Home Posts tagged "Stretching"

Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 2/25/19

I hope you had a great weekend. Here's a little strength and conditioning content from around the 'Net to get your week started on the right foot:

Mastering the Basics MUST Precede Embracing a Specific Methodology - John O'Neil is our Director of Performance at Cressey Sports Performance - MA, and with that role, oversees our internship program. In this article, he discusses a trend he's observed in up-and-coming coaches. This is one of the most important articles I've read this year.

15 Static Stretching Mistakes - This is one of my most popular articles of all-time, and I wanted to reincarnate it from the archives in light of a conversation I had the other day.

The Top 19 Nutrition Myths of 2019 - The crew at Examine.com never disappoints, and this article is no exception.

Top Tweet of the Week

Top Instagram Post of the Week

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Coaching Cues to Make Your Strength and Conditioning Programs More Effective – Installment 6

It's been a while since I published a new installment in my "Coaching Cues" series, so here are three new ones you can put into action.

1. "Imagine I have a rope around your waist and pull it back."

It goes without saying that teaching a proper hip hinge is essential to get the correct posterior weight shift we need for good deadlifting and squatting patterns.  Unfortunately, it can sometimes be much easier said than done, as lifters with poor kinesthetic awareness and body control might not even know what it feels like.  Take, for instance, this example from my 15 Static Stretching Mistakes article; he has so much congenital laxity (loose joints) that he can perform an "extreme" toe touch without any posterior weight shift.

Just because he can do it doesn't mean that he should do it, though. Just saying "sit back" or "hips back" doesn't always correct this, though. I've spoken about the "touch your butt to an imaginary wall behind you" external focus cue here, but I also like the idea of telling folks to pretend like I'm tugging them backward with a rope, as this fits the correction into a scenario with which they're familiar.

2. "Ribs down, scaps up."

We work with a lot of athletes who have a heavily extended posture, and their overhead movements often look like this:

Essentially, they will substitute lumbar extension (arched lower back) in place of keeping a stable core so that the scapula (and, in turn, humerus) can move appropriately with respect to the rib cage.  Most of these athletes lack scapular upward rotation, so we need to help them to get the scapula moving a bit while keeping the ribs down.  Here's a great exercise for which this cue would be appropriate:

In other words, you can use this cue with your core stability exercises and shoulder mobility drills in this population. Keep in mind, though, that this cue probably won't be appropriate for folks who sit at desks all day and are really kyphotic.

3. "Push yourself away from the bar."

One of the biggest bench press technique problems you'll see is that folks lose their "tightness" at the top of the rep by protracting the shoulder blades too much.  This sets you up for problems - both in terms of shoulder health and strength - on sets with more than one rep. 

With that in mind, one of the easiest ways to coach folks out of this bench press technique problem is to think about pushing themselves away from the bar, as opposed to pushing the bar away from them. It gets them into the "ground yourself" frame of mind and ensures that the upper back is a stable platform from which to press. It's not uncommon at all to see larger than normal dropoffs from 1-rep max loads to what you see on multiple-rep sets, and I firmly believe it's because a lot of lifters lose their tightness on the subsequent reps.  So, if you find that you can bench 315 for one rep, but only 265 for three reps, this cue could very well be a solution for you.

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15 Static Stretching Mistakes

One of the most debated topics in the strength and conditioning world in recent years has been whether or not static stretching is necessary and, if so, when it should be implemented.  While I don't think everyone needs it, and that there are certainly are times when it is a bad idea to utilize, I'm still of the mindset that it can have some solid benefits when implemented properly. 

Unfortunately, like all training initiatives, some people do it all wrong. To that end, I wanted to devote today's article to covering the top 15 static stretching mistakes I encounter.

Mistake #1: Stretching through extreme laxity.

This is the most important and prevalent one of all, so it comes first.  When I see someone doing this, this is pretty much how I feel:

We're all have a different amount of congenital laxity.  Basically, this refers to how much "give" our ligaments have.  Some folks have naturally stiff joints, and others have very loose joints.  This excessively joint laxity is obviously much higher in females and younger populations, but, as Leon Chaitow and Judith DeLany discuss in Clinical Applications of Neuromuscular Techniques: Volume 1, it is also much higher in folks of African, Asian, and Arab origin.

When you take someone who is really lax and implement aggressive static stretching, it's on par with having someone with a headache bang his/her head against a wall.  It makes things worse.

This is a tricky thing to understand, though, because many of these "loose" individuals will comment on how they feel "tight."  Usually that tightness is just them laying down trigger points as a way for the body to create stability in areas where they are chronically unstable.  They'd be better off working on stability training to get back to efficient movement.

I think yoga has a tremendous amount of applications and we borrow from the discipline all the time, but I think this is where many modern yoga classes fall short; they have everyone in the class go to the same end-range on certain exercises. Folks with serious joint laxity should not only contraindicate certain yoga poses, but also modify others so that they're training stability short of the true end-range of their joints. Unfortunately, most of the people you'll see in yoga classes are hypermobile women; you see, they like to do the things they're good at doing, not necessarily what they need to do.

How do you know if you're lax, though? I like to use the Beighton hypermobility scale to assess for both generalized congenital laxity and specific laxity at a joint. The screen consists of five tests (four of which are unilateral), and is scored out of 9:

1. Elbow hyperextension > 10° (left and right sides)
2. Knee hyperextension > 10° (left and right sides)
3. Flex the thumb to contact with the forearm (left and right sides)
4. Extend the pinky to >90° angle with the rest of the hand (left and right sides)
5. Place both palms flat on the floor without flexing the knees

Beighton_Score

One of the biggest problems I see in today's strength and conditioning world is that we assume all "big, strong" athletes are tight and need aggressive stretching.  As an example, take a look at this high Beighton score in a 6-3, 240-pound athlete.  We do very little static stretching with him - and absolutely none in the upper body.

If someone is really lax, nix the static stretching and instead spend more time on stabilization work.  If they still feel like they need to "loosen up," tell them to do some extra foam rolling.  They'll transiently reduce some of the stiffness they're feeling, but they won't be working through harmful end-range joint range-of-motion in the process.

Mistake #2. Substituting knee hyperextension for hip flexion in hamstrings stretches.

This comment piggybacks a little bit on mistake #1, as lax individuals (who probably shouldn't be stretching their hamstrings, anyway) are the most likely to have problems with this.  Because the hamstrings are two-joint muscles (knee and hip), folks will often allow the knee to "give" extra because they are subconsciously trying to avoid an uncomfortable stretch at the hip - or they simply aren't paying attention.  These are the same folks who have terrible hip hinges on toe touch tests, yet can touch their toes without a problem; they just go to knee hyperextension to make it happen.  As an example, this particular athlete scores really high on the Beighton hypermobility score, and he can actually put his palms flat on the floor with little to no posterior weight shift (the wall blocks him). 

How does he do it? Knee hyperextension. 

We'd much rather get a good hip hinge without resorting to excessive joint range of motion at the knee. You get good at what you train, so if you're always doing your static stretching in a bad position, you're going to be more likely to wind up in knee hyperextension on the field - and that's where ACL injuries occur.

Mistake #3: Not creating stiffness at adjacent joints.

In a previous post, I talked about why stiffness can be a good thing, in spite of the negative connotation of the word.  Stiffness is a crucial part of keeping us healthy and enhancing athleticism.  "Good" stiffness allows us to overpower "bad" stiffness that's occurring in the wrong places, and it helps to transfer force as part of the kinetic chain.  Static stretching can either be an opportunity to foster good stiffness or develop bad habits.

You see, we static stretch to transiently reduce stiffness (or true tissue shortness).  However, if we don't stabilize (stiffen up) adjacent joints, it defeats the purpose. Let me give you an example.

Let's say that I want to stretch my hamstrings in the supine position with not just a neutral position (center), but also a bias toward internal rotation/adduction (left) and external rotation/abduction (right).


 



 

 

Now, let's see what happens to these stretches if one doesn't engage the lateral core to prevent the pelvis from rolling toward the direction of the stretch on the ones that go out to the sides.

Mistake #4: Irritating the medial aspect of the knee with 90/90 hip stretches.

Most folks are familiar with doing 90/90 hip stretches or cradle walks as a way to improve hip external rotation in a position of hip flexion.  This is the position I commonly see people using at the point of maximal stretch:

The problem is that many folks crank excessively on the medial aspect of the knee by rotating the tibia (lower leg) instead of the femur (upper leg).  This actually parallels what happens during a McMurray's Test for medial meniscus pathology:

It's a pretty safe bet that static stretching into a position that replicates a provocative test is never a good idea - and it's one reason we use 90/90 stretches very sparingly.  If you are going to use this stretch, however, I recommend that individuals grab the quadriceps on the stretching side to ensure that the majority of the pull into external rotation and flexion comes from the femur and not the tibia.  The opposite hand is simply there to support the weight of the lower leg.

Mistake #5: Substituting valgus stress at the knee for hip adduction/internal rotation stretching.

It's really important than folks have adequate hip internal rotation, as a loss of hip internal rotation has been correlated with low back pain, and it can certainly predispose individuals to hip and knee issues as well. The knee-to-knee stretch is a popular approach for maintaining and improving hip internal rotation, and it's also my chosen method for demonstrating how incomplete my goatee was at the time of this picture.  

lyingkneetoknee

As you can see from the picture, this position can also impose some valgus stress at the knees if it isn't coached/cued properly.  So, instead of thinking of letting the knees fall in, I tell athletes to actively internally rotate the femurs (upper leg).  The stretch should occur at the hips, not the knees.

In folks with a history of medial knee issues, we won't use this static stretch.  Rather, we'll use a kneeling glute stretch, which still gets a bit of stretch into adduction, which will still stretch several of the hip external rotators indirectly.

Lastly, keep in mind that the knee-to-knee isn't a stretch most females will ever have to utilize because of their tendency toward a knock-knee posture (wider hips = greater Q-angle) at rest.

Mistake #6: Not monitoring neutral spine during hip stretching.

This point really works hand-in-hand with #3 from above, which talked about establishing stiffness at adjacent joints.  Certainly, maintaining neutral spine falls under the category of "good stiffness," but because it's such a common mistake, it deserves attention of its own.  When the hip flexes, you shouldn't go through lumbar flexion. For this split-stance kneeling adductor stretch, notice the correct on the left and the incorrect on the right:

And, when it extends, you shouldn't go through lumbar extension.  Again, the correct is on the left, and incorrect (hyperextended) is on the right:

Mistake #7: Not monitoring neutral spine during standing stretches.

Again, this is another point that piggybacks off of establishing good stiffness, but I see a lot of people doing upper extremity stretches - overhead triceps, lats, pecs - in terrible spine posture.  Perhaps the best example is the overhead triceps stretch with the lumbar spine in hyperextension, plus forward head posture further up.

Mistake #8: Stretching your lower back.

There may be times when a qualified manual therapist might want to do some mobilizations on your lower back. The rest of you really shouldn't be stretching your spine out. Stretch your hips, and mobilize your thoracic spine (upper back), where it's much safer for you to move. Focus on building up some core stability.

Mistake #9: Stretching your calves – and then wearing high heels the rest of the day.

There's nothing wrong with the "stretching your calves" part; it's the high heels part that makes me want to bang my head against the wall. Talk about a dog chasing its tail!

Mistake #10: Stretching a throwing shoulder into extension and/or external rotation (and creating valgus stress at the elbow in the process).

I devoted an entire video to this topic last week in my baseball-specific newsletter:

Mistake #11: Stretching through pain or neurological symptoms.

I honestly can't think of a single reason why anyone should ever stretch oneself through pain. Sure, there may be times when physical therapists may push a post-operative joint through some uncomfortable ranges of motion, but that's a trained professional making a educated decision.  You stretching yourself through pain is just throwing a bunch of s**t on the wall to see what sticks.  Don't do it.

Sometimes, an indirect approach is better.  As an example, there is research demonstrating that core stability exercises can transiently and chronically improve hip internal rotation - even without stretching the joint.  If you're hurting while stretching, see a qualified medical professional to help you devise a plan to work around the issue while reducing your symptoms.

On the topic of neurological symptoms, as an example, intervertebral disc issues with radicular symptoms into the legs may be exacerbated by stretching the hamstrings.  Similar issues can come about if folks with thoracic outlet syndrome perform aggressive upper body stretching. If nerves aren't gliding the way that they need to be, the last thing you want to do is yank on them.

Mistake #12: Not tightening the glutes during hip flexor stretches.

I've written previously at length about how anterior (front) hip irritation is often caused the head of the femur (ball) gliding forward in the acetabulum (socket) during hip extension.  This femoral anterior glide syndrome (described in detail here), was originally introduced by physical therapist Shirley Sahrmann.  Effectively, the hamstrings have a "gross" hip extension pull - meaning that they don't have a whole lot of control over the head of the femur.  Therefore, we need to have great gluteus maximus contribution to hip extension, as the glute max posteriorly pulls the femoral head back during hip extension so that the anterior hip capsule doesn't get irritated.

What we don't consider, however, is that if we stretch a hip into hip extension (osteokinematics), we also need that glute contribution to control the glide (arthrokinematics) of the femoral head.  This is a definite parallel to what I described earlier with respect to stretching a throwing shoulder into extension or external rotation; you don't just want to do it carelessly. As such, whenever you stretch the hip into extension, make sure that you tighten up the glute:

Mistake #13: Stretching into a bony block.

There are a lot of things that may limit range of motion at a joint.  It could be muscular shortness/stiffness, capsular tightness, muscular bulk, swelling, or guarding due to injury.  In many cases, though, it simply has to do with the congruency of the bones (or lack thereof) at a joint.

In the case of a "fresh" bone spur or loose body at the posterior aspect of the elbow, aggressively stretching into extension could easily provoke symptoms.  Conversely, I've seen some elbows with flexion contractures that are a combination of bony blocks and subsequent tissue shortening and capsular tightening that can be stretched until the cows come home with no problem. 

Each case is unique - but at the end of the day, remember that you're better off being too tight than too loose.  In other words, if you're unsure about something, don't stretch it.

Beyond just reactive changes like bone spurs and loose bodies, we also have folks who simply have different congenital or acquired bone structures.  Many individuals have retroverted (externally rotated) or anteverted (internally rotated) femoral carrying angles.  Those in retroversion will lack hip internal rotation no matter how much you stretch them, and those in anteversion aren't going to be gaining external rotation no matter what you do.  Trying to power through these bony blocks will likely create hip discomfort as well.

We also see retroversion as an adaptation in throwing shoulders, where bones "warp" to allow for more lay-back during the extreme cocking phase of throwing.  This is why most throwers will have significantly less internal rotation on the throwing shoulder than on the non-throwing shoulder in-spite of the fact that they have symmetrical total motion (IR + ER) from side to side; they simply shift their arc.

Before you stretch, you better find out if it's bone or soft tissue that is limiting you at end-range.  If it's bone, you're better off leaving things alone.

Mistake #14: Putting the band behind your head during hamstrings stretching.

This one drives me bonkers.  It screams "I know stretching isn't hard to do, but I'm still too lazy to put any semblance of effort into doing it correctly."  Why create forward head posture and neck stress when stretching the hamstrings?

Mistake #15: Not monitoring your breathing.

Nowadays, I'd say that we do just as much "positional breathing drills" as we do actual stretches. The more I learn (particularly from the Postural Restoration Institute school of thought), the more I realize that breathing in specific positions can have a dramatic effect on reducing tissue stiffness. For instance, here is one that many of our right-handed pitchers do. 

The left femur is internally rotated and adducted, the left rib flare is "tucked," right thoracic rotation is encouraged, the lumbar spine is flat, and the right shoulder blade is fully upwardly rotated with a bit of upper trap activation. We cue the athlete to inhale through the nose without allowing the rib cage to "fly up," and then encourage him to exhale fully, allowing the ribs to "come down."

We stretch to reduce tone, not increase it - and most athletes are in a constant state of inhalation, which corresponds to a big anterior pelvic tilt and lordotic curve. 

APT-250x300

When the rib cage flies up like this, we lose our Zone of Apposition (ZOA), a term the PRI folks have coined to describe the region into which our diaphragm must expand to function.

Zone-of-Apposition-300x220

In this extended posture, rather than effectively use their diaphragm, athletes will overuse supplemental respiratory muscles like lats, sternocleidomastoid, scalenes, and pec minor - and these are all areas where we're always trying to reduce tone.

Teaching athletes how to control their breathing during stretching - and paying particular attention to fully exhaling on each breath - goes a long way to help reduce sympathetic nervous system stimulation, get rid of unwanted tone in the wrong places, effective favorable changes to posture, and make the most of the stretches you're prescribing.  I think the folks in the yoga and Pilates worlds have done a good job of drawing attention to the importance of breathing, and we should appreciate that with respect to how static stretching and dynamic flexibility drills are implemented.

Conclusion

There are really only 15 mistakes that were right on the tip of my tongue - to the tune of 2,800 words!  To reiterate, I have a lot of clients/athletes who do absolutely no static stretching, but that's not to say that it can't be of benefit to a good chunk of the population.  Just remember that each body is unique, so no two static stretching programs should be alike in terms of exercise selection and coaching cues. 

If you benefited from this article, please share it via Facebook or Twitter, as this is a very misunderstood topic in the world of health and human performance.  Thanks for your support!

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Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 2/21/12

I'm back from a fun trip to California, but as you might expect, I've got quite a bit on my plate as I play "catch-up."  Luckily, I've got some reading ready for you: Q&A: Is Static Stretching Good? - This is an outstanding, thorough blog post from Mike Robertson; it's definitely worth a read. The Fascial Knock on Distance Running for Pitchers - With spring training and the college seasons underway, loads of ignorant coaches are forcing their pitchers to run long distances.  In this old post of mine, I review Thomas Myers' presentation on fascial fitness and apply it to this debated point in pitching development. Diamondbacks CEO Won't Let His Cancer Change the Best Workplace in Sports - I think this is a fantastic article at Yahoo Sports for not just any baseball fan, but any business owner.  The D-Backs won 94 games last year (sixth most in baseball), but did it with the sixth lowest payroll.  It goes to show you that treating people right and building a strong culture in your organization really matters. Sign-up Today for our FREE Newsletter and receive a four-part video series on how to deadlift!
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The Biggest Magnificent Mobility/Inside-Out Blowout Sale of All Time

As many of you know, Bill Hartman, Mike Robertson, and I are very close to releasing a new product.  In fact, we spent the weekend going through edits on the footage and pulling together the tag-along manuals. This new product includes a lot of our newer perspectives on assessment and corrective exercise.  Many of the drills we outline actually piggyback on those we outlined with our previous DVDs, Magnificent Mobility and Inside-Out.  There is even a bit of overlap where we discuss how the "older" drills fit into our up-to-date progressions. So, while the MM and I/O DVDs might be a few years old, the good news is that the human body hasn't evolved dramatically since then - so these drills are still highly effective.  However, with new products, older products sometimes get forgotten - and that's why we figured we'd throw out this opportunity to grab up these two previous products at a big discount. Here's the deal... 30% off on Magnificent Mobility and Inside-Out from Monday, August 31 through Wednesday, September 2.  All you need to do is head over to the RobertsonTrainingSystems.com Products Page and add the item(s) to your cart.  At checkout, enter the coupon code "FALL09" (all caps, no quotation marks) and the discount will be applied. Don't miss this last chance to get two great products at a great discount!
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Mobility Exercise of the Week: Lying Knee-to-Knee Stretch

For more mobility exercises, be sure to check out Assess and Correct: Breaking Barriers to Unlock Performance.

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The Who-What-When-Where-Why of Flexibility Training

I got this question the other day and thought I'd share my response: Q: When significant improvements in flexibility are either desired or needed, do you have any general suggestions with regard to what method(s) and type of schedule set-up (frequency, duration of session, etc.) would help accomplish this in the most timely and efficient manner possible? A: As always, my answer would be "it depends."  And, more specifically, it depends on whether you are talking about short or stiff tissue. If a tissue is legitimately short - meaning that it has lost sarcomeres due to chronic immobilization - longer duration holds are ideal.  Bill Hartman and Mike Robertson go into great detail in covering this in the Indianapolis Performance Enhancement DVD Set, as I noted HERE.

ifast-dvd-cover

If you are dealing with someone with capsular issues (outside the scope of practice of the personal trainers and strength coaches out there, in most cases), then you might just leave them alone with 15 minutes of low-load passive stretching (e.g., theraband wrapped around a DB to hold the shoulder in external rotation after a period in a sling).  Going back to our "loss of sarcomeres" scenario, if you're dealing with something more muscular-only issues, the least you'll want is five 30s holds throughout the day, in my experience.  Or, if feeling bold, you can have people set up for 3x5min holds or 1x15min hold.  In both cases, total duration over the course of the day is likely more important than duration per stretch. If it's stiff, in order to get it to relax, you likely need to train an adjacent tissue that acts as a synergist.  A good example would be strengthening the lower traps to take the stress off chronically overused upper traps and the stiff neck that follows.  Or, we have activating the glutes to take the stress off the lumbar erectors and/or hamstrings and adductor magnus.  Here is a great blog post from Bill Hartman that closely illustrates the point that you don't necessarily have to stretch a muscle to reduce its stiffness. Of course, you can never go wrong with integrating a good dynamic warm-up program prior to exercise, as this option challenges both range-of-motion and stability to provide a comprehensive training effect in a matter of minutes. So, in the end, it's different strokes for different folks - at different times, with different issues.  Keep an eye out for an upcoming project from Bill, Mike, and I that really delves into this in great detail.  It'll be the most comprehensive resource out there for self-assessment and corrective exercise.
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Birthday Blogging: 28 Years, 28 Favorites

I turn 28 today, so in hopes of distracting myself from the painful realization that I'm starting to go bald, I thought I'd focus on the positives of my existence in contexts that would appeal to you.  Below, you'll find 28 of my favorite things - most of which are at least loosely related to fitness, nutrition, strength and conditioning, and sports. 1. Favorite Nickname: Power Alleys.  This seemed like a good starting point, as power alleys are bald spots.  Credit for this one goes to Mets pitching prospect Tim Stronach. 2. Favorite Thing About Cressey Performance: The camaraderie among the athletes/clients. I think the hard thing to appreciate about our facility without experiencing it first-hand and being there on a regular basis is that it's as much about the environment and attitude as it is about the expertise and programming.  I'm psyched that we've not only created an environment where clients can improve physically, but one in which they can thrive socially, too. 3. Favorite Book I've Read Related to Fitness: Diagnosis and Treatment of Movement Impairment Syndromes, by Shirley Sahrmann.  This book got me thinking more about dysfunction and less about pathology.  Quality of movement is often far more important than anything a MRI or x-ray can ever tell you.

sahrmann

4. Favorite Book I've Read Unrelated to Fitness: This is a top-up between The Tipping Point and A Prayer for Owen Meany.  They might be taken over, however, by one of the gifts I just got for my birthday from CP Client Steph Holland-Brodney.

howdoyoulightafart

5. Favorite DVD I've Watched: The Indianapolis Performance Enhancement Seminar DVD Set.  Bill Hartman's presentation on "Stiff vs. Short" alone makes this a fantastic resource, and the rest is just gravy.  I reviewed it HERE. 6. Favorite DVD I've Co-Created: The Building the Efficient Athlete DVD set.  I think I'm most proud of this resource because it's something that provided something I so desperately wanted - but couldn't get - during my college education.  Effectively, it's a resource that blends book memorization with real-world practice with a focus on functional anatomy, assessments, and troubleshooting common exercises.

btea_set

7. Favorite Seminar I've Attended: The Perform Better 3-Day Functional Training Summit.  Each year, they get better and better.  Check out Chicago or Long Beach this year if you missed Providence. 8. Favorite Athlete of All Time: Barry Sanders.  I can't imagine an guy with better kinesthetic awareness, body control, or ability to turn a complete disaster of a play into a 90-yard touchdown run - while carrying two defensive linemen on his back. 9. Favorite Athlete of All-Time that you've probably never heard of: Jerry Sichting.  He played for the Celtics from 1985 to 1988, and I'll always remember the night Sichting - at a heigh of 6-1 - got in a fight with 7-4 Ralph Sampson during the 1986 NBA Finals.  At the time, I was a five-year old shadow boxing in my living room yelling at the top of my lungs.

schiting_sampson

10. Favorite Place to Visit: Fenway Park 11. Second Favorite Place to Visit: Gampel Pavilion at the University of Connecticut.  It's an incredible environment in which to watch college basketball, and it's also where I spent just about all my time from 2003 to 2005. 12. Favorite Exercise: was this ever in question?

13. Favorite Sites I Visit Just About Every Day: T-Nation.com, MinorLeagueBaseball.com, ESPN.com, Sports.Yahoo.com, WilliamInman.com, 38Pitches.com, ShawnHaviland.Blogspot.com, MetrowestDailyNews.com, StrengthCoach.com, MikeReinold.com, RobertsonTrainingSystems.com, BillHartman.net, AlwynCosgrove.Blogspot.com, DieselCrew.com, PrecisionNutrition.com, BrianStPierreTraining.com, Tony Gentilcore's Blog, Boston.com, BarstoolSports.com, Facebook.com, EricCressey.com.

14. Favorite Kind of Injury to See (weird category, I know): Labral Tears (SLAP lesions), or really any kind of shoulder or elbow pain in pitchers.  You've got so many potential causes that it's kind of fun (for me, not the athlete) to go through a process of elimination to see what combination of factors caused it.  There are all the classic flexibility deficits in pitchers, plus scapular instability, poor thoracic spine mobility, plus faulty mechanics, plus inappropriate training volumes, plus weak lower bodies.  It's kind of like peeling back the layers on an onion to see what shakes free.  It's also a great scenario to illustrate what I talked about with respect to diagnostic imaging in #3 from above.  All of these guys will have labral fraying and rotator cuff partial thickness tears at the very least; it's our job to fix them up and make them work efficiently in spite of these structural deficits in situations where surgery isn't warranted.

15. Favorite Class I Took in School: Gross Anatomy.  Yes, I cherished the semester I spent with a bunch of cadavers.

16. Favorite Healthy Food: Apple-Cinnamon Protein Bars from John Berardi's Gourmet Nutrition Cookbook. Admittedly, I often just eat the batter before it ever gets cooked.  Not good, I know.

17. Favorite Piece of Equipment We Have at CP: Giant Cambered Bar.  Along with the safety squat bar and front squat set-up, this bad boy has allowed me to keep squatting even though my right shoulder decided a long time ago that traditional back squats weren't a good idea.  It's also a great asset for working with overhead throwing athletes who should avoid the externally rotated, abducted position under load.

18. Favorite Thing About Having a Blog: I can write a lot more casually than in my newsletter, which tends to be more geeky.  And, I can post videos of this kid rocking out:

19. Favorite Mobility Drill: Walking Spiderman w/Overhead Reach.  I love this drill because you're covering so many things at once.  You'll get thoracic spine extension and rotation from the reach, and hip flexor and adductor length in the lower body from the lunge angle.  Keep an eye out for more new movements along these lines in the months to come as we film the sequel to the Magnificent Mobility DVD.

20. Favorite Pastime I Had to Give Up: Fantasy Baseball/Basketball.  During my sophomore year of undergrad, I finished fourth in the world in NBA.com's Virtual GM contest.  Long story short, if you want to be really good at fantasy sports with that kind of set-up, you've got to put a lot of time into it - and realize that it won't make girls like you.  You'll also find yourself watching games in which you'd otherwise have absolutely no interest. I couldn't do it half-ass (aside from the CP Fantasy Football League), so I gave it up.

21. Favorite Inedible Toy: Rubber Steak.

ecrubbertoy

Suffice it to say that Fire & Ice wouldn't allow us to eat a birthday cake inside their restaurant on Saturday night in celebration of my awesomeness.  So, in celebration of their suckiness, none of us (16 in all) will ever eat again - and I was reduced to gnawing on dog toys.

22. Favorite Birthday Excitement: Apparently, it's going to be taking my car in to get work done, buying a new laptop, and then coaching 'em upat CP.  There will also be a dominant upper body lift at CP that will undoubtedly feature Kevin Larrabee missing 300...again...and again).

23. Favorite Bench Press Celebration Spectacle: Antwan Harris, post 340 bench press.

24. Favorite Strength and Conditioning Coach Who is Having Surgery on my Birthday: Josh Bonhotal, Chicago Bulls.  I talked with Josh yesterday and he informed me that he was finally having his ACL fixed today in celebration of my birthday.  Nothing says "Happy Birthday, Buddy" like taking a chunk out of your patellar tendon and turning it into an anterior cruciate ligament.  It's kind of like planting a tree on Earth Day.  What a nice gesture.

25. Favorite Article Series I've Written: A New Model for Training Between Starts (Part 1 and Part 2).  These articles were actually picked up by Collegiate Baseball Magazine as front-page features, and I received a lot of great feedback about them.  If there is one thing I do before I retire, it's convincing the world of the evils of distance running for pitchers.  I'd put the Shoulder Savers series in a close second

26. Favorite Supplement: Fish Oil.  It's followed closely by Vitamin D.  You need both - and probably a lot more than you think. I'm a simple guy when it comes to this stuff.

27. Favorite Random Website a Buddy Texted to Me Last Week: www.EasyCurves.com.  This thing is hilarious. A special thanks goes out to Jesse Burdick for making me just a little bit dumber with that.

28. Favorite Sign of Athlete Dedication for the Month: We have two college pitchers up here from Pennsylvania for the month to work on getting bigger, stronger, faster, and more flexible in hopes of a nice velocity jump on the mound, and the obvious injury prevention benefits of such training.  That's all well and good - until you hear that they got an unfurnished apartment in Hudson, MA.  These guys are sleeping on mattresses on the floor, and all they brought were a few lamps, a TV, some books, and a whole lot of enthusiasm and motivation.  That's committment to training - and just the kind of guys we like to have around Cressey Performance.

cp

What kind of sacrifices are you making to get better and move closer to your goals?  I'm not sure that sleeping on a mattress on the floor is necessary, but it says a lot.

With that in mind, I'm not taking today off.  There is work to be done and I love to do it, birthday or not.

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Pulled Quad – or is it?

Q: How should I warm up properly before sprinting sessions? Back in the day when I did sports my quads were always prone to injuries. Funny thing is I haven't had any problems when doing squats of any kind. Recently I decided to involve some alactic work in my workout and immediately pulled a quad doing sprints. It's obviously something wrong with my warm-up! A: Saying "pulled quad" might be a little bit too general.  In reality, most of the time, you're looking at a rectus femoris strain.  While it is one of the quadriceps, the rectus femoris is also active as a hip flexor.  So, as the picture below shows, it crosses two joints.

rectus-femoris

The rectus femoris is responsible for both hip flexion and knee extension.  So, as you can imagine, it is placed on a huge stretch when an athlete goes into a position of hip extension and knee flexion - kind of like this:

lewis

You're asking the rectus femoris to go on a huge stretch there - and under very high velocities.  With a squat, you're not putting it on full stretch, as the hip and knee are both flexed.  So, with that in mind, it's not surprising at all that sprinting would bother your "quad" when squatting doesn't - especially since we know the overwhelming majority of folks out there are tight in the rectus femoris.  Why?

Well, first, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that, as a society, we sit far too much.  Second, though, is the fact that most people never really get above 90 degrees of hip flexion in anything that they do.  Mike Boyle has done a great job of outlining how we can develop imbalanced hip flexion patterns; essentially, we never use our psoas, the only hip flexor active above 90 degrees of hip flexion. The picture below is kind of rudimentary (and somewhat awkward), but it shows what I'm getting at with respect to the advantageous attachment points for psoas with respect to hip flexion above 90 degrees:

psoas1

How many of the folks at your gym are getting 90+ degrees of hip flexion with their treadmill, stairclimber, and elliptical work?  None.  So, we underuse psoas, and overuse rectus - and it shortens up over time.  Take a short muscle through a maximal stretch at high-velocities, and it's going to hate you.  So, what to do?

Well, first, I'd recommend running through some warm-ups from Assess and Correct, and that'll cover a lot of the fundamentals (especially if you go through the assessments to figure out what else is going on).  One important thing that'll cover is activation work for psoas; Kevin Neeld demonstrates one option here:

Second, just add in some targeted static stretching for the rectus femoris a few times a day using this stretch (don't start using it until the "pulled quad" has settled down, though).

kneelingheeltobuttstretch

Third, and most importantly, ease your way into sprinting.  Not everyone is prepared to just jump right in full-throttle.  I discuss this in further detail in my contribution to the most recent Mythbusters article at T-Nation.  Basically, just get out there twice a week and do some 60-yd build-ups at 80% of your best on a grass field.

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Strength and Conditioning Programs: Rethinking Interval Training

Rethinking Interval Training I love interval training, but one of the problems we commonly run into - particularly if someone isn't prepared physically to sprint, or doesn't have a place to do it because of weather restrictions - is that repetitive, low-amplitude motions are our only options.  In other words, it has to just be cycling, elliptical, or stairclimber.  While slideboard work, medicine ball medleys, barbell complexes, and sled pushing definitely help to work around these problems, when it comes down to it, many of them still don't give certain folks the variety they need in their exercise programming.

In our Building the Efficient Athlete seminar, Mike Robertson and I spoke about the law of repetitive motion: I = NF/AR In this equation, injury equals the number of repetitions multiplied by the frequency of those repetitions, divided by the amplitude of each repetition times the rest interval.  While you can attack each of these five factors differently (and I will in a future newsletter), the take-home point with respect to today's discussion is that simply increasing the amplitude - or range-of-motion - in one's daily life can reduce (or eliminate) the presence or severity of overuse conditions. For that reason, I often substitute one or both of two different training modalities for client's interval training. The first is dynamic flexibility circuits with little to no rest between sets.  In this scenario, we program 2-3 different mobility/activation drills for each inefficiency the athlete displays, and then combine them in a series of drills.  Ideally, as many of these drills are done in the standing position as possible.  Let's say a client has poor thoracic spine mobility, a horrific Thomas test, bad glute function, and poor hip external rotation.  Here's what his circuit might look like: a) 1-leg supine bridge b) wall hip flexor mobilizations c) 3-point extension-rotations d) cradle walks e) overhead lunge walks f) walking spiderman with overhead reach g) yoga push-ups h) 1-leg SLDL walks (you can find videos of many of these exercises in the Assess and Correct DVD set, and I'll have more information on the rest down the road)

Is this circuit going to completely "gas" an athlete?  Absolutely not.  However, it is going to make him/her better in light of the inefficiencies I outlined above - and you don't have to leave the gym exhausted to have improved. The second option is to simply take a series of resistance training exercises with a corrective emphasis (sometimes integrates with the drills outlined above) and put them in a series of supersets.  For these exercises, the load utilized should only be about 30% of 1-rep max.  I outlined this option a while back in my article, Cardio Confusion. Here's an example I used with an online consulting client recently: A1) Overhead broomstick walking Lunges (3x10/side) A2) Push-ups (3x12) B1) Face pulls (3x15) B2) Body weight only reverse lunges (3x10/side) C1) 1-leg SLDL Walk (2x6/side) C2) Band external rotations - arm adducted (2x15/side) D1) Behind-the-neck band pullaparts (2x15) D2) Bowler Squats (2x10/side) This series is preceded by foam rolling and a dynamic flexibility warm-up, and can be followed by more "traditional" interval training. Like I said earlier, I'm still all for both traditional and non-traditional interval training.  Initiative like I outlined above, though, can serve as a nice change of pace and work in corrective exercise while keeping the heart rate up.  Be as creative as you'd like and you'll see great results; the sky is the limit in terms of the combinations you can use. Enter your email below to subscribe to our FREE newsletter:
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