With 2022 winding down, I'm using this last week of the year to direct you to some of the most popular content of the past 12 months at EricCressey.com, as this "series" has been quite popular over the past few years. Today, we start with the most popular articles of the year; these are the pieces that received the most traffic, according to my hosting statistics.
1. Why We Shouldn't Compare Kids in Sports- One of the more concerning trends I’m seeing on the youth sports scene is the how often the youngest kids are compared to their peers. In this article, I dug in on the problems with this approach:
2.Positions vs. Pressures- About 15 years ago, I attended a two-day course with Dr. William Brady, a well respected chiropractor and manual therapist in the Boston area. During the event, he said, "Biomechanics is a combination of physics and biology. Put another way, it is the study of load applied to human tissue." It was the most succinct and encompassing definition of biomechanics that I'd heard, so I frantically scribbled it down in my notes - and I've had it in the back of my mind to this day each time I've evaluated movement. This article explains why.
3. Why You Can't Feel Your Serratus Anterior Working- I received an inquiry from a follower who asked why it's so hard to "feel" serratus anterior targeted exercises. There's a fair amount to unpack in this regard, so I recorded this video on the topic.
5. Exercise of the Week: Supported Elbow CARs - This was my New Year's Day 2022 post, and it stood the test of time as one of the most popular pieces of content for the year.
I'll be back soon with another "Best of 2022" feature. Up next, the top guest posts of the year!
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About 15 years ago, I attended a two-day course with Dr. William Brady, a well respected chiropractor and manual therapist in the Boston area. During the event, he said this:
"Biomechanics is a combination of physics and biology. Put another way, it is the study of load applied to human tissue."
It was the most succinct and encompassing definition of biomechanics that I'd heard, so I frantically scribbled it down in my notes - and I've had it in the back of my mind to this day each time I've evaluated movement.
Assessments are very important. However, they're always limited in their scope, especially when an assessment is scaled back to a quicker "screen."
Just because someone has good passive range of motion on a table doesn't mean that they'll be able to pick that ROM up actively or demonstrate it in a weight-bearing athletic movement at higher speeds with higher forces.
Further, just because they look good at higher speeds with higher forces doesn't mean that there isn't an element of stress in the system that we can't appreciate.
And finally, that stress may be highly variable based on a wide variety of factors, both intrinsic (e.g., accumulated fatigue, growth spurts) and extrinsic (e.g., environmental conditions, terrain).
Tons of athletes can get to positions like this, but how many can do so safely - and repeatedly?
When I talk with athletes and review video, I always make sure that I'm discussing both positions and pressures. Range-of-motion is part of the discussion, but ground reaction forces and how we create stiffness via airflow/intra-abdominal pressure, neuromuscular recruitment, and the fascial system can't be overlooked.
This is why the industry-wide trend toward more comprehensive information gathering is invaluable. We've always had our classic orthopedic posture and ROM tests, usually paired with less-than-functional dynamometer strength measurements and some provocative tests to rule out the bad stuff. Now, though, we've got things like force plates to look at how we interact with the ground. And we've got the Proteus, which I've called a "rotational force plate" to help us determine how those ground reaction forces eventually work their way up the chain.
We've got far more tools for evaluating body composition, sleep quality, heart rate, fatigue status, workload, and much, much more. So, it's a very exciting time - but only if we appreciate that both positions and pressures matter.
Many of these principles are espoused in Mike Reinold and my Functional Stability Training series, so I'd encourage you to check them out if you'd like to dig deeper.
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We're excited to welcome Dr. Scott Selbie, the CEO and co-founder of Theia Markerless, to the podcast. In this episode, Scott discusses the history of biomechanics as it relates to injury prevention and performance enhancement in the baseball world, and reflects on the benefits and shortcomings of the current technology being utilized in this regard. Scott is one of the brightest minds leading the charge to make sure that the data coaches use is of the highest quality and utility. We've started using Theia at Cressey Sports Performance - Florida and have been blown away at its potential, and are excited at how it's helping us help athletes to feel and perform better.
This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. It’s an all-in-one superfood supplement with 75 whole-food sourced ingredients designed to support your body’s nutrition needs across 5 critical areas of health: 1) energy, 2) immunity, 3) gut health, 4) hormonal support, and 5) healthy aging. Head to www.AthleticGreens.com/cressey and claim my special offer today - 10 FREE travel packs - with your first purchase. I use this product daily myself and highly recommend it to our athletes as well. I'd encourage you to give it a shot, too - especially with this great offer.
Podcast Feedback
If you like what you hear, we'd be thrilled if you'd consider subscribing to the podcast and leaving us an iTunes review. You can do so HERE.
And, we welcome your suggestions for future guests and questions. Just email elitebaseballpodcast@gmail.com.
Thank you for your continued support!
Sign-up Today for our FREE Baseball Newsletter and Receive Instant Access to a 47-minute Presentation from Eric Cressey on Individualizing the Management of Overhead Athletes!
We're excited to welcome biomechanist and researcher Dr. Glenn Fleisig of the American Sports Medicine Institute to this week's podcast. Glenn speaks to how baseball biomechanics research has evolved over the years, highlights key research, and talks about where the field is headed in the years ahead.
How Glenn become one of the first to integrate biomechanics into the game of baseball
How his work as a biomechanist has brought him to be an influencer in the world of athletic performance
How biomechanics has evolved since Glenn first began his work in the field in the early 1980s
How technology has improved over Glenn’s career as a biomechanist and what up-and-coming advancements – like markerless motion capture – are transforming the field
How does the advancement of technology impact the barrier of entry into the world of biomechanics ,and what this means for quality research and forward progress in the industry
What research of his Glenn recommends listeners to read up on
How players, parents, and coaches alike can best mitigate the risk of injury in throwers
Why 100 innings pitched in a calendar year is the golden standard for limiting a pitcher’s risk for injury
What research states about the impact of long toss and weighted balls on players’ arms, specifically the shoulder and elbow
Where Glenn’s research has been misinterpreted in recent years and what clarity he hopes to bring to those searching for answers in scientific research
How the access to biomechanical technology (such as wearable devices) impacts the growth of sports performance science
What biomechanical systems and devices are best for collecting meaningful data on throwing athletes
How in-game biomechanics tools are transforming the baseball landscape and how these systems can be used most effectively to develop better baseball players
What the next frontier for biomechanics in baseball is
Where the industry is falling short of serving athletes and why standardization is required to provide clarity and bring efficiency to the work of biomechanists in sport
This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. It’s an all-in-one superfood supplement with 75 whole-food sourced ingredients designed to support your body’s nutrition needs across 5 critical areas of health: 1) energy, 2) immunity, 3) gut health, 4) hormonal support, and 5) healthy aging. Head to www.AthleticGreens.com/cressey and claim my special offer today - 20 FREE travel packs (valued at $79) - with your first purchase. I use this product daily myself and highly recommend it to our athletes as well. I'd encourage you to give it a shot, too - especially with this great offer.
Podcast Feedback
If you like what you hear, we'd be thrilled if you'd consider subscribing to the podcast and leaving us an iTunes review. You can do so HERE.
And, we welcome your suggestions for future guests and questions. Just email elitebaseballpodcast@gmail.com.
Thank you for your continued support!
Sign-up Today for our FREE Baseball Newsletter and Receive Instant Access to a 47-minute Presentation from Eric Cressey on Individualizing the Management of Overhead Athletes!
Last year, I wrote a newsletter on my awesome experience at Dr. William Brady's biomechanics course in Boston, MA. It was without a doubt one of the most beneficial events I've attended in recent years (in spite of being the only non-manual therapist in attendance).
It's that time of year again; Dr. Brady's 2009 event is scheduled for October 17-18 (in Boston again). If you treat patients, it's well worth the investment. You can sign up HERE.
Now, Dr. Brady also has a new online subscription that's loaded with similarly great content. It's already a great deal, but to sweeten it even further, he hooked me up with a discount for my readers who plan to attend. Here's what he's got for you (straight from the man himself):
I went ahead and set up a discount for the guys who sign up from your site. The professionals can get $75 off and students can get $49 off the regular price of $180 and $118 - so it ends up as $105 and $69 per month, respectively. Professional (anyone not in school) can type "cresseypro" and students currently in school or graduated in the last six months (yes, we check) "cresseystudent" in the promotion code area.
Definitely check it out; you can get more information at www.IntegrativeDiagnosis.
Originally featured at charlespoliquin.net
Even the best athletes are limited by their most significant weaknesses. For some athletes, weaknesses may be mental barriers along the lines of fear of playing in front of large crowds, or getting too fired up before a big contest. Others may find that the chink in their armor rests with some sport-specific technique, such as shooting free throws. While these two realms can best be handled by the athletes' head coaches and are therefore largely outside of the control of a strength and conditioning coach, there are several categories of weak links over which a strength and conditioning specialist can have profound impacts. These impacts can favorably influence athletes' performance while reducing the risk of injury. With that in mind, what follows is far from an exhaustive list of the weaknesses that strength and conditioning professionals may observe, especially given the wide variety of sports one encounters and the fact that the list does not delve into neural, hormonal, or metabolic factors. Nonetheless, in my experience, these are the ten most common biomechanical weak links in athletes:
1. Poor Frontal Plane Stability at the Hips: Frontal plane stability in the lower body is dependent on the interaction of several muscle groups, most notably the three gluteals, tensor fascia latae (TFL), adductors, and quadratus lumborum (QL). This weakness is particularly evident when an athlete performs a single-leg excursion and the knee falls excessively inward or (less commonly) outward. Generally speaking, weakness of the hip abductors – most notably the gluteus medius and minimus – is the primary culprit when it comes to the knee falling medially, as the adductors, QL, and TFL tend to be overactive. However, lateral deviation of the femur and knee is quite common in skating athletes, as they tend to be very abductor dominant and more susceptible to adductor strains as a result. In both cases, closed-chain exercises to stress the hip abductors or adductors are warranted; in other words, keep your athletes off those sissy obstetrician machines, as they lead to a host of dysfunction that's far worse that the weakness the athlete already demonstrates! For the abductors, I prefer mini-band sidesteps and body weight box squats with the mini-band wrapped around the knees. For the adductors, you'll have a hard time topping lunges to different angles, sumo deadlifts, wide-stance pull-throughs, and Bulgarian squats.
2. Weak Posterior Chain: Big, fluffy bodybuilder quads might be all well and good if you're into getting all oiled up and "competing" in posing trunks, but the fact of the matter is that the quadriceps take a back seat to the posterior chain (hip and lumbar extensors) when it comes to athletic performance. Compared to the quads, the glutes and hamstrings are more powerful muscles with a higher proportion of fast-twitch fibers. Nonetheless, I'm constantly amazed at how many coaches and athletes fail to tap into this strength and power potential; they seem perfectly content with just banging away with quad-dominant squats, all the while reinforcing muscular imbalances at both the knee and hip joints. The muscles of the posterior chain are not only capable of significantly improving an athlete's performance, but also of decelerating knee and hip flexion. You mustn't look any further than a coaches' athletes' history of hamstring and hip flexor strains, non-contact knee injuries, and chronic lower back pain to recognize that he probably doesn't appreciate the value of posterior chain training. Or, he may appreciate it, but have no idea how to integrate it optimally. The best remedies for this problem are deadlift variations, Olympic lifts, good mornings, glute-ham raises, reverse hypers, back extensions, and hip-dominant lunges and step-ups. Some quad work is still important, as these muscles aren't completely "all show and no go," but considering most athletes are quad-dominant in the first place, you can usually devote at least 75% of your lower body training to the aforementioned exercises (including Olympic lifts and single-leg work, which have appreciable overlap).
Regarding the optimal integration of posterior chain work, I'm referring to the fact that many athletes have altered firing patterns within the posterior chain due to lower crossed syndrome. In this scenario, the hip flexors are overactive and therefore reciprocally inhibit the gluteus maximus. Without contribution of the gluteus maximus to hip extension, the hamstrings and lumbar erector spinae muscles must work overtime (synergistic dominance). There is marked anterior tilt of the pelvis and an accentuated lordotic curve at the lumbar spine. Moreover, the rectus abdominus is inhibited by the overactive erector spinae. With the gluteus maximus and rectus abdominus both at a mechanical disadvantage, one cannot optimally posteriorly tilt the pelvis (important to the completion of hip extension), so there is lumbar extension to compensate for a lack of complete hip extension. You can see this quite commonly in those who hit sticking points in their deadlifts at lockout and simply lean back to lock out the weight instead of pushing the hips forward simultaneously. Rather than firing in the order hams-glutes- contralateral erectors-ipsilateral erectors, athletes will simply jump right over the glutes in cases of lower crossed syndrome. Corrective strategies should focus on glute activation, rectus abdominus strengthening, and flexibility work for the hip flexors, hamstrings, and lumbar erector spinae.
3. Lack of Overall Core Development: If you think I'm referring to how many sit-ups an athlete can do, you should give up on the field of performance enhancement and take up Candyland. The "core" essentially consists of the interaction among all the muscles between your shoulders and your knees; if one muscle isn't doing its job, force cannot be efficiently transferred from the lower to the upper body (and vice versa). In addition to "indirectly" hammering on the core musculature with the traditional compound, multi-joint lifts, it's ideal to also include specific weighted movements for trunk rotation (e.g. Russian twists, cable woodchops, sledgehammer work), flexion (e.g. pulldown abs, Janda sit-ups, ab wheel/bar rollouts), lateral flexion (e.g. barbell and dumbbell side bends, overhead dumbbell side bends), stabilization (e.g. weighted prone and side bridges, heavy barbell walkouts), and hip flexion (e.g. hanging leg raises, dragon flags). Most athletes have deficiencies in strength and/or flexibility in one or more of these specific realms of core development; these deficiencies lead to compensation further up or down the kinetic chain, inefficient movement, and potentially injury.
4. Unilateral Discrepancies: These discrepancies are highly prevalent in sports where athletes are repetitively utilizing musculature on one side but not on the contralateral side; obvious examples include throwing and kicking sports, but you might even be surprised to find these issues in seemingly "symmetrical" sports such as swimming (breathing on one side only) and powerlifting (not varying the pronated/supinated positions when using an alternate grip on deadlifts). Obviously, excessive reliance on a single movement without any attention to the counter-movement is a significant predisposition to strength discrepancies and, in turn, injuries. While it's not a great idea from an efficiency or motor learning standpoint to attempt to exactly oppose the movement in question (e.g. having a pitcher throw with his non-dominant arm), coaches can make specific programming adjustments based on their knowledge of sport-specific biomechanics. For instance, in the aforementioned baseball pitcher example, one would be wise to implement extra work for the non-throwing arm as well as additional volume on single-leg exercises where the regular plant-leg is the limb doing the excursion (i.e. right-handed pitchers who normally land on their left foot would be lunging onto their right foot). Obviously, these modifications are just the tip of the iceberg, but simply watching the motion and "thinking in reverse" with your programming can do wonders for athletes with unilateral discrepancies.
5. Weak Grip: – Grip strength encompasses pinch, crushing, and supportive grip and, to some extent, wrist strength; each sport will have its own unique gripping demands. It's important to assess these needs before randomly prescribing grip-specific exercises, as there's very little overlap among the three types of grip. For instance, as a powerlifter, I have significantly developed my crushing and supportive grip not only for deadlifts, but also for some favorable effects on my squat and bench press. Conversely, I rarely train my pinch grip, as it's not all that important to the demands on my sport. A strong grip is the key to transferring power from the lower body, core, torso, and limbs to implements such as rackets and hockey sticks, as well as grappling maneuvers and holds in mixed martial arts. The beauty of grip training is that it allows you to improve performance while having a lot of fun; training the grip lends itself nicely to non-traditional, improvisational exercises. Score some raw materials from a Home Depot, construction site, junkyard, or quarry, and you've got dozens of exercises with hundreds of variations to improve the three realms of grip strength. Three outstanding resources for grip training information are Mastery of Hand Strength by John Brookfield, Grip Training for Strength and Power Sports by accomplished Strongman John Sullivan, and www.DieselCrew.com.
6. Weak Vastus Medialis Oblique (VMO): The VMO is important not only in contributing to knee extension (specifically, terminal knee extension), but also enhancing stability via its role in preventing excessive lateral tracking of the patella. The vast majority of patellar tracking problems are related to tight iliotibial bands and lateral retinaculum and a weak VMO. While considerable research has been devoted to finding a good "isolation" exercise for the VMO (at the expense of the overactive vastus lateralis), there has been little success on this front. However, anecdotally, many performance enhancement coaches have found that performing squats through a full range of motion will enhance knee stability, potentially through contributions from the VMO related to the position of greater knee flexion and increased involvement of the adductor magnus, a hip extensor (you can read a more detailed analysis from me here. Increased activation of the posterior chain may also be a contributing factor to this reduction in knee pain, as stronger hip musculature can take some of the load off of the knee stabilizers. As such, I make a point of including a significant amount of full range of motion squats and single-leg closed chain exercises (e.g. lunges, step-ups) year-round, and prioritize these movements even more in the early off-season for athletes (e.g. runners, hockey players) who do not get a large amount of knee-flexion in the closed-chain position in their regular sport participation.
7 & 8. Weak Rotator Cuff and/or Scapular Stabilizers: I group these two together simply because they are intimately related in terms of shoulder health and performance.
Although each of the four muscles of the rotator cuff contributes to humeral motion, their primary function is stabilization of the humeral head in the glenoid fossa of the scapula during this humeral motion. Ligaments provide the static restraints to excessive movement, while the rotator cuff provides the dynamic restraint. It's important to note, however, that even if your rotator cuff is completely healthy and functioning optimally, you may experience scapular dyskinesis, shoulder, upper back, and neck problems because of inadequate strength and poor tonus of the muscles that stabilize the scapula. After all, how can the rotator cuff be effective at stabilizing the humeral head when its foundation (the scapula) isn't stable itself? Therefore, if you're looking to eliminate weak links at the shoulder girdle, your best bet is to perform both rotator cuff and scapular stabilizer specific work. In my experience, the ideal means of ensuring long-term rotator cuff health is to incorporate two external rotation movements per week to strengthen the infraspinatus and teres minor (and the posterior deltoid, another external rotator that isn't a part of the rotator cuff). On one movement, the humerus should be abducted (e.g. elbow supported DB external rotations, Cuban presses) and on the other, the humerus should be adducted (e.g. low pulley external rotations, side-lying external rotations). Granted, these movements are quite basic, but they'll do the job if injury prevention is all you seek. Then again, I like to integrate the movements into more complex schemes (some of which are based on PNF patterns) to keep things interesting and get a little more sport-specific by involving more of the kinetic chain (i.e. leg, hip, and trunk movement). On this front, reverse cable crossovers (single-arm, usually) and dumbbell swings are good choices. Lastly, for some individuals, direct internal rotation training for the subscapularis is warranted, as it's a commonly injured muscle in bench press fanatics. Over time, the subscapularis will often become dormant – and therefore less effective as a stabilizer of the humeral head - due to all the abuse it takes.
For the scapular stabilizers, most individuals fall into the classic anteriorly tilted, winged scapulae posture (hunchback); this is commonly seen with the rounded shoulders that result from having tight internal rotators and weak external rotators. To correct the hunchback look, you need to do extra work for the scapular retractors and depressors; good choices include horizontal pulling variations (especially seated rows) and prone middle and lower trap raises. The serratus anterior is also a very important muscle in facilitating scapular posterior tilt, a must for healthy overhead humeral activity. Supine and standing single-arm dumbbell protractions are good bets for dynamically training this small yet important muscle; scap pushups, scap dips, and scap pullups in which the athlete is instructed to keep the scapulae tight to the rib cage are effective isometric challenges to the serratus anterior.
Concurrently, athletes with the classic postural problems should focus on loosening up the levator scapulae, upper traps, pecs, lats, and anterior delts. One must also consider if these postural distortions are compensatory for kinetic chain dysfunction at the lumbar spine, pelvis, or lower extremities. My colleague Mike Robertson and I have written extensively on this topic here. Keep in mind that all of this advice won't make a bit of difference if you have terrible posture throughout the day, so pay as much attention to what you do outside the weight room as you do to what goes on inside it.
9. Weak Dorsiflexors: It's extremely common for athletes to perform all their movements with externally rotated feet. This positioning is a means of compensating for a lack of dorsiflexion range of motion – usually due to tight plantarflexors - during closed-chain knee flexion movements. In addition to flexibility initiatives for the calves, one should incorporate specific work for the dorsiflexors; this work may include seated dumbbell dorsiflexions, DARD work, and single-leg standing barbell dorsiflexions. These exercises will improve dynamic postural stability at the ankle joint and reduce the risk of overuse conditions such as shin splints and plantar fasciitis.
10. Weak Neck Musculature: The neck is especially important in contact sports such as football and rugby, where neck strength in all planes is highly valuable in preventing injuries that may result from collisions and violent jerking of the neck. Neck harnesses, manual resistance, and even four-way neck machines are all good bets along these lines, as training the neck can be somewhat awkward. From a postural standpoint, specific work for the neck flexors is an effective means of correcting forward head posture when paired with stretches for the levator scapulae and upper traps as well as specific interventions to reduce postural abnormalities at the scapulae, humeri, and thoracic spine. In this regard, unweighted chin tucks for high reps throughout the day are all that one really needs. This is a small training price to pay when you consider that forward head posture has been linked with chronic headaches.
Closing Thoughts
A good coach recognizes that although the goals of improving performance and reducing the risk of injury are always the same, there are always different means to these ends. In my experience, one or more of the aforementioned ten biomechanical weak links is present in almost all athletes you encounter. Identifying biomechanical weak links is an important prerequisite to choosing one's means to these ends. This information warrants consideration alongside neural, hormonal, and metabolic factors as one designs a comprehensive program that is suited to each athlete's unique needs.
