It's been a while since I gave you a list of recommended reading, but that changes today!
Rotten Resolutions - I usually bring this article to light right at the beginning of January each year, but forgot in light of the busy last few weeks. Check it out. It might make you see your strength and conditioning program goals in a new light.
Ankle Dorsiflexion Immobility Impairs Lateral Step Down Test - This is a good post from Mike Reinold about how ankle restrictions can alter testing further up the kinetic chain and make you see "the big picture."
The Proactive Patient - I still think that this is one of the better articles I've ever written at T-Nation. What do you think?
I got the following questions from a Show and Go customer this morning and thought I'd turn it into a quick Q&A:
Do high-top basketball shoes provide any significant stability and safety advantages over low-tops that would make me NOT want to buy low-tops? When I played hoops in high school my ankles rolled over at least once every few months, so it feels obvious that there's a lot more to the stability equation than the height of the ankle on the shoe.
Rather than reinvent the wheel, I sent him to these two articles:
Nike Shox and High HeelsThe Importance of Ankle Mobility
Then, I gave him the following advice: "I would never put one of my athletes in high-tops. The introduction of the high top and the addition of big heel lifts in sneakers is, in my eyes, the cause of the epidemic of anterior knee pain and the emergence of high ankle sprains. And, you're right that there is more to the stability equation than the height of the shoe: the muscles and tendons of the lower leg (particularly the peroneals) actually have to do some work to prevent ankle sprains. Put yourself in a concrete block of a shoe and tape your ankles and you are just asking all those muscles to shut down."
For more information on truly functional stability training for the lower leg and core, check out my e-book, The Truth About Unstable Surface Training.
Sign-up today for our FREE newsletter and receive a video on how to deadlift with correct technique!
Today's guest blog comes from Brian Grasso.
Template Design is a style of programming that has yet to truly catch on industry-wide, but is remarkably effective, especially when working with younger, sport-based populations.
Although I enjoy articles that are weighty in scientific specifics and complete in the depiction of the theories they are purporting, I also tend to benefit as much, often more, from less wordy commentaries that are pithy in nature.
So today, brevity wins.
In the current state of our industry (and I admit, this may be a terribly unpopular statement), we tend to over-scrutinize from a formal assessment perspective – the expense being common sense and practicality.
An explanation may be in order…
If a 13-year old presents, through formal assessment, with a “poor” forward lunge pattern, what does that really tell us?
Does he lack Glute strength or activation?
Are her hip flexors too tight to create a positive forward translation?
Is it a foot issue (that I dare say less than 1% of Fitness Professionals are truly qualified to ascertain)?
Is it a structural abnormality?
Now, the corrective exercise folk among us have all just raised their hands thirsty to share the knowledge of how to “fix” this barely teen – but let me ask another couple of questions first.
Does the kid just not know how to do a lunge? Could the “poor” result be “fixed” with three minutes of proper coaching and cueing?
At 13, has peak height velocity (PHV) begun, rendering this young athlete’s mobility and coordination nearly non-existent?
Moreover, I’d be willing to bet that 90% or better of the 13 year olds who walk into your facility would “fail” this standard assessment:
They’re growing and lack mobility
They growing and lack coordination
They sit all day and have inappropriate hip functionality as a result
They’ve been introduced to improper “training” and lack posterior strength
A formal assessment can certainly show us gains, improvements and corrections when performed at regular intervals – and because of that, I am all for them.
But here’s what I’ve learned to be true about coaching young athletes in the trenches:
You see them less than you’d like to and the “homework” you give them in the way of corrective exercise likely isn’t getting done – at very least not the way you’d want it done.
Your time with them per session is finite, but there’s a whole-lot-o-stuff that needs to be addressed.
Group and team training is almost always the way it goes – any sort of individualized attention must be created through a systematic approach to coaching and programming.
Yes, we all preach to our young athletes the virtue of lessening the load and concentrating on form – but, in the high school weight room when you’re not around, but their peers are, guess who is loading the bar?
This is not a declaration to abandon assessments altogether, nor is it a manifesto encouraging you to throw your hands up in the air and announce the situation hopeless.
It’s a simple decree suggesting that your programming practice could aid a great deal in curbing this problem – and doing so not by what you discover “formally” through assessment, but what you know to be true about young athletes:
1. They sit all day long, which means:
a. They are kyphotic and lack thoracic mobility (and therefore proper scapular function)
b. They have tight, weak hips that also lack function
2. They don’t have proper strength and conditioning care outside of you, which means:
a. ROM is compromised in all major joints
b. Form and function of lift technique is entirely unfamiliar
Over the years, I have grown fond of referring to these issues as the “Likely Bunch” and have created a training template intended to meet of the aforementioned needs as a matter of principle rather than what an assessment tells me.
Rather than programming for the day, week or month, my standard Training Template for a high school athlete looks as follows:
1. Tissue Quality – 10 minutes
2. ROM/Torso/Activation – 10 minutes
3. Movement Preparatory – 10 minutes
4. Movement – 10 minutes
5. Strength/Power Technique – 10 minutes
6. Strength Execution – 10 minutes
7. Warm-Down/Active Flexibility – 10 minutes
The “10-minute” time frame represents a maximum (with five minutes being the minimum). This creates a 7-Step Programming Template that takes anywhere from 45 – 70 minutes to complete.
I have 30–50 exercises listed in my personal database for each category and select on a given day what each athlete will work on.
An example day may look like this:
1. Foam Roll (Glutes, Hamstrings, Quads, ITB)
2. Ankle Mobility, Hip Circuit, Side Planks, Supine Bridges
3. Various Multi-Directional Movement Patterns (including skipping, hopping and deceleration)
4. Lateral Deceleration into Transitions
5. Front Squat Technique
6. Hybrid Complex – Hang Clean, Front Squat, Push-Press, Overhead Lunge
7. Static-Active Hamstrings/Quads
Within this template, I’m guaranteeing my young athletes get what they need from a developmental and preparatory standpoint each and every time they walk in my door.
Create a Training Template for yourself and see how much easier programming becomes.
Brian Grasso has trained more than 15,000 young athletes worldwide over the past decade. He is the Founder and CEO of the International Youth Conditioning Association - the only youth-based certification organization in the entire industry. For more information, visit www.IYCA.org.
Sign-up Today for our FREE Newsletter:
Here are a few article "reincarnations" that I think you'll enjoy:
Bogus Workouts and the Official Blog Of... - This is more of a rant than anything educational, but it's an entertaining look at the obnoxious solicitations I get on a daily basis.
Frozen Ankles, Ugly Squatting - Here's a piece about people who have ankles that are (structurally) like crowbars - and how they should modify their training.
Strength Training Four Days in a Row - Every have to do it? Here's how to optimize it.
Please enter your email below to sign up for our FREE newsletter.
Q: I read with great interest your recent review of Muscle Imbalances Revealed, and in particular, your comments on Mike Robertson's presentation that touched on factors related to excessive pronation. I have this excessive foot pronation, plus a spondylolisthesis, a history of ankle sprains, double-jointed elbows and knees, and hips that move around like John Travolta's in Saturday Night Fever. Basically I should have given up my career and gone into the Cirque de Soleil.
What I want to know is that specifically with my feet if wearing a supportive shoe with orthotics is such a bad thing. Everyone is on this barefoot kick, but it just doesn't work for me. If I go barefoot my hips move out of correct position and my ankles and calves ache. In fact, when I was a child, my dad had to massage my calves and arches at night because I'd be in tears from the pain of being flat-footed. Once I got my first orthotics at age 7, I was so much more comfortable. I feel that orthotics and a nice flat shoe for me helps me use my feet correctly and allows me to stay away from internal rotation of the tibia and femur, and reduces pelvic tilt, etc.
Or, I could be mistaken? What do you think, and have you heard anyone else talk about this? Other hypermobile people and I have talked about this and we all seem to feel the same: barefoot is not the way to go for us.
A: Extensive barefoot stuff is definitely not for everyone, and if you were having issues that significant at such a young age, you're probably just someone with a structurally different foot type. There are definitely scenarios where orthotics are indicated, and the fact that you've gotten so much symptomatic relief from them tells me that they're a good thing in your case.
That said, you might still benefit from just a bit of barefoot training - like deadlifting barefoot and doing some bowler squats and the like. Basically, just use it for situations where foot positioning doesn't change. Then, you don't have to mess around with how it affects the gait cycle. I think you'll get some of the benefits of strengthening the small muscles of the feet and improving proprioception (in light of your history of ankle sprains) without all the unfavorable compensations further up. And in folks who don't have your hypermobility, improving dorsiflexion ROM would be an added benefit.
I wouldn't say that it's specific to hypermobile individuals, though. A lot of them probably have issues with barefoot training because they lack the strength and underlying stability required at the lower leg and hip to take the ground reaction force stress off the feet. Remember that mobility and stability are always working at odds with one another; if you've got too much of one, you have to train the other one to pick up the slack. My hunch is that most of these people don't have structural pronation; they have excessive functional pronation because the anti-pronators - specifically the hip external rotators - aren't strong enough to decelerate that pronation. Check out the valgus (poor) positioning on the left here:
Of course, in the general population, we see it for this reason, as well as the fact that most people walk around in terrible cinder blocks footwear that completely "tunes out" the joints and muscles of the feet.
A lot of the folks that try barefoot training and wind up in pain get that way because they're idiots and jump right in full-tilt. You can't go from wearing cross-trainers to wearing thin pieces of cloth/rubber overnight. And, as Nick Tumminello wisely pointed out recently, while our ancestors were barefoot all the time, they weren't barefoot on CONCRETE for loads of mileage. And, they weren't as overweight as today's society is, with such low relative strength. As always, people get hurt because they are stupid and not because a specific training modality is bad.
Typically, in a broad sense, I recommend that people do their 1-leg (pistol) squats, all deadlifting variations, and box squats without sneakers.
As long as they aren't really overweight - or presenting with a history of foot problems - we'll also have them do their warm-ups without sneakers.
One of the most common issues we see in both athletes and our general population clients is a lack of ankle mobility - and more specifically, dorsiflexion range-of-motion.
For just about everything in life - from sprinting, to lunging, to squatting - we need a certain amount of dorsiflexion (think of how far the knees can go over the toes, or the positive shin angle one can create without lifting the heel). If we don't have it, we have to compensate.
One of the most common things we see in people with a lack of dorsiflexion ROM is an "out-toeing," as this opens up the ankle and allows for them to get to where they need to be - even if it isn't the most biomechanically correct way to do so.
This out-toeing may also be caused by hip internal rotation deficit (HIRD), so it's important to assess both. Check out this previous video blog for more information on how to assess for HIRD.
In a more "uncompensated" scenario, an athlete with poor ankle mobility may push through the toe instead of the heel - creating a quad-dominant propulsion in a scenario that should have signification contribution from the posterior chain musculature. In the pictures below, you'll see that Josh Beckett requires a considerable amount of dorsiflexion range-of-motion to get the job done (push-off without the heel leaving the ground).
This lack of ankle mobility may also negatively affect knee function. Research has shown that a lack of ankle mobility can increase rotational torque at the knee. This falls right in line with the joint-by-joint school of thought with respect to training; if you lock up a joint that should be mobile, the body will look elsewhere to create that range-of-motion.
This definitely applies to what happens to the lumbar spine during squatting in a person with an ankle (or hip) mobility deficit. If someone can't get sufficient dorsiflexion (or hip flexion and internal rotation), he'll look to the lumbar spine to get that range of motion by rounding (lumbar flexion). We know that combining lumbar flexion with compressive loading is a big-time no-no, so it's important to realize that folks with considerable ankle mobility restrictions may need to modify or eliminate squatting altogether.
Take, for example, Olympic lifters who wear traditional Olympic lifting shoes with big heel lifts. This artificially created ankle mobility allows them to squat deeper. While I'm not a huge fan of this footwear for regular folks for squatting, used sparingly, it's not a big deal.
Other individuals may be better served with hip dominant squat variations (e.g., box squats) that allow them to sit back and not squat quite as deep while they work to improve that ankle mobility and get closer to squatting deeper (with more dorsiflexion). With these individuals, we supplement the more hip dominant squatting with extra single-leg work and plenty of deadlift variations.
The take-home message is that ankle mobility has some far-reaching implications, and it's important to be able to assess it to determine if it's the factor that's limiting someone's safe and efficient movement.
For more information on how to evaluate and address ankle mobility, check out Assess and Correct.
Sign-up Today for our FREE Baseball Newsletter and Receive a Copy of the Exact Stretches used by Cressey Performance Pitchers after they Throw!
Here's a collection of stuff I encourage you to check out this week:
The Return of BSP - I really enjoyed CP staff member Brian St. Pierre's latest blog post on supplements. Some people just need a smack in the face to wake up from idiocy.
Research links Nicotine to Pre-Diabetes - And you thought that only junk carbs, poor genes, and a lack of exercise makes folks insulin resistant. In reality, it sounds like smoking does as well.
Self-Ankle Mobilization to Increase Dorsiflexion - Here's a cool new video Bill Hartman just posted on ankle mobilizations. I've used stuff like this in the past on my own ankle and it definitely makes the mobilization more effective.
The positioning of the feet in a static posture assessment can tell you a lot, but simply looking without following up won't give you a definitive answer. The most common postural distortion you'll see is an externally rotated foot position.
It's common to assume that this is simply a case of an athlete with hips that are stuck in external rotation. And, in many cases, this is definitely the culprit. For these athletes, a hearty dose of knee-to-knee stretches will do the trick (along with some stretches for the hip external rotators in a position of hip extension).
For other athletes, though, this foot position is simply a compensation, as athletes will turn the feet out to compensate for a lack of dorsiflexion (toe-to-shin) range-of-motion. These athletes need to work hard to improve ankle mobility with a combination of lower-extremity soft tissue work and mobility drills.
Q: I know that you're a bid advocate of including barefoot weight training in your strength and conditioning programs. What in general is your "shoeless" policy with your athletes, if any?
A: Yes, we use a lot of barefoot weight training around Cressey Performance in our strength training programs. In addition to strengthening the smaller muscles of the feet, barefoot training "accidentally" improves ankle mobility in athletes who have been stuck in restrictive shoes their entire lives.
Here are the exercises we're open to doing barefoot:
All deadlift variations (rack pulls and DB variations included), box squats (hip dominant), and all any body weight mobility drills.
We don't go barefoot for any loaded single-leg movements (aside from 1-leg RDLs and 1-leg squats/pistols) or more quad-dominant squatting variations.
All that said, we are careful about integrating barefoot drills in very overweight or very weak clients. These individuals do not go barefoot for any of our dynamic flexibility warm-ups aside from in-place ankle mobilizations, as lunging variations can be a bit too much stress on them at first.
We do, however, encourage clients (in most cases) to go with a good minimalist shoe. My personal favorite is the New Balance Minimus.
Sign-up today for our FREE newsletter and receive a four-part video series on how to deadlift!
