance-side foot. Subjects need to plant and keep their weight down on the inside edge of that foot. The more they hip shift, the more they need to stamp the inside edge of the foot down into the ground, to maintain the hammerto-nail-to-wood relationship of the thigh, shin, ankle, and foot. To drive the hip shift, I have people focus on the opposite side hip, specifically at the anterior superior iliac spine (ASIS). We’re trying to rotate the ASIS across the body as much as possible. For a squat-based exercise, I do not want to see subjects losing height or hinging their trunks forward in the process of creating their hip shifts. If you are working with people who are struggling to prevent a hinge from taking place, you can always put a heel wedge under the front foot. Building in plantar flexion should bias them towards an expansion strategy. If people are not reporting back that they are feeling an incredible amount of adductor and glute during this exercise, then they are not doing it right, and may not be ready for this exercise. For those who are ready and executing it correctly, the amount of muscular recruitment that you feel should be practically overwhelming. With those who aren’t, go back to sagittal exercises for fitness, and see if they can learn the frontal plane through core exercises. Frontal, Lateral, Low to Moderate Load, Low to Moderate Velocity Like the little boy who saw dead people in The Sixth Sense, for years, I’ve seen “lousily, lateral squatting and lunging people”. I’ve seen people do big excursions of range of motion with zero foundation. I’ve seen people hinge these things like they’re a kitchen door. I think I could count on one hand the times I’ve seen one of these movements being well-executed. These drills tend to lend themselves to showing off, and what typically gets shown off is the distance between the legs, and/or the ability to nearly or actually touch one’s butt to one’s heel at the bottom.

While these exercises can be a critical

Page

233

part of someone’s training, and can certainly be impressively executed, they’re best left for true masters of sensorimotor competence. I wouldn’t try to rush anyone into these drills, nor would I include them in someone’s programming unless the ability to execute them were critically important. I could see these drills being very important for golfers, baseball players, tennis players, hockey players, and other athletes who need to hit objects with sticks, clubs, and other implements. These drills will challenge your ability to lateralize your pelvis and center your weight over the stance side foot in the most demanding of conditions. If you can hip shift and center in this stance while creating a lateral squat/lunge motion, you are an absolute movement monster, and your ability to use your axial skeleton to create explosion on striking and throwing motions is high level. There are not too many variations for this realm of exercise. We have lateral squats and lateral lunges. You can do the lateral squats with the stance side foot elevated, or with it on level ground. Within each variation, there are loading options. The options start with a band/ cable pulled across the body towards the hip shift side, progress to an anterior reach, then an anterior load, and end with side handle loading. The following list is the sequence of progressions for frontal plane, lateral stance, low to moderate load, low to moderate velocity, knee dominant exercises: 1. Lateral squat w/stance foot elevated w/hip shift A. Pull cable across body towards stance foot B. Lateral squat w/stance foot elevated w/hip shift, anterior reach C. Lateral squat w/stance foot elevated w/hip shift, anterior load D. Lateral squat w/stance foot elevated w/hip shift, side handle load 2. Lateral squat w/o stance foot elevated w/hip shift Follow progressions of 1A-D 3. Lateral lunge w/landing/stance foot elevated

w/hip shift Follow progressions of 1A-D Coaching Points You need to take some time to figure out the right stance width for these exercises. Folks usually can’t go as wide as you might initially think, the reason being that a too-wide stance makes it very difficult to lateralize your pelvis, and fully center it over your stance side foot. If one manages to actually lateralize the pelvis over the stance side foot in the setup, the amount of resulting stretch in the non-stance side adductor is amazing. Most people think they need to put themselves into some kind of enormous split position to feel a big adductor stretch, but, truly lateralizing the pelvis away from the other side results in a powerful adductor stretch when using a narrower stance. That feeling of a stretch in the non-stance side adductor is a great indicator that someone is doing this exercise properly. When I am coaching people in this drill, I try to get them hip-shifted during the setup for this exercise, and then maintain that hip shift throughout its execution. Most everybody tries to come out of their hip shift at the top of the squat, and it’s the coach’s job to disallow this. Maintaining the hip shift typically spells not locking out at the top of the motion, and this is fine. Just keep people in the midzone of this drill, and cheer them on as their glute med shakes, their adductor feels like it’s going to explode, and their quad gets a massive pump. The lateral stance is more challenging than the other stances simply because it maximizes the difficulty of lateralizing the pelvis. Other than this, there is nothing special about how you train the frontal plane elements. You can reuse the hip shift cues presented for prior planes, and do everything you possibly can to lateralize and keep subjects centered over the stance side foot:

Page

234

Dominant Positions and Fitness Realms

Dominant Plane: Sagittal Dominant Stance: Bilateral Dominant Load: Moderate to Heavy Dominant Velocity: Moderate to Slow Dominant Duration: Short to Moderate

The bilateral squat is still king of lower body training. Nothing will drive a greater hypertrophy and strength stimulus more than the squat. Nothing will tax your metabolic system more than a hard set of squats. I believe that learning sensorimotor competence and training movements is critical for athletes. At the time of this writing, zero peer reviewed studies exist where subjects were placed in a hip shift with centering and observed. I don’t think there’s a single researcher in the world that even knows how to do this. There are zero studies that have really picked apart the differences in a squatty squat and a hingey squat, and I don’t know if there are any researchers in the world that know how to coach the difference properly. So, the applicability of some concepts being presented in this book may only be revealed with time. That said, there is a ton of evidence that squatting leads to changes in human morphology and physical output. As someone who enjoys betting and playing odds, if I am going to have to train someone, and I have to cause change, I am definitely going to be using a bilateral squat to accomplish this change, because I know it is going to work. The squat will challenge the person’s movement system, muscular system, and metabolic system. I believe in always being willing to question everything, even the central tenets of one’s own philosophy. If tomorrow, someone presented me clear evidence that my core beliefs are wrong, I would humbly accept the truth, and seek to find a new and better way. The squat is the truth. You do not need to be married to a barbell back squat, but you probably need to find a way to put that movement in the training of every individual who walks through your door. Even in “soft” modern society, bone density, muscle mass, and strength are vital things,

directly correlated to injury risk, fall risk, and death risk. Each of us owes ourselves the maintenance of lower body motion capabilities, muscle mass, and preservation of bone density through the thigh, hip, and spine as long into our lifespans as possible. It’s up to each of us to ensure that ours is a body that affords us quality years of life as we get older. The longer someone can perform a full range proper squat, the longer that person ensures health and vitality for his or her present and future self.

14 Horizontal Push

Page

236

Horizontal Push

Chapter 14

Everybody wants to skip leg day, but nobody wants to skip upper body day. Where upper body is concerned, chest and biceps reign supreme. If you are going to get a sick chest pump, you are going to need to crush bench. For many men, being able to bench 135 is a right of passage for not being a shameful creature. Being able to bench 225 is one’s official ticket to being respectable. Anyone who pushes three plates is a beast. Four plates or higher is reserved for mystical beings. And, sorry; boasting about what you benched back in high school doesn’t count. The bench press is the most American of all exercises. Though its carryover to other areas of fitness is likely very limited, its promise of bragging rights is seemingly limitless. In some circles, when you out-bench another man, you own him for life in all ways, regardless of whether he is richer than you, smarter than you, tougher than you, or has a hotter wife than you.

Mechanical Considerations of the Horizontal Push Pattern I find the bilateral horizontal push (bench press) to be one of the best ways to teach people how to lift weights properly. As I’ve asserted, lifting weights is different from a lot of other athletic endeavors. With most sports, the trick is staying relaxed while moving quickly and freely. To lift weights, you need to learn how to create pressure, stay tight, squeeze, and prevent motion in most parts of your body. Easier said than done: just observe many a beginner’s “wet noodle” movements in the weightroom. Conveniently, most people feel pretty safe on the bench press, making it a great place to teach tactical lessons that can apply to most other exercises. The bench press is a great exercise to teach these lessons, because it positions you right in the peak of compression for the upper body. Your arms are right at 90 degrees of shoulder flexion, and the bench provides an additional posterior wall from which to build pressure. Getting very strong in the weightroom boils down to learning how to generate and maintain the highest possible internal pressures one can achieve. This feeling scares a lot of people. To create pressure, one must pull air into the system, and then compress around that air canister. An exhalation strategy with concentric muscular activity is what compresses. If you squeeze everywhere, no movement happens. If you create a pressurized canister, and then squeeze more on one side than the other, you will move in the other direction. If you are going to squat, you need to learn how to create pressure at the pelvic floor, and direct force vertically. If you are going to

Page

237

deadlift, you need to learn how to create posterior compression to drive the hips forward. If you are going to bench press, you need to create upper back compression, to drive the sternum and arms forward. So, what’s the optimal way to create maximal compression in the upper back to drive a pressure wave forward into the anterior chest wall and arms? We’ve previously envisioned the process of filling a glass of water, bottom to top. This is exactly how the lungs fill up with air, from the bottom of the lung to the top. The lowest part of the lungs is a small triangular space in the back, inside the lowest posterior ribs. This is the inferior dorsal-rostrum space, and the air located in this region will expand the back posteriorly. From there, air continues to enter the system in a vertical direction. At the mid-back, at the level of the peak of kyphosis of the thoracic spine, we need posterior compression. This area of the spine is already kyphotic and expanded, and does not need to expand further. Instead, the goal is to maintain shape, and build a pressure wall from the space. This pressure wall directs air anteriorly. If we do a good job of driving air anteriorly, we will up pump handle the sternum with an inhale. Finally, as air continues to enter the system in a filling, vertical direction, we will create posterior expansion in the upper dorsal-rostrum space. This filling of air at the level of the thorax is analogous to the filling of the pelvic space with visceral fluid and material for being able to flex the femurs. The start of flexion up to 60 degrees is an expansion-based zone, and the main structure that’s moving is the femur. 60 to 120 degrees of flexion is a compression-based zone, and the main structure moving is the innominate. 120 degrees to the top of appendicular flexion is an expansion-based zone, and the main structure moving is the femur. The coccyx expands posteriorly at the pelvis. The midsacral space expands at the pelvis. The top of the sacrum expands posteriorly at the pelvis. At the level of the thorax, the same rules ap-

ply. The start of flexion to 60 degrees is an inhale-based place, where the main moving structure is the humerus. Between 60 and 120 degrees of humeral flexion, the exhalation strategy dominates, and the main moving structure is the scapula, going through upward rotation. Between 120 and 180 degrees of flexion, the inhalation concept is the primary approach, and the main moving structure is the humerus. The primary zone that we want to focus on when it comes to horizontal pushing is the 60 to 120 degrees of flexion area, because this is where the bench press lives. This region lands the bench press squarely in the middle of the exhale/compression strategy. To see how to maximize compression, we can simply look at the methodology of powerlifting. Powerlifters set themselves up for bench press with their sternum pushed as high towards the sky as it can possibly go. From a tactical approach to bench pressing, powerlifters always talk about creating as much tension as possible in the upper back. They also talk about taking a big breath before the rep, and then holding it while you press. Powerlifters will squeeze the bar as hard as they can with their hands, and try to pull the bar apart. So, what’s the thinking behind these strategies? When the arms are going through flexion between 60 and 120 degrees, the main moving structure is the scapula, going through upward rotation. This upward rotation of the scapula is analogous to the movement of counter-nutation of the innominate, at the level of the pelvis. When the pelvis counter-nutates, the sacrum has a related nutation moment. At the level of the thorax, the scapula is upwardly rotating (counter-nutating), and relative to this, the thoracic spine has a nutation (lordosis) moment. Please note that I’m not necessarily talking about enormous ranges of motion. Zero degrees of motion at the sacrum or thoracic spine would still feature a nutation moment. What’s causing this nutation moment of the mid-thoracic spine? The middle traps and rhomboids are the perfectly positioned muscles to create posterior compression at this level. Why are

Page

238

powerlifters always trying to pull the bar apart? Because it feeds into this nutation moment by facilitating these same muscles. Why are powerlifters always looking for lats? Because the lats will drive the entire thorax forward, and bring the sternum towards the ceiling in the bench press. With the powerlifting setup, we see posterior compression brought to its extreme end points. By compressing the entire back from sacrum to cervical spine, one creates the biggest arch one possibly can. One compresses harder by bilateral lat engagement, which posteriorly tilts the entire thorax as a unit. One maximally engages the mid traps and rhomboids to push the sternum forward. One simply turns the back side of one’s body into a pressure cooker, and builds an arch. All of that being the case, non-powerlifters do not need to bring posterior compression to this extreme. What the rest of us should be looking for is lower dorsal-rostrum expansion and sternum pump handle up pressure in our setup. This puts someone in a place that is supportive and stable, from which one can feel strong without going to extremes. With the powerlifting extreme set up, there is very poor lower dorsal filling. The arch drives the sacrum into nutation, preventing any appreciable lower posterior expansion. When we do not get a great inhale low, we fail to set the stage for maximizing air into all the zones of the lungs above. We will not be maximizing air in the mid-back zone, which pushes into the mid-thoracic spine, and back into the ribs under the scapula. As previously described in this book, this will create an RNT experience for the scapula (which stabilizes it), and sets the stage for healthy, productive humeral motions. The big arch style of the bench press leverages the inhale motion to a maximal degree at the infra-sternal ribs. Closing off the entire back, and posteriorly tilting the thorax while in the peak of compression (from a humeral movement arc perspective), will leave the bucket handle up action as the only spot for an inhalation bony movement. The reason powerlifters make sure

to get a belly breath as their inhale prior to benching is that is probably a good indicator that the entire back is completely closed. For non-powerlifters, positioning oneself for productive humeral motions is the key to training horizontal pushing. Outside of one rep max bench pressing, those seeking to maximize the hypertrophy response from pushing will need to accumulate the greatest possible amount of pressing volume to do so. Volume accumulation can expose a lot of problems. When you get near your upper tolerance of volume, you can start breaking down. Is your breakdown caused primarily by a lack of sleep, improper nutrition, life stress, or is it mechanical expression of an exercise? The best approach for deducing one’s primary rate limiting factor is by compiling a list of all that are in play, and then identifying secondary ones by process of elimination. For non-powerlifters, aiming the sternum forward and allowing its motion to guide the bar is a good start. Keeping the sternum in that position while exhaling will work to close the bucket handle of the infra-sternal ribs, which is what we want. Then, continuing to keep the infra-sternal bucket handle closed on the inhale should result in feeling air pushing the sternum in the direction one wants the bar to go, while the scapulae and shoulders remain locked in and ready to press away. Within the horizontal push pattern, transverse plane exercises will also be available. These will be done with unilateral and alternating pressing activity. The major mechanical requirement for initial drills is the ability to keep the sternum incredibly still while the arms move implements through the zone. To do this, one has to recruit a tremendous amount of oblique tissue to compress and stabilize the anterior thorax, as well as rotate the rib cage through space, independently of the sternum. We’ll see an increase in internal rotation, depression, and retraction of the anterior ribs at the ribcage, on the side of the arm reaching up/forward, and an increase in external rotation, elevation, and

Page

239

protraction on the side of the arm coming down/ backwards. These actions can only be executed effectively whilst maintaining anterior compression, with simultaneous oblique action on both sides. Training the Horizontal Push Pattern Available Options

•Available Planes: All •Available Stances: All •Available Loads: All •Available Velocities: All •Available Durations: All

Sagittal, Bilateral, Moderate to Heavy Load, Low to Moderate Velocity One of the great debates around horizontal pushing is whether those who cannot do any pushups should bench press. To me, this isn’t much of a debate, as it seems fairly obvious that the clear answer here is: “Of course you can have someone who cannot do pushups perform the bench press!” The subject would need to build some upper body strength and hypertrophy pushing tissues via the bench press as well as build the requisite axial skeleton control via core exercises, in tandem with improving body composition through diet. Those who are lean, strong, and possess awareness of their axial skeletons will either already be able to do proper pushups, or will just need a bit of practice before they can. This pushup/bench press question is one that seems to harken back to one of the central problems in the world of fitness, that is, emotional attachment to exercises in place of viewing them as means to an end. If you are a weightlifter, then the snatch, and clean and jerk are the ends. If you are a powerlifter, then the squat, bench press, and deadlift are the ends. With the exception of some strength sports, where the end goal is to increase numbers for a very specific exercise as much as possible, specific exercises are means, not ends. The

pushup is in no way a prerequisite for the bench press. The open versus closed chain concept is meaningless here. What is meaningful is identifying our subject’s goal, and asking ourselves whether the selected movement pattern can effectively drive him or her towards that goal. If the answer is yes, then keep the movement pattern in. If the answer is no, take the movement pattern out. Once a movement pattern has been identified as important, the next challenge is to pick the best exercise from that movement pattern. To do that, we need to determine which exercise creates the biggest stimulus with the fewest side effects. By side effects, we mean secondary consequences that result from performing a specific exercise, such as fatigue, inflammation and joint pain, among many others. I think Mike Israetel does an amazing job of explaining the stimulus to fatigue ratio. Fatigue is such an interesting concept. Is it purely subjective, or objective and quantifiable? Is it simply the number of adenosine molecules bound to receptors in the brain? Sleep research might suggest that, as well as research on caffeine as an ergogenic aid. From the perspective of the weightroom, how can we create some type of working definition of fatigue? The handiest is that fatigue is the state in which our quantitative output at a specific task diminishes. If someone can’t do as much on set 4 as he or she did on set 1, that person is likely fatigued. If someone can’t do as much on Thursday as he or she did on Tuesday, then that person is likely fatigued. Numbers can be used to guide us through the ambiguity of subjective experience. The way we do this is by clearly identifying goals, and clearly regulating training protocols. Put more controls in your programming so that you are truly comparing apples to apples. Standardize reps. If the subject is going to pause at the bottom of his or her reps, have him or her pause for exactly the same amount of time on rep eight as on rep one. Make sure the range of motion is exactly the same on every rep of every set. Encourage keeping emotions as level as possible. Time rest periods. Really figure

Page

240

out what works and what doesn’t.

that is the hypothesis of this model.

Figure out what exercises create the greatest stimulus. Figure out which exercises seem to create the greatest fatigue. Doing seated dumbbell overhead press right before doing bench press, bench press numbers suffer. Maybe some other combination of sequenced exercises would be better.

If we are creating skeletal shape change that widens us side to side and narrows us front to back, this is not the right shape for rotation. Wheels and spheres rotate well, but rectangles and boxes rotate poorly. If you are going to throw effectively, you need to be more of a sphere through your thorax, and less of a box.

The other piece is that you need to see if certain goals conflict with other goals. Say one of someone’s goals is to throw a baseball 95 miles per hour for the next twenty years, and the other is to get as jacked as possible in the upper body. Why might these be conflicting goals?

This does not mean that pitchers and quarterbacks should never do pushups or bench press. This simply means that they should not take these movements to the extremes of adaptations. Getting stronger and reasonably developing the entire body is fine. Trying to win the Olympia while trying to get a MLB contract as a starter pitcher might be a problem. We need numbers to help guide us here. Continue to measure the range of motion of joints. Continue to measure velocity, and examine throwing mechanics. Continue to develop total body strength and power in the weightroom. When you see conflicts start to emerge, it may be time to rethink what’s being done in the weightroom. You’re simply looking for indicators that can help establish numerical cutoffs. Our species is an adaptable organism, hence going too far down some undesired training road can often be reverted with some backtracking. Listen to the canary in the coal mine, and get out before it’s too late. Once out of danger, we can recoup and regroup. The cream always rises to the top. When we fall short of our goals, let’s not blame too many pushups. We just weren’t good enough. Those who are good enough will have their major league career, but engaging in harmful training may cut it five times as short.

This would bring us back to our discussion on shape change in the axial skeleton. As previously discussed, horizontal pushing is all about compression, and the primary compression site is posterior compression in the middle of the thoracic spine at its peak of kyphosis. The upward rotation/counter-nutation of the scapulae that flex the humerus in the 60 to 120 degree range is the primary location for the muscular action that creates this compressive force. We upwardly rotate my shoulder blades to create the right length/tension relationship for the rhomboids and mid-traps to create a compression wall in the mid-back. This mid-back tension creates a concentrically oriented wall on the back that we use to push off from. Meanwhile, on the front of the body, we are using the pectorals and anterior delts as the prime movers to push things horizontally. These muscles move the humerus, but they also create a tension wall on the front side of the body. What we end up with is a wall squeezing backwards from the front, and a wall squeezing forward from the back. These two walls squish everything in the middle, causing a widening of the entire body. The thorax increases its width from a medial to lateral perspective, and decreases its depth from an anterior to posterior perspective. If you do this long enough and hard enough, you will drive adaptation, and you will create skeletal shape change. At least

Exercise selection and being in the right mechanical position to succeed ride hand in hand. The better your understanding of what you’re looking for from your subjects mechanically speaking, the easier it will be to determine how you should arrange them, what kind of equipment to use, and how you should configure that equipment. For horizontal pushing, we have a few easy positioning tricks at our disposal. Two of the really big ones are putting blocks under

Page

241

the subject’s feet to elevate him or her up off the ground, and using different implements, like a Swiss bar or dumbbells in place of a standard barbell. I also highly recommend learning how to do table tests to measure joint range of motion, which should yield actionable next steps for the subject’s training. You should measure hip extension, and determine how close the subject is to being able to get into full extension, which, in my experience, is very rare, as most people I see fall somewhere between 20 to 30 degrees shy of hip extension. When I put someone on a bench, and ask them to press, I always take a look at the amount of hip extension they are demonstrating in that position. When on the bench, I’ll often see that subjects appear to be in full hip extension, if not hyperextension. Yet, from prior assessments, I know that the same subject does not possess full hip extension, so how could this be? The high level of posterior compression in this position drives the entire pelvis into anterior tilt, which is responsible for the full hip extension. To get a better hip extension read, I’ll place boxes under the subject’s feet until I see his or her hips positioned to where I know the femur can actually extend. Doing this liberates the subject from resorting to creating posterior compression that tilts the pelvis. If you are going to err with this approach, err by stacking too many boxes, which will bring the femurs into more flexion. There is nothing that can go wrong with a little too much flexion, which can in fact help to get the axial skeleton into a good position. By doing table tests on their arms and legs, we can determine whether people lack full movement and respiratory variability. If you discover that someone is lacking movement variability, you want to see which type of skeletal archetype they are biased towards, inhaled (narrow ISA), or exhaled (wide ISA). Once I have this bias established, I have the ability to alter exercise setup to assist subjects by placing them in positions that will increase the probability of attaining sensorimotor competent results, and decreasing likelihood of pain during the exercise. Assuming that there are no fur-

ther thoracic compensations with hands and arms, wide people will do well with implements that feed them into supination and ER, whereas narrows will do well with pronation and IR. The Swiss bar or dumbbells are a great tool for providing supination and ER, and the barbell is the tool of choice for pronation and IR. There aren’t too many choices for horizontal push in the following list, and you may notice that pushups have been excluded. Though they qualify as a horizontal push exercise, I find them problematic for a few reasons. For one thing, once an exercise is selected, I’m fairly obsessed with ensuring that quantitative progress is being achieved for it. With pushups, it is a little harder to ensure this. Yes, you could add load to the person in the form of vests, or chains, or some other type of implement, but what a lot of people don’t consider is the person’s own body weight. Did you weigh them right before their set (as body weight can fluctuate quite a bit over the course of a day as a function of hydration status, etc)? This may seem a bit excessive, but I’ve seen how much 2.5 pound plates make a difference on a barbell. A small change in body weight changes the load of the exercise, and the thing I do not like about it is that I will probably not be aware of it. It may look like the person is improving, getting stronger, and the training plan is going as desired, while, in reality, the person is just three pounds lighter than the last time we did this exercise, making it easier and affording him or her more reps. The barbell never goes on a diet. Dumbbells never have to worry about hydration status. I know what those things weigh, and I know that if you are doing more reps with the same weight, or more weight for the same reps, you have improved in this pattern. With that, the following is the sequence of progressions for the sagittal plane, bilateral stance, moderate to heavy load, low to moderate velocity, horizontal push pattern:

Page

242

1. Seated on a machine (less fight against gravity w/neck)

2. Supine dumbbells w/ground elevated for pelvis 3. Supine dumbbells

4. Supine bar w/ground elevated for pelvis 5. Supine bar Coaching Points I coach the bench press by coaching core exercises. Instructing subjects to keep the pelvis under themselves, and own the position of the sternum while their arms are moving leads to pressing really well. When I see terrible horizontal push exercises, I see the same thing over and over: lower posterior compression that creates a big anterior tilt in the pelvis, and/or a moving sternum. It’s common to witness a sternum down pump handle when subjects are headed towards lockout, and sternum up pump handle when the weight is at the bottom of the press. What these folks are doing is basically using rectus abdominis to press weight away from them. With the horizontal press, I want stillness through the axial skeleton, a setup that facilitates a sensorimotor experience of expansion in the lower dorsal-rostrum, and an up pump

handle to the sternum on an inhale. All that remains is to keep the body still like a statue as the arms go through the zone of the drill. This takes a lot of core control. Here again, I highly recommend the use of tempo with beginners. This will slow them down and keep them quiet. As previously observed, when it is quiet, and things are going slow, you have the opportunity to coach. The reduced speed will magnify any mechanical errors that require correcting. I suggest keeping your eye on those new to the bench press, because this seemingly simple exercise can spell trouble. For one thing, it’s prone to getting loaded way too high. For another, subjects will position themselves in some inexplicable ways. Some will place their bodies too far under the bar on the bench, press the bar straight into the rack, fail, and then find themselves unable to get the bar around the hooks. Some will try to unrack from positions that are either way too low or too high. In these cases, they will either airmail the bar and go over the rack when trying to rerack, or they will be under on one side, getting themselves in big trouble. The internet is full of bench press fails, depicting people getting stuck under barbells in astounding ways. To keep the folks we coach from ending up as one of these fails, we can offer them some simple guidelines for the bench press. Number one: set them up so that their eyeballs are under the barbell when it is sitting in the rack. This is a strong position from which to unrack the bar, and ensures the bar isn’t pushed back into the rack on their reps. Two: ensure subjects, especially beginners to this exercise, always have a spotter. The bench press is actually a fairly dangerous exercise compared to others. If unable to get a given deadlift or squat rep, one can always bail, simply allowing the bar to fall to the ground. In the bench press, you are under the bar, and not getting the rep means that bar is coming down on you. When working without a spotter, a good strategy is to omit putting clips on the bar. If there are no clips, the lifter can let the weights fall off

Page

243

one side before falling off the other as the bar spins sideways off of him or her. This move is scary, especially at first, but beats being pinned under a bar. If clips are on the bar, it can be rolled down, towards the waist. This is a painful experience with heavy weights, but it is better than rolling the bar up and having it end up on the neck, where it can be truly lethal. Once the bar makes its way to the waist, one sit up with it, then stand up with it, and finally set it down. Particularly with males, coaching the bench press is the process of coaching egos, and risk management. Don’t use open grips. Don’t let people go without spotters. Don’t encourage always going to failure. Don’t let people use too much weight and half rep on every set. Enforce proper form. Enforce a quantitative plan. Ensure safety. Transverse, Bilateral, Moderate Load, Moderate Velocity Pushing or pulling with one arm at a time in a horizontal direction sets us up to move our trunks in the transverse plane. When we are doing transverse plane core thorax exercises, the big focus is on ownership of the axial skeleton, and being able to control the axis of the sternum. There is certainly a degree of carryover of axial skeleton control with transverse plane pushing, but the primary focus here is on moving external load. The exercises that were chosen for this section were all alternating press exercises, where both hands are loaded for pushing, and both arms are moving at the same time. There are no exercises in here where only one hand is loaded, and the other hand is not. The reasons that I do not list those exercises is that they would reduce the amount of load one could use, and tend to be really difficult to execute properly, even more so than the alternating exercises featured in this section. Taking one side of loading away increases the challenge to keep the axial skeleton in a proper position by a tremendous order of magnitude. In order to develop some pushing fitness and avoid redundancy with thoracic core exercises, let’s make it easier

to keep the axial skeleton in a proper position in this area of fitness. Let’s divide and conquer. When it is time to do core exercises, do core exercises. When it is time to drive fitness in other patterns, provide the right environment to put the axial skeleton in a proper position to drive quantitative greater output with less conscious thought on the subject’s part. The drills available in this category progressively challenge the athlete relative to gravity. The seated position is the position that’s most likely to prevent resorting to compensatory movements when horizontally pushing. So many people try to kick in their neck when pressing in this direction, likely because, most of the time, we operate in a supine position, directly opposed to the line of gravity. The other benefit of the seated position is that it gives the coach a handy vantage point to coach from. Once the seated drills are done properly, then we can move people to supine, and from there, to standing. Use of the standing position really comes down to preference. Utilizing it means using lighter load in the absence of passive stabilizers, like benches. As the coach, you’ve got to make the determination as to whether or not the person you are working with requires developing this type of strength on their feet. The following list is the sequence of drills for transverse plane, bilateral stance, moderate to high load, low to moderate velocity, horizontal pushing: 1. Seated alternating press A. Cables 2. Supine alternating press A. Cables B. Dumbbells 3. Standing alternating press A. Cables Coaching Points To do these drills properly, one needs to be able to own the pelvis in the sagittal plane. The most common mechanical error here is the creation of a lot of lower posterior compression, which will drive the whole pelvis into an anterior tilt. When in a significant anterior tilt, it’s very

Page

244

challenging for them to do these drills properly. When subjects demonstrate sagittal plane competence, the likelihood that they will recruit desired muscles to accomplish a given task is higher. When sagittal competence is not demonstrated, I have no idea what tissues are going to be recruited for the same task. What we’re after during these drills is a pelvis that is very still and in place, while the ribcage turns back and forth above it. When this takes place, we’re sure to be recruiting the obliques to a high degree, along with all the major pressing muscles, like the pecs and triceps. To place the pelvis in the right position, I typically end up elevating the subject’s feet, even on the seated exercises, where I will typically also position the feet farther forward. Elevating the feet increases the flex in the femur, and typically brings the entire pelvis into more of a posterior rotation position under the thorax. When I put the feet further forward, this will increase plantar flexion at the ankle, which will allow for more expansion through the system, and assist with keeping the sacrum in counter nutation. Once we’ve employed passive constraints to put the subject into a position that makes it easier for them to be successful, now, we can coach. To bring the pelvis into a competent position, I will cue him or her to either bring the back pockets towards the backs of the knees, or bring the belt buckle towards the belly button. Both cues strive to accomplish the same goal of putting the pelvis under the thorax. Now, I will focus on the sternum. I will have the subject push the implements away, creating a reach that stops short of sagittal competence breaking down. From there, I have him or her bring one implement back towards the body, while maintaining the height of the other one. I want subjects to make these movements as fast as possible, without moving their sternum excessively in the transverse plane. A sternum that’s rotating back and forth like a weather vane in the transverse plane is a sure sign that this exercise is being performed im-

properly. Recall that, to make better movers and better athletes, dissociation and separation of structures is the objective. When the sternum moves in these drills, I think of human refrigerators, incapable of moving with any fluidity. This realm of exercise is about as close as it gets to the gray area of core exercises versus other patterns. One has no chance in this realm unless he or she can execute core exercises at a high level, and his or her position is pretty locked in. Yet, I still want to use these drills to develop fitness. And we can do that, but only for subjects who have definitely mastered core exercises. These drills won’t quantitatively challenge the system as much as a bilateral sagittal press, and they won’t qualitatively challenge the system as much as a really well selected (and well executed) core exercises. Moreover, you’ll get a whole lot of nothing from these if you roll them out to the wrong person. On the other hand, for those who are both strong and demonstrate core competency, these drills can be very valuable. Sagittal, Front/Back, Moderate Load, Moderate Velocity This is an area of training that involves drills in the standing position. The devices available include cables, sleds, and the Jammer. Many football players are no strangers to this type of training. The athlete will stand in a front/back staggered stance, and push one of several implements, mimicking the movements required to push human opponents on the field. Those of us involved in training science have almost certainly heard this gem somewhere along the way: “We don’t bench press, because I’ve never seen a football player block someone while laying down on their back”. When you first hear this, you might find it witty and truthful. But, by the time you’ve heard it a few dozen times, you’re likely thinking more critically about the carryover—or lack thereof—between weight room exercises and corresponding sports movements.

Way back when I used to only read

Page

245

the big staple sports training science books, I used to love reading about the classification of sports-specific versus general-specific versus general exercises. In the descriptions adopted from the classical Russian texts, you see that sport-specific exercises involve playing the sport itself, or doing drills that mimic those exact sport movements. If you are a baseball player, this would mean playing a game of baseball in practice, or doing things like fielding ground balls “fungoed” by the coach. General-specific training involves performing exercises that use force vectors similar to those used in the sport, and operate in the same energy system as the sport itself. If you are a baseball player, this could be something like a cable chop, where the implement moves at very high velocity. General training involves performing exercises that are not at the same force vectors as the sport movements, and do not necessarily operate in the same energy system parameters as those characteristic of the sport. For a baseball player, any basic weight room lift qualifies. When you understand the specific to general classification system, you realize that almost everything in the weightroom is general, maybe a handful of things are general-specific, and nothing is specific. For the most part, the sport coaches handle the specific training, while the weightroom professionals handle the general training, often leaving the general-specific training out in no man’s land. In my work, isolating the essence of a thing helps. Once I do that, I can decide whether that essence is something that needs to be part of a particular subject’s training. If so, my next task is to present the subject with the medium that captures that essence to the greatest degree possible. Then, we observe the effect of that essence on that person, and evaluate the outcome. If that outcome is desired, we can continue along that same path, or we can modify or even discard the approach if the results are incongruent with the goals. In training anyone, my aim is to discover the most impactful approaches in respect to that subject’s goals, and steer them away from those approaches that will not significantly further them.

The thirteen patterns that I present in this book are thirteen different essences. All of them don’t need to be part of every subject’s training. The stances are different essences. All of them don’t need to be part of every subject’s training. The planes are different essences. All of them don’t need to be part of every subject’s training. The combinations of the stances and planes and patterns create different essences, and all of these combinations do not need to be part of everyone’s training. For a very small number of humans on this planet, the drills in this realm of fitness probably represent general-specific training, and a training essence that makes sense to include in their repertoire. For everyone that isn’t an interior football player, these drills probably don’t make any sense to include… no matter how cool-looking they may be. Here is the sequence of drills for sagittal plane, front/back stance, light to moderate load, moderate to high velocity, horizontal pushing: 1. Retro Step A. Cables B. Jammer C. Sled push aways 2. Forward Step w/Rear foot on wall A. Cables B. Jammer C. Sled push aways 3. Forward Step See Progressions for 2 Coaching Points To do these drills properly, maintenance of sagittal thoracic competence is key: we want to prevent these from turning into sternum pump exercises. This happens when someone’s arms are flexed way back, causing the sternum to orient upwards, and, when pushing the object, to orient downwards. This movement primarily ends up training the rectus abdominis, with a little bit of arms thrown in. To fully engage the arms, the sternum should be aimed at a point that is level with the orientation of the body, and fixed while the subject gen-

Page

246

erates force that transmits from the ground up and finishes through the arms. For most athletes, who will not include these types of drills as a primary training means, these drills can be useful from the perspective of active recovery, particularly if done with the sled. The sled provides an overcoming-only means of training. There is no lowering phase with the sled. You step up to it, push it away, walk towards it, and repeat the process over and over again. Overcoming-only training allows one to avoid soreness while still getting some work in. Moreover, those engaging in active recovery don’t need to demonstrate perfect sensorimotor competence, but shouldn’t allow it to slip too much. It bears mentioning that recovery work shouldn’t be particularly cognitively demanding, as that in itself creates fatigue, thereby (ironically) potentially impeding recovery! To really nail these drills, we want to find a position in which the subject stands tall and has sagittal centering. From there, one needs to exhale without losing height and centering. The ribs should move down, back, and in, while the sternum retains its orientation. The subject should maintain the exhale position while inhaling to a 360 degree expansion without the ribs flaring up, forward, and out. From there, push. When subjects struggle with this, I’ll often shift attention to their feet, and pay attention to how much of their front foot is on the ground, and how much weight is on each foot. I’ll have them try to maintain this level of foot contact while they breathe. This helps many realize that they’re losing parts of their front foot contact, and that their center of mass shifts and changes the distribution of load between their feet quite a bit during their breath cycle. If someone can then maintain a solid base of support, this often creates a better thoracic experience, facilitating success in this drill. Frontal, Front/Back, Moderate Load, Moderate Velocity This is an area of training that only a few types of athletes will really benefit from. This

type of pushing doesn’t create a significant amount of force. As a result, this realm is not one that will add much muscle mass or increase strength. What it will do is offer the opportunity to get into a very specific position, and learn how to create an upper body push from that position. As the coach, you can determine the applicability of these drills on a client by client basis. Given that this is a frontal plane horizontal pulling drill, the subject will be in a hip shift, and will push with both hands at the same time. Notably, if the subject were to be pushing with one hand, or in an alternating fashion, the drill would immediately morph into a transverse plane drill, because of the associated movement of the thorax. So, to perform all of these drills, the subject will be standing with one foot staggered in front of the other, and be in a hip shift. There is a retro step version of the drills as well as a forward step version. With these drills, there are only two types of implements that are available: cables, and the Jammer. The Jammer is a machine that is commonly found in football weight rooms. It functions as a device that creates a standing bench press type action. The arms swing forward and slightly up. Its intent is to mimic the blocking movements of offensive linemen. The sled is not an option here, because it would be logistically aggravating to reposition oneself into a hip shift prior to every push. Both cables and the Jammer allow the subject to stay in the hip shift and get reps. The following sequence is the list of progressions for frontal plane, front/ back stance, moderate load, moderate velocity, horizontal pushing: 1. Retro Step w/hip shift bilateral press ***Focus on maintenance of sagittal thorax A. Cables B. Jammer 2. Forward Step w/hip shift bilateral press ***Focus on maintenance of sagittal thorax A. Back foot on wall cables B. Back foot on wall Jammer C. Cables D. Jammer

Page

247

Coaching Points Having gotten into a proper hip shift and engaged the appropriate frontal plane pelvic muscles, the great challenge of doing these drills will be to maintain the thorax. It’s all too easy to lose position and compensate through the thorax when pushing weight forward in these positions. The temptation during the forward pushing motion is to create posterior compression, either somewhere up high or down low. On the contrary, we need to maintain posterior expansion during these drills, at the sites of the lower thorax, at the junction of the thoracic spine and the lumbar spine, as well as the upper thorax, at the junction of the thoracic and cervical spine. Compression at either of these zones signifies a mechanical breakdown of the drill. The million dollar question for these movements is: can the subject keep his or her back, well back? When the answer is no, or insufficiently so, common compensations will include allowing the bucket handle ribs to blow open in the front, shoot the head forward, or putting one’s weight into the outside edges of the feet, while pointing them out at 45 degree angles? In keeping with our running theme, before taking on drills from this category, subjects need to have truly mastered the sensorimotor competency pieces of corresponding core exercises. From there, the ability to maintain the proper position is key. Once this is being done reliably, now, the subject can begin to create some pushing force. This should look like loaded tai chi. For every pattern that is trained with load, every rep should look exactly the same, resulting in sets that also look the same as the prior one. Every rep should display the same range of motion. If you are going to use tempo, it should be the same tempo on every rep. If one is ensuring uniformity of reps on all aforementioned dimensions, then quantitative progress amounts to real progress. If, on the other hand, uniformity of movement from rep to rep is not being enforced, progress blockers like half

repping or shifting form or tempo are bound to creep in. It seems to me that many change up the look or pace of an exercise in an attempt to demonstrate that they are improving at it. Ironically, when these transgressions occur, they totally obscure any quantifiable improvements, as they prevent “apples to apples” assessments. The positions required for these drills immediately demonstrate whether or not the subject will demonstrate weightroom integrity, aka, use proper even in the face of discomfort. Those with this kind of integrity will hold the line, and execute the set to the letter of the law. Besides quantifiable improvement, those who remain committed to doing things right are, over time, rewarded with increased mental toughness, and an acquired taste for a good challenge. After all, challenges are opportunities to display unwavering grit, and further grow. For those who are less committed to proper execution and quantifiable results, these drills may serve as an avenue for greater commitment to these. One reason is that they feature neither intimidating load nor intensity. They also present little challenge in the way of staying present, or having to think much about the movements. Those who are averse to pushing themselves past a certain point of discomfort will want to bail, but as the coach, you may be able to cheerlead some over this hump. And, if you fail to make such subjects a little more comfortable with discomfort, these exercises will have provided a safe approach for vetting this. These drills cannot be rushed, as powering through them will cause an immediate loss of position, and therefore a loss of the drill. Drills that demand prevention of unwanted posterior compression are easily ruined by a fast pace or lack of presence. These drills aren’t for those who are in a hurry, and for those whose heads are in the clouds. This is a solid realm of training to include in the programming of athletes who require great body control, and do not need to be particularly strong or muscular. I could see this being good for tennis players, basketball point

Page

248

guards, and other finesse athletes. These types of athletes are also likely to be more psychologically receptive to these types of drills over traditional heavy lifting. Transverse, Front/Back, Moderate Load, Moderate Velocity In these drills, subjects will perform alternating pressing movements from an upright position. These are great horizontal pushing drills for athletes whose sports demand significant amounts of trunk rotation. The big fear around upper body strength training for athletes like baseball players, quarterbacks or tennis players is that resulting muscle growth in the upper body will restrict their motion capabilities. Given our prior discussions on compression and axial skeleton shape change, some of these fears may be supported. At the same time, as we have also seen, many strength training adaptations facilitate not just improved sport performance but improved and extended quality of life, so avoiding resistance training altogether is likely not the answer either. Every adaptation implies one or more tradeoffs. The body has limited resources, and it will allocate them to the areas it perceives as most threatened. Some adaptations take longer than others to take place. When an organism is presented with a significant loading challenge, it will initially respond by making changes at the level of synapses. The nervous system is a lightning-quick communication network, and highly malleable at the synaptic level. If the same organism is presented with a loading challenge over the course of several months, its tissue will undergo remodeling, resulting in visible muscle mass increases. If the stimulus continues over time, significant changes in bone mineral density and the thickness of bones will result. Adaptations go deeper and deeper, and find their way into every type of cell. Bringing it back full circle, generally, the more extreme the adaptation, the greater the tradeoffs it requires. In this author’s opinion, strengthening one’s muscles is almost always a good idea. One way we can serve our subjects as their coach-

es is by identifying underdeveloped tissue and helping them strengthen it. Subjects and coaches alike can absolutely also take this objective too far. Providing diet and training coaching to a female figure skater that results in twenty five pounds of muscle gain may be detrimental to her career. So, can we have our cake and eat it too? Can we help strengthen athletes that need to rotate and have big excursions of movement, and stop short of robbing them of the motion capabilities required by their sport(s)? At the time of this writing, I can’t definitively answer this question, which may always be one where the most accurate answer is one of our go-to copouts, like “sometimes” or “it depends”. That said, I do believe that our best chance at accomplishing this will hinge on thoughtful exercise selection, as well as thoughtful instruction on when and where subjects should compress and expand during exercises. A bench press performed by a powerlifter features compression pretty much everywhere. Someone who does this type of movement enough will learn to be compressed all the time, and to “bench press” even when not bench pressing. If one is going to properly execute the pressing movements in this realm of fitness, some parts will compress while others expand. Incidentally, this is exactly what needs to happen when one’s body turns and twists. In this realm of exercise, cables are our only pressing tool option. Within the front/ back stance, we have the ability to go with a retro step and a forward step. These drills also allow for tuning the amount of hip shift to be displayed. The greater the hip shift, the greater the demand on the pelvis in the frontal plane, and, usually, the lesser one’s ability to produce pressing force. The following list is the sequence of progressions for front/back stance, transverse plane, moderate load, moderate velocity, horizontal pushing: 1. Retro Step Alternating Press A. Cables 2. Forward Step Alternating Press A. Rear foot on wall cables

Page

249



B. Cables

Coaching Points To benefit from these drills, one has to maintain the pelvis in the sagittal plane, as the pelvis serves as the solid base from which the thorax moves. If there is excessive posterior compression that drives the entire pelvis into anterior tilt, the subject will be out of position for rotating the ribcage with the obliques, and regulating proper expansion and compression of the thorax. Those who can keep the pelvis under the body will feel a large amount of oblique activity and involvement in the movement. I want to see subjects owning their sternums in space, and reach their pressing arms as far forward as possible while the eccentric side hand goes as far back as possible, without affecting the orientation of the sternum. What we don’t want to see are sternums that are turning back and forth like weather vanes, dragging the whole body along for the ride. From a frontal plane pelvis perspective, I’m looking for a “squared up” pelvis. I do not need to drive a significant hip shift here. Le’s keep in mind that putting subjects into a big hip shift makes it really hard for them to move any kind of weight in this drill. On the flip side, we also want to avoid an “anti-hip shift”, which is common to see with beginners. We want subjects right in the middle, giving them a solid muscular base to operating from. Frontal, Lateral, Moderate Load, Moderate Velocity Horizontal pushing from a lateral stance is the available movement to train. Whether or not this needs to be trained is a different story altogether, and is for you as the coach to determine in regards to any given subject. Admittedly, I have never trained myself or anyone else in this pattern. Getting into the lateral stance automatically puts one’s pelvis and lower extremity in the frontal

plane. If sagittal sensorimotor competency is observed and a hip shift is initiated, subjects will experience a powerful yielding recruitment of their adductors and glute meds on the stanceside leg. Maintain this position, and press on top of it, results in properly performing exercises from this category. The only options in this category are those of getting into a lateral stance and pressing two cables at the same time, or pressing the Jammer from this position. The following list is the sequence of progressions for frontal plane, lateral stance, horizontal pushing, moderate load, moderate velocity exercises:

1. Lateral stance, bilateral press A. Cables B. Jammer Coaching Points When pressing with two hands, owning the thorax in the sagittal plane is the key to success. This will mean that one is able to keep the back... back. The sternum needs to be aimed at the horizon, while exhaling the ribs down, back, and in. From there, the ribs need to be held in place during the inhale. When this occurs, the thorax will expand in a 360 degree manner, as opposed to the anterior ribs simply flaring forward, up and out. Once the thorax is being managed from a sagittal perspective, now we can worry about lateralizing properly with the lateral stance. Proper lateralization is based on frontal centering. Lateralizing the pelvis far enough is likely the hardest part of keeping the thorax and skull stacked over the top of the pelvis. Doing so re-

Page

250

quires effort, as does maintaining this position. Proper positioning for this drill should prevent one from executing the movement too fast. One has to go slow, to ensure that centering is not lost, and prevent posterior compression. This is another drill that will look like loaded tai chi if done properly. Transverse, Lateral, Moderate Load, Moderate Velocity This is the most difficult set of drills to properly execute in the horizontal push category. This is a realm of fitness that exists and is possible to train, but programming exercises from this pattern, stance, and plane is rare. Since we are in the lateral stance, these drills will feature a frontal plane pelvis. These drills will also feature alternating pressing, simultaneously making them transverse thoracic drills. Having both of these extremely challenging sensorimotor elements present at the same time renders these drills difficult to perform, and also creates constraints that will limit load as compared to other pressing exercises. As you can see, I’ve listed only one choice of dril for the transverse plane, lateral stance, moderate load, moderate velocity, horizontal pushing category of exercises: 1. Lateral stance standing w/hip shift, alternating cable press Coaching Points Whenever we have alternating pushing involving a transverse thorax, the cornerstone for such drills is ownership of the pelvis in the sagittal plane. If there is posterior compression that drives the pelvis into anterior tilt, then sagittal sensorimotor competence is lost, and competent rotation above it is prevented. Ownership of the pelvis in the sagittal plane is a prerequisite for worrying about lateralizing, and creating frontal plane centering, to attain the proper lateral stance. This will require

competence of frontal plane musculature, as well as awareness of where the pelvis, thorax, and skull are relative to each other. Perhaps the greatest challenge of proper frontal plane centering with a lateral stance is the ability to lateralize the pelvis far enough. To accomplish proper positioning for frontal plane centering in this stance requires strong yielding recruitment of the adductor and glute med on the stanceside leg. Once in the proper position for alternating pressing, one has to make sure the sternum is being controlled in the transverse plane. Recall that we want to prevent the sternum from orienting back and forth like a weather vane. If one can do this while simultaneously achieving a large range of motion with both arms, he or she will experience high levels of recruitment and activity of the obliques, as they compress and expand the sides of the ribcage, which is rotating in the transverse plane. Dominant Positions and Fitness Realms

•Dominant Stance: Bilateral •Dominant Plane: Sagittal •Dominant Load: Moderate to Heavy •Dominant Velocity: Moderate to Slow

I will forever be a meathead. I will forever love to bench press. I will forever hedge my bets, and go with drills that I know are causing a change, even if those are first order consequence changes. I always remind fitness professionals who learn advanced biomechanics principles to not forget where their bread is buttered, and to not quit their day jobs. What I mean by this is that our job is to create changes in our clients’ fitness. We need to get people stronger, improve their body composition and/or aerobic performance. In short, to help clients meet their fitness goals, make sure you’re quantifiably changing something. Every now and then, you will have clients for whom improving certain numbers isn’t the goal,

Page

251

but this is rare. If you are being evaluated on your performance, chances are, you need to move some numbers, and they should be numbers people understand. If you go too far down into the weeds, you may find yourself out of a job. Operating in the realm of conventional practices and assessments is safer, and typically still yields a fair bit of merit. Going too unconventional in the world of diet has been known to lead to cultish, not to mention non-evidence based convictions. The same is true with exercise. Those who fall prey to ideas like that the bench press is harmful are likeliest to find themselves in a basement, swinging Indian clubs with a bunch of weirdos with mustaches.

15 Horizontal Pull

Page

253

Horizontal Pull

Chapter 15

The notion that there has to be a certain ratio of pushing to pulling for shoulder health is one of those fitness industry myths lacking in evidence, right up there with the one about never allowing one’s knees go over one’s toes when squatting. While most of us love a neat, one-dimensional story, these simplistic explanations are often erroneous. When dealing with a complex subject like chronic pain, it pays to remember that it’s often a result of multiple, conflated causes. The subject of pain returns us to our preliminary discussion about how life on Earth has adopted the strategy of variability, which reduces the likelihood of complete annihilation from a catastrophic event. Variability offers contingency plans, escape routes, and optionality, and having options reduces the perception of threat. This is as true of all life on Earth in aggregate, as it is of the individual organisms that comprise it. As life has evolved over time, it has grown increasingly more complex. Every step

of evolutionary breakthrough that yields success has involved new systems that display increasing variability. The example from the beginning of the book dealt with energy systems, where we looked at how the most modern (and hence most complex) oxidative system has more enzymatic steps than its predecessors. Likewise, it also features more variability than earlier systems, given its ability to burn carbs, fats, and proteins, as opposed to just some of these macronutrients, like the earlier systems. Recall the tradeoff we discussed as well, noting that the first systems to be overwhelmed by stress are always the most modern, and how, when those modern systems are overwhelmed, organisms fall back on older, but in some ways “sturdier” systems. The older systems are able to operate under times of stress, but can utilize fewer options to get their jobs done, as compared to the newer systems. Lastly, recall that, if the older systems are always working, this is a sign that the organism perceives an ever-present threat. This concept, called Jacksonian Dissolution, can be present at the level of the movement system as well. Let’s take a look at how we can apply it here. When our system is placed under high levels of stress, like a 1 rep max lift, the organism will attempt to reduce movement options. During a 1 rep max, the lifter will brace and create compression in a lot of areas so that you don’t side bend or rotate. Short of the extremes of a 1 rep max lift, there are a million micro-stressors we might experience, which will reduce the options of our movement systems. The most common micro-stressor would be a reduction in the size of the airway, resulting in increased difficulty in ventilation. Humans take somewhere around 23,000 breaths per day. That’s a lot of reps, and our

Page

254

organisms will organize itself so as to make those repetitions as energy-efficient as possible. There are some fairly stereotypical ways that humans will maneuver themselves for maximal respiratory economy. A very common compensatory approach is to create upper posterior compression. This upper posterior compression can occur at the level of the cervical spine. A great way to visualize it is to think about how we’re taught to open the airway in a CPR course. We tilt the dummy’s head back and project the chin upwards. When doing this move, we use our hands to create upper posterior compression and drive the mechanical response that repositions the neck and head. Many go through life like CPR dummies, creating posterior compression to drive their heads forward, in order to open their airway. They do this because this is the most energy-efficient position. People who present with “Military Neck”, and have flat backs may believe that they are standing tall and proud, or simply practicing “good posture”. More often than not, the underlying reason for such posture is the use of a posterior compression through the mid-back, to overcome where their airway management compensation placed them relative to gravity. When we see these layered posterior compression strategies, we’re probably going to see people who have reduced their movement options. These are people who have experienced the presence of a stressor and responded in a way that demonstrates Jacksonian Dissolution mechanics. Our older ancestors, who were closer to chimps, had flatter spines and a center of mass that sat farther forward. These creatures had less cervical rotation and side bending capabilities. As we rely more on locomotion tactics associated with being a quadruped, we’ll likely lose some of the freedom of the modern human shoulder girdle. When a system loses movement options and modern adaptations, some part of it recognizes this and interprets this reduction in options and contingency plans as a potential

threat. Pain is the canary in the proverbial coal mine that often alerts us to the presence of a threat. In this scenario, pain signals the need to reduce activity, which the system identifies as the stressor that is causing the pain. Reducing activity will typically lead to reduced movement options, which the system will eventually recognize as “new normal”, and hence no longer threatening. Some people condition themselves to expect pain as the “normal” outcome of certain movements. This prediction can become wired into the system. The person believes pain will be associated with a certain type of movement, and so it is. This type of prediction leading to outcome is a neurological phenomenon, and is the place where biomechanics yields to neurology. For some people, operating with low movement options is fine. They can continue to develop fitness within these tight constraints, as is often the case for athletes like powerlifters and bodybuilders. But, even for these folks, if movement options are reduced further at some point in the future, problems can resurface as the cycle repeats. Other types of athletes need to have large movement options to be able to compete at a high level in their respective sports. Loss of movement options is detrimental to such athletes, and everything possible should be done to restore them. Restoring movement options is the realm of the first few patterns we covered: breathing and core exercises. Finding proper positioning with core exercises and utilizing the specific breathing techniques is the approach of choice within this model. To circle back to the beginning of this chapter, we will not be taking a “balancing” approach with pushing and pulling exercises. Those practitioners who successfully treat shoulder pain patients by having them do more rows or band pull-aparts would likely credit these recoveries with strengthening some weak, elongated muscle. For our purposes, it serves to dig a little deeper and ask why that muscle was weak and elongated in the first place. More often than not, this will be because the skeleton

Page

255

organized itself the most energy-efficient way possible, within the context of the primary, daily homeostatic challenges faced by this body’s owner. More pulling could have been just what the doctor ordered, perhaps because this individual could not compress in certain places, and the rowing provided the stimulus that restored his or her compression capability. Regaining the ability to compress in a place that required it was interpreted by the system as an increase in movement options, and hence a new, less threatening state of existence. There are a lot of pieces to the human puzzle. I’ll never claim to understand all of them, or their nuanced, interdependent movement relationships to one another. The claim I am comfortable making is that the individual organism shares much of the same construct as the essence of all life. All living things feature alarm systems, always on the lookout for threatening elements. These systems always seek a multitude of escape routes. When those escape plans are reduced in number, the system can still function, but in a less fluid manner. When options are lost, the system will also interpret this as danger, which can be experienced as pain. If we can restore options, the system should interpret this as being ushered towards safety, into a less threatening state. My rhetorical aim here is to open minds to the possibility that balancing the ratio of pushing and pulling isn’t necessarily the end-all-be-all for reducing the likelihood of shoulder pain (or any other kind, for that matter). Instead, a balanced ratio of pushing and pulling is one of many possible potential methods to employ to this end. Assessing the symptoms and compensations in front of us within a comprehensive model allows us to think more broadly, and choose from a much larger toolkit to fix any given issue.

Anatomical Considerations Horizontal pulling will train more of the mid-scapular muscles, whereas, vertical pulling will train the lats more preferentially. The rhomboids and mid-traps are the big mid-scapular muscles that will receive the majority of the training stimulus from horizontal pulling. The

difference between what I will present to you in this book and every other model that I have seen is that I will also be presenting to you horizontal pulling variations that will focus on driving internal rotation of the humerus, and other horizontal pulling variations that will focus on external rotation of the humerus. The value of face pulls has been preached to me for years, accompanied by vague exercise descriptions that were going to magically “set the shoulder blade properly”, or optimize bench press performance. While some prescribed these exercises for external rotation, others recommended the same ones for internal rotation. In this model, I hope that I can get away from vague exercise descriptions, as well as vague naming conventions. Instead, I’d like for us to call each drill exactly what it is, removing any ambiguity about its intent, or the anatomical rules of its execution. Let’s review our appendicular propulsion arc, and note that it features three primary zones. We have zones one and three, which are inhalation/expansion position zones, and we have zone two, which is an exhalation/compression position zone. With the focus on the arms, zone one would be the region of shoulder flexion between zero and 60 degrees. Zone two will be the region between 60 and 120 degrees, and zone three will be the region between 120 and 180 degrees. Since we are talking about horizontal pulling, zone three is not in play. What we are left with, then, are rows, where the humerus is primarily traveling through zone one and zone two regions. If we are performing rows where the humerus is primarily in zone one, then the main focuses will be external rotation of the humerus, and supination of the hand. If we are performing rows where the humerus is primarily in zone two, then the primary focuses will be internal rotation of the humerus, and pronation of the hand. In other words, the simplest way to determine the focus for each type of row is to take note of the position of the hand relative to the body. If you are rowing something towards

Page

256

you, and the hand is roughly at the level of chest height, then your rows should have a bias towards zone two. If you are rowing, and your hand is roughly at the level of your hip, then your rows should have a bias towards zone one. One flaw of the “the balanced ratio of pushing to pulling for shoulder health” hypothesis stems from the fact that well-coordinated rows are hard to come by. With zone one rows, the humerus will often start to IR like crazy, causing the arm to flare away from the body. During zone two rows, the elbows will often drop, and hands will flop out to the pinky side. When these side effects occur, we can infer that the lifter is just pulling weight through space, rather than managing the relative position of the humerus to the scapula. Accurately implementing the drills that follow can result in many healthy shoulders, despite ratios of pushing and pulling. First thing’s first: let’s do one thing right. From there, in the spirit of quantifiable results, all we need do is count how many times we can do that one thing right, over and over and again. If one rows with zero technique, he or she will still attain some mid-scapular muscular hypertrophy. If one rows with the appropriate joint action bias for the respective zones he or she is rowing in, that person will also develop some critical internal and external rotation muscles. Rows in zone two, featuring internal rotation, will result in the development of subscapularis, one of the most neglected and underdeveloped muscles in the upper extremity. If the rower can get into a position where underlying sagittal sensorimotor competence is present through the axial skeleton, and row through zone two with great IR and pronation, subscapularis will be strongly recruited, and the rower will be occurring fitness while also likely building a shoulder pain buffer. If one can row through zone one with sagittal sensorimotor competence and quality external rotation and supination, one will effectively recruit and train supraspinatus, infraspinatus, teres minor, and the posterior fibers of the deltoid. The most common breakdown in technical per-

formance for rowing is initiated by the excessive movement of the thorax towards the rowing implement. As such, I am constantly telling people to move the implement towards them rather than moving themselves towards it. The ability to follow this instruction signifies axial skeleton control, and prevents unwanted, excessive posterior compression. I generally see two types of problematic posterior compression demonstrated during rowing. One is low, near the sacrum, and the other is high, near the occiput. The low posterior compression will typically be catalyzed by the rower’s chest moving far forward, towards the implement that he or she is rowing. Alternatively, high compression is identifiable by shoulders that suddenly shrug up, tip forward, and demonstrate what looks like a painful impingement position. Excessive low compression is generally associated with an inability to control the pelvis in the sagittal plane. High compression, on the other hand, is typically more complicated to root-cause, as several causes are often to blame, versus a single one. When I encounter either compression type, I generally keep all rowing in the zone one sweep of the propulsion arc, and I make sure I coach core pelvis exercises at a high level. Once rowers become competent at owning their bodies and rowing through zone one consistently well, I will open zone two rows to them. If I have cleared zone one rows, but now see problematic upper compression during zone two rows, this likely suggests a thoracic or a cervical-cranial problem. My first attack would be to examine the thoracic elements that could impact this action. To be able to row in zone two, the rower must possess humeral IR. If the sternum cannot get into an up pump handle position, the humerus will not be able to IR. When dealing with a thoracic limitation caused by an inability to get the sternum into an up pump handle position, my first thought is that we are probably dealing with a rectus abdominis dominance issue. My intervention would then be to have the rower aim his or her ster-

Page

257

num towards the horizon, in the position within which he or she is rowing. From there, I will have the rower attempt to pull the pelvis under his or her body, into a sagittal sensorimotor competent position. The test is whether or not the subject can continue to keep his or her sternum in the same spot while doing this with his or her pelvis. Those who fail it do so by dragging their sternums towards their belly buttons, telling me that the prime mover which created this action was rectus abdominis. My coaching will work this type of subject towards inhibiting rectus abdominis and learning to recruit the obliques, to own the thorax. This would be accomplished via proper execution of core thorax exercises. If I’ve cleared the pelvis and the thorax for a subject, but continue to see upper compression and an ugly shoulder position during zone two rows, then I will look for potential problems north of the collarbones, which is outside the scope of this book. Suffice it to say that those types of problems can lie anywhere in the areas of expertise of a physical therapist, a dentist, podiatrist, or optometrist. For those of us who neither have access to such a team of medical professionals nor clients who are able to fund such treatment, my real-world advice is just to stay with zone one rows, coach them well, and progressively increase training load. Training the Horizontal Pull Pattern Available Options:

Available Planes: All Available Stances: All Available Loads: All Available Velocities: All Available Durations: All

Sagittal, Bilateral, Zone 1, Moderate Load, Moderate Velocity, Moderate Duration This is the easiest place to start with horizontal pull training. Like many fitness professionals, I am always looking for opportunities to find fitness upsides with minimal potential downsides, to get the benefits of exercise while

reducing its cons. Can I have the hypertrophy, increased force production, and increased local and system-wide resiliency that occurs in response to effective resistance training, while simultaneously avoiding excess inflammation, joint pain, delayed onset muscle soreness, and loss in range of motion and fluidity of movement? While there are no free lunches, my goal is to find the least expensive, highest quality lunch that I can eat as many times as possible. Zone 1 in the propulsion arc is the easiest place to move our arms through space. If I provide a supinated or neutral grip implement to pull for these drills, I will bias the drill in a way that should make it even easier to execute with maximal benefit and reduced risk. If I can reduce the difficulty of managing gravity in earlier drills, and progressively increase that challenge in subsequent drills, we’ll be adhering to the Big 10 Principles of Progression. For rowing exercises, the easiest way to reduce the difficulty of managing gravity is to use benches and machines that provide chest support. When the body is performing a resistance training exercise in “free space”, it has to stabilize itself. To do so, it will use whatever muscles it needs to use so as to provide an anti-gravity impetus. The more muscles it uses for anti-gravity, the fewer muscles it has available to act as prime movers. This topic always leads to very interesting discussion, which I will briefly introduce below. The Functional Training movement is solidly rooted in the idea that training needs to be very similar to what happens in the sports the subject plays, or other physical life challenges he or she faces. A popular argument from this camp is that there are no benches on the basketball court, so we should never do bench press. Basketball players need a horizontal push force to throw chest passes, but they never do it lying down, so we should only train pushing standing up. Not surprisingly, examining muscular engagement during standing pushing actions reveals the engagement of a much higher percentage of stabilizer muscles. This school of thought interprets that to mean

Page

258

that these tissues need to be engaged in most of the gym training done by the subject in question. A satisfying simple approach? Sure. An evidence-based approach? Unlikely. A more complex, skeptic’s explanation is that the movement capabilities of humans is based first on the shape of a person’s skeleton and muscles, and secondly on the conscious and unconscious neurological processes involved in movement strategy and behavior. Introducing someone to resistance training provides an impetus for changing the shape of his or her muscles and skeleton, and simultaneously altering the amount of force he or she can produce. Changing the shape of the muscles and the skeleton may change their owner’s movement capabilities, often reducing the total number of movement options. Based on this thought process, the first goal is to increase force production capabilities without reducing movement options. To do that, many factors are required. One of those variables is the mechanics and technique of the exercise being performed. If the exercise is a sagittal plane drill, and sagittal plane sensorimotor competency remains present while the motion is being executed, then I believe that we will retain movement options to a greater degree as compared to training with a lack of sensorimotor competency. As such, the primary objective is to provide a training drill that allows the easiest opportunity for the person to hold onto their planar competency while executing a movement. The Big 10 Principles of Progression were designed to help identify such drills. The support provided reduces the difficulty of managing gravity to hold onto competencies, as well as provide awareness of the body’s position in space. Both can be extremely valuable tools for competent exercise execution. Correctly performing any kind of exercise for any motor pattern paves the way for formulating a competent invariant representation of that movement in the subject’s brain. Now, any time the subject recognizes that he or she is execut-

ing a certain kind of drill, a competent mechanical blueprint for such movements is at his or her disposal. I always tell people, do one thing right. If you can do that, we have a springboard, from which to do many other things right going forward. As the complexity and load of drills for a specific motor pattern increases, while support decreases, the drills continue to look right and feel right. Everything that the subject has done from the beginning of his or her training has been “by the book”, and movements that initially deviated from the norm have been retried and corrected until they were by the book as well. They have developed habits and strategies that are appropriate for the plane they are moving in, and for the motor pattern they are executing. We have as close to an objective evaluation system as we can get for training provided with the sensorimotor competencies, so we can determine whether or not a specific drill is appropriate for a specific individual. My belief is that such an approach to training will provide a sufficient training stimulus for desirable resistance training adaptations with the smallest amount of negative side effects. The motto of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) is “Exercise is medicine”, with which I agree. Modern medicine is largely a pharmaceuticals-driven endeavor, wherein available medications are divided up into categories based on their chemical makeup. Based on one’s diagnosis, a fitting medication is administered. The dosage begins with the lowest amount expected to create an effect, and gradually has to be increased as the body develops a tolerance to the medication’s chemical makeup. While intelligently prescribed drugs can create desirable effects in target tissues, they often also feature undesired side effects, which can impact non-target tissues. As pharmacy sciences advance, so do the drugs. As drugs become smarter, they tend to become more targeted, and have less and less effect on non-target tissues. My belief is that performing exercises that feature sensorimotor competencies as their foun-

Page

259

dational element is the equivalent of thinking about this from a medical viewpoint. These are smarter exercises, which allow us to hit target muscles and avoid hitting the non-target joints. In my work, I’m looking to change the muscles, and I’m looking to prevent the joints from incurring inflammation, motion loss, and pain. It is also my belief that athletes should keep doing what they’re doing on the court, field, ice, etc: practice their sports well, form the movements of their sports as best they can. And, at the same time, they should keep doing what they’re doing in the weight room, performing the movements of the weight room properly as well. When one tries to cross the streams, little benefit stands to be gained. Train in a holistic manner. Provide subjects with all the motor patterns, planes, stances, loading types, velocities, and durations that are appropriate for them, then intelligently increase their training volume over time. Have them do their training with sensorimotor competency, from day one to the end of their training days. I believe this is a much surer roadmap to greatness than any approach that throws people into low stimulus, low support, trash movements (done on overpriced suspension cables, for instance). This category of exercise progresses subjects from seated rows with a chest support, to prone rows with a chest support, to seated rows with no chest support, to standing rows with no axial loading, to standing rows with axial loading. To ensure subjects feed into the joint actions associated with zone 1 of the propulsion arc, these rows will be done with a neutral or supinated handle. The following is the sequence of drills for zone 1, sagittal plane, bilateral stance, moderate load, moderate velocity, moderate duration, horizontal pulling exercises:

1. Seated chest supported machine row

2. Prone chest supported machine row

3. Seated cable row

4. 2 Hand sled pull (w/attachment)

5. Bent over row Coaching Points There are three big hitter points that I try to get across for these types of rows. The first is, row the implement towards the body, as op-

Page

260

posed to bringing the body or head towards it. The second is that I want my subjects to think about supinating their hands more and more as they row the implement further and further. The third is that I want the elbows to stay tight to the body during the row. I constantly see folks getting the implement to touch their bodies by projecting their bodies forward, rather than by pulling the implement as far back towards them as possible. I also see skulls moving forward in space as people try to pull the weight back towards them. When I watch the body to assess whether it’s projecting forward, I keep my eyes on the thoracic spine and the thoraco-lumbar junction. If I see those regions lunging or leaning forward, I’m not super happy. When I look to see whether or not the head is moving forward, I keep my eyes on the suboccipital space. As noted, seeing the body go forward in space suggests that I am witnessing someone who cannot retain lower dorsal-rostral expansion. If I am seeing the suboccipital space go forward, this suggests that I am witnessing someone who cannot retain upper dorsal-rostral expansion. With excess compression at either of these two places, I am creating a less smart exercise, aka targeted, than it could be. Even with this “less smart” exercise, we are still developing the muscles of the mid-scapula, but we are also needlessly stressing the muscles of the cervical spine, cervico-thoracic junction, and thoracolumbar junction. Even if the side effects to these untargeted regions are minor, we’re still better off minimizing them, so we can channel all efforts to the targeted tissues. If I could have my own perfect rowing machine, it would probably look like a big vice, where one wall would go up the rower’s back, as the other wall would constrain them in front. The distance between these two walls would close until the person was perfectly lined up for sagittal sensorimotor competency, and provide the necessary constraint to keep the thorax and head still, while the arms moved through space. With such a device, the only tissues that could be trained would be the scapular muscles and the humeral extension muscles, while

all non-targeted tissues would be suppressed from the movement. In such a setup, people could really focus on what was happening at the arms. I would want to see the elbows go as far back as they possibly can. I would want to see the elbows stay as tight to the body as they possibly can. I would want to see the hand supinate while they were pulling their arms back. In lieu of such a human vice, the next best thing to it is a chest support. For sagittal plane rowing, I almost always tend to use chest supported rows. This helps keep subjects in the right position, so we can really load up the exercise, and thereby drive fitness in this pattern. I tend not to use bent over rows, because they provide a high level of axial loading and stress, of which the athletes I train get plenty from squatting, deadlifting, and Olympic lifts. Without a chest support piece of equipment, horizontal pull training potential and exercise variation possibilities are both greatly reduced. If you do not have a chest support device or a cable row, then all you’re left with for this realm is sled pulls or bent over rows. Using a sled for pulling is less optimal for driving horizontal pulling fitness. Though the sled is a higher progression in this model because there is less reference, fewer constraints, and increased gravity management difficulty, that doesn’t necessarily make it a super choice. The logistics of pulling a sled and having to move with it make it cumbersome for doing consecutive repetitions in a timely manner, and the device itself will not directly stress the horizontal pulling muscles as much as a more traditional row. Unfortunately, maybe in part due to the Functional Training craze, many gyms don’t seem to believe that investing in a rowing device/machine is a good idea. My coaching advice is that you are greatly lacking in your facility if you do not have rowing-specific devices. As a “divide and conquer” thinker, my conviction is that, when it’s time to row, the best thing we can do is choose a drill that lets someone row very effectively. I am not looking to build my subjects’ ability to hold an isometric RDL while

Page

261

rowing. I am not looking to improve their single leg stance stabilizers while rowing. I want them to row, and the rest can (and should) be done independently of this exercise. Sagittal, Bilateral, Zone 2, Moderate Load, Moderate Velocity, Moderate Duration The exercise sequence for this category will be the same as that presented for zone 1 drills, the difference here being the positioning and the intent of the drills. As one rows the implement back towards him or her, the hands and the elbows will stay high, at the level of the chest/shoulders. The focus will be on creating internal rotation of the humerus, and pronation of the hand. Doing these drills properly should result in some of the most remarkable mid-scapular muscle contraction. These drills have the ability to provide the highest level of mid-back compression we can possibly create. While I’m a huge fan of these types of rows, when they are done wrong, at best they are a waste of time, and, at worst, could set the stage for anterior-superior shoulder impingement-related pain. Make sure subjects can do zone 1 rows first, and use table tests to verify that they possess a normal amount of humeral internal rotation before going to these zone 2 rows. Once these prerequisites are in place, it is important to follow the outlined sequence for implementing these sagittal plane, bilateral stance, zone 2, moderate load, moderate velocity, moderate duration horizontal pull drills: 1. Seated chest supported machine row 2. Prone chest supported machine row 3. Seated cable row 4. 2 Hand sled pull (w/attachment) 5. Bent over row Coaching Points I’ve tried to coach these exercises in a personal training setting many times, and found them to be some of the more difficult exercises for subjects to understand. Every now and

then, I get a client with some level of movement proficiency, who immediately understands and loves them. I recognize that the lack of success here is mine, not my clients’. I’m failing to follow my own rules. Those who are unable to demonstrate sagittal plane sensorimotor competency have about a zero percent chance of doing these drills properly. Getting personal training clients with low levels of athleticism and self-awareness to acquire sagittal competency is an enormous, sometimes insurmountable challenge. Getting such clients to keep their sagittal competence while rowing and maintaining pronation and IR is practically a divine act. To sound like a broken record: if you are going to do these drills right, you cannot rush through them. This requires self-monitoring throughout their execution, and, specifically, simultaneous awareness of the hands and your elbows. Someone who has put in the time to become unconsciously competent in the sagittal plane will possess this subconscious awareness, which will quietly aid them during these drills. Someone who is properly prepared for these rows and looking to maximize their effectiveness will benefit from certain cues that I find very helpful. At the same time, giving these same cues to a subject who lacks sagittal competency will not help, but likely only leave the subject feeling that the exercise is a waste of his or her time. I try to start everyone on some kind of chest-supported machine, where the implement that they are rowing is traveling on a fixed track. I’ll have them use a double overhand grip in a position where their hands are chest/ shoulder height. As they row the implement back towards themselves, I’ll have them focus on pulling down into the handle with the index finger palm side knuckle, and the webbing between the index finger and the thumb. They will use this pull of the hand to keep their elbows up. It is a similar motion of the hand and arm to the one employed when swimming with a crawlstyle stroke.

Page

262

The row itself should only come back to about a 90-degree position, where the elbows reach the level of the body. When subjects try to bring the arms back farther than this, something breaks down somewhere. Usually, either the body loses sagittal competence, or the humerus begins rotating externally. For this drill, my constant mantra is “ less is more”. Stay in the pocket, and don’t worry about how far you can go. When people adopt this approach, they usually start to really feel the target muscles much more, due to an increase in the desired effect, and a reduction in undesired side effects. Transverse, Bilateral, Moderate Load, Moderate Velocity, Moderate Duration This realm of horizontal pulling might be the purest expression of the pattern. This is how you would try to start a lawnmower, or drag something towards you if it were tied to a rope. The origins of some exercises in other realms may be head-scratchers, but in this one, it is pretty easy to see the similarities between these and many common movements. Drills in this category are primarily designed to develop the strength of the pulling muscles that would participate in actions where the thorax is turning. In charting my progression roadmap, I turn to the Big Ten Principles of Progression. I want to start static, and within a Zone of Competent ROM, before I worry about doing anything big, dynamic, and with lots of range. Based on this, our starting drills would be alternating, unilateral, horizontal pulling activities, where the subject resists moving the sternum turning back and forth like that weathervane during the execution of the drill. With this approach in the initial drills, I am looking to create some dissociation between the ribs and the sternum, and to create mirror asymmetry between the two sides of the ribcage. Eventually, we would progress to drills that feature a dynamic sternum. The drills in this realm of training will follow a sequence where we will first support the chest in a seated position and then provide an unsup-

ported seated exercise. Next, we will perform a chest-supported prone exercise, followed by an unsupported prone exercise. The chest support is very helpful for teaching how to prevent the sternum from turning back and forth. If subjects can learn this concept, and then demonstrate it in an unsupported context, then they are in possession of the prerequisites for advancing to drills with a dynamic sternum. The following list presents the progressive sequence for transverse plane, bilateral stance, moderate load, moderate velocity, moderate duration horizontal pulling exercises: 1. Seated chest supported alternating row A. Machine (Keiser biaxial row) B. Cables 2. Seated alternating row A. Cables 3. Chest supported prone row A. Cables B. Dumbbells 4. Hand supported row on bench Dumbbell 5. Bent over alternating row A. Dumbbells Coaching Points The biggest challenges you’re going to face in this realm will be enforcement of sagittal competency, as well as ensuring a static sternum on drills where it should not turn. Once someone masters these aspects, the rest should be pretty smooth sailing. Word to the wise: there’s quite a bit of coaching to do before most folks can hold a sagittal plane with their axial skeleton as a transverse plane force is driven through their appendicular skeletons. When I think about getting the thorax to spin up top, the big key that jumps to mind is keeping the pelvis in check, and keeping it still. The thorax is only rotating if other parts aren’t following it as it turns back and forth. If the pelvis simply follows the thorax, then nothing is actually rotating, but, rather the whole body is orienting to the left, and orienting to the right. Logically speaking, if something is going to be changing position, something else needs to re-

Page

263

main fixed, to serve as a frame of reference for the moving part. Consequently, possessing a sagittally competent pelvis is foundational to the proper execution of these drills.

head going for a ride with the body. We want to dissociate the movements of the thorax from the neck rather than locked up, resulting in “lego-like” movements.

To help people gain a sagittally competent pelvis, I’ll often move their feet in specific ways. My most common approach is to elevate the feet and move them forward while the subject is seated. To accomplish this, I’ll usually put boxes under the feet, and then move those boxes away from the subject. When you do this, you’ll typically see the pelvis passively move into more posterior tilt, and get positioned more optimally under the thorax. Now, I’ll have the subject imagine digging back with their heels and reaching their knees forward. This will give them some hamstrings, and it will set them up to be able to expand their lower dorsal-rostral lungs. Once they’re properly positioned, they can begin performing the rowing motion.

The hand-supported-on-bench dumbbell row is a classic exercise that can be turned into an absolute monster with the sensorimotor competencies presented here. Performing a really solid reach with the hand that stays on the bench can truly maximize associated sagittal plane elements. We want to reach just up to the point where the sternum does not down pump handle. Going into a down pump handle means needing to leverage rectus abdominis, and that is not a muscle that will assist in the transverse plane. Those able to keep a great sternum position with a big reach on the bench, and prevent the sternum from rotating on the initial dumbbell row variations, will feel this exercise lighting them up like a Christmas tree. I’ll often introduce this drill with tempo, and find that many nail the concept and get stronger in it, allowing us to successfully move forward.

I always enforce simultaneously moving both hands with these rows. As one hand is coming back, the other hand is going forward. When this occurs, subjects commonly report that they experience significantly more muscular involvement compared to having one hand stay straight out in front while the other hand rows. Since maintenance of a static sternum is a big focus with these drills, encouraging subjects to take their time with the row helps with this. I highly recommend using a tempo at this point. No matter how much we might tell folks to go slower, speeding up seems to be a natural tendency with most repetitive tasks. When the metronome comes out, and the seconds are audibly clicking, the rower begins to receive feedback on how fast he or she is going. When rowers slow way down, it’s much easier to bring their attention to their sternums. Once at the point of a dynamic sternum, the subject should be a highly competent mover. Now, they can stop overthinking the movement, and really attack the exercise. The one thing to remain aware of is the position of the head and neck. You want everyone to keep their eyes forward, and you do not want the

As with all the horizontal rowing drills, you should also keep in mind that you can feature the ER dominant, zone 1 rows, as well as the IR-dominant, zone 2 rows. To take advantage of each zone, simply choose the appropriate handle for the implement, and position the hand and elbow appropriately. Since these drills are transverse plane in nature, we are looking for mirror asymmetry with the two sides of the ribcage. The side of the ribcage of the hand that is rowing back is the externally rotating side, and the side with the hand going forward is the internally rotating side. If you want to promote the ER concept for that side of the body, you can magnify that by supinating that hand and externally rotating that humerus. Simultaneously, you can magnify the IR side of the ribcage by pronating the reaching hand, and internally rotating that humerus. Adding in this element of the hands and arms twisting in space can really take these drills to the next level.

Page

264

Sagittal, Front/Back, Moderate Load, Moderate Velocity, Moderate Duration All of the drills done in this realm are performed from a standing position. You will either be following a retro step concept or a forward step concept. The retro step concept is easier, and would thus lead in the list or progressions. From the perspective of what is going on with the lower body, the retro step concept fits more in the realm akin to that of the single leg squat, while the forward step concept is more analogous to a split squat or a lunge. Perhaps another way to think about this would be from the perspective of how much weight is on each foot. With the retro step, most of the weight is distributed to the back foot. With a front foot-elevated split squat, weight is distributed fairly evenly between both feet. With a level split squat, more weight rests on the front foot. With a rear foot-elevated split squat, the front foot is also bearing most of the weight. The order of progressions would go from most of the weight on the back foot, and increase in difficulty to where most of the weight is on the front foot. Since these drills are sagittal plane, we will be rowing in the same direction, simultaneously with both hands. Being sagittal plane horizontal row drills, the primary target tissues are the mid-scapular muscles and the humeral extenders. This also means that we can use either zone 1 rowing variations or zone 2 rowing variations. When I think about this realm of fitness, I wonder how many people really need to utilize it. While these movements can certainly be trained, I’m not sure how important they are. Perhaps there are some athletes that would benefit from owning these positions while rowing, but they are likely a small group. When it comes to sagittal rowing, I prefer to put folks in a stable position and let them focus on pulling with competence and driving pulling fitness. The following is the sequence of progressions for sagittal plane, front/back stance, moderate load, moderate velocity, moderate duration horizontal pulling:

1. Retro Step A. Cables B. 2 Hand Sled Pull (w/attachment) 2. Forward Step w/Rear foot on wall A. Cables B. 2 Hand Sled Pull (w/attachment) 3. Forward Step A. Cables B. 2 Hand Sled Pull (w/attachment) Coaching Points These standing horizontal pulling exercises are a major core challenge, so doing them requires being highly competent with sagittal control of one’s thorax and pelvis. Also, keep in mind that these drills are more likely to challenge core control than they do pulling strength. I would not be too much of a stickler on perfection in either zone 1 or zone 2 with the humeral mechanics. As the coach, you’re going to have your hands full in terms of the subject’s ability to maintain axial skeleton position, that actual pulling competency will be the icing on the cake. My best coaching advice is that this realm of fitness is likely more trouble to use than its worth. As impressive as these drills might look on Instagram, their chances of actually creating favorable adaptations are somewhere between slim and none. If it’s adaptations you’re after, I recommend keeping your sagittal horizontal pulling squarely in the bilateral stance category. Frontal, Front/Back, Moderate Load, Moderate Velocity, Moderate Duration To reiterate, I don’t personally find a justification for ever including these drills. If I want to develop frontal plane muscles of the pelvis, I am going to do this with core exercises, and frontal plane knee dominant and hip dominant exercises. If I want to develop rowing muscles, I will row with a bilateral stance sagittal plane variation. I advise you to divide and conquer rather than jamming two perfectly good concepts into one concept that becomes a no man’s land drill.

Page

265

All of that said, I have included them here for those who understand these concepts but find them more useful than I do. I also have these exercises demonstrated in the Coach’s Guide to Optimizing Movement exercise database. In the spirit of open-mindedness, I want to allow for the possibility that there is a great benefit to these drills, and they are highly functional… and that I may not have all the answers. For those of you who want to try them out, here is the sequence of drills for frontal plane, front/back stance, moderate load, moderate velocity, moderate duration horizontal pulling exercises: 1. Retro Step w/hip shift bilateral row A. Cables B. 2 Hand Sled Pull (w/attachment) 2. Forward Step w/hip shift bilateral row A. Back foot on wall cables B. Cables C. 2 Hand Sled Pull (w/attachment) Coaching Points There is a lot to monitor here. One needs to be able to get into a staggered stance (either a retro step or forward step), center over a stance foot, hip shift into the stance foot side, and then maintain all that while rowing with competence. To help center and hip shift, I’ll cue subjects to “load the stance side foot more and more as you unload the non-stance side foot more and more”. This is the same cue we used when we were talking about heel taps in the core pelvis section of this book. More than any other cue, the objective of making the stance-side foot as heavy as possible and the other foot as light as possible will do a better job of centering and hip-shifting people. I am not a huge fan of upper body resistance exercise with sleds. I have included sleds in these sections simply because they are technically options, though I must reiterate that I find them extremely limited compared to other implements for rowing. For one thing, sleds only provide an overcoming stimulus. For another, because their resistance is largely based on a friction coefficient, you need the same sled

on the same surface all the time to know if you are making progress. The sled also requires you to move and set your body up prior to every single repetition. If you disagree with these criticisms, that’s fine. We in the fitness industry spend a good amount of time arguing with each other over preferences, while we agree on the main points. The best we can hope for is to gain an appreciation for each other’s reasoning, and peacefully agree or disagree, without forming factions and tribes that harbor animosity towards one another. Transverse, Front/Back, Moderate Load, Moderate Velocity, Moderate Duration As you may have noticed, this horizontal pulling chapter is an interesting one, in that it’s largely composed of realms that I don’t find particularly applicable. I really like transverse plane horizontal pulling, and actually think that’s the best way to train the pattern. I also really like front/back stance activities. I just don’t like them combined, the same way I like peanut butter and mackerel only separately. For my money, all upper body pushing and pulling should generally be done in a bilateral stance. If you are going to be able to create an appropriate force to drive a training stimulus, you need to have the lower body and pelvis in the most stable possible state, in order to provide a foundation for the upper body to work from. As soon as the base of support is reduced and the difficulty of keeping the body stable is thereby increased, the ability of the upper body to create force is significantly impaired. If you believe that this is a critical area of fitness for you or for those that you work with, below is my personal sequence for how I would develop this realm of fitness. All of these drills have to be done from a standing place, and you have the retro step and forward step options available to you. With the forward step, you can support the back foot on a wall, or keep it free in space. The following list is the sequence of progressions for transverse plane, front/back stance, moderate load, moderate velocity, mod-

Page

266

erate duration horizontal pulling: 1. Retro Step Alternating Row A. Cables B. Sled drag 2. Forward Step Alternating Row A. Rear foot on wall cables B. Cables C. Sled drag 3. Forward Step w/hip shift, Alternating Row A. Rear foot on wall cables B. Cables C. Sled drag Coaching Points If you are going to develop the transverse plane of the thorax with these pulling variations, you need to secure the pelvis effectively in the sagittal plane. The sagittal plane-competent pelvis will allow for the rotating thorax to be able to dissociate from it during these drills. If the pelvis lacks sagittal competency, then it will simply turn with the thorax, and the body will be orienting left and right, as opposed to having segments break up, facilitating true rotation at the ribcage, which we are attempting to target. As noted, we want to first teach subjects to keep the sternum still, and only once that’s mastered should we move on to demonstrating a dynamic sternum. This follows the same explanation as was provided earlier in the bilateral stance, transverse horizontal pulling section of this chapter. We are seeking dissociation as our primary goal so that we do not just promote wild turning that lacks fluidity of motion. Frontal and Transverse, Lateral, Moderate Load, Moderate Velocity, Moderate Duration This final realm of horizontal pulling is the ultimate example of something that exists but doesn’t seem worth bothering with. These drills place subjects in the most difficult stance for frontal plane competencies, and on top of that, you have to execute either sagittal plane or transverse plane rowing. In aggregate, that is really hard to do.

Impressive exercises aren’t necessarily synonymous with being worthwhile for advancing fitness. Instagram is packed with fitness professionals posting evidence of the former, but largely devoid of the latter, aka, capacity for driving training adaptations. We are bombed with videos of people jumping on insanely high boxes, and squatting on unstable surfaces. We see people punching people in the stomach while they’re doing hanging leg raises. We see people playing catch with barbells. We see all kinds of “hard to do stupid human tricks”. We marvel at them, maybe because the majority of us can’t do them. The problem with these displays is that they promote beliefs that these activities are worthwhile pursuits for gaining fitness. I wrote something up years ago saying that I thought handstands were a poor training choice for people looking to improve their overhead barbell pressing strength, and creating postural changes. Handstands are less specific for the task of overhead pressing than actually pressing barbells overhead, and they are really difficult positions in which to find sensorimotor competencies. If your goal is to improve at handstands, then handstands are a great drill. If your goal is to improve at anything other than handstands, then handstands themselves aren’t an optimal choice. To me, the stance I took on this particular subject seemed reasonable, moderate, and logical to me then, just as it does today. I was amazed at the backlash that came at me for this particular statement. What I was particularly struck by was the emotional attachment that my attackers apparently felt towards handstands. Apparently, handstand workshops and seminars are a very common and popular thing in the fitness and yoga worlds. Attendees will invest their time, money, and persistent efforts to learn how to do handstands. I suppose this kind of investment often fosters an emotional attachment. As a species, we also possess a bias that if something is difficult to master, it must be important and worthwhile. Unfortunately, this is a logical fallacy.

Page

267

It took me a long time and an incredible amount of effort to conceptualize and articulate the model described in this book. The knowledge of what really underpins the frontal and transverse planes from a mechanical standpoint was information that I struggled to find, understand, and master from a coaching standpoint. In many ways, I want that information to be important all the time and in all ways. In reality, what I continue to learn over time is that if I am able to step away from my biases, listen to people with dissenting opinions from mine, analyze a topic from all possible sides, and then try to objectively look at the facts, I may see that, what I used to think was gospel is actually full of holes. I have to be okay with accepting the truth, no matter how much it hurts to admit that I didn’t always have or preach it. In this author’s opinion, this realm of fitness, involving a lateral stance and pulling layered on top of it, is something that would be incredibly impressive to demonstrate, but ultimately not very worthwhile for driving adaptations in the body.

optimal starting position is half the battle of executing them.

If you do want to go down this road, the following list reflects my recommendations for how to progress in this area of fitness. There is one drill for being in a lateral stance with a sagittal-plane horizontal pull, and there is one drill for being in a lateral stance with a transverse-plane horizontal pull. The following is the sequence for progressing frontal and transverse plane, lateral stance, moderate load, moderate velocity, moderate duration horizontal pulling:

Dominant Position and Fitness Realms:

1. Lateral stance standing w/hip shift, bilateral row A. Cables B. 2 Hand sled pull (w/attachment) 2. Lateral stance standing w/hip shift, alternating row (transverse) A. Cables B. Sled Drag Coaching Points To maximize the hip shift in the lateral stance, I recommend the aforementioned strategy of maximally loading the stance-side foot, while unloading the other foot. Assuming the

Your best chance to get into a proper hip shift is while rowing back with the hand on the same side as the stance-side foot. Use that time to truly maximize the hip shift. Now, the challenge is to stay in the hip shift while rowing back with the non-stance side hand. And that’s one heck of a challenge. Again, the primary training challenge with such an endeavor is essentially a core exercise, which means the strength of the rowing muscles isn’t the rate-limiting factor for these drills. Rather, core control and ability to maintain proper position is the rate limiter with everything in this realm. My advice is simple: do core exercises to challenge the core, and do pulling exercises to challenge the pulling muscles of the body. Labeling this type of exercise core exercise for simplicity’s sake and calling it a day seems appropriate to me.



Dominant Stance: Bilateral Dominant Plane: Transverse Dominant Load: Moderate Dominant Velocity: Moderate

This may be the only point in this book where I didn’t go “full meathead” in one of the resistance training patterns. Maybe I have succumbed to the peer pressure coming from the Functional Fitness people in our industry, or wanted to be different? Na, I don’t think so. When I think about contact sports and combat sports, where pulling and manipulating an opponent is a major factor in the play, this strikes me as the essence of this pattern for our species. Wrestlers or judo or jiu-jitsu fighters are always trying to get their opponents off balance, to be able to take them down and score points. To accomplish this, maneuvers involving simultaneous pushing on one side and pulling on the other are typically employed. These quick, rotational attack moves are a critical component of takedown moves in sports with the objective of bringing down one’s opponent to the ground.

Page

268

The other place we see this kind of thing is in activities aimed at dragging objects towards us, the way firefighters do with hoses or strongmen do during dragging events. These powerful rotational efforts are our species’ most forceful attempts at dragging something towards us. In the change of direction chapter, we looked at how the lateral stance is always chosen when running a change of direction course as speed. If you had to pull something towards you with maximal force and speed, you would always use an approach where you would twist your body back and forth and go hand over hand. This is the reason this method receives the tip of the hat for dominant style in this pattern.

16 Vertical Push

Page

270

Vertical Push

Chapter 16

I competed in the sport of Strongman in the 175 pound weight class, and I was pretty good. I competed in two U.S. National Championship events, finishing top 10 both times, and I competed at two Arnold Sports Festival World Championship contests, finishing top ten once. In all of these competitions,I would typically be dead last or close to it in the overhead press event, requiring me to excel at all the other events to give myself any kind of chance. It was always the lockout I struggled with. I just couldn’t get my arms straight overhead. Even when they were pressed to the maximal degree overhead, my elbows always looked bent. With any kind of body weight demonstration involving getting my arms overhead, they would sufficiently approach the full 180 degrees of shoulder flexion, and my elbows would stubbornly flex whenever I tried to get up there. Of course, the simple story police came out with their recommendations. Everyone and their mother would say that I needed to stretch more. Being fairly, I took this hypothesis to the ex-

treme. I typically performed somewhere around 15 hours of yoga per week, and when I was at home, I would lay on the ground and trap my arms to the ground with weights in an overhead position. If I want to win at something, I will do everything in my power to do so. If I need to stretch more to get my arms into the position required to get better at overhead pressing, then I will stretch until my lats fall off. I believe a “movement” practice is valuable for most of us. I did a lot of focused breathing, and feeling my body in positions. I learned a lot from a sensory experience standpoint. Everything has been part of the journey that has put me where I am. But, if you can believe it, none of it did anything to improve my overhead position for lifting. I also tried just doing more overhead pressing. I figured simply spending more time doing that activity would strengthen all the right muscles. I would try to really extend the lockout portion of the lift to work the tissues specifically at that point. I always did extra reps and extra sessions focused purely on technique for the weakest of my weak points. I found that every time I tried to spend more time practicing overhead drills, or increasing overhead volume, I inevitably experienced increased pain. The typical sites for it were the supero-medial border of my right scapula, my left SI, my left coraco-clavicular junction, or tension headaches in my right temple. I have a decent pain tolerance, so I’d simply push through most of it. The problem was that, when pain increased substantially, it decreased my motion and strength capabilities as a result, and such decreases aren’t associated with positive training outcomes.

Page

271

The thing I found really fascinating was that I could watch my pressing prowess get worse as the angle of the press went up. I had a decent bench press. I had an average incline press. I had a tragically bad overhead press. And no explanation for this ever really made sense, until I heard Bill Hartman explain his propulsion arc. That was the biggest light bulb moment I have had in years and years, and this light bulb keeps on lighting up as I witness it play out over and over again. In that model, the only way I’m going to be able to finish getting my arms up through the zone 3, at between 120 and 180 degrees of flexion, is to create sufficient expansion in the upper dorsal-rostral area. If that expansion happens, then the spine can be in the right position to predispose the ribcage for the right position to nudge the scapula into the right position to finally place the humerus in the right position to appropriately get overhead. When I see pictures or videos of myself, I can very clearly see the upper posterior compression that is always present. It kind of looks like there is an invisible person behind me pushing my suboccipital region forward in space, as if my head always wants to be out in front of my body. It sort of looks like my pelvis, where if I am wearing a belt, the buckle is about four or five inches lower than the back of the belt. That belt buckle situation is one created by a large amount of lower posterior compression that drives my superior sacrum way forward in space. My body knows how to get wide. My body knows how to create compression. Everything about me fits with what defines compression. I’m good at compression. So, when all you can do is compress, and you meet the expansion-centric vertical pushing pattern, you have run face first into your personal kryptonite.

Anatomical Considerations

To get overhead, you need to be able

to get into zone 3 of the propulsion arc for the upper extremity. To review, zone 1 is the region where we expand posteriorly into the lower dorsal-rostrum, and zone 2 is where we expand anteriorly and create a pump handle up position of the sternum. Zone 3 is where we expand posteriorly, at the level of the upper dorsal rostral space. When I am expanding anteriorly during zone 2, I am maintaining zone 1. When I am expanding posteriorly during zone 3, I am maintaining zones 1 and 2. To get the arms to go fully overhead, I have to maximally fill the canister of the thorax with air. The only way to fill the whole canister is to begin at the bottom, and progressively fill it to the top, just like filling a glass with water. If I am filling the thorax with air, I am filling the pelvis with fluid. They will always work together. I have a pump in the thorax called the diaphragm. I have a pump in the pelvis called a pelvic floor. They move in the same direction at the same time. On an inhale, the air is coming into the thorax. The air is able to come in, because the thoracic diaphragm is descending and flattening out from its starting domed position. As the thoracic diaphragm descends, it pushes the viscera and abdominal fluid downward. As the viscera and abdominal fluid pushes downward, it occupies increasingly more of the pelvic space. In order to allow for this matter to take up a greater amount of residence inside this space, the pelvic bones and pelvic floor have to move. The pelvic bones are only moving just a few degrees, but that is all that is needed. The superior innominate will flex, abduct, and externally rotate during the inhale (aka, nutate), and the sacrum will counter-nutate on the inhale. The pelvic floor will descend. Just as the thorax fills with air, the pelvis has to fill with fluid from the bottom to the top. Fluid gets pushed down into the pelvis during the inhale, and pushes the pelvic floor down into an eccentric orientation. Full expansion at the lowest part of the pelvis necessitates expansion at the coccyx. This is the equivalent of lower dorsal-rostral expansion at the thorax. As the pelvis continues to fill, anterior expansion at the pubic symphysis follows. This is the equiv-

Page

272

alent of pump handle up at the sternum. As the pelvis gets fuller, we expect to see posterior expansion at the upper sacrum. This is the equivalent of upper dorsal-rostral expansion at the thorax. If I can get the upper sacrum to expand posteriorly, it sets the right relationship between the superior sacrum and the facets of L5, so as to allow the lumbar curve to express a true, relative lordotic curve of 30 degrees. If I can get upper dorsal-rostral expansion, this creates the right relationship between T1 and C7, so as to allow the cervical curve to express a true relative lordotic curve of 30 degrees. Those two 30 degree curves are the axial skeleton markers for an optimal sagittal plane. This is one theme towards which this whole book has been building. Darwin recognized that going upright on two legs was the adaptation that catalyzed all subsequent changes which produced modern humans. When we look at the big skeletal differences between humans and chimps, one of the most striking ones is that chimps lack the lumbar and cervical lordotic curves displayed by humans. As a result of this, chimps cannot go upright and move with the fluidity that humans can. Chimps cannot expand the lower and upper posterior pelvis, or the lower and upper posterior thorax when they are in a bipedal position. As a result, chimps are pitched forward, and have to rely on a quadruped strategy. Chimps would struggle tremendously trying to do a fully upright overhead press. So if, like me, you or some of your training subjects can’t go fully overhead, now you have a prehistoric glimpse as to why. The next question becomes what to do about it. The answer to that is to try to unlock associated motions, and the place to go for that is back to breathing strategies and core exercises. Wide infrasternal angle individuals need to use high pressure exhales, with a smaller mouth opening. Narrow infrasternal angle individuals need to use low pressure exhales, with a larger mouth opening.

For wide folks, start with drills in zone 1. Feature supination of the hands and external rotation of the arms. You might be amazed at how effective zone 1 drills are for improving overhead motion. For those who are wide and have mastered zone 1, now go to zone 3. In zone 3, again, feature supination of the hands and external rotation of the arms. If someone can master zone 3 drills positionally, and with proper breathing strategies, his or her overhead motion should improve dramatically. For narrow folks, start in zone 2, as they naturally will have more success in expansion-based regions. That said, there are also plenty of narrow individuals walking around with compressed upper dorsal-rostral regions. In fact, this upper posterior compression is going to be something that you’ll see relentlessly, once you know to look for it. So, if you have narrows who do not achieve full shoulder flexion even after zone 2 core exercises are mastered, move them to zone 3 drills, and that should do the trick. Note that it doesn’t pay to press one’s way out of poor motion. A more successful strategy is to master the motion first, and then work on strengthening overhead pressing strength with appropriate drills. In his book, Movement, Gray Cook analogizes the proper approach to retraining patterns to opening a window and then moving through it. This is an analogy that I really love. Think of not being able to get overhead with your arms as a closed window. Step one would be to open the window. Any method that opens the window is great. But, simply opening the window is not enough. Now that you have opened it, you have to go through the window, and you have to do something on the other side. If you do not, that window will simply reclose again in future. When working with a closed shoulder flexion window, overhead pressing could be the tool to open it… but probably not the best tool. The mechanism of getting the arm overhead is what was presented in the propulsion arc model here. According to this model, the highest

Page

273

probability window openers for this situation are well-executed core exercises, with skeleton type-specific breathing strategies. Once we open the window, we now need to go through it, by doing drills that develop strength and fitness in the overhead position. The catch with doing drills on the other side of this window is that, if you do inappropriate drills beyond the competency level of the individual you are working with, he or she will be immediately blown back through the window, which may slam shut, bringing you back to square one. As such, it’s critical to know the appropriate starting place on the other side of the window. That is where the sensorimotor competencies come into play. If one can hold onto those competencies while doing overhead pressing, he or she will increase the likelihood that the window will stay open, as well as pave the way for the activities that can take place on the other side. Doing enough activities on the other side of the window will create a new dominant response strategy. Going forward, this will simply be how one does things. This is the basis of neuroplasticity and learning overall: enough reps of the right kind will cement the technique used for all reps. Eventually, this window will be open by default, and closing it will in fact be difficult. Some may not need to do any core drills, because they’ve successfully removed the motion constraint they were facing. For others, the window may not stay open by default, or not widely enough to go through it at will, so as to play on the other side. Once through it, these folks may be doing all the right things to keep it open, but, for some reason, it keeps on closing on them. This illustrates the importance of measuring. If someone is routinely limited in overhead capabilities, it may be worth quickly putting him or her on a table and seeing what that person’s flexion, extension, IR, ER, abduction, and adduction look like. If limitations are uncovered, find some drills that quickly remove them, so the subject can progress to training the pattern with full movement expression.

If one is training overhead pushing

patterns, there are all kinds of great tissues to develop. Beyond the deltoids and triceps, the two most obvious muscle groups that are associated with vertical pushing, however, we have all the scapular muscles implicated in upward rotation, that would also be subject to adaptation. Muscles like the serratus anterior, low trap, and mid-scapular muscles are heavily recruited during overhead pressing activities. These are all great tissues to train and develop, though I take a cautious approach when it comes to overhead pressing for most people. Athletes like weightlifters, crossfitters, and strongman athletes are required to go overhead with weight by their sports, and will therefore benefit from going deep into some of the progressions for this pattern. For everyone else, I deem this pattern is purely elective. Risk versus reward analysis can help us answer whether any given individual can benefit from this pattern. The reward from going overhead with weight is getting more overall development of the upper body muscles, possibly creating a more resilient shoulder complex, and getting more training variation, and possibly greater adaptations. What are some of the risks? This pattern requires a lot of biomechanical prerequisites to execute correctly, potentially necessitating excessive training of the body parts involved therein, at the opportunity cost of training others. In her textbooks, Shirley Sahrmann notes that a mechanical driver of what could result in pain is excessive secondary motions of a joint. Every joint has its primary physiological motion, but most joints have secondary and tertiary motions. For instance, the lumbar spine primarily moves through flexion and extension, but can also rotate and side bend. When it is frequently and excessively rotating, that tends to ride along with greater pain associations. When most folks overhead press, they typically employ countless compensations. Their heads are contorting, their neck will twist and turn, their ribs flare, their low backs arch, their pelvises tip, and their feet spin out. Most overhead presses end up resembling standing back-bend bench

Page

274

presses more than they do actual vertical push maneuvers. The sensorimotor competencies exist so that we reduce the risk of detrimental side effects of exercise. Recall that this “smart drug” approach to exercise technique increases the probability of training the primary physiological motion of a joint, honing in on the appropriate target tissues, and reducing the secondary physiological motion of joints that we don’t want to be affected. If one moves shoulder flexion into a place where one has full range, and can demonstrate adequate core control from a sagittal competency perspective, he or she will do just fine including vertical pressing into an intelligent program design. Chances are, however, that the people you work with will rarely demonstrate these underlying capabilities to you. And, if they do not, my advice is to hedge your bets, and limit how deep you go into the progressions for these drills. Training the Vertical Push Pattern Available Options:

Available Planes: Sagittal and Frontal Available Stances: Bilateral and Front/ Back Available Loads: All Available Velocities: All Available Durations: All

Sagittal, Bilateral, Non-Ballistic, Moderate to High Load, Low to Moderate Velocity, Short to Moderate Duration There are two groups of sagittal plane, bilateral stance vertical push exercises: non-ballistic or ballistic variations. The non-ballistic exercises are your classical press exercises, and the ballistic exercises are the Olympic lifting variations. This section will cover the non-ballistic presses. Overhead pressing is one of the most classical tests of strength that we have as a species. The Press used to be a part of Olympic weightlifting, and a lot of strongman competitors still use more of a press variation rather than a jerk for their overhead lifts with

bars, logs, and other implements. I almost always include something from this realm of pressing in my subject’s programs, regardless of their fitness goals or sport of choice. Many will only ever be prescribed number one and/or two in the progression list. Number one is an incline dumbbell press, which some may argue isn’t truly a vertical pushing exercise. I would counter with the fact that, if we measured most people on a table, it is as close to vertical as the shoulder motion capabilities of most allow. The incline dumbbell press offers the benefits and adaptations that would live in the vertical pushing pattern (as distinct from those that would be offered by an incline press in the horizontal pushing pattern), and sidesteps unwanted side effects. If I move beyond incline variations for a specific person, it is usually because of one of the following reasons. Reason one is when I’m working with an athlete that competes in sports involving overhead lifts. Reason two is because I am working with someone who has high-level aesthetic goals. Developing one’s deltoids and upper traps to the highest possible levels requires the programming of vertical pushing. Other athletes and general/health-driven personal training clients stay in the incline press world. The following list is the sequence of sagittal plane, bilateral stance, non-ballistic, moderate to high load, low to moderate velocity, short to moderate duration vertical push exercises: 1. Incline DB

Page

275

2. Incline Barbell 3. Long seated Barbell overhead (unless the subject is very weak, then switch 3 and 4) 4. Long seated DB overhead

5. Seated Barbell overhead 6. Seated DB overhead 7. Standing Barbell overhead 8. Standing DB overhead

Coaching Points My coaching for vertical pushing is less a To Do list and more a To Not Do list. I do not want to see the head shoot too far forward of the body. I do not want to see the front of the thorax fly up and forward. I do not want to see a huge arch in the lower back. I do not want to see the pelvis tip way forward. I really like seated variations of overhead pressing with a backrest. For instance, I’ll do a lot of stuff in the long seated position (seated on the ground with legs straight out in front of you) with the person’s back up against a box. The box provides a reference for where the thorax is in space. I want the sacrum pushed right up against the box, and the middle and upper back against the box. If subjects can hold those points of contact, then I feel really good about their motor competency in the sagittal plane during this exercise.

By now, you won’t be surprised to hear that I would always choose a backrest over throwing subjects into exercises where their thoraxes are free in space. Because the backrest provides a really critical reference, it helps subjects control their bodies in space, which is of greater initial interest to me than the amount of weight they can move through space. When doing more standard seated overhead presses, I’ll also frequently elevate my subjects’ feet with boxes, which passively brings the pelvis in further under the body. This ensures a strong starting position for the exercise, which subjects then need to maintain while actually doing the exercise. If we’re not starting off in the right position, the odds of achieving it mid-exercise are slim to none. The sticking point on vertical presses is about halfway up, somewhere around the ears or top of the head. Once this point is hurdled, we’re typically good to go for the finish. At this halfway point, it’s important to be particularly cognizant of mechanical breakdowns. If you see things starting to fall apart in that zone of the movement, my advice is not to fight through too many of those reps. While there is some upside to getting them in, there is also a downside. In training, we’re better off accumulating a greater number of sets that retain mechanical proficiency but stop short of technical breakdown than accumulating a smaller number of sets where we go to and beyond technical breakdown to carry the set to failure. The long game of consistency and adherence is the surest road towards long term success. Hot shots who sell out on every set are a flash in the pan. Long term training success is about burying the ego, which, incidentally, is probably the biggest contributor to training-based injuries. Cutting a set short of failure requires a tempering of one’s ego. Strict adherence to a motion, initially facilitated with use of low loads, requires the same. As does resisting the urge to progress load, or reps, or sets on an exercise, knowing that there’s more work to do towards

Page

276

fully competent exercise execution. If we can tune down ego-driven emotions like competitiveness, jealousy, pride and vanity, we’re likely to increase our likelihood of long term success. Make strict rules for movement execution. Do not deviate from those rules while you are training - either yourself or others. Be honest with yourself. If you trust the process of doing things right, you’ll be amazed at how far you can go. Sagittal, Bilateral, Ballistic, Moderate to High Load, High Velocity, Short to Moderate Duration This realm of exercise involves some of the overhead lifts associated with the sport of weightlifting. The list of progressions will look somewhat similar to something you might find in a USA Weightlifting (USAW) manual, but there are some significant differences. The biggest difference between some of the traditional models, and what you’ll see here, is that progressions 1 and 3 both involve a device that will not go straight overhead. Instead, these progressions feature pressing something more at the angle to an incline press. The Pentagon bar refers to placing “The Pentagon” attachment onto a barbell that is placed inside a Landmine unit. This setup allows a barbell to be swinging through the air at an arc that enables pressing at an angle that is not purely vertical. For those who lack the shoulder flexion ROM, and cannot go completely overhead, using The Pentagon attachment is a great modification. The Pentagon attachment has swiveling handles that allow the grip to change between neutral and overhand in a smooth rotating manner. This device is especially versatile and valuable for teaching these overhead positions, and training in a ballistic fashion. Pressing the Keiser Air Squat machine provides a similar angle as the Pentagon bar. The Air Squat machine moves on an arc, and can be easily adapted for pressing instead of squatting, by placing the hands under the pads normally intended to go on top of the shoulders, and pressing instead of squatting the machine.

For many populations, doing these ballistic overhead drills on either the Pentagon bar or the Air Squat can be a major joint saver compared to doing similar movements via a purely vertical vector. Whenever I’m teaching any kind of Olympic drill, I’ll start by teaching either the beginning or the ending part of the lift. Likewise, in these bilateral stance ballistic variations, we’ll start by looking at the beginning of the lift, then fast forward to the end of the lift, and, finally, we’ll circle back to the middle. The push press is the first variation introduced. It demands that the lifter dip, drive, and finish the press in a catch position, standing fully straight. There is no squat-under phase for a catch with the push press. After the push press, the focus shifts to how to execute the end of the lift. In teaching the catch and recovery, it’s very common to start with an overhead squat. This is the most static arm action one can demonstrate, and it gets subjects used to the demands of squatting in the overhead catch position. Following competency in the overhead squat, the lifter moves on to jerk recoveries, where the bar is positioned in a rack at a height that would be about the height of a power catch. The athlete mimics pushing him or herself under the bar, as they would during an actual power jerk. Next, the athlete gets into a great power position with overhead lockout catch, and then stands the bar up, finishing the jerk recovery move. With the jerk balance, the athlete appropriately positions him or herself at the start, with the bar in a front rack position. From there, he or she quickly descends under the barbell, and gets into a squat-under catch position as fast as possible. With the jerk balance, there is no dip and drive phase. The focus of the jerk balance is on how quickly one can get under the bar and into an appropriate catch position. All of these drills have a bias towards preparing the lifter for the second half of the exercise. The Pentagon bar and Keiser Air Squat variations aside, the other drills are fairly standard overhead weightlifting progressions. The drills go from overhead lockout with a static arm po-

Page

277

sition, to drills involving rapidly squatting under the bar, and catching the bar with no preceding drive phase, to drills involving a dip and drive phase prior to squatting under the bar (progressively deeper) and catching in a locked-out, overhead position. The following list is the sequence of sagittal plane, bilateral stance, ballistic, moderate to high load, high velocity, short to moderate duration vertical push exercises: 1. Push press w/Pentagon bar or Keiser Air Squat



2. Push press 3. Overhead Pentagon bar or Keiser Air Squat squat 4. Overhead squat 5. Power jerk recoveries 6. Squat jerk recoveries 7. Behind the neck jerk balance

8. Jerk balance 9. Power jerk 10. Squat jerk Coaching Points Many of the important elements regarding the science and practice of these ballistic overhead lifts was covered in the triple extension chapter of this book. Rather than reiterate those here, I’d like to cover a few basic, very important elements required for proficiency with

power jerks and squat jerks. As mentioned, the major phases of the power jerk and the squat jerk are the dip, drive, squat-under, catch, and recovery. The lift begins at the front rack position. In the front rack, athletes should have the barbell in their hands, but the primary weight of the barbell should be on the front of the shoulders. To accomplish this, athletes should allow the elbows to come up in front of them, similar to where they would be positioned in a front squat, but slightly lower, to provide for a better angle for the overhead drive. A nice tall position of the body in the setup is what we’re after. Once the athlete is set up and ready to initiate the movement, the first action is to dip down. To do this dip movement, the athlete flexes at the hips, knees, and ankles, while keeping the thorax highly vertically oriented. Keeping the weight centered over the midfoot rather than through the heels can be very helpful for maintaining a very upright body. The dip is not a large motion of maybe 5 or 6 inches, as opposed to dropping into a half-squat. The main features of the dip are that it should be very fast, and that the body should be rigidly held in a tall position throughout its duration. The ability to maintain a concentric orientation of the pelvic floor and other relevant muscles during this yielding action is the key to being able to execute the technical elements of this phase. The drive begins the moment the dip ends. This phase entails exploding vertically with the greatest possible thrust. To create this vertical thrust, the athlete creates triple extension with the lower extremity at the ankle, knee, and hip. The ability to quickly stop the dip, and redirect the body and external load in the opposite direction is the key component of the drive phase. When athletes can quickly decelerate, then stop the dip and reverse the action, they are able to capture and use elastic energy to help power this action. The combined force coming from elastic and contractile protein tension can create substantial propulsion, significantly more so than just contractile protein alone. As such, the speed of capture and release of elasticity is the

Page

278

key to a great drive phase. As you’ll remember, this concept of the amortization phase within the viscoelastic model of the stretch-shortening cycle was covered extensively in the triple extension chapter of this book. As we also established, in order to be able to create this quick deceleration and reversal, the athlete needs to be able to hold a concentric orientation of the pelvic floor and relevant muscles during the yielding phase. When implicated muscles maintain a concentric orientation, the transition from yielding to overcoming can be very rapid, which allows for said utilization of elastic energy. With the drive phase, the athlete is essentially trying to jump as high as possible with a barbell on his or her shoulders. The drive phase continues up until the point where the barbell has been launched overhead, with maximal vertical propulsion. At a certain point in the barbell’s flight, the athlete switches from the drive to the squat under phase of the lift. Here, the athlete has to shift from driving the barbell upwards to squatting down under it. Before the barbell is caught overhead, the athlete’s feet should first be on the ground. When catching something heavy, it certainly helps to have one’s feet firmly on the ground, which provides a foundation without which the chances of cleanly catching the bar are very slim. When watching an athlete catch a jerk overhead, you want to see the barbell directly over the midfoot. The ankles, knees, and hips will be flexed to the point where the athlete catches the barbell in a quarter-squat position in a power jerk, or in a full squat position in a squat jerk. We want a tall axial skeleton in the catch position. In an ideal catch, the nose, sternum, and pubic symphysis should all be aimed forward at the horizon in concert. We do not want an exaggerated amount of anterior pelvic tilt in the catch, or an excessive amount of the sternum being aimed up. All three bones being level is the optimal arrangement. The athlete has to be able to create an incredible amount of tension through the lower ex-

tremity, pelvis, and thorax to be able to catch a heavy barbell in a power or squat jerk. The goal is to stop the barbell in its tracks as quickly as possible, preventing the barbell from driving the athlete down into a lower squat once it’s caught. I often see the barbell being allowed to push subjects into a deeper squat. Ideally, the squat position in which one has received the bar shouldn’t “deepen” once it is caught. I want my subjects turning into statues in that position before they squat back up. In the catch position, the arms should continue to drive up. The most common cue I’ll give is “punch the ceiling”. I want to see the athlete doing everything in their power to drive the hands up. Once the athlete has caught and stabilized the bar in either the power position or the full squat catch, he or she needs to stand the bar back up. This act, also called the recovery, involves concentrically squatting the bar to the top position, and coming to rest standing. The athlete should remain tight throughout the axial skeleton, as he or she pushes through the feet, and rises to complete the movement. These ballistic overhead lifts are incredibly explosive drills with very high power outputs in laboratory testing. These types of lifts cause high rates of force development, utilize a stretch-shortening cycle, recruit high threshold motor units, improve synchronization of neuromuscular firing, and require large degrees of coordination, timing, and stabilization. And yet, despite their possession of all of these attributes, they may not be worth using for the majority of the athletes you work with. If I am working with athletes who do not overhead-lift in their sport, I would probably only use the exercises involving the Pentagon bar and the Keiser Air Squat. With those two options, I likely receive all the adaptive benefits, but reduce some of the risk of having to go into a position of full shoulder flexion when receiving the load. I spent a significant amount of time learning Olympic style lifting. I competed in the sport. I trained with these lifts for years and years.

Page

279

Consequently, I have a strong emotional connection with these exercises, which I have worked to master and utilize in my own training, believing they would unlock tremendous athletic potential. Stepping back now and viewing them more objectively, I ultimately see them as additional tools in our fitness and strength development tool box. While they do provide this heavy ballistic training stimulus that is hard to find in other exercises, when we can step outside of our biases, we realize this is not necessarily the “end all, be all” for training. Sagittal, Front/Back, Ballistic, Moderate to High Load, High Velocity, Short to Moderate Duration This realm of exercise involves execution of split jerks. In the previous section, once we got past the Pentagon bar and the Keiser Air Squat drills, we were left with a fairly standard Olympic lifting progression list for teaching power and squat jerks. We had overhead squats, jerk recoveries, jerk balances, and jerks themselves. When putting together a list of progressions for split jerks, there is a difference between the structure of these drills and their bilateral stance versions. With split jerks, there is no way to do a push-press variation with a front/ back stance. Based on this, we do not start with the beginning of the exercise. Instead, we start with the end first. In this model, you would be teaching the bilateral stance variation first. Since this variation shares its starting position with the split jerk, that phase of instruction is actually already done for you. To teach the end parts of the lift, this model starts with overhead split squat exercises. Although, admittedly, I have not been to a USAW course since 2006, this is not something I have ever seen in a USAW manual. Nevertheless, starting with an overhead split squat makes sense to me, as it mimics the approach that would be used with a squat jerk progression list, and also fits into the concept of starting static with the upper extremity. From there, the same sequencing of progressions applies

to these as to the bilateral stance variations. We move from the split squat to the recovery, from the recovery to the balance, and from the balance to the jerk. The following list is the sequence of exercises for sagittal plane, front/ back stance, ballistic, moderate to high load, high velocity, short to moderate duration overhead push exercises: 1. Overhead Pentagon bar split squat 2. Overhead split squat 3. Pentagon bar split jerk balance 4. Pentagon bar split jerk 5. Split jerk recoveries 6. Behind the neck split jerk balance 7. Split jerk balance 8. Split jerk Coaching Points I think most novices, or folks not involved in weightlifting assume that the most important part of jerks is the amount of overhead pressing strength. In reality, it has much more to do with how quickly one can dive under a bar, and how willing he or she is to catch it in a fully lockedout position. To be a good weightlifter, one has to be both fearless and fast. These lifts are almost like a gymnastics event, where the athlete is moving around an apparatus that is also moving. Of course, strength plays a major role in how much weight some is ultimately capable of lifting, but weightlifting is a twitchy sport. The athletes need to learn how to move him or herself from position to position at daunting speeds. The direction for which speed is particularly important is down. How quickly a lifter is able to move under the barbell into the catch largely determines his or her proficiency at these lifts. This type of movement capability is another demonstration of high velocity yielding, while maintaining a concentric orientation of the relevant musculature. Relatedly, one of the most important concepts you can reinforce is the proper positioning of their feet, and getting the feet into that arrangement as quickly as possible. The front foot

Page

280

needs to drive forward hard and fast. I have heard great coaches tell athletes that, for the split jerk, they need to imagine that there is a very short doorway about six inches in front of them, and that they need to put their body inside the doorframe, and get their head under the door frame as quickly as possible. This helps the athlete understand how to get down, and how to drive forward quickly. Getting the feet to the ground quickly is of paramount importance. The feet should hit the ground before the bar is caught in a lockout. As noted, if the feet aren’t making solid contact with the ground, we’re missing a foundation to work from. Once the feet have reached the ground, and the athlete is ready to receive the bar in a proper catch position, then the focus turns to creating tension. Athletes need to create incredible muscular tension throughout the lower extremity, pelvis, abdomen, and upper thorax to properly receive the barbell. As they receive the barbell, athletes should be actively trying to punch the hands through the ceiling, and then walk the feet in towards the middle, where they end the lift with both feet next to each other. To properly walk the feet to the end point, the athlete should take four total steps, starting with a half step back with the front foot. This is followed by another half step, forward, with the back foot, and then a second half step back with the front foot. Finally, he or she takes a half step forward with the back foot. This should position them in a finish position, with both feet next to each other, and the barbell held strongly overhead. Frontal, Bilateral, Moderate Load, Moderate Velocity, Moderate Duration This realm of exercise will feature alternating, unilateral overhead presses. Alternating unilateral vertical push and pull provide a thoracic frontal plane stimulus, and alternating unilateral horizontal push and pull provide a thoracic transverse plane stimulus. These frontal plane vertical push drills will train the deltoids and triceps, but, in addition to that, they will also heavily recruit frontal plane abdominal tissues,

namely the transversus abdominis (TA). When seeing someone perform frontal plane vertical push, you should see the thorax close on the side with the down arm, and open on the side of the up arm. The closing of the thorax refers to seeing an approximation of the armpit with the ASIS. Many think of the TA as the vacuum muscle, or the muscle that draws the belly button in towards the spine. While it may not be intuitive to think about one side of it acting at a time, I’m actually looking to bias the TA towards a concentric orientation on one side, and an eccentric orientation on the other. Feeling this muscle getting recruited is a big deal for proper execution of this frontal plane upper body training. We will see that the exercise progression in this category will increase in difficulty so as to manage gravity relative to the position of the body, as well as to manage the implement relative to gravity. The first exercises are incline dumbbell presses. In the first exercise, “with off-hand reciprocating” means that there is only one hand holding a dumbbell. The other hand is unloaded, and going through the motion. In number two, it simply says “alternating press”, meaning that both hands are holding weights, and simultaneously moving in opposing directions. Following the incline dumbbell, we move to drills with landmine units. The incline dumbbell and the landmine both allow people who do not possess full shoulder flexion to still be able to train in this movement zone. The landmine simply removes references and constraints associated with having the bench against one’s body during the incline press. After the landmine drills, we move to pure vertical pushing drills that become progressively more difficult from the perspective of managing gravity and providing reference. The following list is the sequence of progressions for frontal plane, bilateral stance, moderate load, moderate velocity, moderate duration vertical push exercises: 1. Incline dumbbell press with off-hand reciprocating 2. Incline dumbbell alternating press

Page

281

3. Tall kneeling landmine press with off-hand reciprocating

4. Standing landmine press with off-hand reciprocating 5. Double landmine alternating press 6. Long seated alternating DB overhead press

7. Seated alternating DB overhead press 8. Standing alternating DB press

Coaching Points The sternum is your focal point for coaching with these drills. You want to see your subjects controlling their sternums, preventing them from moving back and forth like a metronome. Those who can get a full reach with the hand going up, and bring the other arm all the way down while keeping their sternums under control, are going to be lit up by these drills.

Assuming the presence of adequate sag-

ittal sensorimotor competency and an immobile sternum, now, you can coach the arms. Most people will quickly understand that a big reach with the pressing arm is important for full muscular recruitment, but it’s more difficult to appreciate the yielding arm. When coaching the yielding arm, I usually focus on the elbow, and have subjects think about putting it into where the front pocket of their pants would be. Coaching the yielding arm at the elbow is something I got from Chad Beckman in Nebraska. Chad is a strength and conditioning coach I met in Lincoln, Nebraska, who has a wealth of biomechanics knowledge, coming from PRI. Chad is one of the earliest evangelists of Ron Hruska’s biomechanical teachings to the world of fitness. I’ve seen Chad do amazing things for thoracic-related table measures by coaching great alternating upper body strength training on various machines. When he gets someone to really close the side of his or her thorax on the yielding arm side of the drill by burying that elbow down and into the body, that’s when you see the subject’s eyes grow to the size of saucers, as the muscles go crazy. The last piece is to get both arms moving at the same time. Do not keep one arm still while the other arm moves. When you get both moving at the same time, that is where the true challenge of controlling the sternum comes in. These are advanced drills. If you try to give these to subjects who have not developed positional awareness and sensorimotor control, the impact of the drill will not be much of anything. For those who’ve reached an appropriate level of development, however, these drills will provide a profound stimulus. Frontal, Front/Back, Moderate Load, Moderate Velocity, Moderate Duration This is a realm that involves unilateral alternating pressing from a front/back staggered stance. When I think about some of these realms of fitness, I begin by thinking of the primary objective we’re attempting to accomplish with any of them. In this particular case, it

Page

282

would be to improve the strength and muscular development of vertical pushing muscles, and frontal plane thoracic muscles. To accomplish this objective, I could do presses from any available stance. That said, rather than picking one randomly, it’s wiser to ask ourselves which stance most lends itself to hitting these targets, as well as which allows us to load and develop those tissues. For both objectives, the bilateral stance is my choice. Following this affirmation, I would establish whether there are any instances in which we would want to use a different stance for this pattern and plane. That is indeed the case for certain athletes, whose sport requires them to assume an alternate stance, making it beneficial for them to be stronger therein. If someone does not fit into that particular demographic, then I would probably forego these drills in his or her training. This is a realm of trainable movements that I can picture getting popular among coaches who are drawn to hard-to-do, impressive-looking drills. Unfortunately, neither quality constitutes a particularly good reason for including an activity in someone’s program. Subjects’ goal(s) should dictate our exercise selections as their coaches. It’s our job to select only those activities that support movement towards these goals, and discard everything else. Overhead pressing muscles and frontal plane thoracic muscle strength and hypertrophy are useful realms for overall movement and muscular development, be that for aesthetic or athletic aims. A wrestler who needs incredible frontal plane thoracic strength in a shot position may benefit tremendously from these drills. A bowler may also benefit tremendously from these drills. Most other people can just stick to the bilateral stance drills here, and get all of the benefits they need. Remember, when in doubt, divide and conquer. The following list is the sequence of frontal plane, front/back stance, moderate load, moderate velocity, moderate duration vertical push exercises: 1. Half-kneeling landmine press w/off hand reciprocating



2. Split-squat landmine press w/off hand reciprocating

3. Half-kneeling double landmine alternating press 4. Split-squat alternating double landmine press

5. Half-kneeling alternating DB press 6. Split-squat alternating DB press Coaching Points Putting a wall behind the back foot is enormously helpful for these exercises. As reiterated, this will provide more sagittal reference, and will typically cause the subject to use more muscle to hold him or herself in the position. For a lot of people, this one adjustment can dramatically improve performance in these drills. Positioning the back foot on the wall and providing more reference will also create more “ground” to push against, and having ground to push against is a big deal with resistance training. If one didn’t have a bench for doing bench press, but instead had to do some crazy knee flexion bend and try to hold the body in that position, he or she wouldn’t be able to push any weight around. Without a backrest during the leg one wouldn’t be able to move much weight at all. Both the bench and the backrest are “ground” of sorts.

Page

283

The thing about ground is that it provides its own resistance, which is perhaps the purest form of reference. Anything that is physically pushing someone is, by definition, providing some form of resistance. The more that something pushes into us, the more we can feel it. “Ground” is an immovable surface that comes into contact with whatever parts of one’s body are against it. The more parts of one’s body that are against “ground”, the more reference he or she has, and also the more resistance there is pushing against him or her. In order for a human to create a forceful action that results in displacement of his or her body, and any added load theron, in a given direction, an equal and opposing force needs to be coming from the opposite direction. The ground provides what could be thought of as an unlimited source of opposing force. The opposing force of the ground allows us to move in the opposite direction of it. Without the ground, one might as well be trying to lift weights in outer space. Providing subjects with the opportunity to produce the highest possible forces they can means providing them with ample ground. By contrast, “groundless” exercises that gain many likes on Instagram are a clown show that should be avoided at all costs.

Dominant Position and Fitness Realms:

Dominant Stance: Bilateral Dominant Plane: Sagittal Dominant Load: Heavy Dominant Velocity: Fast

The heavy ballistic overhead action is what I believe to be the purest, highest expression of this pattern. Be that as it may, the percentage of folks who can really handle it is questionable. If you want to be a coach, and, like me, like to see how far you can personally push the envelope, this pattern may well be for you. If you’re intent on taking heavy ballistic overhead lifting really far, you’ll likely find yourself in frequent pain, like me, throughout the process. But, if you can figure out how to fix yourself, design programs that mitigate pain points, and work your

technique to where it is practically impeccable, you may just learn enough to be a true master. That being said, how many of the subjects you coach and personally train are going to want to themselves master this pattern through your teachings? Probably slim to none. For training others, I advise staying on the shallow end of these progressions. To go deeper into this realm, subjects have to be gifted from a movement perspective, extremely attentive and coachable, and willing and able to manage their lifestyle, nutrition, and recovery elements at a high level. In other words, they’re going to be pretty rare. Play it safe with everyone else within this pattern. Many didn’t win the genetic lottery in terms of how well their bones line up, and many more place exercise technique very low on their list of priorities. A lot of people won’t get much in return from heavy ballistic overhead, but could potentially suffer problems resulting from excessive volume in this pattern. So, recapping, I believe heavy ballistic overhead exercises are great… but only for those who need them, and for those who are ready for them. I also believe that smart people hedge their bets, and that this pattern is one where I would go that route, probably more than any other. In other words, there’s nothing wrong with keeping someone on a dumbbell incline press for the entirety of their vertical push training life.

17 Vertical Pull

Page

285

Vertical Pull

Chapter 17

You have shoulder pain? Some say the solution is more lats. Your deadlift technique is off? “More lats”, they chant. Your posture looks poor—you guessed it: more lat work is the answer. You want to increase your bench press: more lats. You want to save more money for your child’s tuition: more lats. (You want to find eternal salvation? More lats!) I don’t personally do a lot of lat-focused cueing. I don’t tell people to squeeze oranges in their armpits when they deadlift, nor do I instruct them to engage their lats for postural cues. I’m generally not targeting the lats in any activities other than those that feature vertical pulling. So, why do some relentlessly seek them out and deem them incredibly important, while others, like myself, don’t get very excited about them, and generally avoid calling on them in most exercises?

The answer may stem from the fact that

many divide the body into chains of muscles. Ida Rolf created Rolfing, and her system was largely based on the idea that the body is divided into subsets of muscular lines with common fascial chambers containing and directing them. Thomas Myers is the most famous disciple of Ida Rolf, and his book, Anatomy Trains, promoted this idea of groups of muscles working as a team (oriented in the same direction and encased inside fascial slings), to promote specific multi-joint movements. Anatomy Trains created a tremendous stir in the fitness and rehabilitation industries, and soon, slings, chains, and trains, as they pertain to fascia-covered networks of muscles were all the rage. The Postural Restoration Institute (PRI), also considers muscle chains a bedrock of their philosophy. PRI uses the term “polyarticular chains of muscles” to explain the integration of the muscular system into human movement schematics. The most well-known of the PRI polyarticular chains is the “Anterior Interior Chain” (AIC). The AIC is made up of the diaphragm, which begins at the anterior rib cage, and then swings up and back in a dome shape, until it reaches its posterior attachment on the thoracic and lumbar spine. At the lumbar spine, the diaphragm interdigitates with the psoas in a tightly locked formation. The psoas runs anterior and laterally to the ilium from its posterior attachments on the lower thoracic and lumbar vertebrae. The psoas runs into the iliacus on the deep side of the ilium bone, and forms a very strong connection. The merger between these two muscles is so strong, that it is oftentimes regarded as a single muscle: the iliopsoas. The iliopsoas has an attachment on the thigh, as it inserts into the lesser trochanter of the femur. The psoas and iliacus also have a merger with the tensor fascia latae (TFL) on the superior border of the ilium. The TFL runs

Page

286

posterior, and merges with the anterior superior fibers of the glute max, to become the superior origin of the iliotibial (IT) band. The IT band then runs inferior down the lateral thigh, until it reaches Gerdy’s tubercle on the anterior tibia on the superficial tibial plateau. Since it begins with the diaphragm, the AIC is a breathing chain. It’s also a walking chain, as it involves muscles that attach to and rotate the lumbar spine, attach to and rotate the innominate, attach to and rotate the femur, and attach to and rotate the tibia. This relationship sheds light on Ron Hruska’s famous assertion that “breathing is walking, and walking is breathing”. For polyarticular chain-based practitioners, the thought process is that if there is a pain syndrome, or a limitation in movement anywhere in the joints affected by a specific chain of muscles, you could theoretically work at any level of that chain in order to alleviate the pain or movement limitation. An example is the use of a breathing intervention for someone presenting with knee pain. Within the PRI thought process, the diaphragm on the left side is underpowered compared to the diaphragm on the right side. The left diaphragm has fewer leaflets and muscle attachments relative to the right side. The right diaphragm sits on top of the liver, and has a strong fascial attachment to it. This connection to the liver provides ground for the right diaphragm, from which to perform mechanical work. The left diaphragm is typically not in a domed position when examined on X-rays, and therefore in a greater state of inhalation as compared to the right diaphragm. This inhaled position of the diaphragm reflects the concentric orientation of the muscle. Since the diaphragm is behaving from a concentric state, this primes the entire chain to also work from a concentric orientation. If we were to examine the downstream concentric activity of the psoas, iliacus, and TFL, we would see that it is a group of muscles that rotates the lumbar spine to the right, flexes, abducts, and externally rotates the

left ilium relative to the pubis, pushing us from left leg to right leg. In other words, the left AIC is the chain that walks the left side of our lower body forward. The goal within PRI would be to have equal activity between the left AIC and right AIC. To accomplish this, we need to inhibit the activity of the left AIC, facilitate the left-sided oppositional muscles to the chain, and simultaneously facilitate the muscles of the right AIC. If we can reach this goal, we will see a normalized range of motion on the left and right on a table, indicating equal alternating movement being displayed by both sides of the body. One of the main differences between PRI and this model is that this model ignores chains of muscles. This model only focuses on the states of expansion and compression. When you want to rotate your body right, you compress the left side of the thorax. When you see this left sided compression, you’ll see pronation of the hand and foot and IR of the arm and leg on that side, and extension and adduction resulting from those two motions. Simultaneously, you will expand the right side of the body. You will see the hand and foot supinate on that side of the body, and you’ll see the arm and leg on that side ER, with flexion and abduction riding along. This is something that is easy to observe in a right-handed golfer’s backswing. Compressing the left side results in loading up into the right side during the backswing, which actions are reversed as the golfer strikes down into the ball and goes into the follow-through. Prior to my exposure to Myers’ Anatomy Trains, PRI and their chains, or DNS and their chains, or any other rehabilitation-based group with chain or sling-based thoughts, I first heard about chains of muscles from Louie Simmons. Simmons was explaining the importance of the posterior chain for strength athletes, which sentiment is echoed throughout the world of strength and conditioning. Most everyone who has reached an advanced level of training/competing in a strength sport or spent time in the sports performance coaching world would have heard about the importance of developing the

Page

287

posterior chain. When you hear strength and performance people talk about the posterior chain, you’ll hear them talk about how the hamstrings and glutes are critical for creating drive in heavy lifts, and how they’re the drivers of sprinting speed. When you hear people talking about upper back and lat development, you’ll hear talk of improved posture, as well as building a powerful shelf for strength movements and armor for contact sports. You’ll hear that the mirror/beach muscles are for “show” but the posterior chain is for “go”, or “If you’re going to haul ass, you better train ass”. There is reverence for these posterior muscles in strength and sports performance circles. So, what is the basis for this love of the posterior muscles of the body? I believe it comes from the fact that, when we compress these muscles, they make us go forward or up. Compressing the left back side muscles will drive the left side forward. When the left side goes forward, this will turn one to the right, and vice versa. Compressing both sides at the same time results in both sides going forward. This is what in PRI circles is called “becoming extended” and is associated with red flags for pain and movement limitations within that school of learning. Is bilateral posterior compression “bad”? If so, why, to the alarm of PRI-minded physical therapists, are great powerlifters and powerlifting coaches constantly seeking and trying to maximize it? When you think about muscles that can create posterior compression, what do you think of? PRI has their Posterior Exterior Chain (PEC) group of muscles, which are simply the superficial muscles of the back. The big hitters for superficial back muscles are spinal erectors, posterior intercostals, rhomboids, traps, and of course lats. When behaving in a concentric manner, these muscles create a compressive force that drives the back forward. In PRI, the PEC pattern is considered a bilateral, largely symmetrical pattern, where both sides of the

back are overactive, and someone displays a state of being extended, as well as an inability to expand the posterior ribs with an inhalation. So is it bad to see a “PEC” walk through your door? Having gotten a good glimpse into Ron Hruska’s thinking and observed a good amount of human movement over the years, I would think that Ron would probably think that being able to adopt a PEC presentation is a useful strategy for accomplishing certain tasks, but becomes problematic when it is adopted for all tasks, and cannot be deviated from. As such, a PEC is only problematic when its owner is unable to move in and out of it at will. If you are going to long jump forward as far as you possibly can, you need to compress your back. If you are a gymnast who is going to do a back walk-over, you are going to have to compress your back. If you are a powerlifter who is trying to break the world record in bench press, you are going to have to compress your back. These are all concentric orientation of posterior muscles, driving forward strategies. Ideally, in other areas of their lives, these same athletes retain access to an eccentrically-oriented expansion strategy. Depending on your common physical activities and fitness goals, you really only need “enough” of each strategy. If you are a linear sprinter, you do not need much in the way of a posterior muscle-expansion strategy. If you are an interior NFL lineman, you do not need much in the way of a posterior muscle-expansion strategy. If you are a powerlifter, you do not need much in the way of a posterior muscle-expansion strategy. If you are a bodybuilder, you do not need much in the way of a posterior muscle-expansion strategy. If you are a professional soccer midfielder, you’re going to need a high amount of posterior muscle-expansion strategy. If you are a bantamweight UFC fighter, you are going to need a high amount of posterior muscle-expansion strategy. If you need high variance in the positions you have to assume in your sport, if you need to level change a lot,

Page

288

decelerate and change direction or bend and turn often, you’re going to need a high degree of posterior muscle-expansion strategy. Circling back to the lats, bilateral activity of the lats is going to lead to some of the highest possible levels of a posterior compression attainable. If there is constantly a high level of bilateral lat activity, you’re going to really struggle to create a posterior expansion. If you participate in a low variance positional sport, and you constantly have a high degree of posterior muscle compression, you’re probably going to be okay, as long as you don’t try to do much outside of your sport activities. If the body builder trains bodybuilding appropriately, he or she can lose an enormous amount of posterior expansion and probably be fine. However, if having lost significant amounts of posterior expansion, that bodybuilder decides that he or she now wants to be a high level Ultimate Frisbee athlete, he may struggle tremendously, and will continue to fail and get hurt if he cannot drop his compression strategies and pick up more expansion strategies. If you have personal training clients who want to get huge pecs and lats, while being able to play a ton of tennis at a high level, one of those goals will have to give.

cle, they’re just a tool we have evolved for the accomplishment of certain survival tasks. Burrowing, reproducing, stalking, chasing, evading, nest building, defecating, biting, swallowing, rearing, pouncing, feigning, rolling, and detecting the presence of others are but a mere tiny list of common tasks across species. These tasks keep some living things from becoming lunch for others, and help the former acquire lunch of their own. The evolutionary history of every animal is a track record of anatomical problem solving, geared towards performance optimization of such tasks. For each of these tasks there are stereotypical species-specific muscles that power their execution. Whether they are chains, trains, planes, slings, fascial leotards, compartments, families, or any other working group that are linked together is beside the point. I think the strategy is the point. To accomplish one strategy, perhaps an animal has to compress the left side and expand the right. To accomplish another strategy, perhaps the animal has to compress the front side and expand the back. To accomplish yet a third, perhaps the animal has to compress the back while simultaneously expanding the front. To accomplish yet another, perhaps it has to compress all sides, all at once.

Severely posteriorly-compressed thorax powerlifters trying to hit golf balls are going to show you an ugly backswing and follow through, because those positions require posterior thoracic expansion. Then again, how often do powerlifters need to hit golf balls? Once someone has a clear goal, we as coaches can help by elucidating the requisite amounts of compression and expansion required by the chosen activity. If the need for expansion is low but compression high, programming can ease off expansion to optimize for a compression monster. If both expansion and compression needs are high, as would be the case for many martial arts, then we don’t want to sacrifice too much expansion in favor of compression, with the understanding that genetic potential for pure compressive force will be traded off for sport-specific well-roundedness.

We human animals no longer live in the wild, and hence our list of survival-oriented tasks has dwindled massively. A powerlifter compresses everywhere. A pitcher compresses the glove side of the body, and expands the throwing hand-side during the cocking action of the windup. A sprinter compresses the back side of the body to go forward. A cornerback compresses the anterior side of the body to back pedal. What do your clients do, or want to do? Do they understand what strategies are essential for succeeding in those activities? Have some of them lost those strategies, and can you help them regain them? Do you, as the coach, have a plan? My hope is that this book has helped you formulate a good number of these answers.



A vertical pull requires extension, adduction,

So, are lats “good”? Like every mus-

Anatomical Considerations

Page

289

and internal rotation of the humerus. These three movements are the anatomical actions that the latissimus dorsi creates on the humerus. The latissimus muscle is a broad, flat muscle that proximally attaches on the spinous processes of the vertebrae between T5 and L5, the thoracolumbar fascia, the iliac crest, the bottom 3 posterior ribs, and the inferior angle of the scapula. The distal attachment of the latissimus is the intertubercular groove of the humerus. The lats act as rotators and side benders of the thorax when behaving in a unilateral manner, and they extend the lumbar and thoracic spine when behaving bilaterally. When performing vertical pulling motions, the elbow is flexing while the shoulder is extending. Large elbow flexors, like biceps brachii and brachioradialis, will be recruited for that part of the motion. There should be some level of balance between the flexion, ER, and supination drive of biceps, and the extension and IR drive of the lats during vertical pulling activities. Exercises like a pull-over are common in body building groups for purely targeting the lats. The pull-over takes the elbow flexion component out of the action, and allows for a purer extension, adduction, and IR action at the shoulder. The action taking place at the scapula during vertical pulling is going to be downward rotation. A vertical pull starts with the humerus flexed, which positions the scapula in upward rotation. From that place, while the humerus is extending, the scapula will be going through a downward rotation moment. The motions of the scapula can quickly get confusing. The primary motions of the scapula are generally considered upward and downward rotation. During upward rotation, the inferior angle of the scapula moves superiorly and laterally, but researchers on scapular mechanics report that ER will occur in tandem with this upward rotation. The definition of ER of the scapula is that the medial border moves towards the body. When thinking about pathomechanics of the scapula as it pertains to upward rotation, the primary failure is known as “winging” of the

scapula. Winging is when the medial border of the scapula flares away from the body, visibly opening up the shoulder blade to create a winglike appearance. The other big motion that is oftentimes not present during upward rotation of the scapula is that the scapula fails to sufficiently posteriorly tilt. The serratus anterior is considered the primary muscle that prevents winging, and the lower trap is the primary muscle that would prevent loss of posterior tilt. The way I want you to think about these motions of ER and posterior tilt of the scapula (as they are referred to in the literature on the scapula) is that they are actually compressive motions. These motions compress the scapula into the body. Upward rotation is the primary point of scapular compression. In the classical literature on the motions of the shoulder, we hear about the 2:1 ratio of humeral to scapular motion that should take place during overhead reaching activities, where the humerus should have double the total motion compared to the scapula. When this ratio is lost, the condition becomes referred to as scapular dyskinesis. The classical explanation on what disrupts proper scapular/humeral rhythm in overhead reaching is inhibition and weakness of the low trap and serratus anterior. The way that I want you to think about this error is as an inability to posteriorly compress the scapula during the exhale-based motion of the scapula. The scapula and the innominate will move in similar ways during flexion of the appendicular bone associated with them. In the mid-zone of flexion, both bones will “counter-nutate” or “upwardly rotate” depending on one’s naming preference. Whatever you call it, this is in fact the compressive motion of these bones. Their compression allows for the arm or the leg to be supported when the distal part of the limb is the farthest away from the center of mass of the body. During the propulsive arc of motion, when the limb is at 90 degrees of flexion, this is when the elbow or the knee is the farthest away from the center of the axial skeleton. At the bottom of the arc of appendicular motion, the elbow is in line with the trunk. At the top of the arc of appendicular motion, the elbow is in line

Page

290

with the head. In the mid-zone, the elbow is well out in front of the body, where the compression of the scapula is required, in order to support this distant placement of the arm. If an arm or a leg is going to go forward, something on the back side of the body needs to compress, and the ideal choices are either the scapula or the innominate. Barring adequate compression of either one, compensation will occur, in the form of compression of some other body part(s). At the level of the thorax, this is most likely to be the posterior ribs or the thoracic spine. In a blue sky arm flexion scenario, the thoracic spine can maintain its shape, and hold onto its kyphosis. If the thoracic spine can maintain its shape, the shape of the ribcage will also be nicely maintained. The posterior ribs will remain rounded and expanded posteriorly. If one can hold onto this thoracic shape while raising an arm overhead, then the scapula will compress, and maintain approximation with the ribcage —particularly medially and inferiorly— during upward rotation. You can think of the serratus and the lower trap as the suction cup of the shoulder blade, where the suction force is just another word for compression. When everything is great, they maintain a suction force on the scapula during upward rotation. If the suction force of the serratus or the lower trap is ineffective, it will transfer inward, and the spine and posterior ribs will be sucked forward. The actions taking place at the lower extremity during hip flexion are not very different. During this mid-zone, peak compression part of the motion, one needs a posterior compressive force to be able to hold the femur in place while very far away from the centerline of the body. If one cannot hold the innominate in a good position during its counter-nutation, then excess posterior compression will need to be created elsewhere. Most commonly, this would be at the lower dorsal-rostral zone. When the lower dorsal-rostral zone is compressed, it drives the entire pelvis forward, as a unit, into anterior tilt. Recall that this is the motion associated with the undesirable “hingey squat”.

When we start talking about downward rotation of a scapula, the likes of which occurs during a vertical pulling exercise, I can’t help but analogize this motion to the “up” phase of the squat for the upper body. The up phase of a squat involves hip extension, and the up phase of a pull-up involves shoulder extension. Sure you can talk about open chain versus closed chain, but I prefer to focus on the big picture components. I start to wonder if heavily loaded leg marches would be the equivalent of overhead pressing for the lower body. I start to wonder if dips and pull-ups are more similar to each other than dips are to bench press. I start to wonder if pushing and pulling balance really matters for the upper body, and if it does matter for the upper body, does it necessarily have to matter for the lower body too? Levator scapulae, rhomboid major and minor, pectoralis major and minor, and latissimus dorsi are all muscles that are considered to be downward rotators of the scapula. That is a lot of muscles, some of them located in unintuitive places. When I see this list of muscles, I think about vertical pulling motions causing downward rotation of the scapula, which is, in turn, the expansion zone of the scapula. Likewise, I think about how, to expand the scapula, one has to compress the thorax. To adequately compress the thorax for scapular downward rotation, one needs to compress it three-dimensionally. To expand in one area, you must compress in another. Expansion of the scapula requires total compression of the thorax. To me, the scapular downward rotation muscles are really three-dimensional thoracic compression muscles which allow the scapula to downwardly rotate as the arms create their pulling action. Based on this line of thinking, when people can’t do pull-ups, it’s not because they are weak in the shoulder blades. Rather, it’s due to an inability to adequately compress their thoraxes. I have watched a lot of people do a lot of reps of lat pull-downs over the years. I’ve seen good looking lat pull-downs, and I’ve seen really ugly lat pull-downs, and wondered what made

Page

291

the latter ugly. I think I can answer that now, and the culprit is one of two causes. The first is that the puller tends to down pump-handle their sternum via action of rectus abdominis, choosing to use a muscle that pulls down the sternum and thorax instead of their arms. The other thing I see a lot is that the puller is unable to create appropriate levels of downward rotation of their scapula. They pull the implement down, but their shoulders stay up by their ears. These two symptoms will tend to ride together. If one cannot compress the thorax adequately, he or she will fail to create an environment for the scapula to expand. If one cannot expand the scapula, then the clavicle and acromion will remain elevated. An inability to compress the thorax, which prevents the scapula from properly expanding, causes one to resort to a secondary method of creating a downward drive. This method is “crunching”, or pulling the sternum inferiorly with rectus abdominis. As we’ll cover in the “Coaching Points” sections of this chapter, the sternum is a big deal when it comes to vertical pulling technique. To maintain the sternum in a position that’s aimed straight out at the horizon, I have my subjects use a weight that’s light enough to ensure this sternum position throughout the course of each rep. Once we have the sternum position down, I’ll have subjects attempt to pull their shoulders away from their ears, in a manner that facilitates downward rotation of the scapula. What we’re accomplishing with this is the creation of the appropriate level of thoracic compression to allow for the arms and scapulae to reach the correct endpoint position for vertical pulling exercises. Training the Vertical Pull Pattern Available Options:

Available Planes: Sagittal and Frontal Available Stances: Bilateral Available Loads: All Available Velocities: All Available Durations: All

Moderate to High Load, Low to Moderate Velocity, Short to Moderate Duration For drills in this category, we’ve basically got lat pull-downs and pull-ups/chin-ups to choose from. I’m always amazed at gyms without a lat pull-down. In such an environment, pull-ups are the only drill left for training vertical pulling. Yes we can put bands under people’s feet for an assisted pull-up, but this turns it into an exercise that changes weight throughout the ROM. One could make the case that pull-overs could be a drill in this category, except that, in writing this book, I’ve spent a lot of time isolating “macro” training patterns, for inclusion in favor of the “micro” ones. Single joint, “isolation”, work is something that I would put into the umbrella of “micro”. As such, pull-overs should either live in the realm of core thorax, or be excluded on the basis of being “micro”. This is not to say that they are an unworthwhile exercise whatsoever, but simply that they fall somewhat outside the scope of this model. The same is true for many other activities, like biceps curls or calf raises, to name a few. Fine exercises? Yes. Macro training patterns? No. And don’t get me wrong: I love coaching micro patterns, which can be nested in the models of this book. You can have tremendous success giving wide infrasternal angle, compressed individuals better shoulder range of motion with well executed biceps curls, or improving hip range of motion and increasing squat depth on compressed people by training well-executed calf raises. At a certain point however, I need to draw that line in the sand. Let’s take a few moments and switch gears to our fourteenth macro pattern: the human mind. The ultimate pattern recognizing machine, which is ultimately most susceptible to becoming patterned. The mind is also, thankfully, quite trainable. I am a huge David Goggins fan, in large part because of the uniqueness and profundity of these contemplations on Mind. There is a reason that I have waited until this section of this chapter to bring up the mind

Page

292

Goggins. That reason incidentally, Goggins holds the world record for most pull-ups performed in a 24 hour period. A self-made man and one known for pushing through discomfort in his quest for a greater purpose. If I interpret Goggins properly, for him, that purpose is learning what he is capable of enduring and experiencing, and truly discovering himself through his experiences. For someone like him, the discomfort is inherent in the journey, the suffering and struggling is what reveals his truest inner self. He can hear all the collective voices that exist within him. He can find parts of himself that are stronger than he ever imagined. He can unpeel the onion to layers and levels that seem impossible to fathom. Once you think you have reached the ultimate in depth, you discover that you’ve been wading in the shallows at the edge of another Mariana’s Trench, where, if you dare to plunge into the abyss, a whole new collection of funhouse mirror versions of yourself are waiting to greet you with a Cheshire Cat grin. Some of the greatest things in life are often those that appear simple on the surface, only to reveal vast depths upon inspection. Vertical pulling is one such realm. Can you do the same thing over and over, and find novelty in that experience at different points in time? This is what Goggins embodies and reminds us. If you’re running, step number 10 is probably very different from step number 375,512, and so on. It is just another stride, but the experience of it is completely different. The eighteenth pull up is vastly differently than the eighteenth hour of pull-ups in a twenty-four hour max rep challenge. So many in the world of modern exercise seem to enjoy breadth, wanting to try new things all the time, always seeking novelty over mastery. It’s not breadth, but depth that mastery requires. Mastery comes from finding a significant challenge and, slowly, painstakingly working to be able to surmount it, and do that invariantly well. The work of mastery is a deliberate practice. You must be focused, present, and ready to struggle. Mastery requires chipping away at the same thing, day after day, week after week,

month after month, year after year. Mastery requires grit. Mastery requires sacrifice of comfort in the present in favor of the pursuit of something more rewarding in the future. There are not a lot of options for the sagittal plane, bilateral stance, moderate to high load, low to moderate velocity vertical pulling. Be that as it may, I’m not going to get into the differences in the list below between grip selection and chin-ups vs pull-ups. As we’ll discuss in Coaching Points, if there is a grip that’s problematic, avoid it, and go with one that feels better and works better. Though few, there are quality choices for this pattern, sequential progressions for which follow: 1. Lat pull-downs

2. Pull-ups

3. Weighted pull-ups Coaching Points This area of resistance training is one where form greatly outweighs load in terms of effectiveness. If the goal is to improve the strength and muscular development of the vertical pulling muscles of the body, it’s likely to be much better served by being incredibly strict about form than rocking one’s body back and

Page

293

forth and trying to rip the implement down, or oneself up over the bar. There are no kipping pull-ups in this list, because I do not want to see some kind of kipping lat pull-down for developing strength in this pattern. I want to see a body that stays still. I want to see arms that go through full range of motion. I want to see control at the end points of the motion, and I want people to really feel their muscles work while they are doing these drills. I want to see sets with reps that are uniform as opposed to sets where the last two reps look nothing like the first two. As for all patterns, I want to be able to compare apples to apples with this pattern, so progress can be accurately ascertained. As aforementioned, in my mind, vertical pulling is synonymous with compressing the thorax and expanding the scapula. When this occurs, we see downward rotation of the scapula, depression of the clavicle, and “pulling the shoulders away from the ears” at the bottom of the rep. While performing vertical pulling, we are extending and internally rotating the gleno-humeral joint, while flexing the elbow. That said, expansion at the elbow and the scapula notwithstanding, we should be careful to not classify vertical pulling as an expansion-dominated activity. In reality, the challenge here is compression, maximal compression of the thorax to be exact, which in turn enables expansion at the scapula and elbow. Thinking of these drills as highly compressive activities results in cueing them accordingly. Exhale on the way down. Focus on the index finger palm side knuckle and the webbing between the index finger and the thumb as the point where you drive into the implement that you are pulling. Work hard to try to squeeze the elbows all the way down to the hip. Keep great alignment of your elbows straight under your hands. If you are doing lat pull-downs with feet on the ground, anchor into the ground through the medial side of the foot. Lastly, squeeze at the end of the concentric part of the motion. Compression is squeezing, and that’s the strategy to channel to successfully

complete this motion. From a technical execution standpoint, the final, and the most important piece here is control over sternum position in space. For the starting position, I want to see sternums aimed at the horizon relative to the body’s position. Once the exercise is underway, I do not want to see this sternum orientation changing. If the sternum becomes oriented in an upward direction, this tells us the ribcage is tilting posteriorly, and posterior compression is over-dominating lateral and anterior compression on the thorax. If the sternum goes into a down pump handle, we know that rectus abdominis was compensatorily recruited for vertical pulling. When either of these two sternum misbehaviors occurs, I will decrease the load of the exercise, have subjects slow down repetition tempo, and make sure they are owning the position of their sternums throughout a full ROM rep. Given appropriate load, most subjects will get the hang of proper execution fairly quickly. Reducing load is actually the hardest part for some ego-fueled subjects, who view doing so as a kind of defeat. But, if you can move them beyond this, progressing with sternal control will quickly yield appreciable benefits. In coaching, there’s often a thin line between allowing subjects to get away with errors for numerical success, and backing them off of the numbers to provide them with technical form correction. Many coaches will repeatedly find themselves waxing and waning between the two sides of this line. Sometimes, a square focus on quality wins out, while quantity may gain priority at others. What we want to be careful of is impressive quantity disguising unimpressive quality. Most of our time within this training pendulum should favor quality over quantity, such that the mean consistently moves in a positive direction. This pattern in particular necessitates this best practice. Many trainers and coaches I’ve encountered seem to revear pull-ups, but dismiss lat pull-downs. I prefer the lat pull-down myself, because it’s a more standardized motion, and

Page

294

one that more accurately demonstrates the actual strength of the vertical pulling muscles as compared to the pull-up. There is a strong relationship between body composition and pull-up abilities. The higher a person’s fat-to-muscle ratio, likely the worse their pull-up performance. As we’ve also discussed, the inverse relationship between load and rep count cannot be understated. Adding or removing a little as two and a half pound plates to/from the bar can easily make or break one or more reps. Speaking of weight, in an earnest attempt to accurately track progress over time, weighing oneself prior to each pull-up training is critical, as subjects can lose weight not only between but within training sessions, by way of sweat. And a few pounds of difference in body weight can mean the difference in one to two reps, making it all the more important to rule out body weight as the cause for pull-up rep increases or decreases. By contrast, the lat pull-down stack always stays the same, so doing more reps with the same weight demonstrates progress in this activity. In other words, lat pull-downs remove guesswork. While a new ability to do pull-ups for someone who previously didn’t have this ability at all is a marker of progress, quantifying this progress is the issue. If this subject’s goal was to lose body mass and fat, then it may be a marker of that particular form of progress, as opposed to measurable hypertrophy or strength gains in his or her lats. With pull-ups, there’s no great way to know. The other area where I see there being good discussion in the realm of pull-ups versus lat pull-downs is in the logistics for when someone gets very strong in the vertical pulling pattern. This is an area in which I have some personal experience. At a body weight of 185 pounds, I performed 37 consecutive repetitions of dead hang overhand pull-ups. I also was able to perform three repetitions of pull-ups with 180 pounds of additional weight added to my body, in the form of four 45 pound plates dangling from the chain of a dip belt around my waist. As I remember it, the worst part about

performing the exercise was not the vertical pulling component, but the discomfort of having all those plates hanging between my legs, banging into my knees, and the way the belt dug into my hips and thighs. With pull-ups versus lat pull-downs, I see the progression going as follows. If someone is too weak to do pull-ups, then you should go with the lat pull-down. Ideally, both vertical pulling strength and body composition improves simultaneously. If this occurs, there’s a good chance you’ll have “unlocked” the pull-up as a training realm for that subject. Now, you can progress his or her pull-ups with more reps and more added load. After enough progress, the pull-up capabilities of some can start to bump up against logistics issues, rendering the exercise too cumbersome. Lat pull-downs to the rescue once again. For someone like me, it’s much easier to simply do sets with 300 plus pounds on the lat pull-down than to hang more than 100 pounds of extra load off my body to do pull-ups for sets of 6 to 12. The use of overhand grip versus neutral grip versus supinated grip is an effective way to customize these drills for different subjects. I do not believe in variation of exercise for variation’s sake. I do, however, strongly believe in biasing an activity so that someone has a greater likelihood of obtaining the training adaptation benefits without incurring as many deleterious side effects. The primary muscle group in vertical pulling is the latissimus dorsi, which are the most highly compressive tissues in the upper body. Their actions on the humerus demonstrate this from a joint movement perspective, as they drive humeral extension, IR, and adduction. All the motions necessitated by vertical pulling exercises. To help promote these humeral actions, I will cue a moment of pronation with the hands. Though, as I will elaborate, this does not mean that I start everyone in a pronated place with an overhand pull-up set up. If someone is a strongly compressed individual, I will likely bias his or her starting position towards more supination, with either a neutral grip or a supinated grip to start. This

Page

295

individual is still extending, internally rotating, adducting, and pronating with the humerus and hands, but thanks to these grip choices, will now be starting from a slightly more expanded place. When a compressed person tries to compress further, but has very little “compression room” left, this can present exercise blockers. To give him or her an opportunity to employ a compression strategy in order to continue to develop strength and muscle growth, I swing the pendulum towards expansion on the setup. One of the best ways to train this pattern is with rotating handles, which allow for biasing of the drill in very different ways at different points in the motion. Now, we can ER and supinate at the top of the motion, IR and pronate as you come to the mid zone, and then go back to more ER and supination at the absolute bottom. Your coaching preferences and any given client’s objectives will guide your choice of exercise “flavor” for any given drill. My hope is that you reach a point where you can paint fluidly within this model, and quickly make the most conducive decisions and adjustments on a case-by-case basis.

for those whose primary goals are competing in an iron sport or changing their aesthetic. Progression number two is the drill that involves the proper constraints and references to maximize load, and force production for these exercises. If strength and muscular development of these frontal plane, vertical pulling tissues is the subject’s goal for an individual, drill number two is a great place to end his or her progressions. If, on the other hand, you are working with someone like a tennis player, who needs to develop their biomechanical ownership in situations with fewer references and constraints, then it may be wise to move on to drills three and four, provided the subject is demonstrating training competency. The following list is the sequence of progression for frontal plane, bilateral stance, moderate load, moderate velocity, moderate duration vertical pull exercises: 1. Long seated alternating cable pull-downs 2. Seated alternating cable pull-downs

Frontal, Bilateral, Moderate Load, Moderate Velocity, Moderate Duration We’ve arrived at the final realm of exercise patterns to be covered in this book. The frontal plane for the thorax is available to train, as a vertically directed realm of upper body exercise. These drills will feature unilateral, alternating vertical pulling activity with both arms moving simultaneously. These drills will add the extra challenge of controlling the sternum from a frontal plane perspective, as well as the sagittal challenge inherent in the sagittal version of vertical pulling. There aren’t many variations for these drills beyond the four options presented below. That said, you may decide not to progress past the second one. Remember that this model is aimed at preparing users for open space environments, such as athletes competing on a court, rink, or field, rather than a model aimed at maximizing strength and muscular development

3. Short seated alternating cable pull-downs

Page

296

4. Tall kneeling alternating cable pull-downs

are primarily targeting the thorax, so the sternum is of utmost concern here, but all positions of singular anatomical pieces are relative to other anatomical pieces. Look for stillness and synchrony between all three “S” bones while displaying great alternating appendicular and rib cage activity, and you will be optimizing these drills. Dominant Position and Fitness Realms:

Coaching Points The biggest factor that you are looking for people to demonstrate here is control over the sternum. You want to see the sternum aimed at the horizon in a level manner in the start of the drill, and maintained in this position throughout the exercise. If the sternum tilts up and back, this needs to be corrected. If the sternum goes into a down pump handle position, same. If the sternum ticks back and forth in the frontal plane like a metronome, same. The sternum needs to remain still in space, as the ribcage closes on the overcoming arm side and opens on the yielding arm side. If we can own the sternum, now the goal is to maximize range of motion of the arms and ribcage. The elbow of the overcoming arm should migrate as close to the hip as possible. The hand of the yielding arm side should reach as high as possible, straight towards the ceiling. For those who have sagittal competency, sternal control, and feature full range of motion, these drills can be devastating, given their ability to feature rhythmic compression on the overcoming arm side and expansion on the yielding arm side in a really beautiful manner. If people can own the sternum, and they are displaying great range of motion in the drills, you can look in some other areas. One of the things that you should keep in mind is that you want great integration of the three central “S” bones: the sternum, sacrum, and sphenoid. When looking at people from the front, you want to see these bones remain lined up with each other. These alternating vertical pull exercises



Dominant Stance: Bilateral Dominant Plane: Sagittal Dominant Load: Moderate Dominant Velocity: Moderate

As generally recommended across training patterns, stick with the basics when it comes to vertical pulling as well. Another one to live by is “divide and conquer”. The patterns divide up into three main realms. You’ve got the control group, featuring breathing, core pelvis, and core thorax. You’ve got the athleticism realm, featuring locomotion, change of direction, throwing, and triple extension. Finally, you have the resistance training realm, featuring knee dominant, hip dominant, horizontal push, horizontal pull, vertical push, and vertical pull. Generally speaking, with breathing and core drills we want demonstration of ownership over various body positions. With the athletic drills, we want to develop fluidity, elasticity, speed, power, coordination, precision, timing, and grace. When it is time to lift weights, we’re after the development of neuromuscular strength and tissue hypertrophy. Pick the best tools for each pattern, and don’t settle for an approach just because it can kind of get the job done. With enough finagling, you might be able to unclog a toilet with a hammer, but recognize that a plunger is a better tool for that particular job.

18 What do I do With This on Monday?

Page

298

What do I do With This on Monday?

Chapter 18

If you have attended or taught a great deal of seminars, you’ll start to recognize attendee archetypes. Most are attending because they are passionate professionals, who truly care about improving their professional and personal development. These people are attentive, respectful, do their best to identify what they know, what they do not know, and make sure to put in the work following the seminar to truly synthesize this new information and incorporate it into their practice. And then, there are those whose attendance is far more mysterious. Maybe they’re there because they heard their friends were going. Maybe they’re looking for social media bragging rights, hoping documentation of their attendance will be seen as proof that they’re “that serious” about fitness. And then, there are those who seem to attend just so that they can ask their own highly nuanced, agenda-driven

questions. Whether they can’t help but try to show off in front of a crowd or what, whatever their motives, these attendees will attempt to hijack the room, sometimes leaving insufficient time for the instructor to cover all of the relevant, pertinent information. There’s also another group of attendees, whom I’ve come to call the “What Do I Do With This Information on Monday?” group. The question implies that they did not come away with sufficiently clear guidance on how to apply the presented material directly to the people they work with. Granted, if the stated value proposition of the seminar was a focus on “applied approaches”, on which it failed to deliver, resulting gripes are certainly legitimate. More often than not, academic seminars make no such promises of delving into specific applications. Instead, what typically happens is that a speaker clearly identifies the focal topic, provides definitions of pertinent terms and presents subject matter background information, as well as critically examined current approaches and practices. He or she may also itemize evidence-based claims and distinguish them from those that aren’t, provide parameters of acceptable working ranges, and, finally present current limitations on the body of knowledge and practices in the field. As is to be expected, such a thorough presentation may well require two full presentation days. And, sure enough, somewhere towards the end of Day Two, an attendee, and usually one who demonstrated poor focus for the vast majority of both days, raises his or her hand to ask the “Monday morning” question.

Admittedly, I used to get much more

Page

299

upset about the Monday morning question, viewing its inquirers as those who wanted to be spoon fed information, and to put in as little as possible but get back instantaneous rewards. I viewed these folks as users, harboring parasitic attitudes. And sure, there’s still a part of me that views them this way, as weak, coddled. There’s definitely a part of me hoping they won’t come up to speak with me one on one. One the most valuable types of educational experiences is one that helps you understand why a subject should matter to you. And, personally connecting you with the subject matter is the responsibility of the speaker. Likewise, it is on the speaker to help bridge the gap between new information being presented, and the existing domain knowledge attendees are expected to bring. It is then on the speaker to clearly and accurately cover the stated curriculum. Some of the material will be unfamiliar to only some attendees, but other material should be novel to all. There may be methods, practices, and theory that’s extremely advanced, nuanced, and challenging to understand. If you’re going into an educational event with a good understanding of the subject matter, and are presented with new, intellectually challenging information, you may find yourself unsure of how to make sense of it, and feel the desire to sit down with the new material and parse through it, and even reevaluate your prior understandings. This type of reflective process indicates both that the educational event was of high quality, and that you, as an attendee aren’t afraid of doing some intellectual lifting. By contrast, if you attended an event featuring familiar material, that didn’t challenge any of your previous notions, though you may have enjoyed being in full agreement with the presenter and gained some slight benefit from the review, on balance, such an event likely wasn’t the best use of your time. Do you want to get better, or do you want someone to confirm all your previous beliefs? Do you want to hear that you know it all, and there is nothing left to learn, or do you want a dose of reality?

You don’t know it all. Nobody does. In order to continue to grow, professionally and intellectually, we need to be exposed to experts in different disciplines, many of whom are smarter and more experienced than we are. And, if you do put yourself in these situations, rather than ask those people exactly what they can do for you, I recommend asking different questions. Ask for advice on how to improve in the presenter’s area of expertise. Better yet, first, spend some time with the material you were presented. Review it, follow some leads to supplementary materials, synthesize all of it, and, if applicable, put it in practice. Then, after you’ve been working with this concept for some time, if you can meet up with the original presenter, now, you’re equipped to have a well-informed, meaningful dialogue on the subject. Nothing worth knowing is easy to learn. If something is difficult to understand, ultimately, the only way to learn it is to spend one on one time with it. You are going to need to put in repetitions to understand challenging concepts. You’ll have to read on the topic from different authors, to experience the same material, explained in different ways. You’ll have to write down what you think you’ve read. You’ll have to train to explain this information to somebody else. Read it, write it, and then try to teach it. Do this process over and over, and you will eventually start to really understand something. As you gain experience, your eye will sharpen for identifying these concepts in the world around you. With time, you will start to connect more interrelated concepts into a holistic model. You may discard that which is least useful, or too low-level to be applicable. And you will fall in love with the process of improving yourself at your craft. So, if you’ve ever asked this question at a seminar before, the next time you’re tempted to reask it, I would suggest, instead, asking yourself where you think you should start on Monday. What follows is my answer to this question, as it pertains to the material covered in this book.

Page

300

Where Would I Start? Whenever I have a challenge in front of me, I begin strategizing my approach by asking myself questions, as I often find thoughtful questions more useful than specific answers. Questions, which signify curiosity, are a great place to start. A curious mindset enables us to do something different and new. As such, getting good at adopting a curious mindset is a valuable skill. Here are the primary questions that I asked myself regarding this material: 1. Can you look at your programs? • Can you rename all the exercises in your programs according to this nomenclature? 2. Are you missing a movement pattern in someone’s program? • Do you need to plug it in? 3. Are you missing a stance in someone’s program? • Do you need to plug it in? 4. Are you missing a plane in someone’s program? • Do you know how to coach it? 5. Are you missing a quantitative domain in someone’s program? • Do you need to plug it in? If you go through the process of thoroughly answering all these questions, you will be in a great starting shape. If you coach enough different people with different goals, you will probably see that every pattern will make its way into a program somewhere. Eventually, you will probably find every stance and plane somewhere in there. You will identify great variety in the quantitative realms available to coach. And, hopefully, you will seize ample opportunity to use much of the information in this book within your coaching. This is where your journey begins. The real journey is gaining experience, which comes through a combination of failures and successes, and both afford us opportunities for growth. Do not be afraid of failure, and do not be consumed by your success. Both will ebb and flow, again and again. Both teach us lessons, and

bring tools with which to create our own sets of principles. Once you start crafting yours, you will refine them, and, with time and practice, move towards becoming their master-level practitioner. As we discussed, there are no shortcuts towards mastery, and nobody but you can propel you towards it. Those who hope to skip over that legwork are highly unlikely to become masters of their craft.

Designing Programs for Different Populations Below, I’ve outlined a straightforward seven-step process for how to use this model to create training programs for different populations. Earlier in this chapter, we started by inspecting previous programs you have written. Did you include all of the patterns, stances, planes, and quantitative domains that are available to train? Were there some glaring holes in certain people’s programs? Upon inspection, did you identify room for refinement of some of your programming? If any of the above is true, here’s where I would recommend to start: 1. Identify who you are working with • Athlete • General population • Special population 2. Map out necessary movement patterns 3. Map out the necessary planes 4. Map out necessary stances 5. Map out necessary loading 6. Map out necessary velocities 7. Map out necessary durations As we will clearly see when we examine two different programs for two drastically different athletes in a bit, the broad term “athlete” is absolutely too broad for our purposes. There are, however, some programming commonalities across all athletes that significantly differ from both general and special population programming. Inside the realm of motor patterns, there are three different primary groups. There are the control patterns, comprised of breathing and core exercises. There are the athletic patterns,

Page

301

featuring locomotion, change of direction, triple extension, and throwing. Finally, there are the resistance training patterns, that include knee dominant, hip dominant, horizontal pushing, horizontal pulling, vertical pushing, and vertical pulling. When working with athletes, the athletic patterns will definitely be included, and will oftentimes be a focal point of the training system. The other patterns will be included in the development of athletes, and athletes will have the broadest sweep of patterns included in their program of our three groups of training populations. General population trainees are healthy adults. That excludes children or adolescents, as well as geriatric individuals. General population trainees should also have no medical contraindications, including any kind of severe joint pain problem, disease, or disability. These individuals would be people seeking general fitness development, aesthetically-driven changes, or maintenance of health as they approach advanced age. While general population clients may receive something from all patterns, there will be less focus on the athletic patterns and the control patterns. Instead, more focus will be placed on the resistance training patterns. In addition to resistance training, the locomotion pattern would be used, but typically at lower velocities as compared to athletes. Locomotion for the general population would tend to be shifted towards moderate and long duration activities, whereas athletes would receive more high velocity, low duration locomotion. Maintenance/acquisition of muscle mass, along with maintenance/improvements in aerobic fitness are the primary fitness focal points for general population health, wellness, and mortality/ morbidity prevention. Focusing on the control patterns and the athletic patterns for general population clients is likely to provide low-yield stimuli for the parameters that are most important to their needs. Special population trainees include children, the elderly, pregnant women, the obese, individuals with metabolic, psychological, and immune diseases, and individuals with severe joint pain from injuries or syndromes. These individuals

require special training and coaching considerations. Oftentimes, risk mitigation is of primary concern when working with these populations, particularly in the early phases of their training. Special population trainees need fitness in their lives, but care and caution must be exercised to avoid set-backs, complications, or adverse events in their exercise experiences. Each special population demographic requires specialized examination, and a customized approach for their specific needs. The patterns that will be the focal point for special population trainees will tend to be the same as those used for general population individuals, again promoting the extension of useful, high functioning years of life through the upkeep and development of adequate levels of muscle mass/force production, and aerobic fitness. When muscle mass and aerobic fitness falls off below a certain threshold, both the subject’s functionality and his or her ability to ward off lethal diseases and conditions is significantly impacted. Different foci may arise for specific special populations. For instance, individuals with asthma may benefit greatly from including a focus on the breathing pattern in their training. When in doubt with special populations, shift them towards lower load, lower velocity, and longer duration quantitative realms, to mitigate exercise-related risks. A mindset of continuing to progress fitness should be kept by exercise professionals working with special population individuals, though the progression pace should be less aggressive than general population and certainly athlete trainees. In this seven step process of population-specific programming, the key word throughout is “necessary”. This word is closely linked to perhaps the most important term within the program design domain, aka “Needs Analysis”. Your aim as an exercise professional is to provide people with fitness stimulation that targets development of the parameters on which they most heavily rely in their lives. This is an area of discussion that I find really fascinating, in part due to its controversial nature. What do general population and special population people “need”? If you examine the majority

Page

302

of research and funding in this area, you see that there is good evidence for a link between fitness and body composition and likelihood of death. The greatest predictor of all-cause mortality is the aerobic fitness of an individual, measured as VO2. When people are below the cutoff for low aerobic fitness, their risk of dying in a five year window doubles compared to their above-the-cutoff peers. Consequently, the most important thing to do to stave off someone’s demise is to help keep his or her VO2 at a healthy level. That’s well and good, but there’s a problem with the cardio-centric exercise mindset as the primary means to the end of extended quantity and quality of life. This is because, as a result of the aging process, people lose appreciable levels of muscle mass. When muscle mass falls below a certain threshold, humans no longer possess the propulsive thrust to move their bodies through space with enough force and velocity to create the need for a cardiac response. When seeking to optimize human lifespan, the first priority is to maintain the demand side of the system, and the second is to maintain the supply side. To satisfy the first priority, the human in question must reach and maintain a threshold level of muscle mass/force production. This level of muscle mass will ensure that the human can move his or her limbs and center of mass through space with requisite intensity for stimulating the cardiorespiratory system to kick into gear and provide the body with blood to oxygenate working tissues, and remove waste products from local working environments. The cardiorespiratory system only responds to demand, and the working tissues are what creates it. Second, you have to train the cardiorespiratory system so that it can continue to supply blood to the periphery and perform appropriate levels of gas exchange to support homeostasis and exercise perturbations to the system. When the heart is trained, it maintains a higher maximal heart rate as people age compared to an untrained heart, and the stroke volume of a trained heart is significantly greater than an untrained heart. Moreover, exercising in a progressive manner

results in an increased sense of purpose and efficacy. The physical state of the body will impact the chemical and overall physiological status of the brain. Your brain will interpret these signals by sensing a state of confidence and clarity. In such a state, you will continue to look, feel, and perform better than your age-matched controls in a population comparison. In order to effectively use this book for this kind of needs analysis for training athletes, you would want to watch the sport in question so as to familiarize yourself with the major movements used therein. Next, you would categorize the sport movements within the confines of our model. It’s often helpful to actually count the movements that the athlete makes during game play, and then tally them up to identify the most commonly used. What are the most dominant motor patterns? What are the dominant loads, velocities, and movement durations the athlete encounters? What kinds of anthropometric characteristics does the athlete need to display? Once you identify all those things, you have a pretty clear idea of what you need to include in this athlete’s training plan to help him or her succeed in that sport. Just as important, you might also come away with a very good idea about what not to include in his or her training plan, which would be anything that hinders or unnecessarily stresses the athlete while doing little to improve him or her in that specific sport.

Creating Programs First, you select the appropriate exercise domains. Doing this implies selecting the pattern, stance, and plane from the qualitative side, and the load, velocity, and duration from the quantitative side. Once you have arrived at all the relevant exercise domains for an individual, now you have to select the appropriate exercise for that subject. How do you select the optimal exercises for someone? Exercise selection should follow the Big Ten Principles of Progression. If you are just starting to work with a person, you would select the movement patterns that you are going to train. From there,

Page

303

you would go to the sagittal plane, bilateral stance options for that pattern, and you would start them with exercise number one from the list of drills provided to you in this book. In very rare instances, there is no sagittal plane, bilateral stance option for a pattern (ex: locomotion), in which case, you would skip to the sagittal front/back stance. Exercise number one in the sagittal plane, bilateral stance category for a given motor pattern should be the easiest drill to execute with sensorimotor competency. Once the subject has demonstrated that they can consistently execute the pattern in that drill with sensorimotor competency, you can move them to exercise number two. When the subject becomes proficient at bilateral stance, sagittal drills with that pattern, you can introduce him or her to front/back stance activities. When you introduce someone to front/back stance variations, start with the sagittal plane options when available, and start with exercise number one in that list of drills. Once proficient at front/back, sagittal drills for a pattern, you can move folks to frontal plane drills done in a bilateral stance when available. Once they attain proficiency with bilateral stance, frontal plane drills, you can progress to front/back, frontal plane drills, and from there to lateral stance, frontal plane drills. You repeat this process through to transverse plane options, following the same stance order for each plane. All you’re doing is following the Principles of Progression. Sometimes it just helps to have someone point out the obvious at these stages. The order of the exercises in each pattern in this book has been written in the sequence that you would use to unveil each pattern, should you choose to include that pattern in the subject’s training life. What about things like sets, reps, rest periods, training frequency, etc.? Those are topics that are outside the scope of this book. There are many textbooks that cover these particular topics, as well as other aspects of the physiological development side of program design. I would highly recommend reading the work of Mike Israetel for becoming a better thinker as it pertains to program design. While

his programming focus is primarily on hypertrophy, his theoretical concepts, such as the Minimum Effective Volume to Maximum Recoverable Volume continuum, and the Stimulus to Fatigue Ratio, are probably universal concepts that should be applied to all realms of fitness development. If you understand the physiological fitness quality that you are looking for, then you can determine the quantitative parameters of how to train the relevant patterns. Once you’ve done this, you would start the subject on his or her training journey by providing him or her with the Minimum Effective Volume to improve fitness in this specific area. You would then progress him or her by adding slightly more volume in a sequential manner, until the subject reaches their Maximum Recoverable Volume. Once you have found these two book ends of training volume, you would take the person through progressively more intense training blocks, where you would begin at the Minimum side and move them towards the Maximal side over the course of each block. The manipulation of sets, reps, rest periods, and training frequency are the variables that you would tune for each go-around.

Sample Programs As a preamble to this section, I want to simply say that this is not a book on program design, a couple of which I have written previously. Rather than attempt to do justice to this particular topic, the intent here is to present a skeleton version of an off-season program for a front 7, college football player, and an off-season program for a male professional tennis player. These two athletes are very different specimens, with very different needs. As such, the contrasts in their programs should be fairly clear. The activity types each athlete should perform during his respective training sessions will be itemized within each respective program, below. Each activity will first be described from a qualitative perspective, by listing the pattern, stance, and plane. Following that, an abbreviation will be given for the quantitative elements.

Page

304

Loading will be abbreviated as either HL, ML, or LL (High Load, Moderate Load, or Low Load). Velocity will be abbreviated as either HV, MV, or LV (High Velocity, Moderate Velocity, or Low Velocity). Duration will be abbreviated as either LD, MD, or SD (Long Duration, Moderate Duration, or Short Duration). Note, however, that specific exercises are unspecified, leaving the coach the freedom to tailor selections to the sensorimotor competency proficiency of the specific athlete. College Football Front Seven Player • Needs: Hypertrophy, Strength, Power • Dominant patterns Locomotion, COD, Triple Extension, Hip Dom, Knee Dom, Pushing, Pulling Doesn’t mean these are the only things that get trained • Dominant plane Sagittal Doesn’t mean we don’t do the other planes • Dominant stance Bilateral and Front/Back Doesn’t mean we don’t do lateral stance Off-season Program, 4 days per week • One day will have more of an emphasis on upper body hypertrophy • One day will have more of an emphasis on lower body hypertrophy • One day will have more of an emphasis on low velocity strength • One day will have more of an emphasis on high velocity strength Day 1: High Velocity Strength I. Warm-Up A1. Thorax Core, Sagittal, Bilateral, LL, LV, MD, 2 x 40 seconds A2. Pelvis Core, Sagittal, Bilateral, LL, LV, MD, 2 x 40 seconds II. Jumping and Throwing A1. Triple Extension, Sagittal, Bilateral, LL, HV, SD, 2 x 10

A2. Throwing, Sagittal Linear, Bilateral, LL, HV, SD, 2 x 10 B1. Triple Extension, Sagittal, Front/ Back, LL, HV, SD, 2 x 10 B2. Throwing, Sagittal Linear, Front/ Back, LL, HV, SD, 2 x 10 III. Speed and Agility A. Locomotion, Triplanar, Front/Back, LL, HV, SD, 5 x 10 @ 10 yards B. COD, Sagittal, Front/Back, LL, HV, SD, 5 x 10 @ 10 yards w/1 COD IV. Heavy Ballistics A. Triple Extension, Sagittal, Bilateral, HL (Olympic lift), HV, SD, 3 x 5 @ 75% B. Triple Extension, Sagittal, Bilateral, HL (Strongman), HV, SD, 3 x 5 @ heavy V. Loaded Carries A. Locomotion, Sagittal, Front/Back, ML, MV, MD, 5 x 60 feet VI. Conditioning Intervals A. Locomotion, Sagittal, Front/Back, LL, MV, MD, 5 x 15:45 @ 70% Day 2: Low Velocity Strength I. Warm-up A1. Thorax Core, Sagittal, Front/Back, LL, LV, MD, 2 x 40 seconds A2. Pelvis Core, Frontal, Front/Back, LL, LV, MD, 2 x 40 seconds II. Jumping and Throwing A1. Triple Extension, Sagittal, Bilateral, LL, LV, SD, 2 x 8 A2. Throwing, Sagittal Linear, Bilateral, LL, LV, SD, 2 x 8 III. Main Lift, Part 1 A1. Knee Dominant, Sagittal, Bilateral, HL, LV, SD, 3 x 5 @ 82% A2. Horizontal Push, Sagittal, Bilateral, HL, LV, SD, 3 x 5 @ 82% IV. Intermission/Active Recovery A1. Locomotion, Sagittal, Front/Back, LL, MV, MD, 3 x 15:45 @60% A2. Throwing, Frontal, Front/Back, LL, LV, MD, 2 x 5 each side V. Main Lift, Part 2 B1. Hip Dominant, Sagittal, Bilateral, HL, LV, SD, 3 x 5 @ 82% B2. Vertical Push, Sagittal, Bilateral, HL, LV, SD, 3 x 5 @ 82%

Page

305

VI. Cool Down/Active Recovery A. Locomotion, Triplanar, Front/Back, LL, MV, MD, 3 x 15:45 @ 60% Day 3: Upper Body Hypertrophy I. Warm-Up A1. Thorax Core, Frontal, Bilateral, LL, LV, MD, 2 x 40 sec A2. Pelvis Core, Sagittal, Bilateral, LL, LV, MD, 2 x 40 sec II. Speed and Agility A. Locomotion, Triplanar, Front/Back, LL, HV, SD, 5 x 10 yds B. COD, Frontal, Lateral, LL, HV, SD, 5 x 10 yds w/1 COD III. Main Lift A1. Horizontal Push, Sagittal, Bilateral, ML, MV-SV, MD, 3 x 10 @ 8 to 10 RPE A2. Vertical Pull, Sagittal, Bilateral, ML, MV-SV, MD, 3 x 10 @ 8 to 10 RPE B1. Vertical Push, Sagittal, Bilateral, ML, MV-SV, MD, 3 x 10 @ 8 to 10 RPE B2. Horizontal Pull, Sagittal, Bilateral, ML, MV-SV, MD, 3 x 10 @ 8 to 10 RPE IV. Accessory Work A1. Biceps curls, 3 x 10 A2. Triceps push-down, 3 x 10 A3. Shoulder lateral raises, 3 x 10 Day 4: Lower Body Hypertrophy I. Warm-Up A1. Thorax Core, Sagittal, Bilateral, LL, LV, MD, 2 x 40 sec A2. Pelvis Core, Sagittal, Bilateral, LL, LV, MD, 2 x 40 sec II. Jumping and Throwing A1. Triple Extension, Sagittal, Front/ Back, 2 x 8 A2. Throwing, Sagittal, Front/Back, 2 x 8 III. Main Lift, Part 1 A1. Knee Dom, Sagittal, Bilateral, ML, MV-SV, MD, 3 x 10 @ 8-10 RPE A2. Hip Dom, Sagittal, Front/Back, ML, SV, MD, 3 x 10 each leg @ 4-6 RPE IV. Intermission/Active Recovery A1. Locomotion, Sagittal, Front/Back, 3 x

15:45 @ 60% A2. Throwing, Frontal, Front/Back, 3 x 5 each side V. Main Lift, Part 2 B1. Hip Dom, Sagittal, Bilateral, ML, MV- SV, MD, 3 x 10 @ 8-10 RPE B2. Knee Dom, Frontal, Front/Back, ML, SV, MD, 3 x 10 each leg @ 4-6 RPE Professional Male Tennis Player • Needs: High velocity transverse and frontal strength Maintain repeat sprint ability fitness • Dominant patterns Locomotion, COD, Throwing, Core Thorax, Core Pelvis, Knee Dom, Hip Dom • Dominant planes Frontal (pelvis), Transverse (thorax) • Dominant stances Lateral, Front/Back





Off-season Program, 3 Days per Week • One day per week that focuses on physiology…maintenance of strength, hypertrophy, and power, along with ESD • One day per week high velocity triplanar strength focused • One day per week low velocity triplanar sensorimotor focused • Athlete practices sport 5 days/week Day 1: Maintenance of Strength, Power, Hypertrophy, and Energy System Development I. Warm-Up A1. Core Thorax, Sagittal, Bilateral, LL, LV, MD, 2 x 60 sec A2. Core Pelvis, Sagittal, Bilateral, LL, LV, MD, 2 x 60 sec II. Jumping and Throwing A1. Triple Extension, Sagittal, Bilateral, LL, HV, SD, 2 x 10 A2. Throwing, Frontal, Front/Back, LL, HV, SD, 2 x 10 III. Speed and Agility A. Locomotion, Triplanar, Front/Back, LL,

Page

306

HV, SD, 5 x 10 B. COD, Sagittal, Front/Back, LL, HV, SD, 5 x 10 w/1 COD IV. Heavy Ballistics A. Triple Extension, Sagittal, Bilateral, HL (strongman), HV, SD, 2 x 5 V. Main Lift A1. Hip Dom, Sagittal, Front/Back, ML, MV-SV, MD, 2 x 10, @ 8-10 RPE A2. Horizontal Push, Sagittal, Bilateral, ML, MV-SV, MD, 2 x 10, @ 8-10 RPE B1. Knee Dom, Sagittal, Bilateral, ML, MV-SV, MD, 2 x 10, @ 8-10 RPE B2. Vertical Pull, Sagittal, Bilateral, ML, MV-SV, MD, 2 x 10, @ 8-10 RPE VI. Interval ESD A. Locomotion, Triplanar, Front/Back, LL, MV, MD, 15:45 x 5 B. Locomotion, Frontal, Front/Back, LL, MV, MD, 15:45 x 5 Day 2: High Velocity Tri-Planar Strength I. Warm-up A1. Core Thorax, Sagittal, Bilateral, LL, LV, MD, 2 x 60 sec A2. Core Pelvis, Sagittal, Bilateral, LL, LV, MD, 2 x 60 sec B1. Knee Dom, Frontal, Front/Back, LL, LV, MD, 2 x 10 each side B2. Horizontal Push, Transverse, Bilateral, LL, LV, MD, 2 x 10 each hand II. Jumping and Throwing A1. Triple Extension, Frontal, Lateral, LL, HV, SD, 3 x 10 each leg A2. Throwing, Frontal, Front/Back, LL, HV, SD, 3 x 10 each side B1. Triple Extension, Transverse, Bilateral, LL, HV, SD, 3 x 10 B2. Throwing, Frontal, Lateral, LL, HV, SD, 3 x 10 each side III. Speed and Agility A. Locomotion, Triplanar, Front/Back, LL, HV, SD, 5 x 10 yds B. COD, Frontal, Bilateral, LL, HV, SD, 3 x 10 yds w/1 COD, 3 x 20 yds w/2 COD C. COD, Transv, Lateral, LL, HV, SD, 3 x 10 yds w/1 COD, 3 x 20 yds w/2COD

IV. Intervals A. Locomotion, Frontal, Front/Back, LL, MV, MD, 15:45 x 5 @ 70% B. COD, Frontal, Lateral (Slideboard), LL, MV, MD, 30:30 x 5 @ 70% Day 3: Sensorimotor Dominant I. Warm-up A1. Core Thorax, Sagittal, Bilateral, 2 x 60 sec A2. Core Pelvis, Sagittal, Bilateral, 2 x 60 sec B1. Core Thorax, Transverse, Bilateral, 2 x 60 sec B2., Core Pelvis, Frontal, Front/Back, 2 x 60 sec II. Loaded Movements A1. Knee Dom, Frontal, Front/Back, ML, SV, MD, 3 x 10 each side A2. Vertical Pull, Frontal, Bilateral, ML, SV, MD, 3 x 10 each side A3. Throwing, Frontal, Front/Back, ML, SV, MD, 3 x 5 each side A4. Throwing, Frontal, Front/Back, LL, HV, SD, 3 x 10 each side B1. Hip Dom, Frontal, Lateral, ML, SV, MD, 3 x 10 each side B2. Horizontal Push, Transverse, Bilateral, ML, SV, MD, 3 x 10 each side B3. Throwing, Frontal, Lateral, ML, SV, MD, 3 x 5 each side B4. Throwing, Frontal, Lateral, LL, HV, SD, 3 x 10 each side

19 Conclusions

Page

308

Conclusions

Chapter 19

There are no absolutes. There is no black and white. Everything is gradients of shades of gray. That is the ultimate limitation of this model. I have spent a good part of my life learning and practicing this theory, and then ultimately writing it down in this book. And yet, my strong conviction of its value notwithstanding, I know the backbone of the model is fundamentally ambiguous. In reality, the lines seriously blur between the motor patterns this model neatly separates into thirteen distinct categories. The stances all exist on a continuum, and if there is a plane, the only one that would really exist would be transverse. Movement is this expression of expansion and compression, which coexist and happen in tandem at all times, with one or the other only slightly dominating a given region at a given time, causing pressure to shift in a given direction. A 79% 1RM repetition is not magically a different kind of repetition compared to an 81% 1RM repetition. The run that took you 1:55 doesn’t really live in a different category of exercise from the one that took 2:03.

But, for all of its inexactness, this model is how I make working decisions about the exercises I select, and how I coach these exercises. I fall back on the Principles of Progression to help me select the optimal exercises which will enable the user to get the desired adaptations while limiting undesirable side effects. For all of its inexactness, I wanted to share my coaching approach in a systematic, reusable way. When I’m working directly with a receptive subject with talent for motor control, amazing things happen in those sessions. Range of motion changes dramatically. Jumping and sprinting changes dramatically. Strength changes dramatically. But not all coaching is created equal. Teaching is my calling, and I plan to answer that call until the end of my days. But teaching, too, has its limitations. Probably the biggest of these is each student’s subjective interpretation of the subject matter. A surprising number of students hear a distorted version of the intended message, and a select group typically catches the intended meaning the teacher threw out. Of those students, an even smaller group is able to critically examine the message, and then make it their own. Finally, the most uncommon of students go above and beyond the message and create a new and improved message to teach the world. As someone who hedges his bets, I don’t count on encountering only the most dedicated, driven students. Like any teacher, all I can do is teach my lessons in an accessible manner as possible. Thus increasing the likelihood of my message being interpreted correctly by the greatest number of people. I want those people to understand, synthesize, practice and vet what is correct and incorrect about my material.

Page

309

And, yes, I want it to be ripped to pieces by brilliant minds, so only the best of it stands the test of time. This book was pieced together from discoveries that preceded me. I’ve simply tried to organize them into a model that makes my, and hopefully your, working life easier. My explanations of how I think these concepts work are my subjective interpretations of the teachings of others. I offer this book to you, as my interpretation of truth about trainable, human movement. My hope is that the truth herein resonates with you, the reader, and renders itself useful to you. In fact, one measure of success for this book is that, with time, the model outlined herein becomes less “mine”, and more the property of the fitness community. I already have plans for the second edition, on which I hope to collaborate with as many specialized experts as possible. In that edition, rather than write the chapter on horizontal pushing, I’d want one of the top horizontal pushing experts in the world to write that chapter, and for the person that knows the most about the squat to contribute to the knee dominant section, and so on. Not unlike life itself, in order to survive, I want this model to evolve, to mutate, to adapt. I do not believe in ultimate answers so much as in better questions. I believe in incomplete operating systems that serve as launchpads for eager workers. I believe in loving one’s work passionately and consumingly, but welcoming criticism just as passionately and sincerely. Here, I offer you my sweat, my thoughts, my soul on paper. And, as much as I want you to find it truthful and helpful to you and those you coach, if you stumble on ideas lacking accuracy or usefulness, I hope you initiate a dialogue to raise these concerns. I love this field, including the study of human expressions. As with any great love, you must offer it in totality, and hold on for a ride of unbelievable

highs and insufferable lows. Here’s to giving of ourselves freely, owning what we put out into the world, accepting what comes back from our offerings, always being willing to adapt and change, and never ceasing to strive for excellence along the way.