Home Posts tagged "Weight Lifting Routine" (Page 5)

Stuff You Should Read: 1/11/10

We're back on track with our next list of recommended reading.  Here are some things worth checking out: 13 Tips for Fitness Blogging Success - I know a lot of you have blogs of your own, and I'd encourage all of you to check out this great collection of advice from Mike Robertson.  A lot of it parallels exactly what I've tried to do with EricCressey.com. Never Eat Alone - This is one of the better business books I've ever read, as it focuses a ton on how to build and maintain a network in the business world.  I came across the title in some reading I was doing the other day, and it reminded me of just how much it has helped me since I read it in March of 2007.

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Vanilla Pumpkin Pie: Best Smoothie Yet? - Another great shake recipe from Brian St. Pierre. Dude does a face plate into a bunch of iron after a one-rep max deadlift attempt - Okay, I gave this one away.  It was too good to not repost.

Sorry, dude.  That's what you get for celebrating like a weenie.

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The Best of 2009: Videos

This week, we've already covered the most popular articles and product reviews from EricCressey.com in 2009.  Next up are the popular videos. One of my goals for 2009 with this site was to include a lot more video content - whether it was "built in" to the text, or serving as a stand-alone content source in itself.  Here were some of the most popular ones for the year: Correct Push-up Technique - This one got over 9,000 views in spite of the fact that I never even included it in a blog post (that I can remember).  I guess my theory that most people really need to learn how to do good push-ups was right on the money.

My 660 Deadlift - I guess lifting heavy stuff is only about 89% as cool as body weight push-ups.

Tim Collins Can Jump - Great guy, stud athlete, bright future.  Gotta' love him.

16x16 Sled Madness - This sled masochism was popular among our staff early in the year.  There is more info on it HERE.

Rollouts: Friend or Foe - This video went hand-in-hand with this newsletter.

Anterior Core Progressions - This video was a follow-up to the previous one, and was found in this newsletter.

Measuring Hip Internal Rotation - This video was featured as part of this newsletter.

Lastly, there were a few newsletters that included a ton of video content.  Here's my personal favorite, a follow-up from Mike Reinold and my shoulder seminar (available soon on DVD): Recap: Testing, Treating, and Training the Shoulder.

Tomorrow, we'll cover the top guest submissions for the year at EricCressey.com.

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The Importance of Ankle Mobility

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.

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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).

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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.

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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.

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Strength Exercise of the Week: Face Pulls with External Rotation

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Random Friday Thoughts: 12/11/09

1. Sorry for the slower week here on the blog.  In addition to trying to catch up from my three days in Houston, I had a few projects that needed to get sorted out this week.  For starters, we had to finalize the agenda for my seminar in Vancouver in March. And, the bigger task of late has been finishing up a chapter (on baseball testing and training) that I'm contributing to Dr. Craig Liebenson's newest book.  Others contributing include Dr. Stuart McGill, Sue Falsone (Athletes Performance), Dr. Ben Kibler, Dr. Pavel Kolar, Ken Crenshaw (Arizona Diamondbacks), and Mike Boyle (among others).  Needless to say, I'm lucky to be in such awesome company, and you'll definitely want to check it out once it's available.  In the meantime, you might be interested in Liebenson's most popular work, Rehabilitation of the Spine: A Practitioner's Manual.

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2. Mike Reinold and I are also working on getting our seminar, Testing, Treating, and Training the Shoulder: From Rehabilitation to High Performance, ready for production and sale.  We're hoping it'll be ready by the first of the year, but only time will tell; editing takes time, and it's out of our hands now!  Speaking of Mike, he just posted a blog outlining the recently revised pitch count rules.  If you coach young players or one of your kids plays ball, definitely check it out HERE.

3. On the topic of little league, the clinic with Matt Blake and I at Cressey Performance on Tuesday night was pretty popular with local coaches.  One of the things that Matt and I tried to stress is that kids almost never get hurt for JUST one reason.  Usually, injuries are multifactorial, so you have to look at a host of different causes - from overuse, to physical limitations (weakness or immobility), to mechanical flaws in the pitching delivery.

The questions we received gave me some ideas for future posts, so keep an eye out for those in the not-so-distant future.  Along those same lines, if there are specific baseball development questions you'd like covered, feel free to post some suggestions here as a reply to this blog.

4. I got the following question the other day, and thought it might make for a quick Q&A here:

Q: I am planning on training Westside style but I do not have access to bands and chains (or any other special equipment for that matter). What should I do to change up my dynamic effort days? Should I just use variations of the lifts (i.e. close grip vs regular grip bench, sumo vs conventional deadlifts)?

A: The whole idea that you absolutely have to have bands, chains, and specialized bars to learn from the Westside school of thought (which is constantly evolving anyway) couldn't be further from the truth.  There are bits and pieces borrowed from Westside teachings in Maximum Strength, and you'll see that there is plenty of rotation among movements in the four-month program - and the assumption is that you don't have any of these goodies.  Rotating among back squats and front squats (without a box, with a box, or from pins) and deadlifts will give you a great rotation of movements.

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Regarding dynamic effort days, I don't think it's as important to rotate exercises on a regular basis, as this speed work is there to improve bar speed on that specific movement and help you groove the movement pattern itself.  However, if you want to change it up, it's not too difficult.

In the lower body, simply go to a different deadlift or squat variation, or change the percentage at which you're working.  In the upper body, you can change the grip width on the bench press, do some plyo push-ups, or even just throw the medicine ball around.

5. I'm going to see The Nutcracker tonight with my fiancee.  In the words of Forrest Gump, "That's all I have to say about that."

6. I will, however, say that I'm a little bummed that Jim Breuer is in town tonight about ten minutes from where I live, and I'm not going to get to see him.  Doh!

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Measuring Hip Internal Rotation

Q: Inspired by your articles on T-Nation, I've started to measure IR/ER/Total shoulder rotation deficits using a goniometer.  I did have another question, however: you mentioned in an article that Hip Internal Rotation Deficit (HIRD) is a serious problem among baseball pitchers and hitters due to the asymmetrical front leg blocking in both mechanics. I absolutely agree, and I use corrective exercises and stretches to help alleviate these problems. However, I lack a good way to test for this; do you have any suggestions? A: We check hip internal rotation in the seated position.  Basically, you just have the individual sit up tall at the end of a table, and position the hips and knees at 90 degrees.  Then, without allowing the hip to hike, you internally rotate the femur. This is one of the many assessments on our new DVD set, Assess and Correct, and it's featured on page 50 of the tag-along e-manual.  Check it out:

For more information on how to correct the problem - and assess for other issues like this, check out www.AssessandCorrect.com.

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Recap: Testing, Treating, and Training the Shoulder

As many of you know, Mike Reinold and I put on a seminar that was "everything shoulder" this past Sunday at Cressey Performance.  The event sold out within 36 hours back when we first announced it in early October, and we had strength and conditioning and rehabilitation specialists come from the likes of Canada, Texas, and the Midwest on only a month's notice.   Our goal was to keep the seminar more intimate to allow for more speaker-attendee interaction, Q&A, and easy viewing - as we also recorded the event on DVD. While production won't be complete until December at the earliest, I thought I'd give my loyal readers a little taste of some of what was discussed on Sunday.  Our primary goals were to introduce some current concepts in evaluation of both symptomatic and asymptomatic populations as well as ways to treat/train them during and after injury.  Above all else, we wanted to show how rehabilitation specialists and strength and conditioning specialists could work hand-in-hand to improve outcomes - but that this successful interaction hinged on whether all parties involved were willing to commit to learning about how the shoulder functions.

You can call this my "Random Thoughts" for the week: 1.The side-lying external rotation (SLER) has the highest EMG of any rotator cuff exercise, and the adducted position is the safest position for most "testy" shoulders.  So, if you have to pick one cuff exercise to get you a safety and a great return on investment, roll with the SLER:

2. Simply providing a small amount of "propping" to put the humerus in a slightly more abducted position actually increases EMG of the posterior rotator cuff muscles by 23%.

3. Shoulder evaluations rarely work completely independently of one another.  For example, poor thoracic spine mobility directly impacts function of the scapula and, in turn, range of motion at the glenohumeral joint.  So, rather than hanging your hat on 1-2 assessments, you need a barrage of assessments that cover glenohumeral range-of-motion, scapular stability/positioning, thoracic spine mobility, breathing patterns, and forward head posture.  Then, once you've got all your information, you can look at each test as one piece in an individualized puzzle.

4. There are a ton of superior labrum anterior-posterior (SLAP) tests out there.  It's because none of them are particularly great - but the better ones out there simulate the injury mechanism (e.g. pronated load and resisted supnation external rotation tests for overhead throwing athletes).

5. The true function of the cuff is - very simply - to center the humeral head within the glenoid fossa.  So, rather than train it purely concentrically and eccentrically, we need to also work its isometric/stabilization function with rhythmic stabilization exercises.  Here's a really entry level one we use quite a bit with our pitchers:

6. MRIs and x-rays can only tell you so much about a shoulder.  For instance, 79% of professional baseball pitchers have "abnormal labrum" features.  Likewise, a huge chunk of asymptomatic people in the general population are walking around with partial and even FULL thickness tears of the rotator cuff.  It actually makes you wonder if abnormal is actually normal!  The take-home message is that having adequate mobility, stability, and tissue quality in the torso and upper extremities matters more than anything else. You have to ASSESS, not assume!

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7. We talk a lot about glenohumeral internal rotation deficit (GIRD) - and it certainly is important - but you have to appreciate that it's just one part of the total motion equation.  Some internal rotation deficit is completely normal, and working to fix it may actually hurt some athletes.  Look to total motion first, and then work backward to see whether IR, ER, or both need to be changed.  It is better to be too tight than too loose!

8. If you have an athlete with good shoulders, thoracic spine, scapular stability, and tissue quality who has rehabbed and long-tossed pain-free, but has shoulder/elbow pain when he gets back on the mound, CHECK THE HIPS! Staying closed and flying open will be your two most common culprits, and this cannot be seen in a doctor's office or on an MRI.

9. Anytime you see an individual with a pronounced shrugging pattern as they try to reach overhead, it's wise to have them checked for a rotator cuff tear.  The reason is that with a cuff tear, the deltoid's vertical action overpowers the cuff's compressive action.  In a healthy shoulder, the supraspinatus "cancels out" this deltoid pull.  Never, ever, ever, ever train through a shrugging pattern with overhead reaching!

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10. External impingement and internal impingement are completely different "syndromes" that must be managed completely differently.  Simply saying "impingement" is no longer acceptable with how far sports medicine has come!  Both are generally multi-factorial issues that mandate a more specific diagnosis and comprehensive treatment/training plan.  If you understand why/how they occur, you can understand how to train around them (and the same can be said about just about any shoulder condition).

UPDATE: The Optimal Shoulder Performance DVD set is now available!  Check it out at www.ShoulderPerformance.com.

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A Few Days in Arizona…

Sorry, everyone, for being a bit MIA of late.  I'll use today's post as a quick catch-up on what's been going on, and what is on tap for EricCressey.com in the months to come. Last week, I flew out to Phoenix on Tuesday to attend a seminar with Dr. Pavel Kolar.  With the exception of just a few of us, everyone in attendance was a strength and conditioniong coach, athletic trainer, or physical therapist with a major league organization.  For those who aren't familiar with Kolar, he is somewhat of a "rehabilitation rockstar"  in the Czech Republic, with "clients" that include Jaromir Jagr, Roger Federer, Petr Korda, countless world-class track and field athletes, multiple Czech Olympic teams, and the president of the Czech Republic himself.  Needless to say, he's a really smart dude; otherwise, people all around the world wouldn't be paying to hear him give seminars in Czech (yes, the majority of the seminar was through a translator). All of us in attendance are probably still trying to wrap our heads around his ideas, but Kolar presented a very interesting perspective on dynamic neuromuscular stabilization (DNS) based on developmental kinesiology.  The "Cliff's Notes" version is that the central nervous system and muscular system it governs are immature at birth, and must go through a very specific adaptation process to achieve anatomical maturation.   In rehabilitation down the road, examining this sequence of events during the first few years of life - from rolling over, to crawling, to standing up, to walking - can help us to understand how we must re-educate the nervous system to optimize function in those with aberrant patterns. According to Kolar, one can have altered stabilization patterns for any of three reasons: 1) abnormal early development, 2) abnormal training methodology, and 3) trauma.  Sounds simple, right? Unfortunately, it's not that easy.   Sequencing of patterns - from the feet all the way up to the head (and including things like diaphramatic breathing and optimal tongue positioning) - is what's important...NOT recruitment of specific muscles. So, while EMG of the vastus medialis, posterior rotator cuff, lower trapezius, transversus abdominus, and loads of other muscles that's important, it's how all those muscles work together that's important. All in all, it was an awesome seminar that really tested those in attendance.  A pessimist would have walked away from it saying that it was too complex and that it couldn't be applied right away.  The optimist (and I'd include myself in this camp) left realizing that there were a lot of things I'm anxious to research and integrate in one's programming to get our clients back to their "roots" of rolling and moving from ground-based to upright movements (think sprint-start from the ground and Turkish Get-ups). We're also looking a ton more at breathing patterns in all our athletes - especially after spending a few days in AZ with my buddy Neil Rampe, a great manual therapist with the Arizona Diamondbacks.  Most people don't realize that the diaphram is both a respiratory and postural muscle, so if you're not using it properly, it'll interfere with both oxygenation and muscular activity. Fun stuff.  Just trying to get better...
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Stuff You Should Read: 11/12/09

As you're reading this, I'm either watching a seminar in Arizona, or flying back from the trip.  Luckily, I prepared this list of recommended reading for the week in advance: Is the Seated 90/90 Stretch Safe? - This great Q&A with Bill Hartman emerged following a question from a reader after we released Assess and Correct.  It's definitely worth a read. The Best Exercise You're Not Doing - This was an excellent piece from Matthew Hertilus last week at T-Muscle.  We use the Turkish Get-up quite a bit with our athletes, and this article does a fantastic job of teaching the lift - complete with video tutorials. Returning to Deadlifting after a Back Injury - This newsletter from a while back was a popular one.  If you've got poor deadlifting technique or you've had an injury performing the lift in the past, it's definitely worth a read.
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Rollouts: Friend or Foe?

Q: I recently purchased Show and Go and noticed that you include barbell rollouts in the weight training program.  I did this exercise at the end of an aerobics class and was told by the fitness instructor not to do it, as it was a dangerous exercise. Given it's in your book, I gather you deem it a safe exercise. What is your opinion on this exercise? Do you know why some people say it's a dangerous exercise? A: As with just about everything, the devil is in the details.  For many individuals, this is a fantastic exercise.  For others, it may be too advanced.  And, for another group of folks, it just isn't good because it gets absolutely butchered technique-wise.  Let's attack this piece by piece with a rationale for its inclusion/exclusion, and then some training options and coaching cues:

(yes, I know I said "A" and then "2."  Gotta love live TV!) You can progress this exercise a bit more by either elevating the knees slightly or going to a band-resisted ab wheel rollout.  Just a heads-up: in this video, the athlete should have stopped a bit shorter in the top position to avoid the subtle lumbar rounding that took place; it's a good demonstration of technique that's good, but not quite perfect:

To learn more comparable exercises and see how they fit into a comprehensive weight training program, check out  Show and Go: High Performance Training to Look, Feel, and Move Better.  

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