Here's a Valentine's Day edition of recommended reading, just because I love my readers so much!
7 Gym Gadgets That Actually Work - I chimed in on this T-Nation compilation that includes some good ideas from coaches from a variety of disciplines in the strength and conditioning field.
Health Hips, Strong Hips - This whopper of a blog post from Dean Somerset includes a ton of great videos. Set aside twenty minutes and go through it; you'll pick up some good stuff.
6 Key Factors for Developing Pitchers - I published this article about a year ago and it was one of my most popular baseball articles of all time. It's worth a read.
Top Tweet of the Week
Stability ball bodysaw, a great anterior core exercise that can take stability ball rollouts to the next level. Great demonstration from JR Graham. #cspfamilypic.twitter.com/MklASlK7rM
Happy New Year! Thanks for your support of EricCressey.com in 2017. I've got some great things in store for 2018. Let's kick it off with some content from around the 'net.
For the most part, you can throw "sport-specific" out the window in an untrained population. The basic movement and strength foundation - squat, hinge, lunge, push, pull - is pretty universal for all sports.
To wrap up my “Best of 2017″ series, I’ll highlight the top product reviews I did at this site in the last year. Here they are:
1. Complete Sports Conditioning - This resource from Mike Boyle is top notch, and he does a great job of simplifying complex topics for up-and-coming strength and conditioning coaches. Since it was the most popular product I reviewed this year, I reached out to Mike to see if he'd be up for running a quick promo sale for my readers, and he kindly agreed. From now through January 3, you can get $100 off on the resource. No coupon code is needed; just head HERE.
2. American Sports Medicine Institute Injuries in Baseball Course - Mike Reinold compiled this great list of webinars from accomplished surgeons and rehabilitation specialists to create an excellent sports medicine resource for those in the baseball world.
3. L2 Fitness Summit Video Series - Dean Somerset and Dr. Mike Israetel released this video of a one-day seminar back in November, Dean offers a nice glimpse into some assessment components that go beyond typical movement screens, and Mike's presentation on hypertrophy mechanisms and strategies was insightful as well. These are some seemingly minimally-related topics, but they did a good job of pulling everything together.
Also in 2017, the Cressey Sports Performance team released CSP Innovations. This resource highlighted a collection of different topics from the CSP staff, so there's something for everyone at a price much cheaper than attending a seminar.
We're back to the regular EricCressey.com content this week. Thanks for all your support in 2017!
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I've already highlighted the top articles and videos I put out at EricCressey.com in 2017, so now it's time for the top guest posts of the year. Here goes…
1. Is a Calorie Really Just a Calorie? - Brian St. Pierre tackled this hot topic in the nutrition world and (unsurprisingly) it generated a lot of buzz.
2. Should You Even Stretch? - Dean Somerset always comes through with great content on the corrective exercise side of things.
3. 5 Tips for Improved Client Relationships - Brett Velon was one of the best interns we've ever had, and it had a lot to do with his amazing ability to build rapport with clients so quickly. He shares some of his tips here.
Today's guest post comes from Dean Somerset. In reviewing his outstanding resource, The L2 Fitness Summit Video Series (which is on sale for $50 off this week), I thought Dean did a great job discussing active vs. passive range of motion, and asked if he'd be willing to expand on the topic in a guest post, and he kindly agreed. Check it out! -EC
Mobility training is a hop topic right now. Head over to Instagram and you’ll see incredible feats of flexibility that don’t seem like something humans should be able to do without calling 911 due to some terrible accident having taken place.
While these feats are undoubtedly cool to see, there’s also the big question of “why should you even do that stuff? Is it beneficial to health, longevity, or physical performance? Is it something that helps you achieve a specific goal, or prevent injury or get hot dates for the weekends?”
First, let’s look at what is involved in being flexible and having some solid mobility.
Flexibility is typically defined as the available range of motion available to a joint or specific motion.
Mobility is typically defined as the usable range of motion available to an individual.
Another way to look at it, flexibility is your passive range of motion, whereas mobility is your active range of motion, and each is very important, as is their interplay with one another.
The passive range of motion is the theoretical limit of your available range that you could move through for funky stuff like splits, squats, overhead presses, or other movements you’d want to do on a daily basis in the gym. It can be expanded with some “unlocking” options if it’s restricted by motor control issues like guarding tension, or by prolonged static stretching to adapt the tissues that might impede further mobility, such as the joint capsule, ligaments, fascia, or other tissues.
For these tissues to adapt to static stretching, it typically takes a very long time in the stretch (think 5-30 minutes on a daily basis for months on end), and also works best in younger individuals versus older. Odds are, once your epiphyseal plates at the ends of your bones fuse, expanding your passive range is going to be fairly limited.
Now if you have the passive range of motion, you should be able to use it. The active range of motion should be relatively close to what the passive available range currently is. If you can’t use that range, there’s a problem.
While much of the limits to passive range of motion may be structural, the limits to active range of motion are usually more neural. The efferent division of the nervous system controls motor function, including developing sufficient strength across entire ranges of motion or within portions of that range commonly used.
Coming back to the original question of this post, should you even stretch? That depends on whether you need more passive or active range of motion, and what methods of development are best for improving those characteristics.
If you have enough flexibility to do all of the things you want to do in life, you don’t need to develop more flexibility. Would more be good to have if you needed it? Sure, but at current time, you’re golden.
If you can get enough hip flexion to squat to depth for a powerlifting meet, more range won’t give you more white lights.
If you can’t get to this range of motion needed for the activities you want to do, that’s when stretching could be beneficial. Progress tends to be slow for this, but can happen relatively easily if you’re patient. It may mean watching The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones while holding a stretch, but you can do it.
If you have the range but can’t access it, that’s when active mobility comes into play. A basic approach would be to put the joint into a range of motion it wouldn’t normally be able to get into on its’ own with the help of either external loading or some supportive structure, and then developing muscle tension in that new position.
Creating agonist and antagonist muscle tension in the new position can help develop range-specific strength while also training the motor pattern to create activity in that range that it’s not used to developing, which can help you to access later.
Another option would be to take off the brakes from the system to see if that helps. Some higher threshold core activation exercises seem to help reduce resting neural tone into the distal tissues, and helps expand the available range of motion effectively.
Once you have access to that range in both passive and active capabilities, it’s time to train it. Use big ranges of motion with max contractile ability, then add loading to it to help cement that ability to use through all the challenges you can throw at it.
So this comes back to the original question: Should you even stretch? I have a simple flow chart to explain the basis of this post and give some direction on what you should do.
If you have both the flexibility and control through the range of motion to do what you want to do, you don’t need to stretch.
If you have the flexibility but not the control, you need to do more active controlled tension drills to help access that range of motion. If you don’t even have the range of motion to do the activity you’re looking to do, that’s where things like static stretching, PNF style contractions, high threshold strategies, joint mobilization or self-myofascial release (foam rolling) can come in very handy.
Haphazardly stretching everything for everyone is rarely ever a beneficial way of training, let alone a good use of time for many individuals with whom it may not be recommended. More range of motion is often not necessary, or even attainable in the case of structural restrictions, but if you enjoy stretching and it makes you feel good, that’s reason enough to continue if you like. However, if it’s not giving you any specific benefits, it may be worth choosing any of the other options we went through today and see if they produce more of a benefit to your training.
Along with Dr. Mike Israetel, Dean is the co-creator of the L2 Fitness Summit Video Series, which was released today. I'm in the process of working my way through this new continuing education resource; Dean offers a nice glimpse into some assessment components that go beyond typical movement screens, and Mike's presentation on hypertrophy mechanisms and strategies was insightful as well. These are some seemingly minimally-related topics, but they did a good job of pulling everything together. It's on sale for $50 off this week, and definitely worth a look - especially with it being the end of the year and NSCA CEUs being available for the resource. Check it out HERE.
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Happy Monday! The MLB regular season ended yesterday, so you could say that this is yet another reminder that the Cressey family "inseason" has begun. Our craziness starts when all the players' lives slow down a bit. Here's a little recommended reading for you:
Dr. Andy Galpin on How to Unplug from Tech and Social Media - This was a fascinating podcast with Dr. Galpin from Mike Robertson, where they critically review the role of technology and data collection in the training process. The points on the need to unplug from technology and social media really hit home for me, too, and I'll be checking out his book soon!
My Body Let Me Down...Again - This was a great article from Gray Cook on all the potential causative factors for why we may hurt. Many people default to the explanation that their bodies simply fail them, when in reality there were likely a lot of things "missed" on the path to that declaration. Aside from trauma, injuries are rarely just "happenstance."
I have a love/hate relationship with the lats. On one hand, you need strong lats for all sorts of athletic endeavors, from throwing to sprinting. On the other hand, if they're too overactive, a host of different injuries/conditions can result. With that in mind, preserving full latissimus dorsi length is important, and that's why we incorporate a lot of stretches on this front. It's important that those stretches are done correctly, though, and in today's video, I want to discuss one big mistake we commonly see in this regard.
Speaking of upper body work, if you're interested in learning more, be sure to check out my new resource, Sturdy Shoulder Solutions.
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In many cases, some of the biggest deadlift technique struggles we encounter originate with a poor set-up. Check out today's video to learn one of the biggest mistakes on this front:
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We're 2/3 of the way through the MLB Draft, so I haven't had much time to write up new content. I'll have some video content later in the week, though. In the meantime, here's a little recommended reading from around the strength and conditioning world:
Manual Therapy: Neither Panacea Nor Gateway to Despair - Physical therapist Doug Kechijian discusses the current "state" of manual therapy in the health and human performance worlds and shows us that "it depends" is yet again the most important answer to just about any question we can ask.
Time Management for Personal Trainers - Eric Bach and Daniel Freedman wrote up this great post on how those in the fitness industry can get more efficient.
Deadlift Grip Considerations - I meant to include this in last week's edition, but completely forgot. As usual, great stuff from Dean Somerset.
Top Tweet of the Week
Just had an argument w/a 2-year-old over whether she could pour her own cereal. It felt just about as productive as arguing on social media.
Happy Memorial Day! I hope you're enjoying the long weekend with friends and family and, more importantly, honoring those we celebrate today. Here are some good reads from the fitness industry over the past week:
EC on the ABCA Calls from the Clubhouse Podcast - I was on a podcast interview with Jeremy Sheetinger, Alan Jaeger, and Kyle Boddy to discuss arm care and the long-term development of pitchers.
Hit Makers - I just finished this audiobook from Derek Thompson up and really enjoyed it. I found the following quote to be really logical, yet insightful: "A reader's favorite subject is the reader."
