I just wanted to give you a heads-up on one-day seminar with me in Dallas on Sunday, January 27, 2019.
We’ll be spending the day geeking out on shoulders, as the event will cover Shoulder Assessment, Corrective Exercise, and Programming. The event will be geared toward personal trainers, strength and conditioning professionals, rehabilitation specialists, and fitness enthusiasts alike.
Agenda
9:00AM-9:30AM – Inefficiency vs. Pathology (Lecture)
9:30AM-10:15AM – Understanding Common Shoulder Injuries and Conditions (Lecture)
10:15AM-10:30AM – Break
10:30AM-12:30PM – Upper Extremity Assessment (Lab)
12:30PM-1:30PM – Lunch
1:30PM-3:30PM – Upper Extremity Mobility/Activation/Strength Drills (Lab)
3:30PM-3:45PM – Break
3:45PM-4:45PM – Upper Extremity Strength and Conditioning Programming: What Really Is Appropriate? (Lecture)
4:45PM-5:00PM – Q&A to Wrap Up
Location
Atlet Sports
617 North 7th St.
Midlothian, TX 76065
Continuing Education Credits
This event is approved for 0.7 CEUs through the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA).
Note: we'll be capping the number of participants to ensure that there is a lot of presenter/attendee interaction - particularly during the hands-on workshop portion - so be sure to register early, as previous offerings of this evan have sold out well in advance of the early-bird registration deadline.
It's been a while since I updated this series on program design, so I figured it'd be a good time to throw some new material at you on this front.
1. Ground-to-standing transitions are invaluable, but it's challenging to know where to put them in programming.
I'm a big fan of exercises like Turkish get-ups and kneeling overhead hold-to-stands, as they're awesome for "syncing up" the lower and upper body to teach force transfer through a stable core. Yesterday, I posted a video of one of my new favorites - half-kneeling offset kettlebell get-ups - and I got a question about how we'd incorporate this in a program.
The challenge is that these could be considered extended warm-up drills, core work, upper body work, and even lower body work (depending on what variation you're using) once the load gets heavy enough. A kettlebell windmill can even be viewed somewhat similarly.
With that said, I find myself programming these first thing in an upper body training session. My experience has been that they are a good "transition" from the medicine ball work into more conventional rows, presses, push-ups, etc. They also generally pair really well with most upper body pulling exercises, as they aren't super grip intensive (gravity helps to hold the KB in the hand).
Later in the offseason, when guys transition to three days per week strength training, we'll plug these in as part of a full-body session because...well...they're about as full-body as you can get.
2. Complex training won't ever be "perfect" when you're working on power development in the frontal and transverse planes.
We like to work in post-activation potentiation in our offseason programs around December/January. I covered this in a lengthy article, The Stage System, at T-Nation in the past, but a quick synopsis of one benefit is that when you do heavy stuff before lighter stuff, your lighter stuff feels much faster. As a result, complex training - using a heavy strength(high load, lower velocity) exercise right before a movement that's lower force, higher velocity (e.g., jumps, throws) can be helpful for eliciting greater power output.
Here's where it gets a bit challenging when dealing with rotational sport athletes. We know that power is relatively plane specific. In other words, just using sagittal plane power exercises like broad and vertical jumps won't necessarily have great carryover to power in the frontal and transverse planes. Instead, we need to do more things like Heidens (skaters) and rotational medicine ball work. Unfortunately, though, it's really hard to load people up on the first exercise in the frontal and transverse planes; you can only go so heavy with a lateral lunge.
With that in mind, we'll often use a more traditional heavy sagittal plane exercise - deadlift, squat, or axial-loaded single leg exercise - for lower reps, but then do the power exercise in the frontal/transverse plane. An example might be:
3. We use more direct forearm work with our pitchers than we have in the past.
For a long time, we really didn't use any direct forearm work with our baseball players. My feeling had always been that they got plenty of grip work in their regular strength training. Two things changed my mind on this.
First, I saw what a game-changer is it to strengthen throwers closer to end-range external rotation in the 90/90 position. In other words, rather than just expecting arm care work with the elbow at the sides to magically carry over to the positions where guys threw, we actually trained guys at those positions. Novel concept, huh?
Second, thanks to the higher quality slow-motion video we have at our fingertips these days, we can better appreciate that throwers' forearms get into considerably more supination and pronation throughout the throwing delivery than we were training in the weight room. While we were doing a lot to preserve those ranges-of-motion, we weren't doing anything to provide good strength throughout those ranges-of-motion.
With that in mind, we attack our direct forearm work in two particular ways: supination/pronation and ulnar deviation. Here are some Instagram posts that'll walk you through the why:
I recently started implementing the quadruped 1-arm trap raise to swimmer hover with some of our baseball guys, and it’s quickly become one of my favorites.
This drill addresses several important needs in a throwing population:
1. scapular posterior tilt
2. scapular upward rotation
3. tissue extensibility of the long head of the triceps and lat
4. the quadruped (all fours) position really reaffirms the good convex-concave relationship between the scapula and rib cage
You should not feel this at all in the front or top of the shoulder. Rather, the movement should be felt in the lower traps (mid back) and serratus anterior (add a full exhale at the top of each rep to intensify that activation). Some individuals will feel a good stretch through the triceps.
To learn more about how we assess, program, and coach at the shoulder girdle, be sure to check out Sturdy Shoulder Solutions.
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Frank Duffy on the Robby Row Show - Cressey Sports Performance coach Frank Duffy was a guest on Robby Rowland's podcast to discuss Functional Range Conditioning concepts and how we apply them with our baseball players.
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This is the point in the offseason when some players realize that "Just rest it" turned out to be bad advice. Rest might help to resolve the medical diagnosis (pathology), but it won't do anything to resolve the underlying movement diagnosis that actually caused the pathology.
Today, I've got a video post for you, and it builds on the Joint-by-Joint approach that's been popularized by Gray Book and Mike Boyle. In the video, I discuss how we can apply the joint-by-joint theory to the elbow, particularly in the context of pitching injuries. Check it out:
If you're looking to learn more about the elbow, I'd encourage you to check out my presentation on the topic, Everything Elbow.
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My business partner, Shane Rye, once dropped an amazing one liner with respect to injuries that has stuck with me for years now:
[bctt tweet="You have to listen when it whispers instead of waiting for it to yell."]
The concept is simple: if you ignore minor aches and pains, they rarely just magically go away. Rather, they usually get magnified by volume and intensity and eventually reach a painful threshold where are more extensive intervention is required. The research actually supports this concept - but only if you know how to dig a bit deeper.
As an example, consider this Scandinavian study of patellar tendinopathy in junior basketball players. Researchers looked at 134 teenagers (268 total patellar tendons) and found that only 19 tendons presented clinically with symptoms. However, under ultrasound examination, 22% of the remainder of the group (who'd said they've never had patellar tendon pain) could be diagnosed with tendinopathy. In other words, "ultrasonographic tendon abnormality is 3 times as common as clinical symptoms."
Now, keep in mind that this study looked at teenagers, who are markedly less likely to have tendinopathy than older individuals. Just imagine if they'd done this study on a cohort of middle-aged men playing hoops at the local YMCA. The point is that whether you have symptoms or not, you likely have some changes in your tissues.
To be clear, this isn't particularly shocking to anyone who's looked at MRIs of asymptomatic individuals. We see loads of asymptomatic rotator cuff tears, spondylolysis (stress fractures), and torn labrums. And, I don't think we should just treat MRI findings when they aren't aligned with clinical symptoms. However, they do provide a reminder that we often have several issues that might just be waiting to reach a painful threshold if we aren't cognizant of our training volume and intensity - and our movement quality.
I call these potential problems "whispers." Maybe it's that Achilles tendon that's cranky first thing in the morning, but feels good after you warm it up. Or, it's that stiff neck you get after a few hours of working at the computer, but feels better after your spouse massages your upper trap. It could be the shoulder that bugs you only when you barbell bench press, but feels pretty good when you use dumbbells instead. These whispers are all premonitions of an imminent training disaster - so listen to them.
Maybe it's seeking out some extra manual therapy in a specific area. The solution could be looking at a more individualized warm-up to address these issues. It might even be that you strategically drop particular exercises from your program at various points during the year.
Above all else, though, it's about understanding that good training teaches your body how to spread stress over multiple joints. Instead of that cranky patellar tendon taking on 90% of the load on each landing, we work on hip and ankle mobility and strength so that it might only have to be 30%. Spreading out the stress ensures that one area won't ever hit the point of pain.
Understanding how to distribute stress mandates that you understand what quality movement actually looks like, though - and that's unfortunately where a lot of fitness professionals fall short. With that in mind, many of my products focus on the topics of assessment and corrective exercise, so they're good options for bringing these knowledge gaps up to speed. In particular, I'd recommend the following ones.
Sturdy Shoulder Solutions - this is my most up-to-date upper extremity resource, and it delves into everything from the neck, to thoracic spine, to scapular control. I discuss functional anatomy and key competencies you need for upper extremity health and high performance.
Functional Stability Training - this four-part series is a collaborative effort with physical therapist Mike Reinold, and we cover core, upper body, lower body, and optimizing movement. The components can be purchased individually or as the entire package (at a big discount).
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Most of the anti-rotation core stability exercises out there take place in a more static environment: half-kneeling or tall-kneeling. These set-ups are awesome for teaching appropriate core positioning against destabilizing forces into extension, rotation, or lateral flexion. However, their functional carryover is limited if we aren’t finding ways to transition that movement awareness into exercises in the standing position. Enter the standing low-to-high cable lift.
Important coaching points:
1. Push the ground away from you; don’t just lean away from the weight stack.
2. Think both up (anti-extension) and out (anti-rotation).
3. Lock the rib cage to the pelvis; the motion should come from the hips and upper back, not the lower back.
4. Feel the trailing leg glute firing at the top position.
5. To prevent early deceleration, imagine throwing your hands through the ceiling.
In case you haven't heard, my big Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale is ongoing. You can get 25% off on a bunhc of my resources; just head HERE to learn more.
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Everyone on the planet is having a Black Friday sale this week, so we figured we wouldn't even attempt to keep you in suspense on this one. With that in mind, you can save 25% on the following products through Cyber Monday at midnight. Just click on the links below to learn more and add them to your cart - and THE DISCOUNT WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY APPLIED AT CHECKOUT (even if they don't show up on the sales page, trust me; they're updated):
If you've followed our work at Cressey Sports Performance for any length of time, you know that we're big fans of training rotational power with medicine ball variations. With that in mind, I wanted to use today's blog to outline some of our strategies for introducing and progressing these exercises in our programs.
Step 1: Stationary Anti-Rotation - These exercises teach bracing on the front leg and emphasize thoracic (upper back) rotation. The split-stance anti-rotation medicine ball scoop toss is a good example.
Step 2: Stationary Rotation: These exercises emphasize hip loading, force transfer, and thoracic rotation delivering the arm, but the base of support doesn't change much (if at all). The rotational medicine ball shotput is an example.
Step 3: Momentum Rotation - These exercises teach athletes to create and utilize momentum as they work into the front hip (imagine riding a bike into a curb). The step-behind rotational medicine ball shotput is an example.
Step 4: Eccentric Pre-Loading Rotation: These exercises teach athletes to get in and out of the back hip while better making use of the stretch-shortening-cycle (think of keeping the head behind the belly button as long as possible). The step-back rotational medicine ball scoop toss is an example.
Step 5: Eccentric Pre-Loading with Momentum Rotation: These exercises combine the previous two categories to try to make things as athletic as possible. The 2-hop to rotational medicine ball scoop toss is a good example.
With this progression in mind, it's important to recognize that athletes need to earn the right to move from one step to the next. Steps 3-5 are far to advanced for 13-15-year-old athletes who have very little body awareness or foundational strength. And, aggressive progressions may be potentially harmful in even advanced athletes if they aren't prepared for the extensive hip-shoulder separation that takes place. Even with our professional athletes, I'll start athletes with the earliest stages in the progression during their initial off-season training programs.
Today's guest post comes from Lee Taft, creator of the Certified Speed and Agility Coach (CSAC) offering, which is on sale for $100 off through the end of the week. I'm a big fan of this resource and would strongly encourage you to look into it if you work with athletes in any capacity. Anyway, enjoy the post! -EC
If we listen to those making the decisions to eliminate dodgeball and tag in Physical Education (unfortunately there are some PE professionals not doing their best, so it appears these games are useless or harmful) we might come to the conclusion they are correct in doing so. But, if we edit the purpose and role of these "types" of activities, we see just how WRONG they are.
1. Dodgeball should be the culmination of a well thought-out and progressed throwing, catching, and agility unit. Students from primary grades on should learn how to properly throw, hit still targets at various heights and angles, and catch a ball coming at them from different angles and speeds (in primary grades, sometimes we just want kids to be able to touch the ball as it comes near them to develop tracking and limb location).
2. We need to progress to throwing at a target in which the target is moving, AND when the student who is throwing is moving, AND when both the target and student is moving. This teaches leading and directional aiming skills. And, it teaches students to predict intersection points.
3. We need to use a type of ball that takes fear out of catching, throwing, or being hit. There is nothing wrong with getting hit by a ball. It teaches kids how to protect themselves from objects coming at them. It sharpens their reflexes/reactive abilities. It trains their feet, core, and vestibular system to quickly protect through bending, twisting, jerking away, ducking, dodging while maintaining spacial awareness and balance. These strategies are very important to acquire and develop at young ages!
4. Catching is a fundamental tracking skill that allows for advancements to sports requiring a racquet, stick, or bat. When kids learn to catch, they are creating awareness of limb length to reach length. This, in turns, allows them to make adjustments to their limb length plus an implements length (e.g., stick, bat) and an oncoming ball in order to strike or catch it.
5. Tag teaches problem solving with regards to several factors. These factors are how much speed is needed to solve a problem of tagging or not getting tagged. When their speed isn't "good enough," they now select abilities of creating angles that can "even the playing field" and solve their problem. They use fakes, and spins, and change of pace to elude - as well as tactics to avoid being faked.
6. Games that involve avoiding being struck by a ball or tagged by a classmate drive to the heart of the CNS. It requires the student to learn from their environment and problem solve. These activities are primitive in nature and TAKING THEM AWAY ERODES at these primitive skills that give us foundational movement skills, tracking skill, timing skills, targeting skills, and evasive skills. When we lose touch with these skills (or abilities) we subject these potential future athletes to being exposed on the playing fields with less athletic armor.
Stop looking at these types of activities as useless. They carry a huge primitive foundational movement and developmental package. Use them in favor of our kids.
As I mentioned, Lee's certification is actually on sale through the end of the week for $100 off the normal price. If you're looking for top notch direction in coaching movement training with your athletes, look no further. You can check it out HERE.
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