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A Coach’s Guide to Optimizing Movement
Rethinking the Big Patterns
Pat Davidson, PhD
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CONTENTS
01 Foundational Questions
02 Foundational Principles
03 Foundations of the Model
04 Principles of Progression
05 Pattern 1: Breathing
06 Pattern 2: Core: Pelvic Focus
07 Pattern 3: Core: Thorax Focus
08 Pattern 4: Locomotion
09 Pattern 5: Change of Direction
10 Pattern 6: Throwing
...6
...11
...26
...43
...54
...69
...96
...122
...141
...152
CONTENTS
11 Pattern 7: Triple Extension
12 Hip-Dominant
13 Knee-Dominant
14 Horizontal Push
15 Horizontal Pull
16 Vertical Push
17 Vertical Pull
18 What Do I Do With This on Monday?
19 Conclusions
...168
...198
...217
...235
...252
...269
...284
...297
...307
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Introduction
Being in its infancy, the fitness world
doesn’t yet have a central, governing concept
to ground it. Because of this, the professionals
who presently work in this world display many
of the worst aspects of tribalism. Within the
ecosystem of fitness, there are specialists from
yoga, Crossfit, powerlifting, animal flow, Pilates,
strongman, Olympic weightlifting, figure, Zumba, spin classes in the dark, boxing classes,
rowing classes, treadmill classes, kickboxing,
surfboard classes, rock climbing gyms, Ninja
Warrior gyms, bodybuilding, bikini, boot camps,
bodyweight only, super slow training, Tabata, and countless others. The one tendency
common to many professionals in all of these
camps is that each thinks that they have the secret sauce to optimal physical training, and that
everyone else is deeply misguided. Meanwhile,
within such a divided and antagonistic ecosystem, the consumer has no way to discern a
quality product from trash. Many consumers
just want to belong to a particular discipline.
Many want to feel as though they have an inside track towards the body they want. Presented with infomercial nonsense and hoping for a
silver bullet, they buy gadgets and slapped-together workout routines. After all, the purveyors
are affable and attractive, with
larger than life personalities. Unfortunately,
those same purveyors are often charlatans,
devoid of actual knowledge.
To serve the fitness consumer well,
not to mention foster mutual respect amongst
fitness professionals, the fitness industry needs
that central governing concept. We need a systematic approach that names the primary forms
of trainable exercises. This system should be
descriptive in nature, and able to articulate with
accurate terminology exactly what an exercise
is. An early right of passage for any young
scientific domain is the construction of taxonomy for the phenomena within it. The most
famous scientific taxonomy is Systema Naturae
constructed by Carolus Linnaeus for the classification of life forms. By going through the hierarchical arrangement of Linnaeus’ taxonomy,
one can effectively classify any form of life on
the planet. In my mind, the world of exercise is
not very different from the world of life. Life on
planet Earth is incredibly diverse, with seemingly countless varieties of each type of creature,
plant, or fungi. Some forms of life are so bizarre
that it is hard to believe they exist. But every
living thing makes perfect sense when considered in the context of its environmental niche. If
something does not make sense, then it goes
extinct. This is the vetting process of time. As
exercise goes, there are so many ways in which
we humans choose to move, ranging from logical, to a little ridiculous to downright dangerous.
A similar vetting process has occurred with exercise as with life. Things that work stay around,
whereas things that do not disappear over time.
Regardless of the type of movement/exercise/
training practice that a person chooses to engage in, there should be some progression they
can follow to take them from the ranks of entry
level, to intermediate, to advanced practitioner.
Not all who begin an exercise practice are
capable of reaching advanced trainee ranking,
but such a logical, sequential progression—one
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based on fundamental principles—should be
the backbone of any discipline’s training model.
This book is not intended to reach into movement realms, such as yoga, Pilates, or dance.
Rather, this book will focus on forms of exercise
primarily aimed at creating large scale, measurable physiological adaptations. Aerobic exercise, strength training, and reactive drills are
forms of exercise that yield measurable adaptations like increased capillary density, mitochondrial biogenesis, muscular hypertrophy, speed
increases, strength increases, and jump height
increases, and hence characterize the motor
patterns we will cover. The training-based activities that will be referenced in this book are ones commonly performed in commercial gyms, and both private
sector and public sector strength and conditioning training rooms. I will begin by laying out the
trainable menu of activities performed in these
environments. Once that is done, guidelines on
the proper way to perform these activities will
be provided, as will the fundamental principles
underlying my approach. This synthesis will
remove the need for listing and describing endless individual exercises, as well as highlight
the strong similarities and connections between
seemingly dissimilar exercises. Mastery always
depends upon understanding such underlying
principles. They will be presented in the most
objective manner possible. Which body parts /
muscle groups are targeted, which are aligned
with others, the heft of the load, the velocity of
the movement and other specifications will be
described for each exercise covered. The design of this model won’t be perfect, and
may reveal certain shortcomings. All I hope is
that this model is useful to you, as I believe it
can be incredibly so, for those who take the
time to understand and implement it.
01
Foundational Questions
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Foundational Questions
Chapter 1
This is a book about movement. The aim
of this book is to allow you to objectively evaluate movement quality and to coach towards
improvement thereof. To this end, I will offer
a system—a taxonomy—that categorizes and
describes all trainable movement. Secondly, I
will offer a competency checklist for each category so that you can assess, according to fixed
criteria, the execution of a given movement.
The aim is to be as systematic as possible. The
downstream effects of such an approach can be
far-reaching. A taxonomy can provide a universal language for exercise professionals, allowing clear communication between coaches,
trainers, and physical therapists. The intended
outcome of each exercise will be readily apparent. Fixed criteria will standardize movement
quality so as to lead us towards objective appraisal of movement performance.
But why do we need objective standards
in the first place? This chapter will try to address that question.
Great fitness coaches have been trying
to categorize things for a long time. In the track
and field world, training days are often divided
by the neurological intensity of the chosen activities. When training sprinters, coaches often
have high intensity days with sprinting, heavy
lifting, and jumping with maximal intent. Low
intensity days include tempo runs, calisthenic
circuits, and massage therapy. Strength and
conditioning coaches may divide training days
for athletes by the direction the athletes are
moving in (linear or multidirectional), and by the
movement patterns being trained (hip dominant,
knee dominant, pushing, pulling, etc.). Coaches in strength sport may divide their training by
rate of force development, with maximum effort
days (heavy weights moved slow), dynamic
effort method days (submaximal weights moved
at maximal velocity), and repeated effort method days (submaximal weights moved to failure).
Some coaches, however, have a less organized
approach, likely due to a lack of understanding
behind the effects of specific drills. Without a
scientific understanding or an empirical process, such training plans yield unpredictable
outcomes. Furthermore, a lack of scientific
rigor can undermine the credibility of exercise
science as a field. If we as fitness professionals want to
learn from a more mature field, we should look
to medicine. In the medical field, conditions and
treatments are carefully defined. Tests are run
to find quantifiable deficiencies. Drugs specific
to a condition are administered at regulated
and titrated doses, according to diagnosis and
prognosis. If we too can become more exact
with our measurements, definitions, and dosages, and if we can bring these to bear on precise
movements for specific outcomes, we too will
be able to create better results for a greater
number of people.
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The purpose of medicine is to heal. The
purpose of training is to create specific structural and functional adaptations in the body. A
structural adaptation is an increase or decrease
in a tissue such as muscle whereas a functional adaptation is when someone’s performance
improves in a specific task, such as squatting
more weight in a ten rep max set. Most of the
time, structural and functional adaptations feed
into each other. For instance, you would expect that by training the squat, an athlete would
grow their quadriceps, and that, with bigger
quadriceps, they would then be able to squat
more weight. The difficult question is whether
structural change drives functional change or
whether the opposite holds true. The answer is
probably that it depends on both the individual
and the context. In any case, the take-home
message here is that training is about changing
the form and function of our bodies.
“What gets measured gets managed”—a
quote generally attributed to Peter Drucker, one
of the philosophical and practical founders of
the modern business corporation—should be
on the wall of every gym. The implication of the
quote is that you first need to decide what variables you want to manage. In order to decide
that, you must figure out what specific structural
or functional changes you want to drive. Next,
you would do some research to find out what
training measures are targeted and appropriate,
recommended by experts and supported by science. When you begin training, establish baseline measurements for the relevant variables.
If you’re working with a 5k runner, you should
probably measure how fast they can run five
kilometers as well as other distances you plan
to have them run in training. If you’re working
with a powerlifter, you should probably measure
their squat, bench, and deadlift. If you’re working with someone who wants to lose weight,
you should probably measure their weight, food
intake, and some key fitness variables. Continue to measure as you implement your training
plan. Have some end date in mind when you
plan to formally measure and evaluate your
training outcomes.
When you identify the variables you will
be measuring in a trainee, you automatically
invite his or her attention, thought, and effort to
focus on those specific variables. If, during the
course of training, values associated with those
variables remain static or change in the opposite of the desired direction, this may upset and
potentially demotivate the subject. Conversely, seeing a variable improve has the power
to motivate him or her. Therefore, make sure
you measure only those variables that are both
critical and likely to change in the desired direction, omitting any that don’t meet these criteria
as unnecessary noise. Once you have them
in hand, measure them consistently and often. Not surprisingly, those who weigh themselves
often tend to lose more weight than those who
weigh themselves less frequently, and those
who consistently time tasks tend to improve
upon their times with future attempts.
At the end of the training program, assess. If the program was a success, stick to
that strategy as long as it continues to drive
change. If the program was a failure, go back
to the drawing board, perhaps first consulting
with a coach or other experienced professional
who can help revise or oversee your methodology. The most important thing is to be very
specific in what you are trying to improve, and
measure exactly that variable as best you can. Always let data show you which practice is
best. Science, theory, and practical advice are
all great, but the numbers are where the rubber
meets the road.
What about those clients who come to
you with very vague, “look good / feel good”
goals? They too will need to measure and train
specific variables. For those new to exercise
or low-level trainees, my recommendation is to
measure aerobic performance and slow speed
strength at the outset of the training process.
Humans evolved for endurance. Our systems
have a greater capacity to improve aerobic fitness and slow speed strength than high-velocity, phosphagen-powered activities like sprinting
and jumping. This may, in part, explain why an
untrained person can improve aerobic performance by 100% or more—often going from a
15 min mile to a 7:30 mile, for instance—or why
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another may see similar improvements in the
deadlift, not uncommonly going from 135 lbs to
315 lbs—but find it virtually impossible to get a
similar percent change in a vertical jump. By
choosing to train aspects that change quickly,
and measuring consistently and often, you will
be giving your client frequent, positive feedback. The reward of improvement will likely get
him or her hooked on the process, and may often turn him or her into habitual exercisers. As
such, it’s in everyone’s best interest for trainers
to provide as much positive reinforcement as
possible to their trainees. A discouraged client
is more likely to quit, having invested their time,
effort and financial resources with little perceived return. A feedback loop that allows them
to see a return on those investments early on in
their fitness journey reduces that risk.
Only when we strive towards something
do we tend to exert our best effort, and exercise
can only create significant body and lifestyle
changes when performed with intense effort. Whatever physical goal one hopes to accomplish, parts of the process will inevitably be very
difficult and unpleasant. Sacrifice and even
suffering in the present are prerequisite for rewards in the future. All the more reason to keep
motivation high, so as to pull clients through this
discomfort. By setting specific numbers to be
hit on a specific date, you will increase their motivation to work on those habits and behaviors
that move them towards their goal, whether that
means training consistently, not drinking the
night before a training session, etc. In addition
to benchmarking against measurable goals,
some clients may benefit from introducing a
competitive element to their training, which taps
into the human desire to win, stand apart, or
succeed relative others. As a sidebar, consider your own motivation and your own return on investment as a
coach. Sure, most coaches want to work with
the best of the best professional athletes, but
working with those individuals is more about
management rather than radical improvement. Can you prevent a 300 pound lineman from
falling into your quarterback’s knee? Can you
prevent a defenseman in hockey from cross
checking your star center? Can you dramatically improve the athleticism of NBA’s current
MVP? No. At best, you and the athlete may
come up with a best case scenario plan, and
you may improve the goal outcome by .05%,
which may well be an outstanding achievement.
But weigh this marginal improvement
against the results you could get training an
average 15 year old kid, or perhaps a freshman college athlete. Or with a sedentary 35
year old mom, who just wants to look and feel
a little better. What about a 75 year old man
who simply wants to be capable of performing
standard household chores? These are the
people you can transform, whose lives you can
radically alter by improving their physical capabilities by hundreds of percentage points. The
motivated, engaged, lively and committed, are
great to work with. But elite athletes get the
smallest return on investment from their work
with fitness professionals, while those just starting out on their fitness journey typically get the
most. Those who aren’t physically fit need help. Those who are moderately fit need help. Elite
athletes need help. As fitness professionals,
it’s our job to differentiate between these populations, and figure out which one we might be
best suited for.
And now, a word on range of motion,
which a book about human movement must
address. Range of motion is measurable and
directly affects human movement, so it should
invite our interest. Is it possible to change the
range of motion of someone’s joints? The answer to this is a resounding yes. Range of motion is a very fickle beast. If I have been sitting
down for a long time, such as during a long car
ride, I may find myself feeling extremely stiff. If
I were to be tested after an eight hour drive, I
would probably display poor range of motion in
a number of my joints. If, conversely, I were to
take a 90 minute yoga class, I would expect improvements in my range of motion immediately
afterwards. Range of motion is almost always
better right after performing a targeted stretch
held for long enough. However, the effects of
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stretching are acute in nature.
If I were to measure my toe touch range
of motion and then do a 60-second hamstrings
stretch, I would expect to see an immediate and
substantial improvement in my toe touch. If I
held another 60 second hamstrings stretch, I
would expect further improvement. What happens if I come back the next day? I’d probably
display the exact same range of motion as I did
the previous day on the first toe touch test, and
I’d probably improve about the same amount
after each hamstring stretch. Although I’d gain
range of motion immediately after stretching,
I’d lose it again as the day went on and be right
back to where I started on the third day of testing. In other words, improvements in range of
motion are not chronic and therefore not cumulative, getting you nowhere from a big picture
standpoint.
Can we truly change the way people
move? Your motor neurons are basically done
with myelination by the time you finish puberty. This essentially means that the nerves that go
from your brain and spinal cord to your muscles
have completed their wiring. Neuroplasticity
research has demonstrated that there remains
some capacity to rewire our sensorimotor
system, but only with difficulty. True change
requires an unbelievable amount of time, conscious effort, and volume. So, generally speaking, in terms of range of motion and the execution of previously learned motor patterns, you’re
stuck with what you’ve got at the end of puberty. This is particularly true with our largely sedentary Western population.
Now, this does not mean you can’t learn
new skills or master new movements. Thirty
year old adults can learn to squat with great
form, do handstands, break dance, sew, or do
any other number of physical skills and tasks. However, if you are an absolute stiff at the age
of 35, it is going to take a hell of a lot more than
an hour of yoga four times a week to remodel
you into a pliable, highly flexible individual. To
achieve that, you would probably have to quit
your job, move to a very different place, and
become extremely physically active in tasks that
demand exertion through large
ranges of motion for hours every
day. And, the likelihood is that
even if you did that, you would
still be less flexible than someone who was
a gymnast between ages 5 and 18 (but then
settled into a typical suburban Western lifestyle
into their early 30s).
That said, we can all become better movers, and acute, transient changes in range of
motion can be parlayed into better movement in
training. This book will systematically guide you
through this process. This will not be a shallow
dive concluding with a platitude along the lines
of, “Stay on your heels when you squat.” We’re
going all the way to the bottom of the ocean. In fact, if you learn the competency rules and
follow the recommendations, you will display
masterful mechanics which will, in turn, allow
you to train as hard as you possibly can.
I hope you want to get jacked, or get
freaky strong, or be an incredible endurance
athlete, or play football, basketball, soccer, or
golf. I hope you have specific fitness and performance goals that you’re willing to work your
ass off to reach. That said, if you’re going to
shoot for the stars, how you move becomes a
big deal. If you move improperly, you’re probably going to torque yourself up, and not make it
as far as you could. Avoidance of unnecessary
injuries that come from training with poor form
is the biggest culprit that I strive to pin down,
and help others avoid. This book is my attempt
at bringing my methods to anyone who’d like to
benefit from this codified system.
In addition to providing a taxonomy of
exercise and standardized execution guidelines, this book will also describe principles for
progression and regression, which will act as a
troubleshooting guide for athletes/clients who
perform exercises improperly. Using these
should help you examine a specific drill and
apply recommendations that can steer the client
back to optimal execution. 02
Foundational Principles
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Foundational Principles
Chapter 2
Theories and Models
Theories are testable explanations of
phenomena, created in an attempt to comprehensively explain it. When we master a subject,
we gain the ability to predict outcomes, and to
manipulate it for our benefit. Moreover, theories
ultimately provide us with the ability to make
generalized observations about ourselves and
the world we live in, and guide us to construct
models that can be used to explain both the
human organism and the world we inhabit. The
ability to formulate theories also increases our
likelihood of obtaining desired outcomes, leveraging the branch of philosophy known as Scientific Materialism.
George Box famously stated: “All models
are wrong, but some are useful”. In other words,
there is no way to be 100% right about a topic
or an outcome. Instead, everything is based
on probability. Scientists attempt to increase
the probability of their predictions being correct
(when tested in a laboratory or in real life set-
tings). When we arrive at solid theoretical conclusions, we inherit strong guideposts to direct
us towards more hits than misses.
Model 1: Variability
Variability characterizes something as
having multiple capabilities for accomplishing
the same task. An increased number of viable
options for getting something done provides
a sort of security blanket. When variability is
present, the chances that an organism is going
to be wiped out through a catastrophic event
are reduced, and the chances that it comes
through are increased.
At the most macroscopic level, life on
Earth has selected to incorporate variability into
its fabric. The very process of creating life is an
incredibly unlikely event. Life as a phenomena
has existed for an unimaginably long time. Life
most certainly began simplistically. The first life
form(s) possessed the ability to replicate themselves, as well as the ability to alter themselves
in the process of replication. For life on Earth,
perfect fidelity in replication wasn’t in the cards. Rather, all life on earth undergoes random
mutation upon replication. As they spread, life
forms increasingly diverged from their origins,
and became increasingly more complex. Life
has had millennia upon millennia to grow, differentiate, diversify, spread out, arm and armor
itself, and become increasingly more complicated and intricate in its makeup.
There are many hypotheses on why variance is selected for. The most likely explanation is that an increase in variability provides life
forms with greater chances for survival. For instance, extinction-level events of the past have
instantaneously and dramatically altered the
environment in which many life species found
themselves, rendering a good number of them
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unequipped to survive. This is the fate that
befell many species when oxygen arose and
came to dominate ambient air on our planet or
when the event that wiped out the dinosaurs occurred. Through these catastrophic events, the
survival of life on Earth as such depended on
the survival of one or more species. Because
the odds of this happening grow with each new
species that arises, the more variance, the better those odds. While opting for a strategy of differentiation, a common thread continues to permeate
all life forms: a carbon backbone. It seems that,
for greatest evolutionary success, life can be
neither too rigid or homogeneous, nor too chaotic, lacking any common denominator. Variability is the middleground between these two
extremes. Human movement capabilities can be
thought of as being rigid, variable, and chaotic. Movement variability is quite an involved subject, which I will do my best to simplify. Excellent athletes and teams possess the ability to
win through multiple strategies. Great teams
in American football typically possess optionality. They can line up with different personnel
in different formations on the defensive side of
the ball to appropriately counteract the offense. When they are on the offensive, this same team
may employ different strategies, throwing the
ball frequently to break through some defensive
schemes, but using running attacks against
others. Great teams can win using blowouts,
shootouts, low scoring field possession games,
or in some mix of all of the above circumstances. Conversely, the flash-in-the-pan teams are
those that rely solely on their quarterback for
their offensive plays. What happens when the
weather isn’t perfect? What happens if someone gets hurt? A lack of variability hurts these
one-dimensional teams when an unforeseen
event occurs, because they lack the optionality
provided by a backup plan or alternate strategy. The Greats can win any day, any time, any
which way.
With great athletes performing specific
skills, much the same rules apply. Any high-level quarterback can throw the ball accurately
under ideal circumstances where they stand
tall and clean in the pocket and deliver the ball
over the top with classic throwing mechanics. The difference between the good and the great
is that the great ones can still throw the ball
accurately when they have a defender coming
in hot, or when they are on the move, or when
they have to drop their arm slot and release
three quarters, side arm, off the wrong foot, or
with any other number of factors influencing
the exact way that they get the job done. Rigid
athletes need everything to be perfect. Chaotic
athletes are inconsistent, and hence unreliable. The variable athlete increases the likelihood
that he or she can successfully accomplish the
task, regardless of what’s going on around him
or her.
How do we gain movement variability? The answer to this is a two-parter. First, the
subject needs to demonstrate movement potential. That is, the demonstration that the joints
can move through acceptable human norms in
joint range of motion tests. Exercise and therapeutics scientists have measured every human
joint, and arrived at standard and acceptable
ranges of motion for how many degrees each
should be able to move, making it possible to
look up normal ranges of motion for elbow flexion, big toe extension, cervical spine rotation,
or femoral adduction or any other joint in most
Kinesiology textbooks.
There are two primary types of movers
who are significantly deviated from standardized joint range of motion: the rigid and the
chaotic. Rigid individuals demonstrate dramatically reduced range of motion, and chaotic
individuals demonstrate an inability to control
their axial and/or appendicular skeleton while
moving. Rigidity and chaos are red flags, both
from a movement competency and injury avoidance perspective. That said, there are techniques and methods that can move rigid and
chaotic individuals back towards normal ranges
of motion and control, and such techniques will
be discussed in this book.
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The second part of bringing about
movement variability entails learning the fundamentals of body control and mechanics for the
training and competition movements of interest. In other words, passing the joint range of motion standardized table tests gives one clearance to enter motor learning 101. In the world
of fitness, this means the big training patterns
typically performed in athletic development
centers and general population gyms. While
adequate range of motion theoretically enables
us to execute requisite movements with ideal
technique, it does not imply that we will be able
to perform those movements properly out of the
gate. Those who don’t possess the underlying
prerequisite joint motion capabilities won’t be
able to achieve certain positions required for
proper execution of some training exercises,
the best coaching in the world notwithstanding. Those who do possesses the movement prerequisites are ready for a great coach to teach
the technique and tactics that characterize great
training.
Children help us understand movement
variability well. A healthy five year old will most
likely demonstrate acceptable range of motion in all joints, but will most likely be unable
to consistently shoot a basketball into a hoop. The child may employ any number of strategies
to achieve this task. On one shot, they may
throw a granny style scoop shot, followed by
throwing it like a baseball, followed by a throw
used in soccer, etc. These strategies can be
described as chaotic, stemming from the fact
that the subject hasn’t learned the fundamentals
of properly shooting a basketball. Because the
child passed all the range of motion tests, he
or she has the potential to be coached to learn
how to properly shoot a basketball, but, until
this motor pattern is learned and engrained, he
or she does not possess movement variability
for this task. Those who have learned the fundamentals of how to perform a movement properly
will display increasing movement variability as
they move towards mastery. As the child gets
coaching and practice, chaos will begin to get
replaced by low variability shooting. As the child abandons strategies that have extremely low
probabilities for success, more
and more of his or her shots begin to resemble
one another. As the child matures in basketball, he or she will be exposed to shooting the
ball under different circumstances. When they
are closely guarded, they will learn to alter their
shot to a certain degree. When they are shooting off the dribble, they will develop a distinctive
shot from the ones used to “catch and shoot”. The child takes the fundamental nature of the
shot, and, increasingly, morphs the pattern to fit
the exact circumstances he or she is in. This is
the essence of the variability we are after. Passing the table tests that confirm our potential for
mastering the fundamentals of a movement or
sport, and obtaining “motor learning 101” of said
movement or sport from a great coach marks
the start of true high-level variability.
Model 2: The Invariant Representation
of Memory and Archetypes
Your brain stores your memories. Grab a
pen and paper for me, and sign your name on
the paper. Next, put your pen down, and sign
your name with your index finger in the air in
front of you. Now, point the toes on your foot,
and sign your name with your big toe into the
air in front of you. Now, try signing your name
with your elbow. Did you use the same series
of strokes performed in the same angle with the
same sequence? My guess is, you did. Have
you ever tried to sign your name with your elbow before? My guess is, you haven’t. Did you
have to learn how to sign your name with your
foot before being able to do it? Nah. The point
of this is that your brain has a stored memory
for the motor program, “sign your name”, kept
somewhere in the synaptic connections that
make up your interconnected neural networks. The memory “sign your name” is a static, unchanging entity. The only thing that changes is
the context under which you are attempting to
execute this program.
Building on the “sign your name”, program, let me ask you some follow up questions. Page
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If you were a young child and you had just
learned how to sign your name the previous
week, do you think you could expertly execute
this task with your foot or your nose? Unlikely. The only way you are going to be able to
execute, “sign your name” with a multitude of
body parts is by having gained a tremendous
amount of practice at the task. In your case,
the practice came with paper and pen, held by
your dominant. Similarly, if you had originally
learned to sign your name while holding the
pen with your foot, you would have engrained
that stylistic representation in your brain, and if
I asked you to do it with your nose twenty years
later, the nose version would follow the sequence and rhythm of the foot method.
Would your signature be as precisely executed when using your elbow instead of your
head? Of course not. But, practice signing
your name with your elbow for twenty minutes
a day for the next week, you would get more
proficient at it. While the memory of “sign your
name” would remain largely unchanged, your
execution of this movement with the new body
part would improve dramatically. The specific
motor neurons controlling the movement of your
elbow for this task would learn more efficient,
more accurate strategies for neatly signing your
name… but these strategies would all be based
on making the outcome look more and more
like your handwritten signature. What does the “sign your name” program
tell us about training? Any exercise selected is
best trained using its basic, fundamental, standardized, proper and agreed-upon form. When
practicing it, achieving this form should be goal
on every execution. Drilling an exercise over
and over will build and engrain its pattern in
the brain, making it possible to execute almost
autonomically, and identically. Once the memory of this movement is
solidified, we can start to add variation to the
movement. Let’s use the snatch as an exercise
example. If I take a young, healthy athlete, and
teach him or her the barbell snatch with correct
form, he or she will form an invariant representation of this movement in his or her neural cir-
cuitry. Consequently, snatching with light, warmup weights will look identical to the movement
when executed with 85% 1RM during training
sets. The movement will also look the same
when performed in weightlifting shoes and in flip
flops. Now, if I want this same athlete to do a dumbbell snatch instead of a barbell snatch but
give him or her zero coaching on performing the
former, the movement he or she will use will be
recognizable as a snatch. Building on his or her
preexisting mental representation of the barbell
snatch, a it shouldn’t take too much practice for
our athlete to nail the dumbbell variation of this movement. As we can guess, this athlete will
have masterd the dumbbell snatch significantly
faster than one who was attempting it anew,
never having mastered the barbell snatch. Bruce Lee was speaking to the idea of
the formation of the invariant representation of
memory when he admitted: “I fear not the man
who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear
the man who has practiced one kick 10,000
times.” Great coaches do not try to introduce a
plethora of different movements at once. Instead, they teach one or two skills at a time, but
with exceptional emphasis on accuracy, and using a high degree of repetition. With the snatch
example, the movement hinges on the athlete
first grasping a fundamental, proper starting
position for it. Once in this position, the athlete then sequences the extension of the hips,
knees, and ankles to create vertical propulsion
through space. This is followed by dropping
the body under the object to catch the object
overhead, and finally standing up straight with
the object held overhead. If the athlete learns
the proper coordination of this activity, dictated
by proper positioning and sequence of movements, then the coach can progress to other
heavy ballistic exercises such as the power
clean, building on its movement overlap with the
snatch.
All memories, including motor memories,
are based on relationships. These relationships
are powerfully rooted in the relative position
of body parts with each other, particularly the
relationship of the axial skeleton with the appendicular skeleton. If you can coach from an
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understanding of the positions and movements
of the axial skeleton and how they influence
appendicular skeleton capabilities, you will be
creating a vital underlying memory system for
exercise. It’s easy to get carried away with the
arms and legs, but the body is the show. By
creating the movement foundation through engraining its proper, unique memory, the coach
establishes a springboard for quickly teaching
other skills strongly related to this original memory. Avoid teaching a tri-planar lunge matrix on
day one, and instead teach a static split squat. The day one lunge matrix is ten inaccurately
thrown stones and no birds hit, versus the split
squat being one excellently hurled stone that
hits a bird today, and continues to pelt bird after
bird thereafter. Choose exercises that people have the
potential to perform properly (as ascertained
from table testing). Rather than add drills for
the sake of adding drills, coach the exercise to
the highest degree possible. Let the athlete
gain a lot of practice at the movement. Rather
than introducing training variation for the sake
of variation, wait until the movement is firmly
entrenched in the athlete’s unconscious pattern execution repertoire, and then branch off
and coach other pertinent, necessary exercise
variations that will move the athlete towards his
or her goals. If you have someone who has
passed the table, who has learned the essence
of the fundamentals for a training pattern, now
you can steer him or her in any number of
directions… the playbook is open! That said,
great coaches selectively scroll through their
playbooks, finding optimal lessons for any given
circumstances. The way the brain forms invariant memories is a fascinating subject, one pondered
since the time of Ancient Greeks, one of them
being Plato. Our brains are able to categorize
even under really interesting circumstances, for
instance, recognizing the object pictured below. Though the actual image has no true outline
and is just six black shapes distributed in a
human-recognizable pattern, you likely quickly and correctly - identified it as a soccer ball, due
to its resemblance to your mental construct of
this object.
Fig 2.1 - Soccer ball
Plato believed that our experience on
Earth was a state of being in one realm of reality, but that there were other realms as well,
such as the realm of Forms, a super reality to
which he believed our souls were tethered. The realm of Forms, it was believed, houses
the perfect essence of all concepts, including
Plato’s famous Perfect circle. Our memory of
a circle (or any object), it was believed, comes
directly from the perfect version of that concept
in the realm of Forms. But, as soon as we try
to make the perfect memory a reality, a flawed,
altered version of the concept emerges in our
reality.
Though modern science rejects Plato’s
theory of Forms, the human quest for perfection
is alive and well. To any given end, some solutions are superior to others, both in form and
function. In this book, I’m going to try to apply
rules that will guide you to the closest version of
the archetype for your training movements. The
rules will be based on an invariant representation of what constitutes proper positioning of
your axial skeleton. Once the memory of what
to do with your axial skeleton is ingrained in
your brain, you will be able to make fast associations to similar exercises, and improve the rate
of mastering the relevant drills that will help you
move towards your goals.
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Model 3: Asymmetry
You are not a symmetrical organism,
and you never will be. This is ok, because symmetry should never be your goal. Why?
Because gradients are the backbone for movement, and gradients imply a lack of symmetry
and balance. In order for movement to occur, a
lack of balance has to precede the event. This
is true whether we are talking about a human
throwing a ball, or about oxygen diffusing from
one region to another. Kinetic energy requires potential energy to exist, and potential energy
cannot exist unless we have more of something
in one location than another location. Even our
universe began asymmetrically, with an uneven
“Big Bang” explosion, scattering unevenly sized
chunks of matter within varying, uneven distances from one another, and setting the stage
for a dynamic universe.
Yes, a superficial appraisal of the human
body suggests a symmetrical organism. But,
under our skin and muscle, in our viscera, the
distribution of our internal organs is quite assymetrical, with one heart on our left and one liver
in the lower right quadrant of your thoraco-abdominal complex, to name only a couple examples of our asymmetry. Moreover, torque and twist reside within our bodies. Most of our organs are being
torqued and pulled in a counter-clockwise
direction. This is especially evident in the position of our brains, called Yakovlevian Torque,
which is the tendency for the right hemisphere
to be positioned slightly in front of the left. Our
musculoskeletal systems are always working
to overcome the external force of gravity, along
with the internal forces of our fluids and organ
placement, preventing musculoskeletal symmetry.
Finally, at the subatomic level, we see
the greatest degree of asymmetry. The nucleus
of an atom is made up of protons, neutrons, and
electrons. These three particles must create
some form of dynamic stability in order for life to
function at its most basic level. While the protons and neutrons congregate close together in
the center with one another, the electrons orbit
both. The protons and neutrons make up the
entirety of the mass of the nucleus, whereas
the electrons are essentially massless. This
extreme asymmetry or “imbalance” between
the mass of the atom’s proton/neutron core and
its electron fringe is what sets the electrons in
motion, and this movement forms the backbone
of matter and life on our planet.
Similarly, asymmetry is the driving force
of human musculoskeletal movement. The
upright bipedal locomotion used by our species
is unique and strongly distinctive. When we
observe the limbs during the gait cycle, we see
that the left side and the right side are always
doing exactly the opposite motion. When the
left femur is flexed, abducted, and externally
rotated, the right leg will be extended, adducted,
and internally rotated. This is no different from
examining a pitcher throwing a ball. During the
cocking phase of throwing, the throwing hand
arm is flexed, externally rotated, and the hand
is supinated. Meanwhile, the glove side arm
is extended, internally rotated, and the hand is
pronated. When the pitcher throws the ball, the
reverse takes place, as the throwing arm extends, internally rotates, and the hand pronates,
while the glove side arm flexes, externally rotates, and the hand supinates. Aside from twofoot jumping, or some other way of moving the
body through space where we simultaneously
propel ourselves with both limbs, the majority
of human actions intended to propel our bodies
or external objects through space feature this
alternating “mirror asymmetry”.
Inorganic movement actually preceded
life, in the form of alternating mirror asymmetry
through which particles flowed down concentration gradients. The wider a gradient—aka, the
more of something in one region compared to
another region—the faster and more powerful
the movement of particles from the more to the
less concentrated region. Human joints rotate
in a given direction as the muscle group on one
side of the joint assumes a concentric length
status, while the muscle group on the opposing
side of the joint assumes an eccentric length
status. The ability to switch back and forth be-
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tween a concentric length and eccentric length
state on both sides of the joint allows for continuous movement.
Our thoraco-abdominal region shifts back
and forth between an exhalation and inhalation
state. The exhalation state is that of compression, where the volume of the chest cavity is
reduced, the pressure of the chest cavity is
increased, the diaphragm domes, and intra-abdominal pressure decreases. The inhalation
state, on the other hand, is characterized by expansion throughout the thoraco-abdominal complex, with increased volume in the chest cavity,
decreased chest cavity pressure, diaphragm
flattens, the pushing of visceral fluid and organs
downward, which increases intra-abdominal
pressure. To breathe, our bodies must toggle
between this compressed, concentric, thoraco-abdominal exhalation strategy, and an expanded, eccentric inhalation strategy. At a still
more macroscopic level, as we move through
space, we continuously cycle back and forth
between having one side of our body accepting
our mass via a yielding action, while the other
side shoves it away through an overcoming
action. The more that we are able to shift into
each of these previously mentioned states—
concentric, eccentric, compressing, expanding,
overcoming, yielding —the greater the degree
to which we can create mirror asymmetry, and
the greater the degree we can be efficient in our
motor performances. Model 4: Jacksonian Dissolution
John Hughlings Jackson, the father of
English neurobiology, did the majority of his
work in the late 1800s. His primary discovery
was that during times of stress, the most modern and sophisticated parts of the human brain
are inhibited, and the older, less complicated
parts of the brain take over. The prefrontal cortex was the most recent brain structure to arise,
and, the more modern the structure, typically
the more complex, sophisticated and individualized it is compared to its evolutionarily older
counterparts. Interestingly, the newer additions
are also less capable of dealing with stress,
and, as stress rises, organisms revert to reli-
ance on older components.
Whenever I think about this concept of
Jacksonian Dissolution, I think about appliances, alarm clocks in particular. When I was a kid,
the first alarm clock I had was a windup one. Its
sole two features are to display the time, and
wake you up if you set an alarm, both of which
had to be hand-wound. When it would go off in
the morning, it was to the loud sound of a metallic bell being struck by a tiny hammer. You
knew the battery was dying when the alarm was
not quite as loud as it used to be. When I got older, I got a radio alarm
clock. This clock plugged into the wall, had an
electronic, digital display, and multiple options
for noises I could wake up to. There were problems with this clock though. First, it was hard
to set. I think it blinked 12:00 at me more than
it told me the actual time. If the radio station
wasn’t working in the morning, or if I accidentally hit the dial, it would play low grade static that
I might not wake up to. If the power went out
at night, it would throw the time back to blinking
12:00 and turn the alarm function off.
Fast Forward to the late 1990s, when I
got a CD player alarm clock. This thing had all
the bells and whistles. Now I had my pick of
wake-up sounds: old school alarm noise, radio
station, or my favorite song from my CD collection. Of course, there were a host of problems
with the CD alarm as well. For starters, you
needed a degree from MIT to figure out how to
program it. Sometimes the CD would skip, or
just fail to play. You still had the same problems
with the radio feature if you chose that. And,
of course, If the power went off or your college
roommate tripped over and unplugged the cord
at night, there went your alarm. These progressively more complex
iterations of the alarm clock follow evolution’s
pattern of increased sophistication, greater options and personalization. Likewise, they also
demonstrate how more sophisticated structures are less resistant to stress. As reliability
went, nothing beats that “old faithful” wound-up
clock, precisely because its simplicity limits
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its potential for failure under stress. Interestingly enough, modern alarm clocks—aka cell
phones—have largely reverted back to the past
(including the handy fact that, so long as you
have a bit of charge left overnight, unplugged
cords and overnight power outages won’t prevent your phone from waking you up in the
morning). This concept of Jacksonian Dissolution
is a universal phenomena that permeates our
reality and our behavior. Most of us can be
quite civil and easy to get along with when we
are fed, well rested, relaxed, and in an environment that suits us. Such a state would be a low
stress background, and under such conditions,
the most modern equipment in our brains is
running the show. We can laugh, be clever,
have empathy for others, demonstrate thoughtfulness, and be good natured. But, imagine
yourself at the grocery store checkout, hungry,
tired, with a couple of screaming (also hungry,
tired) children in your ear. You hand the surly
teenage cashier your credit card, the only one
you have on you, but, after staring blankly at
her screen for what seems like eternity, she
hands it back and says with what sounds like
a scoff: “Um… yea.. it’s declined?” Most of us
would probably behave a bit more primitively
and less refined in this scenario, falling back on
our ancient amygdalas for a good dose of anger
and anxiety. When it comes to movement, we can
also plot it on an evolutionary timeline, to get
a sense of what primitive movement looked
like, and ascertain whether or not any given
organism is moving with a modern, fully evolved
human style. While extremely primitive animals, such as amoeba, did possess some
motor proteins which functioned as propellers
and primitive legs to move them through space,
the majority of their movement was expansion
and compression. These single celled organisms cycled back and forth between states of
swelling and depletion, as fluid crossed their
semi-permeable outer membrane. This type of
movement is still present in our modern human
bodies, both at the cellular and organ level.
Fish and snakes move through water
in the frontal plane, using their heads and tails
as the primary drivers of movement. As animals reached land, they brought this frontal
plane movement with them, evident by the fact
that lizards, snakes, and other reptiles largely
drive themselves forward with frontal plane,
side-bending body actions. As animals continued to evolve, a sagittal plane style characteristic of mammals emerged. Compared to
reptiles, quadruped mammals display greater
flexion and extension of their spine during
locomotion. When quadrupeds run, the motion
looks much more like a rocking horse compared
to the slithering style of reptiles. This movement difference is well illustrated in the way
marine mammals swim and terrestrial reptiles
walk: you could say that dolphins are, “running”,
in the water, and reptiles are, “swimming” on
the land. It would be fair to say that chimps and
other great apes are glorified quadrupeds, who
also happen to use their front paws for grasp. By the time we get to modern humans, we see
a distinctive upright bipedal style of locomotion
that features sagittal limbs, a frontal plane dominant pelvis, and a transverse dominant ribcage
and neck. Plato classified humans as, “featherless bipeds”. Darwin rattled the cage about
as hard as anyone when he suggested that
humans evolved through the lineage of apes,
and that the key variable that drove us towards
our modern physical presentation was bipedalism. We are a bit of an odd, unique animal in
many ways. Other than avians, we are the only
biped going, but the way in which humans move
around is so drastically different from the strategies used by birds that the comparisons are
incredibly difficult.
Our closest living relative is the chimpanzee, with whom we shared a common ancestor,
somewhere around 5 to 8 million years ago. Climate change is identified as the catalyst
for divergence between humans and other
great apes millions of years ago. A significant
drought of the African climate, and resulting rain
forest recession brought the open woodlands
of the Savannah into prominence. Chimps
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stuck to the rain forest and continued to eat
a diet made up almost completely of fruit. By
contrast, the animals that became hominids and
humans ventured out into the open terrain in
search of other types of food. All of a sudden,
they were having to travel many miles a day on
foot to acquire foods such as yams and other
tubers, forcing our ancestors to find a mode
of locomotion that would be as economical as
possible.
It’s when the going gets tough for a
species that adaptation takes center stage. When aforementioned climate change drove
our ancestors out of the rain forest in search of
new food sources, they found themselves having to traverse significantly greater distances
than their chimp counterparts, who rarely move
more than a mile per day. Over time, three
large shifts in the structure of the skeleton, at
the spine, pelvis, and feet, allowed our predecessors to maximize economy in locomotion. These shifts in our morphology increased our
ancestors’ odds of survival and even enabled
them to thrive in an ever-changing, often inhospitable environment, making them—and us—
amazing featherless bipeds indeed. Compared to humans, the long duration
locomotion used by chimps is 4 times less energy-efficient than ours. This means that it costs
a chimp about 140 Kcal more to traverse 6km
as compared to an average-sized human. The
spines of quadrupeds like chimps are long, with
a concave anterior, resulting in gentle kyphosis,
or the outward curvature that causes hunching,
almost throughout. Conversely, the bipedal
human spine features an “S” shape, which is
the result of significant lordotic curves at the
lumbar spine and cervical spine. If a quadruped attempts to rear up on its hind legs, the
straight spine causes the thorax to be in front
of the pelvis, and the center of mass is always
falling forward, back towards the ground. The
human lumbar spine also has five lumbar vertebrae compared to a chimp’s three to four, and
the shape of human lumbar vertebrae is more
wedge-like compared to the more square vertebrae of a chimp. The optimal human lumbar
lordotic curve is 30 degrees, which, in tandem
with the thoracic kyphotic sweep back to the
posterior side, allows the thorax to be centered
over the pelvis during upright posture.
The neck of a chimp emerges from the
back side of its skull. The foramen magnum of
a chimp’s skull is positioned in a manner that
is much more posterior than that of a human. This arrangement of a chimp’s foramen magnum and neck to skull position creates a more
horizontal orientation of the chimp’s neck compared to the vertical orientation of the human
neck. The optimal human cervical spine shares
the same amount of lordosis as the lumbar
spine: 30 degrees. When these lordotic curves
are coupled with a more anterior foramen magnum on the skull, the resulting arrangement is
one where the skull is stacked over the middle
of the thorax, and the thorax is stacked over
the middle of the pelvis in an upright bipedal
presentation. The sagittal curves of the lumbar
and cervical spine set the stage for humans to
be able to create forward propulsion in locomotion with pendular walking and spring mass
model running, without having to excessively
contract the muscles of the thigh, hip, and back
to prevent toppling forward, back down to the
ground, where we would have to rely on our
hands for support.
The ilium bones of a human are fairly
squared off. The insides, aka “medial surface”,
of the human ilium bone face each other and
the outsides, the “lateral surface”, face away
from one another. A chimp’s ilium bones are
rotated on a transverse axis, so that the medial
side faces forward, and the lateral side faces
backwards. As a result, a chimp’s glute medius faces posteriorly (whereas a human’s faces
laterally), and is unable to provide frontal plane
control for the axial skeleton. Due to the direction the chimp’s gluteus medius muscle faces,
when chimps attempt to stand upright and walk
forward, they lurch side to side like a penguin. The thorax of a chimp rocks back and forth
laterally and falls outside its base of support
(feet) during gait, which is incredibly energy-inefficient. The human glute med faces laterally,
and integrates the pelvis with the thorax during
single leg stance, preventing the center of mass
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of the thorax from laterally rocking during the
forward propulsion used in gait.
Humans with movement impairments
and those who are carry excess mass (resulting
from extreme muscle hypertrophy or obesity)
oftentimes demonstrate some form of compensatory frontal plane motion of their axial skeleton in the form of excess sway, or appendicular
skeleton in the form of imaginary lat syndrome,
both reminiscent of a prehistoric, quadruped-like strategy of upright movement. Barring
these conditions, keeping the axial skeleton
inside the base of support from a frontal plane
perspective during forward propulsion enables
the rhythmic elevation and demotion of our center of mass, which, in turn, allows for tremendous energy conservation due to cycling back
and forth between collection of potential uphill
energy and release of downhill kinetic energy
during transitions between phases of stance
and swing.
The feet of a chimp have a big toe that
is almost perpendicular to the other toes. This
is similar to how the thumb is offset from the
other fingers on our hands, and is oriented in
an oblique to horizontal direction relative to the
other fingers. This offset “first digit” on a foot or
a hand greatly facilitates grasp, evidencing the
chimp’s need and ability to climb trees.
Featuring a longitudinal ligament that
helps create its arch, a vertically oriented,
rounded metatarsophalangeal (MTP) joint in
our toes, all of which are forward-facing, the
human foot is clearly not optimized for grasp
or climbing. Chimps do not have an arch, and
the shape of their MTP joints prevent them from
being able to hyperextend their toes, forcing
chimps to try to walk on the outsides of their
feet, almost as if they were on a Bosu ball. The
human arch separates the rear foot, the calcaneus, from the forefoot, the ball of the feet
and toes. The arch in our feet enables them
to stiffen as we transition from our heels to the
balls of our feet during gait and other human
movement tasks. During normal gait, we strike
with our heel, which sets off the neural cascade
response that stiffens our arch, and allows the
forefoot to be able change shape to receive the
body mass and then propel it forward. Without
an appropriately stiff arch, the functionality of
our rear foot and forefoot is impaired, and we
resort to compensatory movement patterns.
Our ancestors, who lived outdoors in the
wild, moved a lot. They walked and ran miles
and miles a day, and then reposed in deep
kneeling, seated, and squatting positions. They
assumed postures that we tend to avoid in our
“in-seat” modern world, and put us to shame
with their activity levels. We are built to be
upright and move for a large part of our day,
and then rest on the ground. The stereotypical
behaviors that our species engaged in drove
the genetic evolutionary pathway that led to
the presentation of our skeletal arrangement. When we, modern humans, are subjected to
either excess or insufficient physical stress, we
deviate from attaining our optimal phenotype. In other words, if we don’t use it, we lose it. Model 5: Unconscious Incompetence
to Unconscious Competence
Plato created the “Allegory of the Cave”,
to allude to the way humankind tends to exist in
an unconscious, ignorant state when it comes
to our reality, including truths about ourselves. The image is that of prisoners chained in a
dark cave, facing towards the wall of the cave. There is a fire in the cave that casts shadows
on the wall. We witness shadow figures moving against the backdrop of the rock wall and
assume that we are seeing reality taking place
in front of us. Sometimes, a prisoner gets
loose from his chains and escapes the cave. In
doing so, the prisoner climbs out and ultimately
emerges into daylight.
But, when he does so, the prisoner is
initially blinded by the light cascading down onto
him from the outdoors. The light, or the truth, is
so overwhelming that it is too much for take in
at once. Slowly, the man gets his bearings and
comes to drink in everything that is true about
his surroundings. The man realizes that what
he assumed to be the truth about the world was
a cruel hoax. Now, the man is driven to go back
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into the cave, free the other prisoners, and expose them to the real world. When he attempts
to do this, he finds that the other prisoners do
not want to hear his message or to be unshackled. Because the man is himself no longer a
prisoner, he is rejected from their group. He
now must start anew, or find others “free men”
to band with. And, more than likely, there will
be other caves in which he will find—and need
to free—himself from. We’ve all had moments of awakening,
eureka moments, where a concept or a model
we were struggling to figure out suddenly becomes very clear to us. How could we not have
understood it before? Great sports coaches
tend to provide their students with these moments. You thought your jumper, or your golf
swing, or your split jerk, or your triangle choke
was garbage, until your coach made some simple changes to positioning, and BOOM: now the
movement is sweet and right. Such coaches
give you just the right amount of information, so
that it feels like you are cooperatively arriving at
the improvement, rather than being dictated or
talked down to. What great coaches can also
do is demonstrate how the simple change they
made to one area of training has carried over to
others, building lasting, useful associations for
the student.
Another quality of a great coach is the
ability to hold off teaching a particular lesson,
if the student doesn’t appear ready for it, echoing the ancient Theosophist saying: “When the
Pupil is ready, the Master will appear”. In other
words, you have to recognize when you are
trying to open the eyes of an unwilling prisoner
in Plato’s cave. To minimize the chances of this, it’s often best
to work on no more than one flawed skill at a
time, and make sure that the skills you choose
are only those that you believe the athlete can
in fact improve with practice.
The sequence of correcting incompetence looks
something like this:
● Stage 1: Unconsciously incompetent
○ Because the student is unaware
of the flaw, at this stage, the
coach has the difficult job of pointing it out to him or her
● Stage 2: Consciously incompetent
○ Having had the flaw brought to his
or her attention, here, the student
knows they’re doing something
wrong, but doesn’t yet know how
to fix it. Needless to say, good
coaches don’t leave their students
in this stage. ● Stage 3: Consciously competent
○ With the coach’s help, the student can move to this stage with
a strategy in hand for mastering
competence over the task in
question. It’s here that the athlete understands what he or she
should be doing differently and
can practice to achieve desired
technique. Only if the athlete
executes the movement over and
over competently with conscious
intent, at some point, this new,
competent strategy, will become
the dominant response for executing the movement.
● Stage 4: Unconsciously competent
○ Here, the competent execution of
the task becomes the student’s
default, finally graduating him or
her into unconscious competence
for said task.
This four-stage process of moving from
unconscious incompetence to unconscious
competence actually applies to any sort of behavior change we use to break bad habits and
improve our lives. This is how we quit smoking,
start exercising, lose weight, or pay bills on
time. It’s also how we fix broken jump shots,
set PRs in the squat, or stop slicing drives in
golf. Experts in behavior change generally recommend picking one bad habit at a time, fixing
it, and then moving onto the next. But, sometimes, we happen upon keystone habits that
have a cascading effect on our lives. For many,
exercise is one of those keystone habits. When
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you embark on a training program and start
to progress, you quickly recognize how other
lifestyle factors like sleep, nutrition and others
impact your exercise performance, and make
lifestyle adjustments to optimize it. The better
a behavior lends itself to objective observation
and quantification, the greater its odds of becoming a keystone habit. And, development of
keystone habits is a great ingredient for creating
great students, who are ready for great teachers.
When our evolutionarily older systems
are operating at the level of unconscious competence, our newer systems can operate freely. To put it a different way, few of us are going to
be at our peak level of thoughtfulness, creativity, and cognitive prowess while our bodies are
fighting a stomach bug. When all is well, our
vegetative systems, controlled by the autonomic nervous system, can operate in the background, out of our conscious awareness. When
this is not the case, and our conscious attention
is brought to problems associated with our gut,
our vision, our hearing, our sense of balance,
our thermoregulation, etc., our higher functioning is compromised. Lasting success, meanwhile, can only occur when our rational minds
are unencumbered to formulate strategies and
oversee execution. Model 6: We Must Be Able to Climb
Up and Down the Evolutionary Ladder
Are there situations in which we need
to rely on older evolutionary systems? Yes:
they’ve hung around for a reason. For instance,
our stress response is an ancient one, predating the existence of modern humans. Our
brains recognize a stressor or threat, and they
begin a cascade neurochemical response that
involves the hypothalamus simultaneously
triggering the autonomic system to escalate
sympathetic activity, while also commanding the
pituitary to signal for adrenal gland release of
catecholamines and glucocorticoids. Healthy
adrenals are large and robust, capable of secreting large boluses of adrenaline and cortisol
when needed. When the threat subsides, so
does the stress response, and our internal envi-
ronment resumes its parasympathetic, non-glucocorticoid-rich state. These responses are
designed to strike when the iron is hot, but rest
when it isn’t.
The energy systems elegantly demonstrate the climbing of the evolutionary ladder
and can help us unify a number of aforementioned concepts. At rest, with low stress, we unconsciously, competently exist in a state where
our oxidative systems run the show. The oxidative system has all the characteristics of a modern system. Aerobics has a multitude of options
for energy sources, in that it can burn carbohydrates, fats, amino acids, ketones, and lactate. The oxidative system is also fairly complicated,
as aerobics require quite a few moving parts. You’ve got the Krebs Cycle and the Electron
Transport Chain (ETC). The Krebs Cycle is a
grinding wheel that feeds the high energy compounds NADH and FADH2 into the ETC, where
these compounds are oxidized by respiratory
proteins. The final receiving station for free hydrogen ions that lead to water formation at the
end of cellular respiration, the oxidized products
both ultimately spin the ATP rephosphorylation
machinery of the enzyme ATPase, and reduce
oxygen. If those last few lines just gave you
head and/or a stomach ache, you’re not alone. Here’s a visual of the oxidative system, further
illustrating its complexity: Fig 2.2 - Krebs Cycle
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Displaying characteristics of an evolutionarily older system than the oxidative system, the Glycolytic system is responsible for
Glycolysis, the ten step process of taking a
glucose molecule and breaking it down into two
pyruvate molecules. Glycolysis is like a reverse
Thunderdome phenomenon, wherein one glucose enters, and two pyruvate leave. Whereas
the oxidative system can use any of the macromolecules as fuel, glycolysis is limited solely to
glucose and glycogen. As such, while Glycolysis is no simple process, it’s far more so than
the multitude of steps and substeps, shuttle
systems, and ion exchanges of Krebs and the
ETC combined, as illustrated by the comparatively simpler diagram of Glycolysis below:
Fig 2.3 - Electron Transport Chain
Fig 2.4 - Phosphagen system
The phosphagen system has all the
signs and symptoms of being the oldest energy
system out there. Glycolysis is ten enzymatic
steps, and has the ability to yield two to three
net ATP. The oxidative system has a practically
uncountable number of steps, and is usually
given credit for rephosphorylating somewhere
in the mid-30s for ATP. The phosphagen system is a one step, one ATP rephosphorylation
system. In contrast to its more modern counterparts, the phosphagen system is incredibly simplistic, with few ingredients and moving parts. With the phosphagen system, one ATP gets
rephosphorylated by having creatine phosphate
(CP) donate its phosphate to ADP in the presence of the enzyme creatine kinase (CK). In
the presence of the enzyme adenylate kinase,
one ATP and one AMP arises from the reaction
between two ADP molecules. Let’s take a look
at these processes to appreciate their simplicity in comparison to glycolysis, and especially
oxidative respiration.
Where is all of this going? When you
are in the lowest stress situations like rest and
extremely low intensity activity, the oxidative
system, the newest, most complicated and featuring the most variability will be in the driver’s
seat. As your stress level rises, the older energy systems may come into play. For instance,
the slowest, lowest-intensity jog can be powered almost exclusively through aerobic means. But, as the runner gains speed, the stress level
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Fig 2.5 - Phosphagen system
threshold of the aerobic system is crossed,
and cedes more and more to glycolytic energy
means. Sprinting as fast as possible will result
in the nearly exclusive reliance on the phosphagen system to power the ATP rephosphorylation
involved in this high stress activity.
As we become progressively more experienced at training and higher stress levels are
introduced, we fall back on our older systems. In fact, the more we toggle back and forth between the old and new, the greater our ability
to rise up to the challenges of the high-stress
modern world, and allow ourselves to rest and
recover after each stressor subsides.
03
Foundations of the Model
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Foundations of the Model
Chapter 3
Part 1: An Objective, Movement-Based
Categorization System
Exercise program design is an applied
solution to the inherently complex task of strategically manipulating the biological expression
of the human form. We as coaches and sports
scientists are trying to understand and manipulate human physiology; a system of daunting
depth and complexity, which, to this day, is not
fully understood. This is really hard stuff, and
it is my belief that the best we can do is create
inaccurate models that are rooted in basic science and simple rules that maximize utility and
reproducible numerical results. Likewise, I believe that the only way to actually design a comprehensible and comprehensive training system
is to design it around biomechanics rather than
physiological principles. In other words, training
the relevant and appropriate domains within a
biomechanics model should ultimately result in
affecting appropriate physiological pathways. The fundamental principles presented in this
chapter will help illustrate the superior utility
of this model when applied to fitness program
design.
Drawing its influences from medicine,
Botany, and Zoology, Biology emerged as a
single coherent discipline in the 19th century. Exercise science falls under the umbrella of
Biology, and is essentially in its infancy from a
scientific inquiry timeline perspective. A crucial
right of passage for any young scientific realm
is the establishment of a taxonomy of the phenomena within that domain. The most famous
scientific taxonomy is known as Systema Naturae, wherein Carolus Linnaeus created a framework of classification for all life forms on the
planet. In my mind, the world of exercise is not
very different from the world of life. Life on
planet Earth is incredibly diverse, with what
seems to be an infinite number of variations on
each type of creature, plant, or fungi. Some
forms of life are so bizarre that it is hard to
believe they exist. But, on the contrary, every
living thing on this planet makes perfect sense
when viewed as a product of the environmental
niche that it has come to occupy and take advantage of. And, of course, many forms of life
have become extinct along the way, because
they were ultimately unfit for the environment
they occupied.
In the world of exercise, there are so
many ways that humans choose to move that
some methods of physical exertion appear
ridiculous, bordering on comedic, dangerous, or
misguided; yet, for now, they exist. Ultimately,
time will determine what forms of exercise will
go extinct. The following model was developed
for my empirically-minded fitness colleagues
who, like me are periodically mortified by certain
methodologies we deem unsafe or incredibly
ineffective. It’s one we can all use to classify
and categorize all forms of exercise, as well as
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grade the degree to which the movement you
are witnessing represents its optimal incarnation. To do this, let’s utilize the aforementioned
biomechanics lens rather than a physiological
one.
This chapter will walk you through the
7 Movement Pillars. The Movement Pillars
provide a model, which in aggregate describe,
define and determine the moving parts, if you
will, of any exercise, as well as whether or not
it’s being properly executed. Understanding
the 7 Movement Pillars outlined here provides
the tools for becoming an exercise architect,
and creating exactly the right combinations of
the Pillars to drive users perfectly towards the
right adaptations. The first three Pillars will be
addressed in this chapter, and Pillars 4 through
7 will be explained in Chapter 4. The following
are the 7 Movement Pillars:
1.Movement Quality
2.Movement Quantity
3.Movement Standardization
4.Movement Progression
5.Movement Strategy
6.Muscular Orientation
7.Muscular Action
The first two Pillars are Movement Quality and Movement Quantity. Quality describes
the nature of the shapes that life can assume
and move through. Quantity provides numerical, aka quantitative, information about movement. In this model, movement quality is divided into
three sections:
1.Pattern
2.Stance
3.Plane
Movement quantity is likewise divided into three
sections: 1.Load 2.Velocity
3.Duration
Pillar 1: Movement Quality
Ian King was one of the first to begin
thinking along the lines of creating an exercise
taxonomy, and his list of primary resistance
training patterns is a place that many of us
fall back on whenever we are thinking about
designing a training plan. Great coaches like
Boyle and Verstegen were wise to begin thinking of designing training days based on concepts such as linear and multidirectional movement directions/patterns. The next step in the
evolution of these descriptive taxonomies is to
make the components more objective than they
currently are. Here are the movement patterns
that I use in this section of the Exercise Taxonomy:
1. Breathing
2. Core, Pelvic Focus
3. Core, Thorax Focus
4. Locomotion
5. Change of Direction
6. Throwing
7. Triple Extension
8. Hip Dominant
9. Knee Dominant
10. Horizontal Push
11. Horizontal Pull
12. Vertical Push
13. Vertical Pull
When I am talking about stance, I am
speaking about the arrangement of the feet relative to each other, and relative to the center
of mass of the axial skeleton. I divide stance
into three realms:
1.Bilateral Symmetrical
2.Asymmetrical Front/Back
3.Asymmetrical Lateral
Bilateral symmetrical stances are common in life and sport, and involve the two feet
being next to each other, and bearing equal
weight from the skeleton above. The bilateral
symmetrical stance is the position from which
certain athletic movements take place, such as
two foot vertical jumping, and is oftentimes a
ready position in sports;pre-snap linebackers,
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pre-pitch baseball players, free throw position in
basketball, etc. In the world of exercise, the bilateral symmetrical stance is where we also find
ourselves when performing nearly any imaginable weightroom movement.
back and forth, in the process losing energy that
should be contributing towards moving forward. The transverse plane allows us to coil and
uncoil for a high rate of force development, like
striking and throwing maneuvers.
The front/back stance is seen in any
exercise where one foot is in front of the other,
or when the feet are arranged with one foot
higher than the other. A linear lunge is a simple example of a front/back stance exercise
where the feet are separated more horizontally
than vertically. A step up is a good example
of a front/back stance exercise where the feet
are separated more vertically than horizontally. The front/back position of feet is ubiquitous
within athletics, as it is how we take first steps,
then run, jab steps in basketball, set up shots in
wrestling or ice skate, to name a few.
Do what you will with these speculations, but please note that my aim in presenting
them here is to get us to start asking the right
questions, such as: “What the purpose of the
cardinal planes of movement are from an overarching perspective?”. My statements here
regarding the purposes and essences of these
planes reflect the way I coach exercises targeted towards a specific plane of motion. Confirmation of successfully targeting the desired
plane usually lies in my subjects self-reporting a
muscle corresponding to the appropriate plane. When attempting to train the sagittal plane, the
affected muscles should be flexors and extensors. When targeting the frontal plane, subjects
should feel adductors and abductors, and, when
going after the transverse plane, rotator muscles should be doing the work. Part 2 of this
chapter will present some strategies for determining whether or not an activity represents
competency within a specific plane of motion.
The lateral stance is one where one foot
remains under the center of mass of the axial
skeleton, and the other foot is kicked out to
the side like a kickstand, and resides outside
the center of mass of the axial skeleton. In the
world of exercise, the lateral lunge is the simplest way to visualize this stance. The lateral
stance displays itself in sport movements featuring change of direction, such as cutting, but it
also presents itself in throwing motions.
You will probably be introduced to the
three anatomical cardinal planes of motion in
one of the first three chapters of any anatomy
textbook. Rather than belaboring the identification and definitions of these planes, I would like
to share what I perceive to be the root of each
plane for human movement. The sagittal plane
is your anti-gravity plane. Mastering the sagittal plane allows you to be able to avoid falling
on your face or your back. The frontal plane
is the plane you have to regulate to be able to
ultimately create forward propulsion. Optimal
forward propulsion occurs when the center of
mass shifts side to side in a sigmoidal pathway,
but stays within the boundaries of the base of
support, aka inside the feet. Those who display aberrant frontal plane mechanics stagger
Pillar 2: Movement Quantity
As we move into the movement quantity
side of the discussion, I would like to start out
by saying that I have created my own arbitrary
differentiations for what will constitute different
levels of load, velocity, and duration. With all
three quantitative variables, I’ve tried to keep
things simple by dividing them into the three
zones, separated by the following numerical
dividers:
LOAD:
High: 80-100% 1RM
Mod: 60-80% 1RM
Low: Below 60% 1RM
VELOCITY
High: Greater than 1.0 m/s
Mod: 0.5 – 1.0 m/s
Low: Below 0.5 m/s
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DURATION
High: Greater than 120 sec
Mod: 15 to 120 sec
Low: Below 15 seconds
Now that we have been introduced to the
first two Pillars, let’s discuss how a coach would
go about utilizing this information. I would start
with the qualitative information. First, what
movement pattern are you trying to train? Once
you have identified the pattern, what stance
are you going to put the athlete in? Now that
you have a pattern and a stance, what plane of
motion do you want them to move in? Now we
shift our attention to the quantitative variables. How much load do you want to provide? At
what velocity do you want that load moved? For how long would you like this movement to
take place? Once you have answers to all of
these questions, you’re ready to select your
“tool”—barbell, medicine ball—and you arrive at
an exercise.
Typically, the first thing you want to do
with athletes at the beginning of a session is
to “warm them up”. How would I use the model being presented here? As a very simple
example, I’ll choose the locomotion pattern in
the front/back stance performed in the sagittal
plane, with low load, low velocity, and moderate duration. What is that? Jogging down the
length of a football field and back. Maybe you
are a coach who bases things on Functional
Movement Screen (FMS) principles, and you’re
of the belief that you can improve the mobility
and/or stability of an athlete with a prescribed
activity. You choose knee dominant, bilateral
symmetrical stance, sagittal plane, low load, low
velocity, moderate duration, and you come up
with an activity like a squat to stand. I could list
countless examples here, but warmup is generally a time of low load, low velocity, and short to
moderate duration activities that can be either
aimed at mimicking the activities you want to
train or attempting to improve the trainee’s overall movement capabilities.
As training sessions move beyond warmup, the next activity we choose is chosen by
defining it from a qualitative perspective. These
would typically be activities with
low load, high velocity, and short
duration, like speed, agility, plyometrics or medicine ball throwing. Change of direction with a lateral stance
in the frontal plane in this circumstance might
be a 5-10-5 shuttle run, and throwing from a
bilateral symmetrical stance in the transverse
plane might be rotational med ball throws facing
towards or perpendicular to a wall. Triple extension from an asymmetrical front/back stance in
the sagittal plane may be a split squat jump.
Following low load, high velocity, short
duration activities, it is very likely that the trainee would next proceed to the weightroom. The
first weightroom activities would most likely be
lifts featuring high load, high velocity, and short
duration. The most obvious example of lifts that
fit into this category are Olympic lifts. Cleans,
snatches, (and their derivatives) are triple extension, bilateral symmetrical stance, sagittal
activities. Split jerks would feature a transition
into a front/back stance. Outside of Olympic
lifts, it becomes difficult to think of activities that
fall into this quantitative category, though looking at Strongman sport activities may provide
some alternatives. Stone loading and tire flipping provide alternative triple extension, bilateral stance, sagittal plane activity that requires
very little coaching compared to Olympic lifts.
After performing high load, high velocity,
short duration lifts, likely, the next quantitative
realm that we would move to would be high
load, low velocity, short-to-moderate duration
activities. Classic examples of movements in
this category would be deadlifts, squats, presses, rows, and pull-ups. Most of the activities
in this realm are going to be bilateral stance,
sagittal plane activities, as that seems to be
the stance and plane that lends itself most for
developing strength. Generally speaking, most
coaches attempt to put an activity from the major lifting categories somewhere in their weekly
programs for their athletes. At least once a
week in their program, at some point, most
athletes will perform a hip-dominant, knee-dominant, horizontal push/pull, and vertical push/pull
activity for multiple sets.
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The next component of training in a standard model would be assistance lifts, into which
some movement patterns from the previous
category may bleed over, but could also feature
movements from categories such as locomotion
like loaded carries and sled work, throwing, like
Turkish Get-Ups and windmills (which are arguably the same pattern), along with core exercises, focusing on the pelvis and thorax. These
activities would generally be classified as moderate load, moderate velocity, and moderate
duration from a quantitative perspective. Once
we’ve reached this stage of training, activities
coming from hip-dominant, knee-dominant, horizontal push/pull, and vertical push/pull will often
be unilateral choices. Prior to creating this
training/programming matrix, I really struggled
with classifying the kettlebell grind lifts. I simply
did not have a bucket for this exercise, so would
default to classifying it as an assistance activity after the main lift. Now, I understand that a
Turkish Get-Up for 3 reps per hand fits into the
previously mentioned quantitative domain, making it a throwing activity performed from a lateral
stance and focusing on the transverse plane. I
also understand that Farmer’s Walk for 100 feet
is moderate to high load locomotion, at moderate to slow velocity, for moderate duration, with
a front/back stance in the sagittal plane. The
Fig 3.1 - Categorization of 90% barbell deadlift
ability to describe these activities as a function of the type of movement they involve has
allowed me to place each in a logical, intuitive
place within an exercise program.
The last activity of a very simple training day would be some kind of conditioning
exercise. In this scenario, conditioning is low
load, low velocity, long duration quantitative
activity. I usually try to think of cyclic activities
for this quantitative domain. Common weight
room conditioning activities include jogging,
stationary bikes, Jacob’s Ladder, VersaClimber, slideboard, and rowers. Jogging is a front/
back stance, sagittal plane, locomotion pattern
exercise. A spin bike is locomotion from a front/
back stance in a sagittal direction, but if one
were to use an arm and leg bike, that would
add the transverse plane to the equation, because the movements of arms would rotate the
trunk. The Jacob’s Ladder is also locomotion
in a front/back stance in the sagittal plane, and
is a great option for those who can’t withstand
much impact during training. The VersaClimber is locomotion in a front/back stance, but is
a frontal plane dominant movement, making
those using this piece of equipment move like
upright salamanders. The slideboard entails
change of direction in a lateral stance, with the
movement taking place in the frontal plane. Page
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Rowers feature a combination of knee-dominant
and horizontal pulling (hard to categorize), and
are bilateral stance sagittal tools.
taxonomy concept for specific exercises, and
provide some still shots of those exercises to
reinforce these notions as well.
To help the reader conceptualize the
whole puzzle, I would like to provide you with
some tables that visually demonstrate the
Every sport features a hierarchy based
on what stances athletes assume, what planes
they move through, what patterns they execute,
Fig 3.2 - Categorization of split squat w/ hip shift
Fig 3.3 - Categorization of rotational med ball throw
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Fig 3.6 - Example rotational med ball throw
Fig 3.4 - Example of split squat w/ hip shift
Fig 3.5 - Example split squat w/ hip shift
what kinds of loads they encounter, what sorts
of velocities they need to be able to produce,
and what kinds of durations they need to continue to move through. Targeting those qualitative and quantitative realms is a great way to
provide fairly specific stimuli during the training
process. Beyond specificity of training, athletes
also seem to benefit from performing training
movements that target tissue positioned antagonistically to the moves of their sport, as this is
believed to have injury prevention potential.
In my opinion, we should begin to try to
quantify the number of movements that athletes
perform in specific qualitative and quantitative
realms. Such an endeavor using the taxonomy
I am presenting here would be an enormous
undertaking, requiring computer systems to
accurately model out how much movement an
athlete actually performs in a specific pattern,
stance, and plane at specific loads, velocities,
and durations. If we could see the total quantity
of movement in these movement domains, we
may get a glimpse into the likelihood of injury
potential for an individual, and possibly see
that there is a movement rate limiting factor
preventing further progress towards sport specific goals. The simplest example I can think of
involving imbalanced movers and high degree
of injury is Crossfitters. When analyzing the
types of movements done in Crossfit, almost
everything takes place in a bilateral stance,
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and moves in the sagittal plane. Crossfitters
warm up in this stance and plane, they lift in this
stance and plane, and they even condition in
this stance and plane, with burpees, wall-balls,
rowers, high rep Olympic lifts, etc. Meanwhile,
other stances and planes of movement are
largely neglected. At Crossfit competitions,
it’s not uncommon for athletes to be asked to
engage in “surprise” events, swimming and peg
board, for instance, which often result in under-performance and high rates of injury. It is
my opinion that different stances and planes are
distinct movement realms with limited carryover
to other stances and planes of movement, and
that accurately assessing strength, speed. As
such, fitness in specific stances and planes featuring various patterns executed with different
loading schemes, velocity presentations, and
durations will become a critical task for coaches
moving into the future of sports performance
coaching.
Part 2: Sensorimotor Competencies
One of my favorite stories is The Wizard
of Oz. The reason this story resonates with me
strongly is because the audience is led to believe that there is an all-powerful magic being
who is in complete control of the great city of
Oz. In Oz there is pomp and panache. The
buildings are large and ornate, the decorations
are over the top, and the wizard inside the great
tower is seemingly omnipotent. When we are
inside the palace of the Wizard, and his awe
inspiring appearance is at its zenith, the curtain
is pulled back, only to reveal a flesh and blood
man, rendered larger than life by smoke and
mirrors. Be it in science, enterprise, technology, government, you name it, every institution,
every empire, every seemingly invincible juggernaut is a human invention, and, as such, is
riddled with human errors. But, these errors
notwithstanding, humans have still done amazing, almost incomprehensible things when you
really think about it. And, multitudes of charlatans notwithstanding, every now and then, gurus truly practice and embody what they preach. In just about any endeavor, there are those who
strive to improve upon, extrapolate and perfect
it, sport science included. This chapter touches on fitness, program
design, and biomechanical proficiency. The
systematic approach that will be outlined here is
my best attempt to provide a logical and useful model for coaches to follow. The ultimate
problem with this and any other person’s training model is that the central ideas will stem from
certain starting assumptions. If those starting
assumptions are accurate, then the ideas that
will be put forth will probably be correct. But,
if the starting assumptions are off, the ideas to
which they give rise will be as well, and clever
people will pick the model apart. The overall
purpose of the following material is to provide
the reader with training movement competency
checklists. These checklists exist to evaluate
how closely the performance of an exercise
compares with the archetypical, perfect version
of that movement. I am going to do my best
to avoid any semblance of smoke and mirrors,
garbage terminology use (e.g., activation, functional movement, muscle balance), or any other
ambiguous approach.
Pillar 3: Movement Standardization
The quantitative side of the training
movement puzzle is easy. We can measure
forces, loads, velocities, and durations of
movement fairly effortlessly and precisely. The
qualitative component of movement, however,
involves the more purely descriptive elements. We can describe the shape the body assumes,
the types of movements it is making, and the
direction in which it moves. The problem with
anything qualitative is that there are far less
objective measures. Measuring how much an
organism, or a joint of the organism is moving in
the sagittal plane versus the frontal plane versus the transverse plane is a much harder task,
and is riddled with ambiguity. Despite being an
ambiguous topic, as execution of movements in
a training environment goes, quality is critically
important, as proper technique, good movement, and optimal positioning is, in many ways,
the foundation of successful sport/training outcomes. The gray areas of what constitutes the
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windows of things like, “outstanding movement”,
“excellent form”, and “great technique” bother
me, and I want to try to hang some objective
markers on these constructs, so that coaches
have a systematic ability to score a movement
quality and correctness. This is the reason
Movement Standardization is Pillar 3.
The primary system that controls our
movement expression is the nervous system. The central nervous system consists of the
brain and spinal cord. At the top of the CNS
resides the cortex, which is the most modern
component, capable of exerting control over
seemingly every subsystem of the CNS. Within
the cortex are the sensory and motor divisions. The biomechanical premise we are starting
from here is that movement is a neural process,
the cortex is the king of the nervous system,
and the cortex is equally a sensory and motor
system. Based on this starting assumption,
I am going to argue that a key feature of determining movement proficiency is that, when
grading movement, you must consider both
sensory and motor components. If a movement
looks good to the coach or observer but the
performer of the motion is feeling sensations
that should not come with proper execution of
that movement, then there is a biomechanical
mismatch, and optimal movement is not being
displayed.
In this systematic approach, I am going
to provide you with motor competencies and
sensory competencies for training movements. The motor competencies will be the visual,
observational assessment, coming from the
coach. The coach will be looking for proper
alignment and/or relationships of certain joints
and bone structures that will be specific to
certain movements. The sensory competencies
will be what the athlete says they experienced
during the movement. It should be stated here
that when athletes are executing movements
with either enormous loading, or with the highest possible velocities, the sensory component
is going to be much less prominent, or impossible to identify. The slower and lighter the movement, the greater the possibility for the sensory
component to be observed and reported by the
participant. I’ll cover the motor competencies
first, and talk about the sensory competencies
afterwards. First, let’s try to go through some
fundamental premises that can serve as overarching guideposts.
The Zero Sum Phenomenon and
Centering
Sagittal Centering
A key premise that will govern motor
competencies with biomechanics is the zero
sum phenomenon. When viewing the skeleton
in the sagittal plane on the posterior side, we
see alternating lordotic and kyphotic curves. The occiput bows out in a kyphotic curve, the
cervical spine is lordotic, the thoracic spine is
kyphotic, the lumbar spine is lordotic, the sacrum and glutes are kyphotic, the glute/ham
tie-in is lordotic, the hamstrings are kyphotic,
the popliteal space is lordotic, the calves are
kyphotic, the Achilles is lordotic, the calcaneus
is kyphotic, the arch of the foot is lordotic, the
ball of the foot is kyphotic, the proximal toe is
lordotic, and the distal toe is kyphotic. From an
anterior/posterior perspective, this allows for
the center of mass to reside somewhere in the
middle, which is a concept that I will refer to as
“sagittal centering”. Sagittal centering is critical
for a bipedal animal to be able to erect itself and
remain upright with the greatest amount of ease
during the forward propulsion of locomotion.
When thinking about centering, the easiest way to visualize this concept is by strictly
looking at the axial skeleton. When examining
someone from this profile view, what you are
looking for is the middle of the skull to be positioned directly over and in line with the middle of
the pelvic floor. If you the skull projected out in
front of their pelvic floor, or the direction of the
middle of the skull is aimed in a direction other
than the pelvic floor, the subject has lost sagittal centering. There is tremendous debate in
the worlds of fitness development and strength
sports regarding deadlifting with a round back,
and one that seems to be missing the most important underlying concept of centering. If the
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skull is in line with the pelvic floor, then seeing
rounding in the upper back is great, because
the person is displaying the natural human condition of kyphosis in the thoracic spine. If you see a rounded back, but the head is way
in front of the pelvic floor, however, this is not a
good situation. The great powerlifter, Konstantin Konstantinovs is a perfect point of reference
for sagittal centering with a kyphotic thoracic
spine. He is not in a dangerous position, because there is alignment of cranium over pelvis.
Fig 3.8 - Rounded back deadlift, with hyperextended
neck
Frontal Centering
Something not every coach is aware of is
that the concept of the zero sum and centering
also applies to the frontal plane. Frontal plane
centering occurs when you see someone facing
you, and they have their nose over their sternum, over their belly button, over their zipper,
over one of their knees, over the big toe of one
of their feet. Frontal centering involves lateralizing the center of mass of the axial skeleton
so that it is held over one of your feet at a time. When evaluating frontal plane capabilities, there
is left centering and right centering to consider.
Fig 3.7 - Rounded back deadlift
In this second example of a rounded
back deadlift picture, we can see that the individual has a hyperextended neck, which makes
the direction of the middle of the skull go up/
backwards, and the pelvic floor is directed
down/forward. We also see that the kyphotic
curve is present in the wrong parts of the spine. The sacrum, and lumbar spine is kyphotic, and
the thoracic spine is flat. There is no unity with
the orientation/direction of the two ends of the
axial skeleton, and the normal alternation of
curves has been lost. Thus there is no centering from a sagittal perspective.
When viewing the skeleton from a frontal plane
perspective, we need to see alternation of
elevation and depression at the three major
segments of the skeleton. If we look at The
Statue of David, we can see that his right hip
is elevated compared to his left. Moving to the
next major skeletal segment, we see that his
left rib cage is elevated compared to his right. If we move to the final major segment of the
skeleton, we see that the right side of the neck
is elevated compared to the left. Only with such
an alternating system of ascent and descent of
major skeletal segments can we achieve centering of body mass laterally over one foot at a
time. If David were to shift his weight to the left,
and center his mass over the left foot, we would
see an exact opposite display of elevation and
depression of his major skeletal segments.
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sequestered to one side of the base of support,
and the center of mass is raised on that side via
ground reaction forces, then the stage is set to
be able to drop center of mass, and shift to the
other side. This notion of raising and dropping
center of mass and shifting the axial skeleton
back and forth in a side to side manner is at the
heart of pendular bipedal walking and the spring
mass model of human running. In sport, we
sometimes see frontal plane centering demonstrated to near perfection, as done by this
Olympic speed skater, for instance:
Fig 3.9 - Statue of David
Possessing this capability of presenting
a mirror of asymmetry between the sides of the
body creates the possibility for movement. At
the most simplistic level of movement, all particles in the universe need to have a concentration gradient, or an arrangement of something
being uphill compared to something else being
downhill for movement to occur. The cells
of our body take advantage of this principle
through membranes. Membranes separate regions of a cell from one another, and oftentimes
act as a screen through which particles have to
move. It is common for cells to segregate ions,
such as sodium in a high concentration state on
one side of a membrane, and then take advantage of the tendency of that ion to move down
its concentration gradient to power cellular
behavior.
Biology is built on the microcosm as the
model which the macrocosm copies in a more
complex way. From a macro perspective, the
human body takes advantage of a similar sort of
concentration gradient with frontal plane behavior. If the mass of the axial skeleton can be
Fig 3.10 - Example of frontal plane on figure Skater,
right side
Fig 3.11 - Example of frontal plane on figure Skater,
left side
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The transverse plane is built on the
motions of internal and external rotation, along
with horizontal abduction and adduction. For
optimal rotation of the body, the foundational
planes of sagittal and frontal must be in place. When rotational athletes are centered in the
sagittal and frontal planes, transverse actions
can occur with the least amount of resistance,
and with the most optimal range of motion. When baseball pitchers cannot center in the
sagittal and frontal plane, they tend to fall off
towards the first base or third base foul lines
on the follow-through of their pitch. The image
of the speed skater is incredibly educational
for this concept. The skater is centered, and
is able to display rotation of the ribcage, and
optimal horizontal abduction and adduction of
the humerus. Transverse plane movements in
sports are incredibly diverse, though it seems
as though most athletes need to be able to load
into each hip in the transverse plane, and then
come out of that hip in an explosive manner. This is essentially what packs the power of a
baseball swing, a golf swing, a hockey slap
shot, throwing, punching, and kicking. Athletes
need to possess the underlying prerequisite of
sagittal and frontal centering capabilities to be
able to display optimal biomechanics in rotational sports movements. For rotational power sports, athletes are
always going through the process of loading
through one side of their body before exploding
out of the position and moving to the other side. When athletes are attempting to come out of
their hip in the drive of explosive rotational activities, there is a need for dissociation between
pelvis and thorax. Typically, the pelvis needs to
initiate the activity, while the thorax lags behind
from a timing perspective. This separation
between pelvis and thorax is arguably the most
critical element of transverse plane athleticism. This capability is built upon sagittal and frontal
centering, and the ability to shift the axial skeleton side to side over each base of support in the
frontal plane.
When athletes can center and shift, they
tend to be able to dissociate joints from one
another in the transverse plane. This disso-
ciation is really the key to optimal mechanical
capabilities in striking and running sports. The
pelvis should be able to rotate left, as the thorax rotates right and the neck rotates left. The
appendicular skeleton should be able to horizontally abduct and adduct, and internally and
externally rotate through full range. The appendicular skeleton should also feature the same
mirror asymmetry. When watching a great
major league pitcher deliver a baseball to home
plate, during the cocking phase, you should see
the arm holding the ball be flexed at the elbow,
externally rotated at the humerus, and supinated at the wrist. The glove side arm should
be extended, internally rotated, and pronated. When the pitcher delivers the ball to the plate,
the ball side arm will be extending, internally
rotating, and pronating. The glove side arm will
be flexing, externally rotating, and supinating. This matching asymmetry of the appendicular
skeleton will not occur optimally unless the axial
skeleton has the potential to center in the sagittal and frontal planes.
Now that we’ve covered these critical
principles, I would like to lay out the motor competencies of the planes. In Part 1 of this chapter, I discussed movement quality as having
three stances associated with sports and training actions (bilateral, front/back, and lateral). If
you understand the motor competencies of the
planes, the same concepts apply to all stances.
Let’s start with the sagittal plane:
•Axial skeleton is centered from a profile
view
•Skull is over middle of pelvic floor
•Pelvis is under the middle of the thorax
•Athlete is capable of retracting the
ribcage without the skull going forward
of pelvis
•Athlete is capable of retracting the
ribcage without the pelvis tipping into
anterior tilt or migrating backwards of
cranium
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•Each humerus can internally rotate and
externally rotate
•Each femur can horizontally abduct and
adduct
•Each femur can internally rotate and
externally rotate
•Mirror asymmetry can present itself
during striking, throwing, or locomotion
movements
•All structures are capable of dissociating
from each other
Fig 3.12 - Examples of motor competencies of the
sagittal plane.
Let’s move on to the motor competencies of the
frontal plane:
•Axial skeleton is capable of centering
over each foot
•Pelvis on stance foot side ascends
•Ribcage on stance foot side descends
•Pelvis opposite stance foot side
descends
•Ribcage opposite stance foot side
ascends
•Stance side foot supinates
Foot opposite stance side pronates
Finally, let’s cover the motor competencies of
the transverse plane:
•Axial skeleton retains frontal and sagittal
centering
•Neck, thorax, and pelvis can rotate both
left and right
•Neck is capable or rotating in any
direction as thorax and pelvis rotate in
any direction
•Thorax can rotate left as pelvis rotates
right and vice versa
•Each humerus can horizontally abduct
and adduct
Now, let’s shift gears and discuss the
sensory competencies part of the puzzle. This
is likely the most contentious part of this chapter, as I’m essentially saying that you should
feel certain things, and that it’s probably bad
if you feel other things. It’s going to be really hard to dig up peer reviewed evidence for
these statements. I can envision methods of
potentially testing this stuff in a laboratory, and
welcome researchers contacting me who would
be interested in measuring these concepts with
laboratory equipment, because I would like to
discuss what would need to be done in order to
get it right.
Prior to diving straight into this material,
I would say that “feel” is a critical part of sports. Great shooters in basketball need their shot to
feel a certain way. Quarterbacks and pitchers
want the ball to feel a specific way in their hand. Lifters know when they may have a PR type
day because the bar feels light. Great athletes
are sensory creatures, and they can tell you
right away when they’re really feeling it on a
certain day. I’m also going to do my best to talk
about major muscles and bony segments that
will cover the big hitters of sagittal, frontal, and
transverse command of the body, that are fairly
indisputable in terms of contributing to those
directions from a movement perspective.
When discussing the sagittal plane, it
is my contention that the sagittal plane is your
anti-gravity plane. There are certain muscles of
the body that allow you to become upright, and
prevent you from falling on your face or back. In terms of holding the pelvis and thorax up
against gravity, I contend that the hamstrings,
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glute max, and abdominals are the best suited
muscle groups for the task. Hamstrings are the
dominant sagittal plane pelvis muscle when the
femur is in a position of flexion. When we get
to stages of terminal to near terminal femoral
extension, the glute max becomes increasingly
more important as the muscle of control over
sagittal positioning of the pelvis. If you are trying to prevent yourself from falling on your face,
you need a muscle on the back to make sure
this doesn’t happen, and if you are trying to
prevent yourself from falling on your back, you
need a muscle on the front to do the same.
When hamstrings and glute max act on
the posterior side of the pelvis, and abs act
on the anterior side of the thorax, we are able
to hold ourselves upright in a centered state
from a sagittal plane perspective. Please do
not think it is just your hamstrings, glutes, and
abs that are your antigravity muscles: all of
your other anti-gravity sagittal muscles—spinal
erectors, quads, etc.—are working to keep you
upright as well. In regards to a focus on glute
max, hamstrings, and abs, it’s more a matter of
maximizing their leverage in an upright position,
along with tuning for sensory feedback. The
pelvis does not tip forward when hamstrings
and glutes are holding the ischium in proximity
to the posterior femur, and the thorax does not
unhinge and fall backwards when the internal
obliques are holding the ribcage and the ilium together on the front. So, when coaching
individuals on being competent in the sagittal
plane, I’m always looking to hear that they feel
their hamstrings, glutes, and abs engaged in
those activities.
When athletes do not feel their hamstrings and glutes being engaged, the center
of mass is typically too far forward, and the
weight is on the toes. To correct this, you have
to encourage the athlete to find and feel the
heels. When athletes do not feel abs engaging
in exercises, the ribcage is typically elevated
and flared forward. The key to correcting this is
typically retracting and depressing the ribcage,
without sending the head forward in space or
aiming the sternum towards the floor. Reaching
the arms forward without overly recruiting rec-
tus abdominis and forcing the back into a turtle
shell appearance will typically accomplish the
task of optimizing thoracic positioning. Arms
forward and weight on heels usually makes
sagittal plane exercises easier to perform in a
way that looks better, which may explain why
virtually every coach in the world loves the goblet squat! Sensory competencies in the sagittal plane are
as follows:
•Feel weight on their heels
•Feel hamstrings engage when in hip
flexion
•Feel glute max engage when in hip
extension
•Feel abs engage
Sensory incompetencies in the sagittal plane
are as follows (usually from center of mass being too far forward):
•Weight on toes
•Feels knees
•Feels back
•Feels neck
Your ability to move well in any plane
involves all of the planes working together.
Planes are probably a lot like energy systems,
where they’re all working together at the same
time to some degree, just in different ratios
based on the task and context. A subject’s
ability to feel appropriate frontal plane sensory
targets is usually strongly tied to possessing
sagittal competency, and when he or she does
not feel the right things, I spend most of my
time working on these. This thought process is
rooted in the previous discussion of comparing
humans with chimps.
I believe that the purpose of frontal plane
muscles for a human is to allow for the center
of mass to stay between the bases of support—
the feet—during locomotion. Keeping the center
of mass between the feet during bipedal gait
facilitates forward motion without unnecessary
side to side sway. Sensory competency is critical in demonstrating both this ability during gait,
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and the mirror asymmetry abilities discussed
earlier in this chapter. Possessing frontal plane
competency is largely a muscular phenomenon,
but feeling the right part of each foot is also critical. Generally speaking, you want to be on the
heel of the stance side foot and the medial arch
of the other foot. Going upwards from there,
you want to feel the adductors of the stance
side foot, the glute med of the opposite side,
the frontal plane abs on the stance side, and
the serratus anterior on the opposite side. We’ll
see that the competencies zig and zag across
the body as we go up each segment.
Sensory competencies in the frontal plane are
as follows:
•Stance side heel
•Opposite side medial arch
•Stance side adductor
•Opposite side glute med
•Stance side abs
•Opposite side serratus
Sensory incompetencies in the frontal plane
(probably lacking sagittal competencies or frontal centering):
•Lats are firing up
•Tensor fascia latae is firing up
•Neck muscles (SCM and/or scalenes)
are firing up
•The person is gripping with their hands
and feet
•The person is not breathing
Finally, we come to the transverse plane.
The ability to rotate is a critical capability for
sports that require locomotion, striking, and
throwing components. The axial skeleton is
really the powerhouse of rotational drive. The
glute max is the dominant transverse plane
muscle of the pelvis, and the one responsible
for rotating the pelvis in the contralateral direction from the stance side foot during late stance
mechanics in the gait cycle. The ability of the
glute max to maximize late stance actions is
tied to finishing the stride through the flexion
action of the great toe, aka push-off. During
gait, a dissociation-based twist needs to occur
between pelvis and thorax. While the pelvis is
oriented left, the ribcage needs to be able to
rotate to the right when the right foot initially hits
the ground in early stance.
Sensing the ability of the ribcage to
rotate in space is the other big axial skeleton
piece rooted in the transverse plane. The
swinging of the arms causes the rotation of the
ribcage. In the previous example of ribcage
turning right while the pelvis is turning left as
the right foot lands on heel in early stance, we
would see the left arm be flexed, externally
rotated, and supinated, while the right arm is
extended, internally rotated, and pronated. A
similar mirror asymmetry concept would be
present at the lower extremity, and we could say
that the swinging of the legs drive the rotational
movement of the pelvis. When the right foot
is hitting the ground during early stance, the
right lower extremity would be flexed, abducted,
externally rotated, and supinated, while the left
lower extremity would be extended, adducted,
internally rotated, and pronated. The sensory competencies of the transverse plane are
slightly more rooted in the skeleton, and less
based on feeling specific muscles as compared
to the other planes. The glute max is the major
muscle you want to feel, but other than that, you
truly want to be aware of the first ray of the foot,
the great toe, arm swing, and the ribcage.
Sensory competencies of the transverse plane:
•First ray of foot and great toe
•Glute max
•Arm swing (front side mechanics)
•Rotation of the ribcage
Sensory incompetencies of the transverse
plane
•Outside of foot
•Lumbar spine
•Neck
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If, by now, you’re thinking: “There’s no place like
home, there’s no place like home…” and getting
ready to dawn your ruby coaching slippers and
go right back to what you’ve been doing, I can’t
stop you. In a lot of ways I’m writing this book
and creating this system for posterity. My hope
is that, as this stuff trickles out into the world
little by little, and more coaches put little pieces
of it together, it’ll slowly spread.
And, who knows, maybe five years
from now, there will even be coaches out there
integrating this model into everything they
do. If you’re one of those who’s really excited
by a sprawling, binary, objective, biomechanics-based system, I hope this initial peek “behind the curtain” has intrigued you. For simpler
rules on how to understand human movement
and coach the particular mechanics that are of
interest to you, let’s look further.
04
Principles of Progression
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Principles of Progression
Chapter 4
Where did you come from? Where did you
go? Where did you come from, Cotton Eye
Joe? Maybe if poor Joe had a directory map—
you know, the kind you see at the mall with
that ever-so-helpful “You Are Here” circle—he
could reference where he currently is, and, from
there, determine where he wants to go next. Exercise is no different. If you can establish
where you are right now, you can discern the
direction you need to go in, and the steps you
have to take to move towards performing, feeling, and looking the way you want. The more
specific you can be about your goals, the better
your odds of attaining them, instead of spinning
round and round in purposeless circles. What are the principles you use for
progression in exercise to achieve your desired goals? If something vague and intangible
comes to mind, this question deserves a better
answer. Some answers that will actually move
someone towards his or her goals might be
more weight, more reps, more duration, more
frequency, more speed, more intensity, more
volume. Now, when you’re actually coaching
others, there’s more to the puzzle than just
these pieces. Sometimes you’re looking to see
them perform exercises better. This is where
we get sucked back into the world of movement
quality. To begin this discussion, I’ll tell you
where I think you should start: my list of The
Big 10 Principles of Progression. After we go
through the Big 10 Principles of Progression,
we will explore the Propulsion Arc for guiding us
towards manipulating joint actions and positions
to increase the likelihood of performing exercises with competence.
Pillar 4, Movement Progression
Let’s start at the beginning. This is
both a very stupid and smart recommendation. When your route is based on repeatable principles, then the journey can be streamlined,
simplified, and much more reproducible when
taking different people through it. The Big 10
Principles of Progression give us a place to
start, move towards, and end with:
1.Start static
2.Start sagittal
3.Start bilateral symmetrical
4.Minimize the difficulty of managing
gravity
5.Limiting ROM to only the Zone of
Sensorimotor Competency (ZSC)
6.Start with short levers
7.Provide Reactive Neuromuscular
Training (RNT)
8.Maximize references
9.Maximize constraints
10.Minimize load
There are a number of terms that need to be
defined in the Big 10 Principles of Progression. Once you’re familiarized with these critical
terms, you’ll start to see how you can use these
principles towards modifying exercises, so you
can execute them better and coach others
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towards the same. So, let’s start at number one
and work out way through the list.
1.Static refers to having people hold
isometric positions. When someone is repeatedly failing to do an exercise properly, have
them slow down. The faster someone is going
through a movement, the less they can sense
the movement. If someone is doing something
improperly, you need them to slow down to the
greatest degree possible, so that they can feel
what is right and what is wrong. There is no way
to slow down more than staying still. Isometrics
are invaluable to use with beginners for both
improving their fitness, and improving their technical performance of exercises.
2.The sagittal plane is the anatomical
plane that divides the body into right and left
sides. When the sagittal plane is drawn, it is
usually depicted as a panel that cuts the body
down the middle and separates the left from the
right. The joint movements of the sagittal plane
are flexion and extension. The frontal plane
is the anatomical plane that divides the body
into front and back. When the frontal plane is
drawn, it is usually depicted as a panel that cuts
the body through the middle and separates the
front from the back. The joint movements of the
frontal plane are abduction and adduction. The
transverse plane is the anatomical plane that
divides the body into top and bottom. When the
transverse plane is drawn, it is usually depicted as a panel that cuts the body through the
middle and separates the top from the bottom.
The joint movements of the transverse plane
are internal rotation and external rotation, along
with horizontal abduction and adduction. 3.Bilateral symmetrical stance involves
having the feet spread equidistant from one
another, and the weight of the body is evenly
distributed between the left and right sides. This
is the stance associated with the “athletic position”, and is the most common stance for weight
room activities, such as squats, deadlifts, pushups, bench press, pull-ups, etc.
4.Minimizing the difficulty of managing
gravity is easier explained through example
rather than strictly defined. It is easier to walk
than to run. It is easier to stand than to walk. It
is easier to sit than to stand. It is easier to lie
down than to sit. The more of you that is on the
ground, the easier it is to manage gravity.
5.Limiting the Range of Motion (ROM)
to only the Zone of Sensorimotor Competency
(ZSC) is a critical concept. In this model, the
goal is to perform exercises while displaying
planar motor competency and feeling sensory
competency. When both motor and sensory
competency is occurring, then the activity can
be said to be competent. Large excursions of
body parts through space executed in an incompetent manner is the opposite of what we
are trying to accomplish here. Restrict your
ROM to only that which is competent.
6.Start with short levers refers to keeping your arms and legs close to your body with
exercises. This principle is a recommendation that comes from a simple appreciation of
torque. Torque equals force times the distance
of a lever arm from the axis of rotation. If the
lever arm is longer, the torque goes up. With the
human body, all of our joints are similar to lever
arms that rotate around a fulcrum. If you hug a
cement bag close to your body in front of you,
that is a short lever. If you hold a cement bag
far from your body with straight arms, that is a
long lever. It is much harder to hold the cement
bag in the long lever position.
7.Reactive Neuromuscular Training is
a term that was popularized by Gray Cook. It
refers to the idea that if I push you or a part of
your body in one direction, you will reflexively
push back on me in the opposite direction. We
see a lot of people at gyms performing squats
with a mini band around their knees. The band
is pulling the knees towards the midline, so
reflexively we push back out against the band.
8.References refer to feeling specific
parts of your body throughout the entirety of
performing a movement. With the sagittal plane,
the heels are a critical reference center. I want
to make sure you feel your heels the entire
time you are squatting and deadlifting. When
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performing core exercises, in the beginning, I’ll
put people on the ground. People can feel their
back, and the backs of their feet on the ground.
If the person loses those points of contact (references), then they know they’re not performing
the drill properly. Providing the back with contact with the ground is maximizing references
during a core exercise.
rise to high levels, the way you move to execute
exercise changes, and the quality of that movement is always decreased.
9.Constraints are barriers to movement
occurring in undesirable ways. Constraints can
be wide-ranging from the perspective of implementation. External physical objects are often
used as constraints. If you put an object near
a person and instruct the person not to touch it
while they are doing an exercise, this can be a
constraint. If you have someone hold a physical object, and tell them to not let the object
drop during the performance of a movement,
this can be a constraint. Machines provide
constraints when they travel along a fixed path.
Also the tempo and timing of exercises can be
a constraint. If you want to prevent people from
moving too fast during an exercise, you can
play a metronome, to force them to go at a certain speed. You can time drills to make sure that
people are moving for a very specific amount
of time. Preventing unwanted motion is a very
valuable coaching tool.
1.Static to dynamic
2.Sagittal to frontal to transverse
3.Bilateral to front/back to lateral stance
4.Challenge position relative to gravity
5.Increase the ROM for the Zone of
Sensorimotor Competence
6.Lengthen levers
7.Reduce RNT input
8.Reduce reference
9.Reduce constraints
10.Progressively increase load
systematically
10.Minimizing load is a far-reaching
concept that ranges from the amount of weight
used in an exercise to the total amount of training volume in a program. You should always
start people with the lightest weight they can
use that still allows them to experience the
benefits of an exercise. In this way, you capture
the reward of the activity while minimizing the
risk of the activity.The lightest possible weights
will also create the lowest stress circumstances,
which are more appropriate for learning how to
do exercises properly. You should always start
with the least amount of total exercise in a program that allows you to experience the benefits
of exercise, and then gradually ramp up the
total volume of activity over time. With such an
approach, you do not overwhelm the system
with stress and fatigue. When stress and fatigue
Now that we know where to start, let’s
talk about where we are going to go. To accomplish this, we again look for guidance from our
Big 10 Principles of Progression:
Every pattern’s exercise progression
roadmap will have its idiosyncrasies, which we’ll
save for upcoming chapters. But, from here on
out, we’ll continuously fall back on the Big 10
Principles of Progression, as I do in my coaching, whenever I’m struggling to get a client to
execute an exercise correctly, and search for
ways I can incorporate these principles into the
setup for the exercise in question. And, every
time I go back to these basics, the outcome is
better on the next go-around.
The Propulsion Arc
The Propulsion Arc is a concept that I have
learned exclusively from Bill Hartman, the single
biggest influencer of my movement thought
process, and my ability to produce the model
this book presents. To explain the Propulsion
Arc, I’ll need to provide you with a little bit of
back story on the way that Bill views movement,
which should help clarify and synthesize a few
key concepts. Bill does not think that there is a sagittal plane
or a frontal plane. In fact, there may not even
be a transverse plane. However, if one of these
planes does exist, it would be the transverse
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plane. How could this possibly be the case? It
starts with the notion that in biology, the only
shapes that are ever made are straight lines.
The universe is a giant energy conservation machine, a machine that constructs nothing
that isn’t fundamentally based on conserving
energy to the greatest degree possible. Biology is not exempt from this law, and, if we are of
the universe, we must abide by its laws. The
shortest distance between two points, a straight
line is the most energy-conserving shape conceivable. A semantics argument about how
there are no true straight lines in nature could
go on for millennia, so I will stop short of asserting that all shapes in Biology are derived from
straight lines. That said, Biology is based at its
most elemental level on shapes that approximate straight lines.
Within Biology the realm of molecular geometry is largely rooted in Valence Shell Electron Pair (VSEPR) Theory. Molecular geometry
explains the shapes we see at the smallest
levels of Newtonian physics. The smallest objects in Newtonian physics are atoms, which are
the actual elements that comprise the Periodic
Table of elements. Molecules are formed when
two or more atoms bond together.
When discussing molecular geometric
shapes, we have to consider the steric and the
number of lone pairs. The steric number is the
number of domains (atoms and electron pairs)
bonded to the central atom. The lone pair is an
electron pair in the outermost shell of an atom
that is not bonded to another atom. Depending
on the steric number and the number of lone
pairs associated with a molecule, there are a
few potential shapes that molecules can make.
The shapes that are possible in molecular geometry are linear, trigonal planar, bent,
tetrahedral, trigonal pyramidal, and bent. Before we go on, no, I’m not here to teach you
molecular geometric science, but rather to set
the stage for the fundamentals of movement,
and doing so necessitates this quick review.
So, at the most basic level of biology,
the shape that structures make
is linear. As shapes become
more advanced, these linear
bonds merge and form triangular shapes. These triangular shapes will then
merge to make pyramidal shapes. And a pyramidal shape is the most advanced shape a
molecule can attain.
What happens when we combine a
bunch of pyramidal-shaped molecules to make
more advanced structures? The answer is that
when you bond pyramids together, the shape
that emerges is a helix, an essential shape at
the body tissue level. Nucleic acids, aka “DNA”,
leverage the double helix, while actin filaments
display the single helix and collagen, the triple
helix. Our tissues are rooted in the helix as
their basic shape.
But, in our essence, we are animals to
which straight line molecules gave rise. As
mentioned, in Biology, stacking straight lines
produces triangles, stacking triangles produces pyramids, and stacking pyramids produces
helixes. Finally, stacking helixes produces
tissues. Ergo, our movement is the movement of
helixes. What movement do helixes demonstrate? The answer to that is a spiral. What
plane does a spiral move in? The closest
approximation to that would be the transverse
plane.
To understand helical movement a little better, picture a slinky. If you were to grab
a slinky by the two ends and pull it apart, you
would witness the helical angles of the coils
becoming narrower, and the width of the slinky
appearing skinnier. If you were to push its two
ends towards each other, the slinky would fatten
up, and the helical angles of the coils would get
wider. A slinky is a single helix model.
To understand a double-helix model, picture a Chinese finger trap. If you put your two
fingers into each end, you can push them together, and, as with the slinky, as you compress
the Chinese finger trap, the helical angle be-
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comes wider the more it is compressed, and the
middle of the toy grows fatter. If you pull your
fingers away from each other, and the device
expands, the helical angles get narrower, and
the body of the toy gets skinnier.
Our tissues work by the same premise
as the slinky and the Chinese finger trap. Our
helical DNA, actin and collagen all have the
ability to expand and compress. As they expand, the helical angle gets increasingly narrower. As they compress, the helical angle gets
increasingly wider.
Biology is a fractal system. Fractals
are a never-ending pattern that is self-similar
across different scales, formed by repeating
the same simple process over and over in a
feedback loop that can achieve different levels
of complexity. Organisms are assembled via
fractal processes. Movement occurs via fractal processes. That which appears complex at
the outer layers of a fractal system is based on
the same simple rule that governs smaller, less
complex layers. Analogously, understanding
the “mico-movement” of a strand of actin interacting with a Z disc enables us to understand
movement at the grand level, for instance, that
of a thorax interacting with a pelvis.
Again, biological movement is based on
the expansion and compression of helical structures. When we observe the expansion and
compression inherent in the human body moving through space, it’s easy to get overwhelmed
by the level of complexity, the constraints imposed by the skeleton, the varying degrees of
freedom of different joints participating in the
action, and the simultaneous interaction of
different organ systems. Yet, at the heart of it,
movement is driven by gaseous and fluid-filled
tissue mediums preferentially expanding one
area while compressing another, to move the
center of mass or segments of the body through
space in a specific direction.
From a big picture standpoint, Bill has a
few categories that he uses to describe motion: Strategy, Orientation and Action.
Pillar 5, Movement Strategies
All of the things that we observe bodies
doing are simply evolutionary, anatomical solutions that allow us to either expand or compress
more effectively. There are specific joint action names to the movements associated with
expansion, and the movements associated with
compression. Broadly speaking, expansion is
an external rotation-based phenomenon. Besides rotation, other major joint actions associated with expansion are flexion, abduction,
plantar flexion, and supination. Compression,
then, is an internal rotation-based phenomenon,
other major joint actions associated with compression are extension, adduction, dorsi-flexion,
and pronation. When we think about expansion
and compression from a respiratory system
perspective, the inhalation phase is the expansion-based phenomenon, and the exhalation
phase is the compression-based phenomenon. The ability to reach full expansion requires us
to be able to assume an eccentric orientation
of relevant tissues, and the ability to reach full
compression requires us to be able to assume
a concentric orientation of relevant tissues. The
muscular action of yielding is associated with
expansion, and the muscular action of overcoming is associated with compression. Pillar 6, Muscular Orientation
Orientation speaks to whether muscles
are in an eccentric or concentric state from a
length perspective. There is some length middle-ground for muscles, within which range
they are neither eccentric nor concentric. As
soon as a muscle shortens beyond this divider,
it becomes concentrically oriented. As soon
as the muscle lengthens beyond it, it becomes
eccentrically oriented. Muscles use an eccentric orientation to try to allow segments to move
through a large excursion while performing
yielding and use a concentric orientation to try
to prevent segments from moving through a
large excursion when performing yielding actions. A concentric orientation is used to allow
segments to move through a large excursion
while performing overcoming actions, and muscles that remain in an eccentric orientation are
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unable to finish a movement during an overcoming action. Pillar 7, Muscular Action
Action speaks to whether tissues are
overcoming the forces they are interacting with,
or yielding to the forces they are interacting
with. Yielding is synonymous with absorbing
force. Overcoming is synonymous with producing force. Typically, when we move in the same
direction as the pull of gravity, we are yielding,
and when we move in the opposite direction of
the pull of gravity, we are overcoming.
The Interaction of Strategies, Orientations,
Actions, and The Propulsion Arc
A muscle may be concentrically or eccentrically oriented and using a yielding strategy. Conversely, a muscle may be concentrically
or eccentrically oriented and using an overcoming strategy. To reach a large excursion of ROM
involving a yielding action, the involved tissues
need to reach an eccentric orientation. An
example of this would be eccentrically orienting
the pelvic floor and quadriceps to allow yourself
to go to the bottom of a squat motion. If you
want to purposefully limit ROM with a yielding
action, you need to keep the involved tissues
in a concentric orientation. An example of this
would be jumping rope. The gastrocnemius,
quadriceps, and pelvic floor are maintained in
a concentric orientation when the jumper lands. By maintaining this concentric orientation of the
tissues, yielding ROM is kept to a minimum. To
finish an overcoming action through full ROM,
your muscles need to reach a concentric orientation. If you are performing a biceps brachii
curl and want to reach the end range of the top
of the exercise, a concentric orientation of the
muscle is a prerequisite for accomplishing this. If the biceps do not switch from an eccentric
orientation to a concentric orientation, overcoming ROM will cease at the midzone of the movement, falling short of achieving the top range of
the curl.
An eccentrically-oriented muscle may also
create an overcoming action. If we reuse the
deep squat as our example, we would reach
the bottom of the squat by eccentrically orienting the pelvic floor. Now, we need to come
up, out of the bottom of the squat. The pelvic
floor muscles are still eccentrically oriented at
this level of depth, but we can still create an
overcoming action, needed to push up from
here. If you cannot get the pelvic floor to reach
a concentric orientation in the midzone, this is
the point at which your overcoming capabilities
will cease, thwarting your ability to come up out
of the squat. A concentrically-oriented muscle
can create an overcoming action. In the example of jumping rope, we landed on the ground
after a hop. We maintained our gastrocnemius
in a concentric orientation during the landing,
even though the muscle had to absorb force
with a yielding action. Following the absorption
of force, the muscle will overcome gravity to
help us jump off the ground again. To drive this
subsequent jump, the gastrocnemius will now
use an overcoming action from this concentric
orientation.
That which we observe as sagittal or
frontal plane movement is simply a nonuniform
compression in one direction of a helix, causing
a nonuniform expansion in the opposite direction of that helix. In typical human movement,
the arrangement and composition of the skeletal system provide the constraints that direct
expansion and compression in specific directions. To close the loop on the concept, though
I agree with Bill’s assertion that there is no such
thing as a sagittal or frontal plane, I will continue
to use the traditional planar terms throughout
this book for simplicity’s sake.
Now that we have been introduced to the
nature of expansion and compression from a
helical movement perspective, we can get back
to the propulsion arc. This is a concept that I
believe applies to every trainable motion, and,
indeed to all forms of human movement. The
arc has three primary zones, which we will refer
to as Zone 1, Zone 2, and Zone 3. Bill talks
about these concepts as Early Propulsion, Middle Propulsion, and Late Propulsion, which are
terms largely based on the gait cycle.
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When you are walking, your foot will
make contact with the ground. The moment
your foot initially hits the ground, you are beginning early propulsion. After your foot hits the
ground, your weight will shift over that foot as
your body moves forward through space. When
the maximum amount of your center of mass is
over the middle of your foot during the stride,
you will be at middle propulsion. Your body
mass will continue to move forward, following
through to the end of your stride. Just before
your foot leaves the ground again to take your
next step, you are in late propulsion in the gait
cycle. There are stereotypical joint positions,
actions, and movement strategies that are associated with early, middle, and late propulsion.
Early and late propulsion are expansion-dominant phases in the gait cycle, and
middle propulsion is the compression-dominant
phase of the cycle. During early and late propulsion, we will see joints externally rotating,
flexing, abducting, supinating, plantar flexing,
and trending more towards eccentric orientation
and yielding. During middle propulsion, we will
see joints internally rotating, extending, adducting, pronating, dorsiflexing, and trending more
towards concentric orientation and overcoming.
The concept of gradients is critical for
comprehending the propulsion arc. The broad
movement strategies and joint actions that are
taking place are never absolute things. Your
body is never expanded/expanding 100% or
compressed/compressing 100%. At all times,
there is an interplay between expansion and
compression, and throughout your body, you
are expanding and compressing simultaneously
to varying degrees. Likewise, no phase in the
arc is fully an expansion phase or a compression phase. Rather than thinking about it from
an absolutist perspective, consider the concept
one of a continuum with a sliding scale. At certain phases of motion, there will be times when
dominance will shift towards and other times
when dominance will shift towards compression.
At the point where you are beginning
early propulsion, you are biased to the greatest
degree possible towards an expansion strategy. As you go further into early propulsion, the expansion strategy gets weaker, and the compression strategy gets stronger. When you reach
the peak of middle propulsion, this is when
you are biased to the greatest degree possible
towards a compression strategy. As you move
away from middle propulsion and closer to
late propulsion, the compression strategy gets
weaker, and the expansion strategy gets stronger. When you reach the greatest degree of
late propulsion, this is when you are maximally
biased toward an expansion strategy.
So, why is it called an arc? The answer
to this is, if we were to examine the major moving joint during an action, we will see it make an
arc shape in the path that it traverses. Examples will make this easier to see.
Let’s use lifting your arm overhead. At
rest, your arm is down by your side. You begin
to lift your arm over your head. Your elbow and
hand, while going up, are also moving forward
and away from your body. When you reach the
halfway point at 90 degrees, your elbow and
hand are as far from your body as possible. As
you move beyond the 90-degree point, now
your elbow and hand will start coming back
towards your body.
The same close-far-close progression
is also true for actions like throwing or hitting a
ball with a baseball bat. You will see a natural
arc motion in all types of striking sports actions,
like kicking a soccer or hitting a golf ball, or
a slap shot in hockey. You will even see the
same concept in basic gym exercises, like barbell curls.
With examples of actions involving hitting
a ball, the arc is very easy to see. You have a
windup phase at the beginning of the motion,
and a follow-through phase at the end of the
motion, the middle of the motion being when
you make contact with the ball. The windup
and the follow-through are phases of the motion
characterized by creating expansion, while the
middle of the motion at the strike zone is characterized by creating compression.
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These examples also illustrate how
exhalation relies on compression. In tennis
strokes, a compression-driven impact with the
ball mid-stroke is bookended by the expansion-driven windup and follow-through motions. When executing a swing, athletes often audibly
exhale. Hard to imagine them audibly inhaling
instead as they hit the ball, and now we better
understand why. Some motions do not go through the entire propulsion arc. A punch is a good example
of a motion that goes from early propulsion to
middle propulsion and back to early propulsion. Likewise, the leg extension machine goes from
early propulsion to middle propulsion, and back
to early propulsion.
As we go through the trainable patterns
Fig 4.1 - Propulsion Arc
in this book, we will revisit the many variations
of this arc time and again. While the terms
used by Bill—Early, Middle, and Late Propulsion—are perfectly applicable to all movement
patterns, I’m going to use numbers to correspond to zones in the propulsion arc to avoid
potential confusion for certain patterns. In this
book, Zone 1 and Zone 3 of the arc will be our
expansion-dominant zones, and Zone 2 is going
to be our compression-dominant zone.
When we look at the squat as a pattern,
we will discuss it within the confines of the propulsion arc, and identify three different zones
for this movement: the top of the squat, the middle of the squat, and the bottom of the squat. The top of the squat will be Zone 1, the middle
will be Zone 2, and the bottom will be Zone
3. If we look at the motion with the knees as
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our reference point, at the top of the squat, the
knees are in line with the body. As we descend,
the knees go forward. If you watch someone
get into the absolute rock bottom of a full squat,
the knees have to come back towards the body
to reach that point. You can witness the knees
moving through the arc-shaped motion to accomplish the full squat.
Rather than discuss the squat from the
perspective of early, middle, and late propulsion, we will label the phases as Zones 1 (top),
2 (middle), and 3 (bottom). We will do the same
thing with throwing pattern exercises. With
throwing and striking motions, Zone 1 is the
windup, Zone 2 is the strike zone, and Zone 3
is the follow-through. Zones 1 and 3 should be
characterized by expansion/inhalation/eccentric
orientation-related joint actions, while Zone 2
should be characterized by compression/exhalation/concentric-related joint actions.
If someone is struggling to display sensorimotor competency with a particular pattern,
having an understanding of the arc provides
powerful tools for success. There are a few
ways in which you can make easy use of the
arc to manipulate exercises for better odds of
competent execution.
First, there is a general principle to follow
for progressing exercises with the arc. Start exercises with a Zone 1 focus, then move to Zone
2, and finally to Zone 3. Some examples will
make this easier to understand.
If I’m considering introducing the squat
in someone’s training, I can use the arc to give
them a set-up that will increase the likelihood of
a competent squat with the appropriate range
of motion. I will start with Zone 1 concepts,
implemented into the assembly of the exercise. In other words, I’ll start by giving them a form
of resistance that puts their arms into a Zone 1
position.
When thinking about arms, Zone 1 is
when the humerus is close to being down by
the person’s side. Zone 2 is when the humerus is straight out away from the person’s body
at 90 degrees. Zone 3 is when the humerus
is overhead. To make the squat feature “Zone
1 arms”, we could try the goblet squat set-up. The elbow is flexed to hold an implement at the
height of the chest, but the humerus is still held
relatively low, down by the person’s side.
Now that I have created a zone 1 concept at the arms, I can start to think about how
to enhance a Zone 1 concept at the lower
extremity. Recalling that Zone 1 is an expansion strategy phase of movements, and that
expansion is facilitated by flexion, abduction,
ER, supination, and plantar flexion joint when I
think about setting someone up for success in a
squat, providing plantar flexion is my pick. I can
increase plantar flexion by elevating the heels.
By following the guidelines associated
with creating exercises that first feature Zone 1
concepts, and then applying those guidelines to
a squat exercise, I can conclude that a heels-elevated goblet squat is an exercise that yields
a very high probability of being performed with
competency. This exercise also fits in nicely with many of the other Big 10 Principles of
Progression. The goblet squat is a short lever
position for the upper extremity, while the elevation of the heels references the heels for a
sagittal plane exercise.
To progress the squat, I can come back
to the propulsion arc for guidance. A front squat
would clearly be a progression compared to a
goblet squat. With the front squat, the arms
are positioned in a Zone 2 region. If someone
needs to front squat but struggles with some of
the Zone 2 joint actions, I could feed more Zone
1 concepts into the set-up for this drill. For instance, I could put lifting straps around the bar,
and have the person hold onto the straps so
that they can supinate their hands to a greater
degree. After someone has become proficient
at the front squat, now I can think about bringing them up to a Zone 3 squat, which would be
an overhead squat.
The world of strength and conditioning
has no shortage of tools that feed expansion
related joint positions into the set-up of resis-
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tance training patterns. If you think about a trap
bar for the deadlift, the handle position feeds
the athlete more ER and supination in their grip
set-up compared to a straight barbell. A Swiss
bar for bench press feeds the athlete more ER
and supination in their grip set-up compared to
a straight barbell. A safety squat bar feeds the
athlete more ER and supination in their grip setup compared to a straight barbell. Such tools,
designed to spare athletes unnecessary joint
stress from high training volume, generally exhibit expansion-related concepts, and the ability
to put upper and lower extremities into Zone 1
versus Zone 2 positions.
When you view movement through the
lens of the propulsion arc, there are limitless
ways that you can manipulate the execution of
training patterns. As we work our way through
this book and explore the different patterns,
many examples will be provided. With the Big
10 Principles of Progression and the Propulsion
Arc as your templates, the hope is that you can
become the architect of your own exercises,
modifying and manipulating them as you see fit.
05
Foundational Principles
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Pattern 1: Breathing
Chapter 5
Part 1: Breathing, From a Qualitative
Perspective
In the fitness industry, breathing tends
to either be overhyped or underhyped. I’m
not here to talk about breathing from a “woo
woo” metaphysical perspective, rather from the
perspective of how airflow mechanics impact
the skeleton. Though I’ll touch on a few fringe
notions, I will focus mostly on the basics and
physics of breathing, and give credit to those
who have opened my eyes to the power of the
ventilatory process as it relates to movement.
As a kid growing up in the 80s, I got into
karate, which exposed me to some of the basic concepts of martial arts, one of which was
conscious, controlled breathing. Later, in an
effort to increase range of motion for sports
during high school, I got more into yoga, where
the importance of breathing was again emphasized. When I got back into martial arts in my
late teens and early 20s, my mixed martial arts
coach would get us to bring our attention back
to
our
breathing when fatigue and panic started to set
in.
As I got deeper into coaching within the
strength and conditioning world, I sought to
learn more and more from the influential physical therapists who were popular for being able
to improve range of motion and movement
quality in their athlete clients. This group of
practitioners again led me back to breathing. I
guess you could say that I have been primed to
think that breathing is important.
Whenever I feel like my experiences could be
biasing me towards a viewpoint, I try to recognize this and assume the null hypothesis on that
given issue. In the world of movement, objectivity is often attained through standardized
table tests of range of motion. Having studied
countless table tests, I can say that practically
nothing serves to improve test results better
than getting participants into proper positions,
and having them breathe in very particular ways
designed to drive particular changes.
Yes, deep breathing drills have profound
effects on the mind. Yes, deep breathing drills
can acutely influence cortisol levels. Yes, deep
breathing drills can help with anxiety, asthma,
mindfulness, presence, and a bevy of psychosomatic problems. Without denying any
of these effects, the effect we’ll examine here
are those of proper breathing drills that direct
people towards exhaling in very specific ways
based upon test results, as well as those of
controlling a nasal inhale, which can drastically
alter skeletal positions, muscle leverages, and
joint range of motion. I got into strength and conditioning in
2004 when I was 24 years old. At that time, I
wanted to learn about the science and practice
of hypertrophy, strength, power, Olympic lifts,
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plyometrics, sprints, agility drills, and conditioning. Like most young, motivated meatheads,
I trained myself into the ground and ended up
in a lot of pain. This is when I got introduced
to some folks who valued movement quality,
a concept that unveiled an entirely new world
within my chosen field.
My first introduction to organized
strength and conditioning that emphasized movement proficiency was through the work
of Mike Boyle, a brilliant and incredibly influential strength and conditioning coach based in
Massachusetts. He has done a masterful job
of integrating quality stretching and other range
of motion/movement-related activities into an
overall program aimed at athletic improvement. Through his lectures and podcasts, I was introduced to Gray Cook and the Functional Movement Screen (FMS), so I dove into Cook’s work
next.
Gray Cook does an incredible job of explaining
a model of how the human body can get out of
balance. In this model, it is explained that superficial muscles can overpower deep muscles,
and prime movers can dominate stabilizers. When we have an unbalanced body, we lose
the ability to express fundamental human movements that we should all possess. Furthermore,
the joints of our body are organized in an alternating fashion, where some joints desperately
need a high degree of mobility, and others
need a high degree of stability. For the lower
extremity, the ankle needs to be highly mobile,
while the knee needs to be highly stable, and
the hip needs to be highly mobile. This joint-byjoint approach to the body also suggests that,
when troubleshooting joint pain, we should look
to the joint above or below the one the patient
identifies as painful. Oftentimes, chronic knee
pain can be the result of a hip or ankle that
has lost its appropriate mobility. When a mobile joint loses its mobility, it increases stability,
and it tends to force the adjacent stable joint to
pick up mobility. The FMS purports to be able
to ascertain the degree to which the body has
remained in balance by quantifying the degree
to which we have maintained mobility at all our
mobile joints and stability at all of our stable
joints.
In many of his talks, Gray Cook notes the
profound interplay of breathing and movement,
in part attributable to the fact some muscles are
primarily intended to be involved with breathing. Chief among these muscles is the diaphragm. If the diaphragm isn’t doing its job - because of
a mobility and/or a stability issue in the body then other joints have to jump in and assist the
breathing process. Perhaps your stiff, achy
neck or hypertonic traps are just trying to help
you breathe, and the real problem lies in your
faulty breathing pattern. If there was a way to
let your traps go back to simply being traps instead of being makeshift diaphragms, your stiff
neck would return to being highly mobile, and
your aches and pains would dissipate.
After really digging through Gray Cook’s
research, I discovered that a lot of his theory and practice was based on the work of the
great Czech practitioners, like Vladimir Janda. Janda was a pioneer in physical therapy, who
left an enormous wake behind him. One of the
first practitioners to really start looking at the
influence of the brain on the conditions he was
seeing, he ushered in what is now known as the “Functional” approach to physical therapy. Janda also noticed that most dysfunctional states of
the body were stereotypical, meaning that the
human body seems to go to disarray in some
fairly patterned and predictable ways. Janda viewed the skeletal muscle system as the
crosshairs of the nervous system. The efferent
messages from the central nervous system
reach and terminate at skeletal muscle, and the
afferent messages that return to the central nervous system originate at the skeletal muscle. In
this way, the status of skeletal muscle provides
a window for observing the functional state of
the brain.
This type of model suggests that you
can influence the brain via alterations in what
you do with skeletal muscle, and vice versa. Since physical therapists can’t perform open
brain surgery, their work has to take place on
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the periphery and rely on afferent information
that gets sent back to the CNS. The idea is that
with new, different, and/or increased afferent
information being provided to the brain, a new,
different, and/or increased efferent message
will be sent back to the skeletal muscle system. And, when a new efferent message is sent to
the muscles and the skeleton, changes in muscle tone, length, position, and functionality can
take place.
What sorts of strategies should we use
to drive a change in afferent information to the
brain? Because our inhalations and exhalations are directly tied to our autonomic nervous
system, breathing is an excellent choice for this
type of practice. The inhalation is a sympathetic nervous system-based phenomenon, and the
exhalation is a parasympathetic nervous system-based phenomenon. If I spend more time
in an inhaled state, I would be biased more towards a sympathetic state, and vice versa with
exhalation and the parasympathetic system.
tive from one patient to the next.
Janda was a keen observer of people, and, as aforementioned, noticed specific patterns of dysfunction. Specifically, he noticed that these patterns were
associated with stereotypical presentations of
certain muscles being weak and long, and other
muscles being tight and short. Every human
could be placed somewhere on the spectrum of
this typical, patterned response, with the only
difference being how deep into the pattern they
were. Janda believed that when we had pain or
an injury, or a lack of proprioceptive information,
our initial reaction to this experience is to tighten up and prevent movement. This prevention
of movement at a region is an energetics-driven
response. Ultimately, you move less and conserve energy, which is an intelligent strategy in
response to threat.
Sympathetics is associated with a fight or flight,
mobilization of resources state, and involves the
release of chemicals like epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisol from nerve endings and
the adrenal glands. Sympathetics would increase tone of muscle, narrow focus, place us
in a state of vigilance, and be associated with
increased energy expenditure. Parasympathetics is the rest and digest, tend and befriend,
socialization-based branch of the autonomic
nervous system. A parasympathetic experience
is associated with acetylcholine being released
as the chemical messenger, which leads to
reduced muscle tone, reduction in vigilance,
relaxation, and a decreased energy expenditure
state.
After tightening up and changing your mechanics, you move around in this style, and engrain
this style of movement into your repertoire in a
learned response manner. The pattern of tightening and lengthening is typically done in an
agonist-antagonist relationship around a joint,
where the muscle on one side of a joint becomes tight, and the muscle on the other side
becomes long. Once this imbalance around
a joint takes place, the way the joint rotates
is changed, and the way the person moves
through space is altered. The tight muscles in
the relationship are closer to the threshold level
for contractile activity, and are therefore more
easily recruited for most movements. Because
it’s more energetically efficient to continuously
recruit and use the same tight/short muscles
over and over, we tend to deepen this pattern
as we age.
As such, breathing is the most obvious pathway for immediately and directly influencing the
brain in a predictable manner. Touch, either
between patient and practitioner or between
patient and some object, also provides a somatic afferent message to the brain. But, unlike
breathing, which influences brain activity in a
predictable way, touch does so in ways that are
not well understood, and are incredibly subjec-
Janda classified three patterns of muscle
imbalance, referring to them as Upper Crossed
Syndrome, Lower Crossed Syndrome, and
Layer Syndrome. Upper Crossed Syndrome
involves tight and strong superficial anterior
neck muscles and pecs on the front of the body,
and upper traps and suboccipitals on the posterior side of the body. The long/weak muscles
of Upper Crossed Syndrome are the deep neck
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flexors on the front, and the low trap and serratus anterior on the back. Lower Crossed Syndrome involves tight hip flexors on the front and
low back extensors on the back, and long/weak
abdominals on the front and hamstrings/glutes on the back. Layer Syndrome is when you
have both Upper and Lower Crossed Syndrome
presenting together. Layer Syndrome causes a
hunched back, with a forward head position up
top, with an anterior tilted pelvis at the bottom,
and further compensation results in a swayback
presentation. This pursuit of patterns and limitations
of skeletal muscle function led me to study the
teachings of Ron Hruska, who is the founder
and director of the Postural Restoration Institute
(PRI). Well-versed in classical osteopathic literature, physical therapy, Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF), podiatry, psychology, dental sciences, and optometry, among
a host of other disciplines, Ron possesses a
wealth of knowledge about the human condition. A unique and truly genuine human being,
Ron has helped elucidate what osteopathic literature first called The Common Compensatory
Pattern, terming it the left Anterior Interior Chain
(AIC), and right Brachial Chain (BC) pattern. While Janda’s work helped people see things
from a bilateral perspective, Ron has helped
those who have studied his material understand
the stereotypical presentation that the left side
of the body will demonstrate versus the right.
Ron integrated the osteopathic patterns into the
gait cycle, and also discovered that these musculoskeletal patterns present at the level of the
neck, mandible, maxilla, and cranial bones.
One of the most fundamental tenets of
Hruska’s patterns is that there is an underlying
asymmetry to the human condition. In particular, there is strong asymmetry at the visceral
level. The liver is present on the right side of
the body, and is strongly connected by fascia
to the right side of the diaphragm. This liver
attachment to the diaphragm provides a strong
base of support, from which the diaphragm can
move and function. Larger, more muscular, and
possessing an extra leaflet as compared to the
left side, the right side of the diaphragm seems
to be designed specifically to take advantage
of this mechanical advantage for movement as
compared to the left, which has no such organ
anchor to attach to or move off of. This asymmetry at the level of the diaphragm is
the keystone fixture of the patterns that dominate the functionality of the thorax and pelvis in
Hruska’s model. The psoas is interconnected
with the crural fibers of the diaphragm. The
diaphragm meets the psoas at the transverse
processes of the lumbar vertebrae and the
twelfth thoracic vertebrae. The psoas runs from
this vertebral starting place down to the iliac
crest, and to the deep side of the ilium. The
psoas is intertwined and inseparable from the
iliacus muscle, which attaches at the ilium and
runs inferiorly to the femur. The psoas also has
fascial attachments with the iliacus, which in
turn connects with the tensor fascia latae, which
merges into the iliotibial band after running inferiorly down the side of the thigh and connecting
to the anterior tibia at Gerdy’s Tubercle. The
diaphragm, psoas, iliacus and TFL is a chain of
muscles known as the AIC, which connects the
diaphragm to the spine, the spine to the ilium,
the ilium to the femur, and the femur to the tibia.
When the AIC is facilitated, it causes the diaphragm to make an overcoming muscle action,
bringing it into a concentric orientation, which
makes the muscle descend from the thoracic
cavity. The descension of the diaphragm leads
to respiratory inhalation and puts the pelvis and
femur into the inhalation position. The inhalation position of the innominate and femur is
flexion, abduction, and ER. This combination
of respiration and joint actions drives your leg
forward through space, making the AIC our
lower body walking chain of muscles. To walk
forward, you facilitate your right AIC to push
off your right leg while inhibiting your left AIC
to receive weight on your left leg, and to take
your next step, you facilitate your left AIC while
inhibiting your right AIC. Hruska has noted that
the asymmetry of the diaphragm, derived from
the presence of the liver, leads to the left AIC
being more readily facilitated compared to the
right. This neuromuscular tendency towards
greater left AIC facilitation - compared to right
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AIC facilitation - creates an unconscious patterned response, which drives our species to
being oriented and lateralized to the right, with
the left side of the body being biased towards
an inhaled behavioral state.
The way we deal with this pattern of
musculoskeletal activity is to address it at the
most central location: the diaphragm. The
inhalation response of the left diaphragm is the
beginning of this chain reaction, and the place
that we can most readily and impactfully check
to try to reverse the phenomenon. Via positioning of the ribcage and the pelvic bones around
the left diaphragm, I can leverage it towards a
position associated with an exhalation state,
and begin to re-pattern my subject from there. To accomplish this, I have to integrate the lumbo-pelvic-femoral complex (AIC) with the thoracoabdominal complex (BC).
The BC is part of what walks the upper body
through the rotation and bending of the thorax. This chain involves the diaphragm, intercostals,
triangularis sterni, subclavius, pecs, and deltoids. The right brachial chain flexes and abducts the right side of the thorax. Together, the
left AIC and right BC create the aforementioned
frontal plane mirror asymmetry positioning and
response, as demonstrated by the posture of
the statue of David.
David is presented with his right ilium bone
elevated and his right armpit depressed. The
right anterior thoracoabdominal space is closed,
and the left is open. I readily fill the lung zones
in my left anterior chest wall with air, while
my right chest wall is compressed and empty. What I need to do is position myself so as to
close the left anterior thoracoabdominal space,
and open the right side.
To accomplish this feat of closing the left
side and opening the right, I need to examine
the body from a three-dimensional, triplanar
perspective. I have to examine which side has
the pelvis in a long, weak state in the sagittal
plane, and which side is short and tight. I have
to repeat this process for the frontal plane and
transverse plane at the pelvis, as well as exam-
ine the thorax in this manner.
When seeing the common asymmetrical patterned body, Hruska has noted that the left
posterior pelvis is long in the sagittal plane,
while the right is short. The anterior side of the
pelvis is the opposite, where the left is short and
the right is long in the sagittal plane. My left
pelvic adductor muscles are long, while my right
adductors are short. The opposite is true of the
abductors. My pelvis is rotated to the right with
this pattern. Based on this, my transverse glute
fibers are short on the left, but long on the right. At the level of the thorax, my left sagittal and left
frontal plane abs are long, while my right abs
are short in both planes. The transverse plane picture is more complex.
My center of mass is oriented rightwards, but
I have to interact with a world that I perceive
to be straight in front of me. Therefore, while
I’m oriented right at the level of the pelvis and
lumbar spine, I’m always attempting to turn
back to the left somewhere else in the system. In this pattern, we see that the thoracic spine is
rotating back to the left up top. In effect, we are
twisted organisms, always caught between being fundamentally shifted right by lumbo-pelvic
femoral forces and trying to come back to the
middle by having thoracic and cervical forces
turning back to the left. Even this highly simplified and excessively summarized version of the
true, extensive, complete Postural Restoration
Institute model illustrates our structural and
movement imperfections.
And, at the heart of this model is breathing. Why? Because breathing moves bones
through the action of muscles, and powers the
forces of air and abdominal fluid movement, as
well as our interaction with gravity. Recently,
Bill Hartman has begun teaching an event that
he calls The Intensive. I was fortunate enough
to be one of the participants at the first rendition
of The Intensive, where Bill unveiled his model. I truly enjoyed Bill’s thoughts and explanation
for the movement patterns that we tend to see
in the human condition. Bill gave me a new
appreciation for basic physics and the way it
impacts the body.
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This model started off by attempting to explain
the most underlying essence of the right-oriented human condition, and I think he nailed it. The majority of our visceral organs, and other
organs such as the brain, have posterior attachment sites. The back of the heart attaches
to the spine and posterior rib cage. The backside of the brain is anchored to the skull. The
backside of the guts is where the tendons are. When we are upright, gravity impacts everything in the same direction: downward.
When these organs shift down via gravity, the
posterior attachment causes the anterior part of
the organ to be lower in space than the posterior part of that organ. Essentially our organs
are tumbling downward, and creating a forward
spin torque vector. With torque, there is always
a resultant vector, known as angular momentum. Angular momentum follows the “right hand”
rule of thumb in physics. When our right hand
is pointed forward, the thumb is directed to the
left, demonstrating the direction of angular momentum from forward tumbling organ torque.
The combined angular momentum of summed
organ torque leads to a constant left directed
thoraco-abdominal air and fluid swirl, which is
counterclockwise and going left. We’ve been
taking advantage of this leftward procession
for millennia. We build race tracks for humans,
horses, and dogs so that they can run in a
counter-clockwise direction. Baseball is set up
to run with procession. Even NASCAR is set up
so we can drive in a way that is assisted by this
underlying fluid vortex.
We can see the effects of the fluid vortex on
the shape and positioning of some key central
structures. When looking at the pelvis, you’ll
typically see the innominate bones rotated to
the right, but the sacrum is twisting to the left
relative to the innominate bones. Perhaps most
telling is the position of the brain inside our
skulls, which exists in the state of Yakovlevian
Torque. Yakovlevian Torque describes the fact
that the human brain is rotated counterclockwise inside the skull, so that the right anterior
brain is more forward compared to the left.
In essence, there is an unstoppable fluid force
that is always moving to the left inside of our
bodies due to our design. Throughout our lives,
we will simultaneously be utilizing this force and
fighting against it. When the air and fluid procession force brings more volume of fluid to the
left side of the thoraco-abdominal and pelvic regions, the left side of our bodies expands. The
natural tendency of movement is to go down
a concentration gradient. The expanded side
has the increased concentration of material. Therefore, it will be harder for us to move our
bones to the left into the concentration gradient. Where there is low fluid volume, we will be able
to readily move, since we will be moving down
the concentration gradient when going in this
direction. This is why our skeleton orients readily to the right and lateralizes to the right. The
skeleton is just attempting to follow the path of
least resistance, and direct movement down its
concentration gradient.
In respect to the thoracic fluid force and
the musculoskeletal counteraction response to
this phenomenon, Bill’s model explained that all
the other joints of the body are a fractal representation of the big axial compartments. As
great minds like Janda noticed long ago, the
location of high fluid volume (e.g., synovial fluid)
on one side of a joint and low fluid volume on
the other side will set us up for the predictable
concentric, short position—low fluid volume—
opposite the eccentric, long position—high
fluid volume. The key for us as movers is to
be able to move fluid back and forth between
the two sides of a joint, so as to allow for eccentric orientation and concentric orientation of
the same muscle. At a fundamental level, our
species has to manage pressure and volume
throughout our body. Those of us who cannot
regulate pressure and volume end up as either
compressed, hypertonic and rigid, or flaccid,
sloshing, unregulated, lava lamp-like. The interesting thing is that we can get a glimpse into the
camp somebody falls in by measuring the way
in which he or she breathes.
When we go through the respiration
cycle, our bodies expand as we inhale, and
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they compress as we exhale. By expanding,
we increase thoracic volume, and decrease the
pressure of air inside the lungs, which allows air
to move down its pressure gradient and go from
the ambient environment to inside our lungs. When we compress, we decrease thoracic
volume, and increase the pressure of air inside
the lungs, which allows air to move down its
pressure gradient and go from the lungs to the
ambient environment.
Both expansion and compression of the thoracic cavity depend on moving bones in our bodies. Table tests provide telltale markers about
whether the subject is patterned into over-reliance on one phase of respiration over another,
judging by whether his or her bones are biased
strongly towards a position of inhalation or exhalation. The Inhaled and Exhaled Skeleton
Inhalation is an element of the expansion
movement strategy, and exhalation is an element of the compression movement strategy. The two strategies, when viewed from a joint
action perspective, display opposite motions. Muscular orientation and muscular action facilitate the expansion and compression strategies
displayed at joints. The movement strategies
are associated with stereotypical muscular and
joint behaviors, clearly depicting an organism’s
adopted attempts to manage gravity and move
itself through space.
The expansion strategy is associated
with the joint actions of flexion, abduction, ER,
supination, and plantar flexion. The expansion
strategy is associated with the eccentric muscular orientation. An eccentric muscular orientation is used for permitting motion to occur in
the direction of that orientation. The expansion
strategy is associated with the inhalation phase
of respiration. The compression strategy is
associated with the joint actions of extension,
adduction, IR, pronation, and dorsiflexion. The
compression strategy is associated with the
concentric muscular orientation. A concentric
muscular orientation is used for restricting motion from occurring in the direction of that orien-
tation. The compression strategy is associated
with the exhalation phase of respiration.
In an ideal skeleton, the joints have the
ability to demonstrate normalized human ranges for all of the expansion and compression
measures. If there is full ROM in expansion
joint actions and compression joint actions, then
the skeleton has full movement variability, and
demonstrates no bias towards either strategy. This book will briefly introduce the stereotypical
skeletal presentations, which we will examine
throughout, exploring the specifics of the inhalation strategy versus the compression strategy at
specific regions of the body.
At the level of the pelvis, the inhaled
skeleton features relative motion between the
innominate and the sacrum. The innominate
nutates as the sacrum counter-nutates. Simultaneously, the descent of the diaphragm during
an inhalation pushes the viscera and visceral
fluids inferiorly, which increases the volume of
fluids in the hollow spaces of the pelvis. This
expansion of fluids in the pelvis leads to eccentric orientation of the pelvic floor, aka “pelvic
diaphragm”, as well as flexion at the level of the
coccyx, forward pressure driven into the deep
side of the pubis, and posterior pressure driven
into the deep side of the upper sacrum. This is
the eccentric position of the pelvis. Fig 5.1 - Posterior tilted pelvis
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At the level of the thoraco-abdominal
cavity, the inhaled skeleton features relative
motion between the sacrum and the lumbar
spine. Counter-nutation of the sacrum will be
accompanied by an increase in flexion at L5. In
parallel, the descent of the diaphragm during an
inhalation pushes the viscera and visceral fluids
inferiorly, and also creates expansion in both
the anterior and posterior direction. The fluid
expansion will primarily demonstrate itself in the
anterior direction, and represent what we think
of as the “belly breath”.
As fluid expands in the abdomen, the
descent of the diaphragm also increases volume in the chest cavity, which drives air into
the lungs. When air comes into the lungs, the
ribcage will be expanded in a 360 degree manner. Primary expansion sites are at the lower
posterior zone of the lungs (lower dorsal-rostral
space expansion), the anterior infra-sternal ribs
(bucket handle up), the sternum (pump handle
up), and the superior posterior zone of the lungs
(upper dorsal-rostral space expansion).
The exhaled skeleton features the opposite joint actions throughout the axial skeleton
compared to the inhaled skeleton. At the level
of the pelvis, we will see relative motion between the innominate and the sacrum, featuring
counter-nutation of the innominate and nutation
of the sacrum. Simultaneously, the ascent of
the diaphragm during exhalation allows the
viscera and visceral fluids to move superiorly
out of the pelvic space, which decreases the
Fig 5.2 - Anterior and posterior view of the
thoracoabdominal region
Fig 5.3 - anteriorly tilted pelvis
volume of fluids in the hollow spaces of the pelvis. The compression of fluids out of the pelvis
leads to a concentric orientation of the pelvic
floor, extension at the level of the coccyx, also
resulting in a lack of forward pressure in the pubis, and a lack of posterior pressure in the sacrum. The compression strategy that features
an overcoming muscular action and leading to a
concentric orientation of the pelvic floor is what
pushes the fluid volume in a superior direction,
out of the hollow spaces of the pelvis, in the exhale position of the pelvis. In the exhaled pelvic
presentation, there is a lack of fluid driving force
going posterior into the coccyx, anterior into
the pubis, and posterior going into the superior
sacrum.
At the level of the thoraco-abdominal
cavity, the exhaled skeleton features relative
motion between the sacrum and the lumbar
spine. Nutation of the sacrum will accompany
an increase in extension at the vertebral level
of L5. At the same time, the superior doming
action of the diaphragm allows the visceral fluids to migrate superiorly, imposing compression
on the fluid from both the anterior and posterior
directions.
Simultaneous to the fluid compression in
the abdominal cavity, the doming of the diaphragm also decreases volume in the chest
cavity, which pushes air out of the lungs. When
air is pushed out of the lungs, the thorax compresses in a 360 degree manner. Primary com-
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pression sites are at the lower posterior zone of
the lungs (lower dorsal-rostral space compression), the anterior infra-sternal ribs (bucket handle down), the sternum (pump handle down),
and the superior posterior zone of the lungs
(upper dorsal-rostral space compression).
Determining Respiratory Bias/
Lack of Movement Variability
What follows is the process of assessing
respiratory variability and movement variability
using our model. Before we proceed, please
note that there is no peer-reviewed evidence
to indicate whether these tests are reliable and
valid for this process, and that determining reliability and validity of these tests for the purposes of demonstrating the hypothesis presented
here would require testing involving scientific
rigor, a current limitation of this very young
model.
Within this model, there are only two
types of movement strategies, expansion and
compression. We are looking to see if people
have access to full expansion and compression
capabilities. Those who can achieve full expression of both strategies have full movement
variability, where breathing is one component of
the strategies. Breathing is incredibly important
to this model, both because it is directly implicated in autonomic function, and because we
accumulate such a large volume of repetitions
of the inhalation and exhalation movements
during our lifetimes. In this model, if you do
not have respiratory variability, then you do not
have movement variability, and vice versa. The
terms respiratory variability and movement variability are synonymous with one another.
I am always looking for tests that give me
the ability to evaluate whether or not my subjects have full movement variability. I want tests
that are easy to perform, and clearly illustrate
demonstrable changes following an intervention. Featuring both standardized methodology
and normalized values for the human species,
table tests for joint ROM are the tests of choice
within this model. So long as we are very consistent in the way that we are measuring joint
ROM, we should be able to compare apples to
apples.
The primary table tests that we will use
to determine whether someone has full movement variability will be assessments of the limbs
and that of the infrasternal angle. When examining the limbs, we will measure each limb’s
ability in flexion, extension, abduction, adduction, horizontal abduction, horizontal adduction,
ER, and IR. We will split the tests of the appendicular skeleton into two categories, being the
measures that assess expansion capabilities,
and those that assess compression capabilities. Flexion, abduction, horizontal abduction, and
ER are our expansion measures. Extension,
adduction, horizontal adduction, and IR are our
compression measures.
If you are examining a singular limb, you
would check to see if it can reach human norms
for all expansion and compression tests. Let’s
say we’re measuring someone’s left arm. First,
we would perform expansion tests, measuring it
for flexion, abduction, horizontal abduction, and
ER. If any of the measures falls short of human
norms, we would conclude that this limb/quadrant does not have the ability to demonstrate full
movement variability. We would continue to all
other limbs/quadrants with the same approach. If even a singular measure of expansion or
compression is insufficient at a given limb/quadrant, that quadrant would be deemed to lack full
movement variability. Note that, upon completion of our tests, we wouldn’t know whether our
subject is specifically biased towards one particular movement strategy, but only that he or she
lacks full movement variability. Our next step
would be determining why someone lacks full
movement variability.
The short answer is an excessive bias
towards one movement strategy over the other,
which inhibits full movement variability. The
question now becomes: how do we determine
if our subject is in fact heavily biased towards
a particular movement strategy? In this model,
our answer to this question lies in assessing the
subject’s infrasternal angle, which reveals the
compensation of the skeleton. If the infrasternal
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angle is wide, that is an inhale/expansion compensation, and we can glean that the skeleton
is biased towards exhalation/compression as
its primary strategy. If, on the other hand, the
infrasternal angle is narrow, that is an exhale/
compression compensation, telling us that the
skeleton is biased towards inhalation/expansion
as its primary strategy.
Fig 5.4 - Narrow infrasternal angle
Fig 5.5 - Wide infrasternal angle
sternum during breathing and movement will
again display greater reliance on the infrasternal ribs.
There are a million other compensations
that can occur from insufficient expansion or
compression throughout the skeleton. One of
the most common stereotypical compensations
I see is a femoral expansion/inhalation compensation on subjects who are heavily compressed. A lot of advanced strength trained athletes who
display a wide infrasternal angle present with
externally rotated and abducted femurs. Initially, these individuals had compensated at the infrasternal ribs. Having pushed the limits of their
infrasternal ribs’ expansion capabilities, they
needed to find other joints with which to compensate. All of that said, though we’re touching
on compensations, we need to get to know
“normal” before we talk more about them. In
order to understand the essence of the model,
however, we need to know that the infrasternal
angle is the first compensation, and its position
is in direct opposition to a subject’s skeletal
bias.
We have been discussing compensations at the infrasternal ribs to make up for a
lack of full compression or expansion throughout the whole skeleton, but have yet to cover
the ideal position of the infrasternal ribs. Is
there an angle at the infrasternal ribs that would
represent no compensation? Is there an angle
that would be indicative of a skeleton that has
full respiratory variability?
The infrasternal angle will be the sight of
the first compensation, because the infrasternal ribs are extremely malleable bones, which
move with very little resistance. Someone
who’s struggling to sufficiently expand his or
her skeleton during either inhales or movements can easily make up for this limitation by
excessively expanding at the infrasternal ribs. The same could be said for compression of the
skeleton limitations, where someone who cannot sufficiently expand his or her pelvis during
breathing and movement will rely more heavily
on the infrasternal ribs. Similarly, someone who
is unable to sufficiently compress his or her
An ideal infrasternal angle is 108.8 degrees. Where did we get this number? To understand
this, we have to go back to our discussion on
helixes and the motion of spirals. When you
examine the motion of a helix, you see that it
can be expanded (pulled apart), or compressed
(pushed together). As a helix is pulled apart
(expanded) more and more, it becomes harder
to continue to pull it apart. There is an upper
limit on how much a helix can be expanded
before the parts are pulled into a straight vertical line. As a helix is pushed together (compressed) more and more, it becomes harder to
continue to push it together. There is an upper
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limit on how much a helix can be crushed before it is pushed into a straight horizontal line.
Is there a midpoint at which the helix can most
easily be both expanded and compressed? The answer is that there is such a midpoint, and
the helical angle that represents it is 54.4 degrees. In a double helix design like DNA, where
two helixes are intertwined together, we simply
double this 54.4 degree number, yielding 108.8
degrees as the midpoint position for a double
helix.
If you look at the ribcage, it resembles a helical
model, which explains why it looks a bit like a
slinky. The ribcage is divided into a left side
and a right side, with the sternum separating
the two sides on the front, and the spine separating the two sides on the back. With this
divided helical arrangement, the ribcage approximates a double helix design. In particular,
we see this with the shape that the infrasternal
ribs make on the anterior side of the body. The
anterior infrasternal ribs move superiorly and
medially at an oblique angle, until they merge
into the sternum, just superior to the xiphoid
process. To determine the infrasternal angle, we
measure this oblique angle on the front of the
body, created by the position of the infrasternal
ribs relative to the sternum.
Based on helical movement potential, and the
way that the shape of the infrasternal ribcage
approaches a double helix, we are going to assign the angle of 108.8 degrees as the optimal
infrasternal angle. Those who deviate strongly
from the 108.8 degree angle should display a
reduction in overall movement potential, and
would be expected to be significantly biased
towards an overreliance on one phase of the
respiratory cycle. Those who have infrasternal
angles substantially lower than 108.8 will be
referred to as “narrow infrasternal angle” subjects, and those who have substantially higher
infrasternal angles than 108.8 as “wide infrasternal angle” subjects. Presently, there are
no established threshold values for what would
constitute a subject who would qualify as a narrow, or a wide, but I would say that when you
see angles of 75 degrees or less, that is nar-
row, and angles of 135 degrees or more, that
is wide. Rather than becoming too fixated on
specific angles in resting states, what is more
concerning is whether or not the subject has the
ability to change their angle. What is your plan of attack for helping
wide infrasternal angle subjects versus narrow
infrasternal angle ones? The obvious answer
is to try to bring both as close as possible to
the 108.8 degree presentation. This answer
is, however, incomplete. The reason we don’t
want to get too carried away with specific numbers on resting measurements is that, while
they’re a fine place to start, what really matters
is the presence of a dynamic infrasternal angle,
or, in other words, the subject’s capability of
changing his or her infrasternal angle. We will
cover techniques to use for wides, and techniques to use for narrows to bring them towards
108.8, but, as we learn these, what I want us
to consider is how to use a wide technique to
become narrower, and a narrow technique to
become wider. That is a better evaluation than
hunting for a perfect static measurement.
How do we achieve the measurements we’re
after? Part of the answer is in the way we
coach people to breathe. Let’s start this breathing discussion by talking about what muscles
move the infrasternal ribs, which is the external
oblique. The external oblique will be recruited
during forceful exhalations, and it will act to
bucket handle down the infrasternal ribs. Narrow infrasternal angle subjects feature
excessive external oblique utilization in their
exhalation strategies, while their wide infrasternal angle peers feature too little external oblique
activity. Our narrow infrasternal angle holders
need to be coached to exhale gently, and with
less pressure. To decrease pressure, have
them open their mouth wide and relax their
jaw while exhaling through their mouth. They
should sigh out the air, and their exhale should
be prolonged to approximately 8 to 12 seconds.
They will not recruit much external oblique with
this strategy, and they’ll be forced to compress
parts of their axial skeleton other than their
infrasternal ribs to get air out of their bodies. Page
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At the end of the exhale, they should pause,
seal the mouth, put the tongue on the roof of
the mouth, and get a nasal inhale. The inhale
should feature full skeletal expansion. Part
of this expansion aims to increase the bucket
handle up element of the infrasternal ribs. If
the narrow infrasternal angle subject continues
to compile quality breaths in this manner, you
should witness the bucket handle continue to
go up progressively on their inhales, where the
exhales do not drive the bucket handle down.
Fig 5.7 - Wide infrasternal angle person in a supine
position being cued to reach vertically overhead and
exhale with force
Fig 5.6 - narrow infrasternal angle person in a supine
position being cued to reach horizontally towards the
ceiling and exhale gently with a wide mouth opening
Wide infrasternal angle subjects need
to practice a pressurized exhale that is blown
out through a pursed lip mouth, like blowing out
through a straw, or blowing out birthday candles
on a cake. These subjects also need to prolong
their exhale and go for 8 to 12 seconds, but with
a smaller airway, which by itself will increase the
force requirements and recruit external oblique. With this exhale, they will bucket handle down
the infrasternal ribs. Now, this subject needs to
prevent their infrasternal ribs from expanding
during the subsequent inhale. These subjects
need to seal the mouth and get a nasal inhale,
while keeping some relative abdominal tension to prevent the infrasternal ribs from flaring
and going into bucket handle-up position. To
prevent the bucket handle from going back up,
the key abdominal component on the inhale is
having the external oblique engaged. The type
of engagement you are looking for here with the
external oblique is one that creates a concentric
orientation via the exhale, and a yielding action
during the inhale.
An inhaled, expanded axial skeleton
state is typified by a counternutated sacrum and
an increase in kyphosis for the spine. During
an inhale, the sternum should be pump handle
up. The innominate bones will rotate forward
(flexion) relative to the sacrum, the iliac crest
will abduct, and the anterior superior iliac spine
will externally rotate relative to the pubis. In
essence, this is an open position, resulting from
air coming into the body, expanding the lungs,
which, in turn, expanded back into the spine,
driving it into kyphosis. The lungs also expanded into the ribs, which pump handled up the
sternum and the sternal ribs. The diaphragm
descended, which pushed it downward into the
abdominal space. This downward push of the
diaphragm into the abdominal space increased
intra-abdominal pressure, and forced the pelvis
to open, evidenced by the counternutation of
the sacrum and abduction of the superior ilium.
The exhaled state is the opposite picture. The thoracic cavity space decreases. The spine
comes forward and an overall increase in lordosis takes place. The sternum pump handles
down. The sacrum nutates. The innominate
bones rotate backwards (extension), as the
superior ilium adducts and the anterior superior
iliac spine internally rotates relative to the pubis. This is a state in which the diaphragm has
ascended, which decreases intra-abdominal
pressure. Abdominal fluid ascends, leaving the
pelvic space, in response to which the pelvis
closes. The sacrum nutates, and the superior
ilium adducts.
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You should be able to alternate back and forth
between these states of bony position and
respiratory mechanics. When you cannot go
through these full excursions, you compensate. And, as your “compensatory jiu jitsu” becomes
more advanced, your compensations will become increasingly more distal.
Movement limitations often begin, and
end, with breathing. The breathing cycle seems
to be a fundamental principle, considered by
many great practitioners the most important element in correcting movement. The best professionals tend to be driven by objective test results over their own explanations, and dedicate
their work to helping those in their care improve. For many who subscribe to this approach,
incorporating breathing is a commonly used
practice. Our explanations of why things work
the way they do will likely change continuously
over time, and I will continue to enjoy trying to
understand the mechanistic explanations that
the best and brightest attempt to provide. For
now, I will incorporate breathing into one of my
trainable patterns, and say that what we have
just discussed lives mostly on the low velocity,
low force, moderate-to-long duration, high sensorimotor side of the spectrum.
Part 2: Breathing, From a Quantitative
Perspective
I don’t know about you, but I love it when
someone presents me with an explanation I am
forced to accept as superior to the one I previously held for a given phenomenon. Of course,
I don’t initially love this experience, for it is
confusing and painful. However, once I’ve had
some time to process the new information and
its implications, and synthesize it into my overall
schema of how things work, I find this type of
integration to be deeply satisfying. One such
reevaluation occurred after I listened to Aaron
Davis explain his ideas on training the fitness of
breathing muscles.
I had previously learned that your ability
to ventilate is basically never the rate limiting
factor for your ability to perform maximal aerobic exercise. The explanation for why this is
the case is usually based around two measurements: the ventilation/perfusion ratio, and the
maximum ventilatory volume.
The ventilation/perfusion ratio relates
to the quantity of oxygen that’s present in the
lungs relative to the amount of blood that’s
present in the capillaries of the pulmonary circulation. Across the board, there is always more
oxygen present in the alveoli of the lungs than
there is blood in the capillaries. This is used
as evidence that your body’s ability to pump
blood via your heart, the carrying capacity of
blood-supplying vessels and total blood volume
are the limitations to exercise, as opposed to
the amount of air being moved through your
body by breathing.
The maximum ventilatory volume (MVV)
refers to the amount of air you can move with
maximal rate and depth of inhalations and exhalations over a ten second period of time. The
MVV is usually about 25% more movement of
air compared to how much air we are moving
at maximal aerobic exercise intensity. So, even
when you are going as hard as you possibly
can from an aerobic standpoint, you never actually get to the point where your breathing rate
is at its max. It seemed like a slam dunk win to
me that breathing would never be the thing you
had to worry about hamstringing your performance. Until I heard Aaron’s explanation.
Hemoglobin is the vehicle in the blood
that carries oxygen from the lungs to the working tissues of the body. Hemoglobin is also the
vehicle that carries carbon dioxide in the blood
from the working tissues to the lungs. When
oxygen reaches the working tissues, it is unloaded from the hemoglobin, so that it can leave
the blood and go into the tissues. When carbon
dioxide reaches the lungs, carbon dioxide is unloaded from the hemoglobin, so that it can leave
the blood and be exhaled out of the body.
Those with a relatively small amount of
muscle mass can perform a relatively modest
amount of mechanical work with their skeletal
muscle per unit time. As a result, their production of carbon dioxide is also modest, as is the
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amount of carbon dioxide bound to the hemoglobin being carried by their blood. As such,
this carbon dioxide can be expelled with relative
ease at the level of the lungs.
Those with a significant amount of muscle
mass, however, can perform profound amounts
of mechanical work per unit time, and the
amount of carbon dioxide produced from significant amounts of mechanical work can be substantial. As such, the amount of carbon dioxide
carried in their blood by way of hemoglobin can
be extremely high. Consequently, the ability
to unload this carbon dioxide at the level of the
lungs can be almost impossible.
An inability to successfully or fully unload
enough carbon dioxide at the lungs results in
that leftover carbon dioxide continuing to occupy binding sites on hemoglobin. And, prevented
by this “undelivered” carbon dioxide, oxygen will
be unable to bind to hemoglobin. In this scenario, the subject may have copious amounts
of oxygen present in the alveoli from a ventilation/perfusion ratio standpoint, but, if he or she
cannot unsuccessfully blow off enough CO2
during his or her exhales, there’s nowhere for
that oxygen to go. Like the unfortunate dying
of dehydration on a lifeboat in the middle of the
ocean, we might say about this described scenario that there’s water, water everywhere, but
not a drop to drink.
Those who are limited in their ability to
unload CO2 to make room for O2 need to increase the fitness of their exhalation-based
muscles so that they can move more air per unit
time. To aid in these changes, Aaron uses a
device called the Spiro Tiger. With the Spiro Tiger, the subject’s nose is clipped, preventing air
from moving through the nasal passages, and
the subject exhales into the device and fills a
bag. He or she then inhales the same air he or
she exhales. As he or she continues to inhale
the air that he or she exhaled, he or she increases the amount of CO2 being inhaled. This
triggers the brain to increase the rate and depth
of respiration through natural processes associated with detecting an increased presence of
CO2 in the body. A finger oximeter should be
worn while performing this kind of training, to
monitor the subject’s blood gas state.
The Spiro Tiger provides resistance to exhalation, and forces the subject to breathe fairly
rapidly. This is like lifting weights for your
muscles of exhalation. The Spiro Tiger can
measure each tidal volume, and breathing rate,
outputting the total amount of air the subject is
moving. This is important for tracking progress
over time, to ascertain improvement (or lack
thereof).
For athletes who regularly perform with
high intensity and have significant muscle
mass, this type of training may be beneficial to
explore. Unless we correctly identify performance-limiting factors and then specifically train
to improve them, overall performance is unlikely
to improve, hard work and various attempts to
control other variables notwithstanding. 06
Pattern 2: Core: Pelvic Focus
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Pattern 2: Core:
Pelvic Focus
Chapter 6
Lacking in specificity, and more likely
to conjure up the inside of an apple instead of
exercises for the abdominals, the term “core”
used to frustrate me. A contributing factor may
have been that I came up when “core” applied
to core lifts, which were compound movements
performed with the feet anchored to the ground. I knew what those things were because the
definition was straight forward. But, in time, my
dislike for the term “core training” dissipated. If you continue to dislike it, I understand your
feelings. Be that as it may, I’m going to use it in
this book, because, these days, “core training”
is widely accepted shorthand for the exercises
we’re going to discuss. But first, we’ll operationally define it in the context of our model to
avoid any ambiguity. Core training refers to performing exercises that challenge your ability to move your
axial skeleton into a specific position, and/or
keep your axial skeleton in a specific position
while external forces (such as gravity) are
acting against your effort. While most of the
other training patterns in this book are grounded
in the concept of how much external loading
you can lift, or how fast you can move through
space, core training is rooted in demonstrating
your ability to control the structures of your axial
skeleton in positions and postures of varying
difficulty. Generally speaking, core training is
based on moving yourself into desirable positions to leverage and recruit specific axial
skeleton muscles, and to prevent yourself from
losing that position. With core training, it is not
so much about moving loads, as it is about not
letting loads and forces move you. Core training for the pelvis is going to be
aimed at training the muscles that attach to the
ilium, ischium, pubis, and sacrum, to position
and hold the pelvis in a specific manner. With
core pelvis training, the ability to train in all
three stances and planes is available. From a
quantitative standpoint, we have the ability to
train with moderate and low loads. Since the
velocities for core pelvis training are low and
moderate, high load training for core pelvis
activities is probably a fairly unwise or even
nonsensical decision. Similarly, as duration is
concerned, short duration sets aren’t a good
fit for this pattern, leaving moderate and long
duration core pelvis training as our available
duration options.
With regards to core pelvis training using moderate to heavy loads, that is an area that I would
say lives in the wheelhouse of Bret Contreras.
Bret has done a great job with finding activities
such as barbell hip bridging which puts a fairly
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significant amount of load on the hips. Which
allows for an impressive amount of hypertrophy
for pelvic muscles. He has some great thoughts
on the kinds of exercises that target these
muscles at early, mid and late points in a given
range of motion.
You can make these kinds of determinations by examining the body’s arrangement
relative to the ground, and thinking about where
the hardest part of an exercise would be (early,
middle, or late). For instance a stiff leg deadlift
would provide a great early range of motion target for the posterior pelvic muscles, while a 45
degree extension device would allow you to go
after the midpoint for posterior pelvic muscles,
and a Roman Chair extension is perfect for the
endpoint of the motion responsible for developing posterior pelvic muscles.
Finding exercises that provide the most
difficult scenario profile for early, middle, and
late parts of the motion, and dividing your training volume evenly between these targeted actions would seem to be an intelligent approach
for well rounded hypertrophy responses. A lot
of Bret’s work requires followers to dive quite
deep into his thought process and models. I
just want to point out that I think a lot of the
exercises that he likes for glute development
fall into what I would consider the core pelvis
pattern of training, and that they probably represent mostly moderate load training. My specialty is with low load core pelvis training, so that
is what I will focus on here. Throughout this
book I’ll do my best to give shout-outs to fellow
exercise scientists whose expertise on subjects
in question I consider greater than my own. As
such, I encourage you to seek out those primary sources for any realm of training you find
yourself gravitating towards.
•Available Loads:
•Low
•Available Velocities:
•Low
•Available Durations:
•Moderate and Long
Core pelvis exercises are ones that can
be performed in every imaginable stance and
position. You can move and control your body
in all three cardinal planes. As we already
noted, the major limitation with core exercises
is that they are not meant for extremely high
velocity or high loading. Since core exercises
are so anatomically targeted, it is important to
review the critical elements of the anatomical
considerations of the pelvis.
Important Musculoskeletal Concepts
Related to the Pelvis
The pelvis is made up of the innominate
bone, the pubis, and the sacrum/coccyx. Importantly, the innominate bone is a solid unit, which
we have labeled in three parts, creating the
impression that it’s composed of three different
bones. The largest part of the innominate bone
is the ilium, which is the superior as well as the
lateral part of the bone. As it moves towards
the middle, the ilium meets the pubis in the front
of the pelvis. The pubis is the anterior medial
part of the pelvis that brings the left side and
right side together in the front at the pubic symphysis.
Available Options
•Available Planes:
•All
•Available Stances:
•All
Fig 5.2 - Lateral view of the pelvis
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The ilium merges into the ischium towards the inferior parts of the bone, and the
ischium is perhaps best known as being the
part of the pelvis with the big holes at the bottom that look like a set of eyes looking out. In
between the ilium and the ischium on the side
of the pelvis is the acetabulum, which is also
called the hip socket, where the femur bones insert into the pelvis. In short, the ilium makes up
the upper part of the innominate bone, both on
the front and the back. The pubis, then, is the
front section of the lower portion of the innominate bone, and the ischium its back section. Fig 5.2 - Anterior view of the pelvis
On the back side of the pelvis is a separate bone found between the left and right ilium
bones, called the sacrum. With the coccyx, or
tailbone, at its tip, though the sacrum is generally classified as part of the pelvis, it can be
thought of as an extension of the spine, being
the seat of the lumbar spine.
compression pushes the guts
and fluid in the abdominal region
downward. When the abdominal
contents are pushed downward,
the pelvic bones must move in order to accommodate this displacement. The movement of
the pelvis is driven by the ilium bone nutating. The nutation of the ilium is the combined actions of flexion, abduction, and external rotation
relative to the pubis.
To picture this movement of your pelvis, you replicate the way your pelvis moves
through space with your hands. Place your
hands in front of you with your palms facing
each other and your fingers pointing forward. Bend your wrists to aim your fingers towards
the ground. Tip the tops of your hands away
from each other in the motion that would be
moving your hands into a palms up position. Finally, bring the heels of your palms towards
each other. The action of bending your wrists
so that your fingers point towards the ground is
equivalent to nutation of the ilium bones. Abduction of the ilium bones would be the tipping
the tops of your hands away from each other. External rotation of the ilium bones (relative to
the pubis) is bringing the palm heels towards
each other. Hopefully, you can see how this action would allow for the pelvis to accept the fluids, guts, and pressure being driven downward
by the descending action of the diaphragm, akin
to the pelvis creating a bowl for the guts and
fluids to land in.
Consensus is lacking on the degree to
which the pelvic bones move, but it is clear that
there is a degree of movement between the
sacrum and the ilium, as well as some amount
of rotation at the pubic symphysis. For our
purposes here, I’d like to focus on the characteristic movements of the pelvic bones that are
associated with the respiratory cycle.
When we inhale the diaphragm descends and flattens, as that happens it compresses down into the abdominal viscera. This
Fig 5.2 - Posterior view of the pelvis
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The sacrum will move in counter-nutation
during the inhale. To picture this action of the
sacrum, put your hands in front of you again
to represent the pelvis. Now, take your right
hand and move it, so it’s perpendicular with but
slightly behind the left hand, with the back of
your right hand facing you. Your right hand now
represents the sacrum. Extend your right wrist
so that it rotates your fingertips back towards
your face. This is counternutation of the sacrum. As you can see, this creates more space
for the pelvis to receive the abdominal contents
during the inhalation.
The actions of the sacrum directly impact
the position of the spine. When the sacrum
goes into an inhaled, counter-nutation position,
this has an overall kyphosis-promoting effect on
the spine. This means that counter-nutation of
the sacrum will reduce the lordotic curve of the
lumbar spine.
A good rule to bear in mind is that the
top and bottom of the pelvis behave in opposing ways. While the ilium bones rotate forward,
spread away from each other, and externally
rotate relative to the pubis, the ischium bones
are rotating upwards and backwards, moving
towards each other, and are internally rotating
in on the sacrum. Likewise, during inhalation,
the top of the pelvis is expanding while the
bottom of the pelvis is contracting. When we
exhale the diaphragm ascends, domes into the
thoracic space, and creates more space in the
abdomen.
When this happens, the guts and fluids
rise back up away from the pelvis. During the
exhalation phase of respiration we will see the
opposite motions of the pelvic bones. The ilium
bones will counter-nutate, adduct, and internally
rotate relative to the pubis, while the sacrum will
nutate. During the exhale, the top of the pelvis
is contracting and the bottom of the pelvis is expanding. From the perspective of the sacrum,
an increase in nutation will have an overall
lordosis-promoting effect, increasing the lordotic curve of the lumbar spine. When the bones
move in these stereotypical ways, we see that
certain muscles gain leverage, while others
become lengthened and disadvantaged. An
inability to fully attain one or both of these stereotypical respiratory positional demonstrations
signifies in inability to perform certain motions
associated with pelvic training patterns.
Sagittal Applications
The really critical motion that we want
to be able to create from a sagittal plane perspective is hip extension. When we are talking
about hip extension, we’re really referring to
how close we can get the posterior femur to the
part of the ischium called the ischial tuberosity,
a small protruding nodule on the ischium. The
ischial tuberosity is at the level of the dead center middle of your glutes.
True hip extension is essentially the ability of being able to get your leg straight without
letting your glutes move upwards towards your
low back. Another way to think of it is to try to
bring your back pockets towards the back of
your knees while you are attempting to straighten your leg… which is easier said than done!
In the drills that will be forthcoming, you’ll
see that we will first attack the pelvis by going
after the hamstrings. After we get hamstrings,
then we will go for glutes. The reason that we
go for the hamstrings first is that they attach to
the ischial tuberosity at the top. The hamstrings
can pull on the ischial tuberosity, and this action
would cause the innominate bone to counter-nutate. The glute maximus is a muscle that
attaches to the ischium, the sacrum, and the
femur. If the ischial tuberosity is in the proper
position via the actions of the hamstrings, the
glute max can now be utilized to extend the
femur while continuing to hold the innominate
bone in place. This ability to bring the femur
and ischial tuberosity together in authentic hip
extension is an action that Bill Hartman would
say is demonstrative of respiratory variability
(aka, being able to move the pelvic bones fully
into an inhaled and exhaled positional state),
and respiratory variability is an excellent proxy
for overall skeletal movement variability.
These sagittal movements of the pelvis
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(nutation and counternutation of the innominate
and sacrum) are intimately tied to the ability to
perform knee-dominant and hip-dominant activities. To be able to squat to full depth effectively,
we need to be able to get the pelvis into a fully
expanded position, where the innominate bones
nutate and the sacrum counter-nutates. The
ability to reach full depth in the squat will also
require the anterior pelvic floor muscles going
into an eccentric orientation, in order to enable
a large excursion of yielding ROM. The goal
with the yielding action of the squat is to get the
descent to go straight down, rather than sitting
back like a deadlift. To accomplish this goal,
the anterior pelvic floor must reach an eccentric
orientation, and the posterior pelvic floor must
go into a concentric orientation. The eccentric
orientation of the anterior pelvic floor will permit
movement straight down. The concentric orientation of the posterior pelvic floor will prevent
motion from going back. To perform the yielding
action of a deadlift, the opposite presentation
of eccentric and concentric orientation of pelvic
floor tissues must occur. With the deadlift, the
goal is to sit the hips back in space. This requires the anterior pelvic floor to be in a concentric orientation, and the posterior pelvic floor
to be in an eccentric orientation.
We started this sagittal section by saying
that hip extension is this really critical movement that we are looking for, and I hope you
caught the bias of this statement. It can be
easy to get overly focused on a motion, yet ignore the importance of its opposite motion. Hip
extension is incredibly important, but it is not
any more important in function than hip flexion,
and, indeed, movement is typically created
through extending one hip while flexing the
other. True hip flexion is the opposite of true hip
extension.
With hip extension, we covered the “gold standard” of the approximation of the ischial tuberosity with the femur. With hip flexion, we’re
after approximation of the anterior superior iliac
crest with the femur. With hip extension, the
hamstrings and glute max allow us to display
the posterior approximation of pelvis with femur. With hip flexion, the rectus femoris and
the sagittal fibers of iliacus are the big power
players for creating this anterior approximation. You cannot have great leg swing without
great stance and vice versa. This echoes the
sagittal idea of a zero sum phenomenon, where
we need something to go back in order to have
something else go forward. The human body
is capable of an incredibly diverse degree of
movement, and corresponding counter-movement.
Frontal Applications
If you were looking down at the pelvis
from above, you would see that it is a bony ring
with a large tunnel in the middle. If you were to
think about the entry into the tunnel of the pelvis
from the top, that is a space commonly referred
to as the pelvic inlet. The exit from the pelvic
tunnel is called the pelvic outlet. The ilium
bones and the superior parts of the sacrum are
thought of as the boundaries of the inlet, and
the ischium bones are the boundaries of the
outlet. So, when discussing the inlet, we will be
referring to the position and movement of the
ilium bones, and when discussing the outlet, we
will refer to the position and movement of the
ischium bones. It is important to distinguish the
inlet from the outlet, because their movements
will always be opposite to one another. If we
adduct the inlet, then the outlet will abduct, and
vice versa. The interior of the medial inlet is dominated by the presence and attachment of the
iliacus muscle to the ilium bone. The exterior
of the outlet on the lateral side is dominated
by the presence and attachment of the gluteus medius muscle. Both of these muscles are
frontal plane powerhouses. Mike Cantrell (from
the Postural Restoration Institute, PRI) does
a great job of teaching the contrasting roles of
iliacus and glute med in terms of control over
the inlet from a frontal plane perspective. He
paints this picture of two guys talking to each
other on either side of a wall. The ilium bone is
the wall, and the two guys on opposite sides are
the iliacus and the glute med. When the iliacus
talks and gets his message across, the inlet
is adducted, and the top of the ilium bone tilts
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towards midline. When the glute med talks and
gets his message across, the inlet is abducted,
and the top of the ilium bone tilts away from
midline. The adduction position is associated
with the exhalation stereotyped movement, and
the abduction position is associated with the
inhalation stereotyped movement. Being able
to alternate between these two states is the
desirable effect on the pelvis.
The tricky thing for training purposes
is that the iliacus is not a muscle that you can
feel working. So, to know that you are accomplishing adduction of the inlet, we have to use
the action of another muscle as a proxy. This
other muscle is the adductor magnus. How
can this muscle serve to indicate that the iliacus is working? Because the glute med, which
abducts the inlet, is a muscle that also abducts
the femur. The adductor magnus adducts the
femur, which, based on the laws of reciprocal
inhibition, simultaneously ramps down the glute
medius. If the glute medius is being inhibited,
then the iliacus can dominate the conversation
on the inside part of the wall of the iliacus, and
it can adduct the inlet. Based on this, when we
are doing frontal plane pelvic core exercises,
the primary muscles that we are going to be
targeting are going to be the adductor magnus
and the glute med.
The frontal plane actions of the pelvis are
the dominant actions for the core pelvis pattern. We will use the sagittal plane exercises as the
foundation for being able to get to frontal plane
drills, but frontal plane activities are the show
for the pelvis.
Transverse Applications
Humans are bipedal, locomoting, endurance-hunting apes, who cook food. As such,
our ability to run long distances on two legs is
crucial to our survival and domination of our
environment. Its pelvic and hip extension capabilities allow the glute max to keep our torso
upright when we run at high velocities. Relative
to body weight, humans have the largest glutes
amongst primates, and sprinters usually have
impressive glutes. The glute max is the key
component of our propulsive engine, and the
transverse plane component of its abilities is
what really drives us forward at the terminal part
of push off during locomotion.
Some folks run as though they are perpetually falling. Their center of mass leaks forward in an uncontrolled manner, their legs kick
way too far back behind them, and their arms
and legs never powerfully swing up in front
of them. As a result, their run appears unbalanced, sloppy, fatigued, and uncomfortable.
Other runners, meanwhile, are poetry
in motion. The head is stacked over the torso,
and the torso is stacked over the pelvis. The
hands and feet come up in front of the body
with grace. There is seemingly no wasted motion. The runner floats with the force of a freight
train behind them.
Track coaches are always talking about
trying to get a ‘figure 8’ pelvis out of their athletes. This figure 8 really means a pelvis with
the proper amounts of sagittal, frontal, and
transverse plane motion. A figure 8 pelvis is
one that moves like an axle (sagittal), fused with
a see-saw (frontal), fused with a ratchet wrench
(transverse). The transverse component, which
is responsible for the final push, is a glute
max-driven phenomenon, and one that is the tip
of a pyramid, whose base is sagittal, with frontal
somewhere in between the two.
To get the pelvis to rotate to the left, we
need the right glute max to drive the action. Since this, and so many of our critical joint actions are inextricably tied to gait, we also have
to think about the feet, which start everything
with their interaction with the ground. Early
stance (a sagittal-dominated time), is all about
heel strike. Mid-stance (a frontal dominated
time), is all about transitioning from the outside edge of the heel to get increasingly more
medial through the midfoot. Late stance, and
push-off (a transverse dominated time), is all
about pushing through a hyper-extended big toe
that flexes as much as it possibly can from that
position. When I am coaching these pelvic core
exercises, I will be very specific about what is
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happening with the feet to be able to maximize
planar specificity. Possessing appropriate big
toe hyper-extension is a really important attribute for maximizing running capabilities, and for
recruiting the glute max.
If we are talking about the pelvis, then it
is truly impossible to neglect the lumbar spine
and the femur. When discussing the spine,
from a transverse perspective, the critical muscle is the psoas. The psoas attaches to the
transverse processes (side) of the lowest thoracic vertebrae (T12), and lumbar vertebrae 1
through 5 (L1-L5). The psoas runs inferior and
laterally from the spine to where it interdigitates
with the iliacus muscle on the inside of the ilium
bone, and to a separate attachment site on the
lesser trochanter of the femur.
The psoas is an extremely large muscle,
usually referred to as a hip flexor. The spinal
attachment point of the psoas on the lateral
components of the vertebrae allow the muscle
to have a rotational effect on the spine. When
the right psoas fires, the proximal fibers on the
spine will cause contralateral rotation, and the
spine will turn to the left. The rotation of the
spine influences the pelvis. So, when the right
psoas acts in the transverse plane, the entire
pelvis orients left.
The psoas is not a muscle that we are
capable of feeling working from a transverse
plane perspective. It is, however, a muscle that
is intimately connected with the diaphragm. The diaphragm attaches to the inside of the
xiphoid process at the bottom of the sternum,
the costal margin of the ribcage, and to ribs 6
through 12 in the front and side of the body. The diaphragm arcs upwards and backwards
from the bottom of the rib cage in the front,
forming a parachute-like dome that separates
the thorax from the abdomen in the middle of
the body, and then arcs down and back to the
spine where it attaches to T12-L2/L3.
It is at these vertebral attachments that the
diaphragm intertwines with the psoas. These
two muscles interdigitate in a powerful manner,
and are essentially physically inseparable from
one another. This physical connection between
psoas and diaphragm allows the action of the
one to influence the other. As aforementioned,
when an inhale takes place, the diaphragm
descends, which pushes the guts and abdominal fluids down. This nutates, abducts, and
externally rotates the ilium bone as we receive
this displaced abdominal content in the pelvis. When the ilium is moved in this manner, the
psoas attachment to iliacus is leveraged, and
tension is initiated. This tension is transmitted
to the spinal attachment of the psoas. If this is
a unilateral action, the spine is rotated in the
opposite direction. If this is a bilateral action,
the spine is pulled forward.
When it comes to femoral internal and
external rotation, our discussion will revolve
around the glutes. The glute max is the dominant player when it comes to external rotation
of the femur, and the anterior fibers of the glute
med will be the big players in internal rotation. These motions of femoral internal and external
rotation are incredibly interdependent with the
actions of the pelvis.
A big part of this book will involve coaching subjects into a movement we are going to
call a hip shift. This hip shift will be a rotation
of the pelvis in one direction. When the pelvis
rotates in one direction, what kind of motions
are we looking at?
When I originally learned about the topic
of a hip shift, I learned it from the Postural Restoration Institute (PRI). PRI does a great job
of teaching people about how larger, proximal
bones have the ability to move on smaller distal
bones. Typically, when people evaluate lower
extremity motion, they talk about hip rotation,
and they refer to the way that the femur rotates
inside the acetabulum. PRI introduced me to
the notion that you can also have a fixed femur,
and an acetabulum that rotates on a femur. PRI
breaks hip motion down into two categories:
femur on acetabulum motion (FA), and acetabulum on femur motion (AF).
The two main types of AF motions for
PRI are AF internal rotation (AFIR), and AF ex-
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ternal rotation (AFER). What we will be calling
a hip shift is what PRI calls “AFIR”. Left AFIR
refers to the motion of rotating your pelvis to the
left. When you are doing left AFIR, you would
simultaneously be doing right AFER. So, AFIR
is what we call it when the pelvis is rotating
towards a given side, and AFER is what we call
it when the pelvis is rotating away from a given
side. The key with these AF motions is that the
femur has to stay in place. AF is referring to
relative motion of the acetabulum on the femur. If I turn my pelvis left, and my femur turns with
the pelvis, there is no AF motion whatsoever, as
I am simply orienting my entire lower extremity
left, but not creating rotation anywhere.
PRI looks at AFIR and AFER as being triplanar motions. AFIR involves transverse plane
IR, but also features extension and adduction
riding along with it. AFER features transverse
plane ER, but also features flexion and abduction riding along with it. When you create AFIR
on a side, you should feel your hamstrings,
sagittal glute max fibers, adductor magnus, and
the internal rotation fibers of anterior glute med.
AFER should feature rectus femoris as your
primary sagittal muscle, the abduction fibers of
posterior glute med, and the external rotation
fibers of glute max as the major contributing
muscle groups of the movement.
The stance phase of gait is dominated by
AFIR, and the swing phase of gait is dominated
by AFER. Within PRI’s model, early stance is
the sagittal plane-dominant phase, mid stance
is the frontal plane-dominant phase, and late
stance is the transverse-plane dominant phase. The same plane dominance would be associated for the different phases of the swing-side
leg. The swing side leg is the leg opposite of
the stance side leg, which is not in contact with
the ground. Just like the stance side leg, the
swing side leg goes through early, mid, and late
swing. Sagittal, frontal, and transverse are the
dominant planes for the previously mentioned
corresponding phases of swing.
When you start stance, and continue on
to take a step, the pelvis rotates towards the
stance side foot. If the pelvis is rotating to-
wards the stance side foot, you would be going
through AFIR. If you do an exercise that involves a hip shift, you will also feel AFIR muscles.
If I am rotating my pelvis to one side
and I feel the hamstrings, sagittal glute max,
adductors, and IR fibers of glute medius, then
the logical conclusion would be that this type of
hip shift is an IR-based movement. The only
problem with this line of thinking is that you
can feel muscles working when you are doing
a yielding action. When you are descending in
a squat, you can feel your quadriceps working. The quadriceps are a knee extensor, and while
you are descending in a squat, you are going
into knee flexion. As you are going into more
and more knee flexion during the descent of a
squat, you are not attempting to create knee
flexion. Instead, you are performing a yielding
action with your knee extensors.
In this model, there are two types of hip
shifts: a yielding hip shift and an overcoming
hip shift. The yielding hip shift is an expansion
strategy. The overcoming hip shift is a compression strategy. In both types of hip shift,
you will have the sensory experience of feeling
hamstrings, adductors, and glutes. The difference is that, in the yielding hip shift, you are
feeling deceleration with the muscles. In the
overcoming hip shift, you’re feeling acceleration
with the muscles.
How do you know which type of hip shift
someone is doing? The easiest way to evaluate the type of hip shift is to look at the ankle. If you see someone performing a hip shift, and
they increase plantar flexion at the ankle, then it
is a yielding hip shift. If you see a hip shift, and
there is an increase in dorsiflexion, then it is a
overcoming hip shift.
The movement strategies are coherent. If you see plantar flexion increasing, then you
are seeing a human system that is relying more
on expansion as its broad movement-operating
system. If you see dorsiflexion increasing, you
are seeing a human system that is relying more
on compression as its broad movement-oper-
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ating system. Put another way, witnessing one
clearly identifiable joint action associated with
a movement strategy serves as a testament to
what the whole system is doing.
The direction that center of mass is
moving in will largely determine what type of hip
shift someone is doing. If the center of mass is
staying back, or moving backwards, then it will
be a yielding hip shift If the center of mass is
moving forward, over the foot, then it will be an
overcoming hip shift. The yielding hip shift is
typically used to decelerate a motion, while the
overcoming hip shift is typically used to accelerate it. Discussing these hip shifts in the context
of an athletic movement should help visualize
the concept.
A baseball pitcher throwing the ball
towards home plate is performing a hip shift
towards the non-throwing side hip. Following
the cocking phase of throwing, the pitcher begins accelerating his or her arm towards home
plate. As the arm is accelerating towards the
target and preparing to release the ball, the hips
are rotating in the direction of the non-throwing side. It’s easy to see how a right-handed
pitcher would be performing a left hip shift while
throwing the ball, but ascertaining the kind of
hip shift being performed is a bit trickier.
A right-handed pitcher is using the right
side of his body to accelerate the arm forward
to throw the ball. The throwing arm will internally rotate, extend, and adduct as the hand
pronates. The right leg will internally rotate,
adduct, and extend as the foot pronates. The
other side of the body is trying to absorb the
motion, and then decelerate the action. We
know this because we can see the glove side
arm externally rotating, flexing, and abducting,
as the hand supinates. This ultimately means
that the left lower extremity is externally rotating, flexing, abducting, and featuring a foot that
is supinating. It also means that the left hip shift
being performed by the pitcher is a yielding hip
shift that is using an expansion strategy.
If you were to look at the typical failures
of pitchers during arm acceleration, release,
and follow-through, the most common mistake
you would see at the lower extremity is the
non-throwing side leg spinning out too strongly. For a right-handed pitcher, this would result in
falling off the mound to the first base side. In
other words, the issue is that the pitcher’s femur
isn’t still during the hip shift, but instead follows
the pelvis, which (for our right-handed pitcher)
spins to the left.
If you were to perform the proper motion
in a slow and controlled manner, and have the
right-handed pitcher practice rotating his or her
pelvis left while their femur stayed fixed, he or
she would report strongly feeling the left hamstrings, glutes, and adductor working during
the exercise, and soreness in those muscles
the day after. Given that these muscles are the
extension, adduction, and IR fibers associated
with the lower extremity, does their soreness indicate training a compression strategy at the left
lower extremity? In fact, it does not: you were
training an expansion strategy involving the
motions of flexion, abduction, and ER, but doing
so through a yielding action, where the yielding—and subsequently sore—muscles were the
extensors, adductors, and IR muscles.
With a much more simplistic movement
explanation, we could talk about what is happening during the negative of a preacher curl. You’ll feel your biceps working on the negative
of the curl. The joint action is elbow extension,
but you are using your elbow flexors to control
the movement. In the case of a preacher curl,
your biceps will be placed in a concentric orientation throughout the movement, since the
preacher bench places you in humeral flexion. On the way up, the concentrically-oriented
biceps will be creating an overcoming muscle
action. On the way down, the concentrically-oriented biceps will be relying on a yielding muscle
action. In both directions, you will be feeling the
biceps muscle group as the target tissue.
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Training the Core Pelvis Pattern
Overview
•Available Planes: All
•Available Stances: All
•Available Loads: Low
•Available Velocities: Low
•Available Durations: Moderate and Long
Sagittal, Bilateral, Low Load, Low Velocity,
Moderate Duration, Core Pelvis
If you follow the Principles of Progression
presented in chapter 4, you will be able to figure
out exactly where to start core pelvis exercises,
and how to progress them. Nevertheless, to
drive these points home, I will walk you through
how those principles apply in each of the patterns that we will explore in this book. For core pelvis training, the place to start
is with low load, low velocity, moderate duration, bilateral stance, sagittal plane drills. Lastly,
nothing beats starting on the ground for managing gravity! For bilateral sagittal drills, supine is
the beginner’s ground position of choice. You
also want to start by putting subjects into short
lever positions. This means we are going to
start in a supine 90/90 position, where the hips
and knees are flexed at 90 degree angles. In
the initial activities, people are going to hold
static positions, and they will not be moving
themselves very far towards extension in their
drills.
As subjects demonstrate sensorimotor
competency in these drills, we will gradually
increase lever length, and increase proximity
to full extension. When subjects demonstrate
ownership of supine core pelvis exercises and
sensorimotor competency in positions of full hip
extension, we will increasingly move them up
from the ground.
With the bilateral symmetrical stance,
the positions available to us that show increasing difficulty with managing gravity are supine,
seated, quadruped/push-up positions with and
without feet secured on a wall, tall kneeling with
and without feet secured on a wall, standing
with the back supported by a wall, standing
in an unsupported manner, squatting with the
hands supported in front, and unsupported
squatting. The two key sagittal muscles of the
pelvis are the hamstrings and the sagittal fibers
of the glute max. In the following list, you’ll
notice that each exercise name is followed by
bracketed “hamstrings” or “glutes” labels. The
positions that keep people in a position of hip
flexion are going to target hamstrings, and the
positions that feature being closer towards full
hip extension are going to target the glutes. All
exercises will feature a hip extension and pelvis
extension moment. The only difference is when
we are extending from a position of flexion, the
primary extensor is the hamstrings, whereas,
when we are extending from a position close
to extension, the primary extensor is the glute
max. Here is the list of progressions for sagittal
plane, bilateral stance, low load, low velocity,
moderate duration, core pelvis exercises:
1. Supine 90/90 hemi-bridge [hamstrings]
2. Supine hook lying hemi-bridge [hamstrings]
3. Supine 90/90 w/hip extension bridge [glutes]
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4. Supine hook lying w/hip extension bridge
[glutes]
5. Seated (rower) [hamstrings]
12. Standing w/back on wall
13. Standing
14. Squatting supported (hands on bar)
15. Squatting
Coaching Points:
6. Quadruped w/feet on wall [hamstrings]
7. Quadruped [hamstrings]
8. Push-up position w/feet on wall [glutes]
9. Push-up position [glutes]
10. Tall kneeling w/feet on wall
11. Tall kneeling
For sagittal plane core pelvis exercises,
I focus on what my subjects are doing with their
heels, knees, tail bone, low back, and upper
back. The supine 90/90 hemi-bridge is the
easiest pick for coaching someone on how to
move the pelvis into a position that maximizes
hamstring recruitment. If possible, have subjects put their feet on a wall that has a ledge
under their heels. If people can feel the wall
on the bottom of their heels and a ledge on the
back of their heels, this will provide much more
heel reference, which will be a game changer
for recruiting hamstrings.
Instruct subjects to dig their heels down
into the ledge while keeping their feet flat on the
wall. At the same time, have them reach their
knees straight up a couple of inches. Let them
know that it is okay for their tail bone to leave
the ground, but their low back must remain on
the ground. You can put a small towel under
the subject’s lower back and instruct him or her
to prevent you from pulling it out from under
them.
I always want people to feel their upper
back between their shoulder blades on the
ground. To keep the upper back grounded, subjects can reach their hands towards the ceiling
to protract the shoulder blades, making space
for the upper back to retract into the ground. When reaching, be sure to prevent the sternum
from moving towards the belly button, as this
will excessively recruit rectus abdominis. If you
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are able to keep the thorax back while the heels
move backwards and the knees move forward
relative to each other, the pelvis will tuck under
the body, and the hamstrings will light up like a
Christmas tree. This same approach will work
very well for both the hook lying hamstrings drill
and the seated rower drill.
Once you progress to the glute-bridge,
this is where you need to add a cue that moves
the entire pelvis complex through space. Start
the supine 90/90 glute bridge the same way
you started the hemi-bridge, and feel the hamstrings engage in a good position. At this point,
you’re going to want to bridge your hips higher
and higher off the ground, causing the femur
to increasingly extend. But, rather than trying
to thrust your hips at the ceiling, think about
moving your glutes towards the backs of your
knees. Oftentimes I will cue my clients with
“back pockets to backs of knees”. Use this
effort of trying to bring the back pockets to the
backs of the knees to lift the hips higher and
higher off the ground. This action will approximate the ischial tuberosity with the femur rather
than separate the two from each, and it will lead
to the most intense glute recruitment you’ve
ever felt.
If you understand how to do these major
ground-based sagittal bilateral core pelvis exercises, you’ll have the ability to do the standing
and squatting variations as well. Those are
more difficult, because you do not have the
feedback from the ground regarding the position
of your thorax and skull, so it is easier to get out
of position and fail to demonstrate sagittal plane
sensorimotor competence.
Standing and squatting are not that much
different from supine 90/90 and hook lying positions. If you look at squatting, it is the same position as 90/90, simply rotated 90 degrees. But,
in trying to manage this position upright against
gravity, there are simply more things that can go
wrong in the squat versus the supine 90/90. If
you learn the invariant representation for pelvic
control and hamstring and glute engagement on
the ground, with practice, quality coaching, and
proper feedback for upright drills, you’ll have
them nailed in no time. Keeping the skull over
the middle of the thorax, over the middle of the
pelvis, and strongly referencing a backwards
action through the heels while the knees move
forwards in space is the key to sagittal core
pelvis drills.
Sagittal, Front/Back, Low Load, Low
Velocity, Moderate Duration, Core Pelvis
Sagittal plane core pelvis exercises can
also be performed in the front/back stance. Because this stance is more difficult than the
bilateral stance, before attempting the first
exercise from these front/back stance options,
subjects should first demonstrate competence
in the supine 90/90 bilateral stance exercises. In terms of exercise progression, the same sort
of thought process applies to this stance as to
the bilateral stance: go from short lever drills
that focus on the hamstrings to longer lever
drills that focus on the glutes. Go from supine
to side-lying, to seated, to half kneeling, to split
squat w/fear foot on wall, to split squat.
The front/back stance causes the focus
of the exercise to be more unilateral than the
bilateral stance. This always gets me a little
antsy, because most attempts at a unilateral
exercise that I witness fall short of proper execution. Subjects either demonstrate insufficient
control over their bodies, or choose weights that
are far too light to result in desired adaptations. In order for a muscle to create tension,
allow for proper force transmission, and training
adaptations, we need to have proper anchoring
of certain parts of the body, while other parts
move. I often see dumbbell curls performed
with flexed elbows and, simultaneously, a flexed
humerus on the way up and on the way down,
such that both the elbow and the humerus are
extending. This is not an effective way to train
the biceps. Something has to stay still, and, in
the case of biceps training, that would be the
humerus. In fact, the primary function of the
highly effective preacher curl bench is to keep
the humerus still while the elbow flexes and
extends.
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Unilateral exercises can be fraught with so
many haphazard moving pieces that they run
the risk of failing to actually train any muscle
group. To solve the technical execution problem of unilateral training, front/back stance
core pelvis exercises are the first place to start. Rather than move load, the primary objective
of core pelvis exercises is to own and hold
position. The benefits of this lie in removing
the weightroom ego variable from the equation,
providing more ground-based reference for the
subject’s body parts in space, and having builtin movement constraints to facilitate proper
execution.
When coaching, If you take the time
to get your subjects to feel how challenging it
is to truly control their bodies, they will get an
appreciation for the powerful role of technique
in yielding exercise results. With that, here is
the list for progressing sagittal plane, front/back
stance, low load, low velocity, moderate duration, core pelvis exercises:
5. Side lying in a corner
6. Half kneeling w/rear foot on wall
7. Standing w/rear foot on wall
1. Supine, short lever w/heel tap (hamstrings)
8. Split squat w/rear foot on wall
Coaching Points
2. Supine, short lever w/straight leg reach (hamstrings)
3. Supine, long lever w/heel tap (glutes)
4. Supine, long lever w/straight leg reach (glutes)
As you might predict, many will try to
rush through these drills. And, when people
rush, they do not notice the subtle tilts, rotations, and sways that the body goes through. The point of these drills is to notice these small
movements, and to try to control them.
Starting from the first exercise, supine
short lever w/heel tap, I first let the subject just
do the drill. I coach them by getting them into
a good bilateral hemi-bridge. Once they are in
position, I tell them to tap one foot on and off
the wall/box. When they are done, I say, we’re
going to do a second set, and during that set,
I want you to pay very close attention to your
body. I want you to notice if your pelvis moves
in space in any way, shape, or form during the
time where you are lifting the tapping foot. The
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subject notices that they were indeed shifting all
over the place while trying to tap the foot. Now,
I cue them to try to solve this problem.
My primary coaching cue is that I want
the subject to think about loading the foot that is
going to stay still more and more, as they begin
unloading their “tapping foot” more and more. Eventually, the tapping foot is going to become
weightless as it unloads, and, if the stance
foot has accepted maximum loading, the body
should remain completely still while the tapping
foot is in motion. This is a remarkably difficult
drill, and will have you really re-appreciating
your hamstrings and glutes once you put this
kind of focused attention into its execution.
As mentioned, if you’re able to find a wall
with a ledge, your subject can put his or her
feet flat on the wall and have his or her heels
supported on the underside. Alternatively, with
feet on a bench instead of a wall, the subject
loses the sense of the wall against the soles of
his or her feet, and, if he or she only has a wall,
what’s missing is the anchor of pulling down
into a stable object. In other words, this drill is
hard to do without some kind of ledge set up.
The side-lying exercise is a really great opportunity to engage both hamstrings simultaneously,
and it is also an excellent drill for learning more
about what it feels like to have alignment between femur, tibia, and foot for each limb. To do
this properly, you really need some open space,
allowing you to bend each leg at 90 degrees at
the knee, while simultaneously having one femur flexed in front and the other femur extended behind in the set up.
This is the ideal drill for someone for an
upright split squat drill, because they are in the
same position, but without the difficulty of managing gravity. I’m always looking for opportunities to connect concepts that will demonstrate
tremendous carryover to other patterns, and
this drill provides one of the best teachable moments I have found, particularly for front/back
knee dominant exercises and locomotion drills.
To run fast or split squat well, I need to have a
femur lined up nicely over a tibia, and a tibia
lined up nicely over a calcaneus. When this
happens, force is transmitted directly into the
ground, and the ground reacts directly, pushing
back through the leg complex. I often find myself telling people about hammers hitting nails
with this drill. I’ll say that the best way to hit a
nail into an object is to make sure the nail is
lined up perfectly perpendicular with the object
it is going to be driven into. I also want to make
sure that the hammer is striking straight down
into the nail. If the nail is out of alignment, or
the hammer strikes at an angle, we’ll often see
bending or torque on the nail, splintering of the
wood, or dissipation of forces in a less than
ideal manner. The calcaneus is the wood, the
tibia is the nail, and the femur is the hammer. I
want the calcaneus square with the ground, the
tibia aimed straight down into the calcaneus,
and the femur needs to strike straight down into
the tibia.
Returning to our ground drills, this is why
I spend a lot of time having people really feel as
much of their foot against the wall as possible,
and thinking about how well their knee is lined
up with their foot. When I spend a lot of time
instructing people to line up their knees with
their feet in this drill, I have to do much less of it
when they are doing split squats or running. I truly love coaching the half kneeling
position. I think there is a lot of juice that can
be drawn out of the muscles without significant
loading in this position, and a great deal of education that can be imparted on subjects about
where their body is in space. I start people in
half kneeling drills with their back foot pressed
flush against a wall behind them. The cue I am
constantly giving here is: “push”. I want the
subject to push his or her foot into the wall behind them, and I want them to push their other
foot into the floor below them.
I remind people about keeping their
knees over their feet in this drill, and asking
them if they can put themselves in a position
where they feel the greatest amount of each
foot against the surface it’s contacting. I want
subjects to put equal push into both feet, and I
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want them to think about pushing their back leg
knee off the ground.
Most people will quickly push their knee
off the ground, and I do not say anything during
their first attempt. While watching them, I see
that there is typically a tremendous amount
of sway, lateralizing of weight, turning of the
pelvis, extending of the torso, and extraneous
movement throughout the body. Before attempt number two, I tell them that I want them
to notice their body during the execution of the
movement. I want them to stop as soon as they
feel themselves starting to shift in space. I want
a statue to leave the ground. When subjects
eliminate these extraneous movements, particularly lateralization of center of mass to one side,
they feel a completely different level of muscle
recruitment, and a newfound appreciation for
how difficult it is to get up from a half kneeling
position with just the muscles of the thighs and
pelvis. Once people become proficient at this
drill, quality split squatting and lunging is practically assured.
Frontal, Bilateral, Low Load, Low Velocity,
Moderate Duration, Core Pelvis
This is the realm of exercise where the
hip shift is introduced. With the help of the hip
shift, we can find and feel the frontal plane muscles of the pelvis. The hip shift involves drawing back one side of the pelvis, while the other
side of the pelvis goes forward. To picture it,
imagine hovering above someone like a drone,
and having X-ray vision. Picture being able
to see down through the top of their head and
all the way through their thorax, but you stop
peering through at the level of their pelvis. You
can see the outline of their pelvis, and, in some
ways, it looks like the face of a clock. If your
subject were to rotate his or her pelvis counter-clockwise, aka, to the left, this would be the
motion we are going to call a left hip shift, and
a clockwise rotation would be a right hip shift. Hip shifting without changing the orientation of
the femurs necessitates engaging the frontal
plane pelvis muscles. This is because, when
we hip shift, we are bringing our center of mass
closer to the femur on the side to which we’re
shifting. If I keep my right femur still and I hip
shift right, my pubis is getting closer to my right
femur, thereby shifting more and more of my
body weight to the side I am shifting into, and loading the leg on that side with more and more
weight. And, the frontal plane muscles create
a powerful yielding action to accept the body
mass on this side.
In this category of exercises, we can see
that we are following a fairly standard procedure for progressing positions by going from
supine, to side-lying, to seated, to tall kneeling,
to standing supported, to standing unsupported. When reading through this list, numbers 4 and
5 on this list might jump out at you, because
you’ll see these referencing tall kneeling w/
stance side elevated. What this means is that I
am going to be putting some kind of pad or thick
towel underneath the knee on the side being hip
shifted into.
If you think back to sensorimotor competencies of the cardinal planes of motion covered
in Part 2 of Chapter 3, one of the motor competencies of the frontal plane is that the pelvis
should be able to move like a see-saw. Putting
a pad underneath the right knee in a tall kneeling position will lift the right side of the pelvis. Perform this motion improperly (without a competent sagittal plane) often results in feeling
one’s quadratus lumborum muscle engage in
an uncomfortable way. The desirable outcome
is being able to ascend one side of the pelvis
at a time while feeling the obliques on that side
along with the adductor, which describes a core
element of competent frontal plane training.
Sensorimotor competency in this category of exercises will be intimately tied to your
ability to center your mass over each individual
foot. If I am seeking to recruit my left adductor,
I would be putting a pad under my left knee to
ascend the left side of my pelvis. Simultaneously, I would be attempting to keep my nose
over my left sternum, over my belly button, over
my zipper, over my left knee. If I am able to
center with sagittal competency, the adductor
will fire with authority. If sagittal competency
and centering are absent, it’s tough to guess at
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the various muscles that might be firing, but QL
and TFL are likely suspects.
As these bilateral symmetrical drills advance into standing with the foot elevated and
not elevated, owning sagittal competency and
being able to center the mass over the stance
side foot becomes increasingly challenging,
making possession of an invariant representation of frontal plane core pelvis competency critical. If you were to try to start with these drills,
you would have virtually no chance at success. But, if you take your time and follow the appropriate sequence presented here, it will all but
ensure success in these drills.
Below is the list of progressions for frontal plane, bilateral stance, low load, low velocity,
moderate duration, core pelvis exercises. Importantly, every exercise listed employs a hip
shift, a requisite motion for training the frontal
plane muscles of the pelvis: 4. Tall kneeling w/stance side elevated and feet
on wall
5. Tall kneeling w/stance side elevated
6. Standing supported w/stance foot elevated
7. Standing supported
1. Supine w/hip shift
2. Side lying
3. Seated
8. Standing unsupported w/stance foot elevated
9. Standing unsupported
Coaching Points
Coaching frontal plane drills is like playing whack-a-mole. As you may (or may not)
remember, this game involves a slanted table
in front of you, which is approximately 4 feet
wide by 3 feet deep. The table has about five
holes in it, and in what seems to be a random
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sequence, plastic, “moles” pop up, as if coming
out of a hole in the ground. The object of the
game is to hit as many moles on the head as
possible with a foam mallet that is attached to
the table by a cable. While playing the game,
you’ll notice that a mole will pop up on the far
left side of the board, and then half a second
later, one pops up in the middle, followed immediately after by two moles popping up on the
right side of the board, and so forth. The game
can be very frustrating, because, just as you’ve
solved one “mole problem”, another, and then
another, and then another problem pops up in
front of you.
With frontal plane drills, the subject has
to retain sagittal plane sensorimotor competencies while hip shifting into one side, and centering their body mass over the foot on that same
side. This results in some common missteps:
Scenario A: The subject hip shifts
into the appropriate side, but as soon as they
do, their pelvis goes into massive anterior tilt.
Scenario B: The subject hip shifts
and centers their pelvis over their stance side
foot, but their thorax is angled in the opposite
direction and their head is centered over the
non-stance-side foot.
Scenario C: The subject hip shifts
over the stance side foot, but the pelvis floats
away from the stance-side foot and centers
over the other foot.
Scenario A can be particularly frustrating,
because your subject will appear to be doing
the activity properly, leading you to believe that
they should be feeling all the right things. But,
under the hood, he or she lacks sagittal competency every single time. In my experience,
the most common culprits here are flexible
females. Once you’re “onto” them, you’ll want
to bring these folks back to the sagittal well and
spend some time there. Oftentimes, the hamstrings of these subjects are highly stretched,
making it hard to recapture control of the pelvis. Sometimes, the answer is more supportive
shoes. Check out the PRI recommended shoe
list, and get something that has a good amount
of support, like the classic Asics Foundation 8. With loosey goosey flexible bodies, starting at
ground level with a solid pair of shoes is often
your best bet.
From there, coach the feet to a high
degree. I often tell people to try to make their
stance-side foot as heavy as possible through
the heel as they hip shift towards it. In an effort
to accomplish this, some folks will line up their
calcaneus, tibia, and femur, and shift their center of mass over the foot. By providing a more
concrete goal, this cue is effective at obtaining
the desired alignment. One final centering
cue I’ll note is asking subjects to try to put their
noses over their big toes on the side that they
are hip shifting towards. This will often fix some
thoracic pieces, bypassing any direct mention of
the thorax.
Frontal, Front/Back, Low Load, Low Velocity,
Moderate Duration, Core Pelvis
I have special reverence for this particular pattern, stance, and plane, because I see so
many examples of carryover here. In terms of
gym exercises, this area of training is going to
be the foundation for most of the frontal plane
knee dominant and hip dominant exercises that
I’ll coach and program, because these front/
back, frontal plane, pelvis core exercises are
also ubiquitous in sports. I see pitchers going
into the follow-through of their throwing motion
here. I see a right cross in boxing. I see fieldgoal kicking in football. I see a wide receiver
about to hit his move for a slant route. I see a
mixed martial arts fighter throwing a front kick. I
see an outfielder picking up a ground ball single with his glove outside his glove side foot to
be in the strongest possible position to make a
throw for a play at the plate. The list could go
on and on...
An occupational hazard of my profession
is watching sports with a different set of eyes. I
see some athletes struggling to get their pelvis
into proper frontal plane positions, and I see
others effortlessly hip shifting and transferring
weight with incredible fluidity. There are so
many cool drills that I want to do with people in
other patterns, but as even professional ath-
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letes will remind me, if I do not start with this
core pelvis pattern, in this stance, in this plane,
all that sexy, fancy, super cool stuff will be done
poorly, rendering it no longer sexy, nor fancy nor
super cool.
In this category, you’ll see that we start
similarly to previous examples, with supine as
the first position, then side-lying, and eventually
making our way up to standing. In this section,
however, there is a twist that requires further
exploration. If you look at numbers 6 and 7, our
half-kneeling exercises, you’ll see that they’re
preceded by “retro step exercises” 4 and 5. As such, we’re breaking some of our previous
rules, because we’re going to be doing a standing exercise with retro step components prior
to a half kneeling drill, which is a ground-based
exercise.
In my defense: state troopers get to
speed on the highway! Our very own state
trooper squad car which gives us license to
break some rules is powered by the fact that
there are activities that are going to promote
backwards motion, and there are activities
that are going to promote forward motion. You
always want to start with activities that promote
backwards motion prior to activities that promote forward motion, and the retro step drills
are backwards motion-promoting. Half kneeling
and split squatting positions are ones that are
going to promote forward motion. This will become more relevant when we get to hip-dominant and knee-dominant drills, but it will be easier to find and feel frontal plane pelvis muscles
in the retro step compared to the half-kneeling
position.
When humans try to walk backwards,
they generally adopt an ipsilateral pattern,
where the left leg and left arm go backwards
at the same time. When we walk forward, we
typically adopt a contralateral pattern. The
ipsilateral pattern is a more simplistic mechanical model as compared to the contralateral one. By subjects backwards rather than forward, we
present them with a mechanical model that’s
simpler, and hence easier to master.
The retro step is literally what it sounds
like: you take a step backwards. When you
do this, it orients your pelvis and thorax in the
direction of the foot that you stepped backwards
with. By simply focusing on keeping the femur
straight ahead, we allow the retro step to create the hip shift for us. Retro-stepping with the
left foot while keeping the femur aimed straight
ahead creates a left hip shift, and vice versa for
the right.
Back to our list, note also that number
4 has an elevated stance foot. This is similar to what we discussed for the tall kneeling
position in the previous section. In the tall
kneeling example, I discussed putting a pad
underneath one of the knees to elevate the
pelvis on that side. Same concept here. You
will simply retro-step backwards onto a small
box (2” is a good height). The retro step with
elevated stance foot provides a passive hip shift
as well as a passive ascension of the pelvis on
the stance-side foot. This simplifies what the
subject has to worry about: maintaining sagittal competency and centering. So long as the
subject maintains those two concepts, frontal
plane musculature will naturally be engaged to
the highest possible level.
Half-kneeling and split-squatting are
examples of forward-step drills. When we get
to the knee-dominant section of this book, I will
dive into why I view single-leg squats as retrostep-based drills, and split squats of all kinds as
being forward step drills. These static, highly
sensorimotor-dominant, core exercises are the
cornerstones for learning the positional fundamentals for success with unilateral, knee-dominant drills, which we’ll get to in a bit.
With the half-kneeling and split-squatting drills, you’ll see that the first progression of
each involves having the back foot planted on a
wall. The back foot on the wall provides an excellent platform to push off from. Pushing back
into the wall causes a reaction force that drives
us forward. This push with the back foot is also
an excellent tool for promoting the hip shift into
the front-side leg. With all of these drills, being
successful from a sensorimotor competency
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standpoint is going to be based on maintaining
sagittal competency, as well as hip-shifting and
centering over the stance foot. With the retro
step drills, the stance foot is the back foot. With
the half-kneeling and split squats, the stance
foot is the front foot. Likewise, the hip shift is
more passive for retro step drills, and more active for forward step drills:
6. Half-kneeling w/hip shift and back foot on
wall
1. Supine w/hip shift, short lever moving swing
leg (heel taps) (hamstrings)
7. Half-kneeling w/hip shift
8. Standing w/hip shift and back foot on wall
9. Standing w/hip shift
10. Split squat w/hip shift and back foot on wall
11. Split squat w/hip shift
Coaching Points
2. Supine w/hip shift, long lever moving swing
leg (heel taps) (glutes)
3. Side-lying in corner w/hip shift
4. Retro step w/hip shift and stance foot
elevated
5. Retro step w/hip shift
Front/back stance drills provide a great
opportunity to coach on the pelvis movement
during a hip shift. With these drills, one foot is
going to be the stance foot, and that is the foot
we are going to be hip-shifting towards. When
doing these, I make subjects aware of their
anterior superior iliac spine aka the prominent
protuberance of bone on the front side of their
hip. I’ll often have them put their hands on that
spot on each hip, and let them use their hand
to feel their pelvis rotate through space on each
side, so they can familiarize themselves with
how, as one side rotates forward, the other side
is rotating back. I’ll go on to explain that, when
I ask them to hip shift left, what I’m really asking them to do is shift the left hip back, while
simultaneously shifting the right hip forward. I’ll coach them to move their left hands/hips
backwards over their left heels, and their right
hands/hips forward, and throw in a request for
them to move their right hands/hips towards
their left knees.
As we do this, I’ll have subjects pay
attention to the left knee. Does the left knee
move laterally when you try to move your right
hand/hip towards it? Typically, the left knee
does move, and it moves further to the left and
laterally rotates away from the foot. After the
subject realizes that the knee is not staying
aligned over their foot, he or she will start to
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see that it’s difficult to keep the knee over the
foot when hip-shifting in that direction. I’ll cue
them to try to close the distance between the
left knee and the right hip by squeezing the left
knee to the right. What I’m doing here is using
the hip shift to approximate the distance between the ASIS and the knee. And, at a high
level, the retro step provides a really great place
to start coaching this concept.
The half-kneeling and split squat positions, meanwhile, are great for connecting the
drill to a movement from the subject’s sport. If
I’m working with baseball players, I’ll often show
them how the frontal plane front/back staggered
stance forward step position really mimics the
follow-through of a throw. As you may know
or imagine, as soon as you connect a training movement with a sporting movement, you
capture the interest of the athlete. Doing so
teleports the movement from a foreign, boring
weightroom drill, requiring them to obey your
orders, to their familiar field or court, where
they’re in charge.
Frontal Lateral Core Pelvis
The lateral stance is significantly more
difficult compared to the other two. One of the
main reasons for this is that we need to put
a strong focus on what’s happening with the
calcaneus of each foot. With all frontal plane
drills, we are trying to have the subject center
his or her mass over their stance foot, but when
we use the lateral stance the difficulty of accomplishing this task becomes more extreme. The stance-side calcaneus is inverting and the
swing side calcaneus needs to evert. When a
calcaneus bone everts it shoves the center of
mass in the opposite direction, such that, if the
left calcaneus is everted, the body mass shifts
to the right, and vice versa. If I am doing a
frontal plane lateral stance core pelvis exercise,
and I’m trying to center my body mass over my
left foot, I’m going to be putting a strong focus
on everything within my right calcaneus. This
additional ankle component gives subjects more
to consider with these drills, which can make
their execution more difficult. For this reason,
these drills are best saved for later stages of an
exercise program.
In sports, the lateral stance presents
itself incredibly frequently. The most dominant
place we see the lateral stance is with change
of direction movements, like a cross-over dribble or a wide receiver juke move. You also
see the lateral stance in the follow-through of
a baseball swing, a hockey slap shot, and as a
pitstop on the way to mastering throwing mechanics. As a pitcher strides towards home
plate, he or she is first in lateral stance, working
to keep his or her center of mass back and not
going too far towards his or her lead foot before
it hits the ground. Once it does, the pitcher now
swivels, shifting from lateral stance to front/back
stance.
The rotational power through the pelvis
and thorax is derived from the transition from
lateral stance to front/back stance. This is also
the transition that we see when athletes go from
a juke to an acceleration, such as when a basketball player shifts from a cross-over dribble to
penetrating to the basket. When I think about
the foundations of athleticism, smoothness, elusiveness, and unpredictability, I think of someone who can get into and out of a quality lateral
stance. The core pelvis pattern is where we
take the time to have an athlete get to know the
stance, feel the way their body responds while
in the position, and ultimately learn to control
their center of mass under those (often challenging) circumstances.
These exercises all feature a hip shift,
which means the adductor magnus will be targeted. The other movement of the pelvis that
will attack the adductor magnus is the see-saw
movement. When one side of the pelvis is
higher than the other in space, the adductor is
heavily recruited on that side. With all of these
drills, these two pelvic movements will be prominently featured. When one side of the pelvis is
higher than the other, this means not only that
a muscle is targeted on the higher side, but that
another muscle is simultaneously heavily targeted on the opposite, lower side. That muscle is
the glute medius.
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What follows is the list of progressions
for frontal plane, lateral stance, low load, low
velocity, moderate duration, core pelvis exercises. You’ll see that there are fewer exercises here, and also fewer positions from which
to execute the movements. In this realm, we
have side-lying, lateral-kneeling, and standing
varieties. Word to the wise: do not let the small
number of drills mislead you about the complexity of this realm of fitness:
but the other thing it is incredibly useful for is
preventing the frontal plane abdominals on the
same side from bunching up. When I’m doing
frontal plane exercises, I want to move the ilium
and the armpit closer together one side as I
move them further apart on the other side. In
this side-lying example, I’ll be trying to close the
distance between my left hip and left armpit,
while increasing the distance between my right
hip and right armpit.
1. Side lying with top leg straight and supported
This drill is designed to recruit the left
adductor, the left abs, and the right glute muscles. To get the abs, I am going to need to
press the ground with my top (right) hand, and
get in a quality exhale. The pressing and exhaling should bring my left armpit towards my left
ilium, and recruit my left frontal plane abs. The folks from PRI do an incredible job
of coaching these drills. Watching the 16 hours
of video that came with their Myokinematics
home study course, I felt like I got to know the
host, James Anderson. He absolutely crushed
the parts where he would be teaching exercises
that would be side-lying frontal plane targeted
drills. I specifically remember him telling the
people he was working with to try to create a,
“mouse house” on the down side abs, and this
cue has been a money maker for me for years.
2. Side lying with top leg straight and unsupported
3. Lateral kneeling
4. Standing supported w/stance foot elevated
5. Standing supported
Coaching Points
If I am performing exercise number 1 in
the list for this category, I could be lying on my
left side, and my right leg would be up on top of
a bench. I’ll hip shift to the left and recruit my
left adductor. Now what I want to do is move
my pelvis like a see-saw, by extending my top
leg as much as I possibly can over the bench. By doing so, I move my right pelvis into the
down position on a see-saw. When I do this, I’ll
be abducting my ilium, and the right glute medius will fire. The glute medius is a great muscle
for abducting the ilium and abducting the femur,
What this means is that you want to push
the ground hard with your top hand, and make
a little space between your lower abdominals on
the side of your body and the ground. Picture
the old Tom and Jerry cartoons with the little
arched hole in the wall that the mouse would
run into to hide from the cat. Create that with
your abs on the ground-facing side and let the
mouse run through that daylight. That move will
approximate the downside ilium and armpit.
The other thing I remember James Anderson talking about was reaching the top leg
long, in other words, down, or away from your
head. This action will distract the top side ilium
from the armpit. I will also cue folks to shrug
the top side shoulder towards the ear in an attempt to open up that top side, which, in tandem
with closing the down side, is what we’re after
here.
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As we cue subjects through these moving parts, we’ll also need some anchors. Those
anchors are their feet. In my coaching experience, I find I’m constantly having to correct
the position of the down-side foot, because the
outside back part of the heel will spin away from
the ground. To course correct this, I’ll frequently
resort to weighing down that heel with a small
sandbag, to keep it in contact with the ground...
but sometimes an effective measure is to lightly
step on the inside of the subject’s heel with my
foot, to push the outside down into the ground.
Transverse Bilateral Core Pelvis
Our journey through the trainable menu
of the pelvis is nearing its end as we make
our way to the transverse plane. The primary
target of the transverse plane is going to be the
swing-side glute max. Thus far, we’ve spent a
considerable amount of time talking about what
is going on with the leg that is on the ground,
but have yet to talk about the leg that is off the
ground.
That leg must obey the same rules as
those previously demonstrated for the propulsion arc, in the context of which we discussed
what’s going on at the arms as they go through
an overhead reach arc. The legs would be no
different. If you were standing on two feet, and
started the action of doing a march, you would
begin by picking one foot up off the ground. At
the bottom of that motion, the leg would be in
an expansion zone. If you continued to lift the
leg off the ground, it would eventually get to 90
degrees of flexion. At that point, the leg would
be at maximum of compression. If you continued to flex the leg well above that point, it would
reach a point of flexion (around 120 degrees),
where it would actually re-enter into expansion.
When you are looking at someone in a
short lever, bilateral stance position such as
supine 90/90, both femurs are at 90 degrees of
flexion, which appears to be putting both lower
extremities in Zone 2 and compression. However, if you take a step back and look at the
ankle, you’ll find it’s neither plantar flexed, nor
dorsiflexed. So, in a lot of ways, this supine
90/90 position is a fairly neutral place to be from
a movement strategy perspective.
When I start to add a hip shift to a supine
90/90 position, I start to see subjects move into
different regions of the propulsion arc with the
two sides of their lower extremity. If I hip-shift
someone to the left, and they own the position
and do not let their femurs follow the pelvis, I
can watch the left ankle go into more plantar
flexion, and the right ankle go into more dorsiflexion. This means that the left lower extremity
is being biased towards expansion, and the
right is being biased towards compression.
Interestingly, when they hip shift left, the
muscles subjects will feel will be the left hamstrings, adductors, and IR fibers of the glutes,
and they will feel the abduction and ER fibers of
the glutes on the right side in this hip shift. As
the lower extremity goes into more flexion, what
they are feeling is a yielding action of the extension, adduction, and IR muscles on the left side,
abduction, and ER. As the lower extremity goes
into more extension, they’re also feeling a yielding action on the right side of the flexion, abduction, and ER muscles, adduction, and IR. The
focus in these transverse plane pelvic drills is to
feel the yielding action of the flexion, abduction,
and ER muscles. The primary tissue will be the
glute max, and the main motion out of the triad
will be ER. These drills feature a hip shift, so frontal
plane sensorimotor competencies will be involved, and form the foundation to which we’ll
add the transverse elements. If you can understand how to coach the frontal plane from the
previous section, you can get your subject in
position for adding the transverse plane to the
equation. I strongly encourage using objects as
constraints that can assist in placing subjects
into passive hip shifts during these drills. Passive hip shits allow subjects to focus more on
the transverse plane swing side femur/pelvis,
instead of focusing on maintaining the frontal
plane piece here.
The following is our list of drills for the
progressions for transverse plane, bilateral
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stance, core pelvis. You can see that this list
follows a fairly stereotypical presentation of
supine with short levers, side-lying, supine with
slightly longer lever, tall-kneeling, and then
standing drills. The side-lying drill at number 2
is a personal favorite: 1. Supine 90/90 w/hip shift and w/swing side
glute max
2. Side lying 90/90 with swing side glute max
3. Supine hook lying w/swing side foot elevated
(passive hip shift) and w/swing side glute
max
4. Supine hook lying w/hip shift and w/swing side glute max
5. Quadruped w/passive hip shift (elevated
stance knee) and w/swing side glute max
6. Standing supported w/hip shift, w/stance foot
elevated, and w/swing side glute max
7. Standing supported w/hip shift and swing
side glute max
8. Standing unsupported w/hip shift and swing side glute max
Coaching Points
Here again, my recommendation is to
extensively coach the feet. Make sure you
anchor through the outside of the heel on the
stance-side foot, and the medial arch of the
swing side foot. This is PRI 101 of coaching,
but also something you’ll see get screwed up
time and again. Focusing on the key elements
goes a long way towards blocking out the noise
and helping subjects get it right. For these
drills, your mantra should be: heel and arch,
heel and arch, heel and arch! Does the subject feel them? If not, he or she is likely not in
the best position, and has no reliable reference
point relative to which to move. This is because
we want to hip shift in the direction of the stance
foot (the heel of which we want to feel), and
away from the swing side (the arch of which we
want to feel). If you have held onto your feet
and you have successfully hip shifted, by all
means, feel free to push your swing side femur
laterally. In the right position, the recruitment of
the transverse plane glute max will be incredible.
As mentioned, I love the side-lying number 2 exercise. I’ll position myself in front of
where the athlete’s knees are, and put one leg
about an inch in front of his or her knees. I will
tell the athlete to shift his or her top leg knee
into my leg and put pressure on my leg with that
knee. I’ll check their feet, oftentimes having to
press the outside of their down-side heel into
the ground with my hand. I’ll ask the athlete
to continue to put pressure on my leg with his
or her knee, and then to try to move his or her
knee up my leg. This is usually about the time
the athlete’s eyes widen to the size of saucers,
indicating that the drill is strongly and effectively
recruiting their glute max. I will have to continuously remind the athlete to maintain pressure
on my leg while doing this drill.
By this point in the training process,
the athlete should have a good idea of how to
position his or her pelvis for sagittal and frontal
plane competencies, meaning that his or her
invariant representation of pelvic positioning is
strong. Having done one of these drills, they
usually understand the concept very well, and
it is relatively easy to put the concept into upright activities. Always remember that you’re
presenting someone with a model for how his
or her body works. So, take your time, and
thoughtfully choose a drill that’s likely to get the
point across successfully the first time around. Once you’ve managed to bring the point home
once, chances are you’ll have success in
coaching this subject going forward. Transverse Front/Back Core Pelvis
The classical position for transverse
core pelvis drills, this stance is associated with
running, and running is where the transverse
pelvis shines. The late propulsion, concentrically-oriented, overcoming action transverse
glute max is what powered us in upright running
as a species. As you’ve seen me repeat, when
it comes to the pelvis, you’ve got to think feet,
because the two are tightly intertwined. A great
visualization for this interconnection is that of a
great push-off in late propulsion and its reliance
on pushing off from the big toe.
When I’m walking and my foot hits the
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ground, I’ll first land on the outside of my heel. In the gait process, initial contact with the
ground is when I’m in the greatest amount of
inversion at the calcaneus and supination at
the foot. After the initial heel strike, I’ll be rolling
forward on my foot. As this forward rolling takes
place, I am also everting my calcaneus from an
inverted starting place, and pronating my foot
from a supinated starting place. Eventually, my
mid-foot hits the ground, followed by the balls of
my foot, and, finally, my toes. As I go through
this process, where more and more of the front
of my foot and toes hit the ground, I will be
increasingly everting and pronating. My big toe
hitting the ground and starting to catalyze final
propulsion marks the end of the height of eversion and pronation in the gait cycle. As I create
the final propulsion and push off my big toe, I
am reversing the process, inverting the calcaneus, and supinating the foot.
Thinking back to previous examples that
tie in with breathing, the ankle and the foot are
no exceptions, and will be intimately tied to
stereotypical positions associated with phases
of the respiratory cycle. Inhalation is accompanied by the eccentric, yielding, supinating, and
inverting phase of propulsion of the gait cycle,
and exhalation by the concentric, overcoming,
pronating, and everting phase of propulsion.
When we’re talking specifically about
getting the transverse glute max to fire, this
phenomenon would be synced with the pushoff, and the transition from the most everted and
pronated-possible position of the ankle and foot
to the gradual inversion and supination process. The trick is to get the foot and ankle shifted to
the medial side of the foot, drop the first ray
of the big toe metatarsal onto the ground, and
keep that part of your foot planted down while
you then abduct and ER the femur. The progressions that follow are designed to ease this
task as much as possible. These progressions
are in side-lying to retro step to forward step
order: 1. Side lying in corner w/swing side glute max
2. Standing supported retro step w/stance side
elevated, and w/swing side glute max
3. Standing supported retro step w/swing side
glute max
4. Standing retro step w/stance side elevated
and w/swing side glute max
5. Standing retro step w/swing side glute max
6. Standing supported forward step w/stance
foot elevated, w/rear foot on wall, and w/swing
side glute max
7. Standing supported forward step w/stance
foot elevated and w/swing side glute max
8. Standing supported forward step w/swing
side glute max
9. Standing unsupported forward step (follow
same sequence with legs as 6-8)
Coaching Points
In this list, I’m going to attempt to take
a step back before going forward. The transverse glute max is perhaps the ultimate power
player for what will drive a human forward in the
gait cycle. That said, as you can see in the list
above, the retro step lives in this grouping of exercises. As explained, the backwards gait mechanics make it easier to feel the hip shift, and
the transverse glute max will push the subject
from the opposite side, deeper into the hip shift. Feeling these sensations typically elucidate the
concept at play.
If I am doing a retro step drill in this
category, and trying to shift into my left hip, I
would think about rotating my left ASIS backwards over my left heel, while keeping my left
femur straight ahead. If I do this, I should feel
my left adductor. Stay in your left hip, but bring
your attention to the right side. Let your right
foot collapse into the medial side, and let your
right knee move as far towards your left knee
as you like. Really try to feel the medial arch of
your right foot, and get the big toe solidly on the
ground. Now, while keeping the weight of your
right foot firmly planted through the medial side,
try to externally rotate and abduct your right leg. You should feel that right glute kick in strongly. You should feel your right hip rotating forward,
and really pushes your left hip into even more of
a hip shift.
If you are doing a rear-foot-on-wall forward step drill in this category, and your right
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foot is the back foot, you would be trying to
shift into your left hip. In this case, you would
be rotating your left ASIS backwards over your
left heel, while keeping your left femur straight
ahead. If you do this, you should feel your left
adductor. Stay in your left side, but bring your
attention to the right side. Bring the weight of
your right foot against the wall into the medial side. Let the foot inwardly collapse. Try to
squeeze your right knee behind your left knee. You’ll feel yourself hip shift more and more into
the left hip. Now, while keeping the weight of
your right foot on the medial side of the foot,
try to abduct and externally rotate the right leg. This is where you will feel the right glute max,
and you’ll feel the way this puts you even further into a left hip shift. The forward step with
back foot on wall is my favorite of these drills,
as one that really connects the core pelvis section with locomotion.
Transverse Lateral Core Pelvis
A lot of these drills look like the position
of a speed skater at the end of his or her pushoff, as in the picture featured below. As we can
see, the straight leg is the leg the skater pushed
off with, which is the leg in which we’d want to
find the glute max. The bent leg side is the one
we would be attempting to drive the hip shift
into. This is a position that can really exaggerate the end propulsion concept in the leg that is
kicked out to the side, really targeting the transverse pelvic muscles.
The position of the speed skater in this
picture provides a lot of insight into our lateral
stance drills. Pushing herself from her right
side to the left, she also demonstrates a greatly
exaggerated late propulsion right leg, due to
this phase of the propulsion cycle being prolonged by the environmental circumstances of
a low friction surface like ice, combined with
removal of much of the flight phase.
You can really see the femoral abduction
component of the late propulsion movement
strategy prominently displayed here. Mimicking
positions like this with exercise can allow us to
selectively develop late propulsion pelvic mechanics, and to target late propulsion flexion,
abduction, and ER tissues.
The following is the list for lateral stance
transverse plane, core pelvis drills. This progression series goes from side-lying to lateral-kneeling to standing drills. Subjects should
be ready for this category of drills before attempting them, but improving sensorimotor
competency for this category goes a long way
for many sports movements. The position athletes get into whenever they are making a cut
while changing direction and a transitional zone
for moving into hitting a golf ball or a hockey
puck (or, you name it), this is a ubiquitous position for rotational power: 1. Side lying swing leg supported w/swing side
glute max
2. Side lying swing leg unsupported w/swing
side glute max
3. Lateral kneeling w/swing side glute max
4. Standing supported w/stance foot elevated and w/swing side glute max
5. Standing supported w/swing side glute max
6. Standing w/stance foot elevated and w/swing
side glute max
7. Standing w/swing side glute max
Coaching Points
Fig 6.3 - Speed skater at the end of push off
With lateral stance activities, the athlete
has their center of mass over one leg while the
other leg is kicked out to the side like a kick-
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stand. It is often very difficult for the athlete to
keep his or her pelvis over the stance-side foot. As a result, you’ll constantly see subjects trying
to hip shift towards the stance-side foot, and
the pelvis will leak laterally in space towards
the swing side foot. When you are seeing this
being demonstrated, go back to the Principles
of Progressions to come up with constraints that
prevent the pelvis from leaking away from the
stance foot side. Use your own hands, which
can serve as both a constraint and a reference
for your subjects. I’ll often stand on the swing
side and put my hand next to the swing side
hip, and ask the subject to refrain from hitting
my hand with his or her hip. Other times, I’ll
physically guide the athlete’s pelvis towards the
stance side foot. Or, put a box next to his or
her stance-side hip, and ask him or her to keep
the hip on that side in contact with the box. If it
were easy, these tricks wouldn’t be needed, but
it isn’t, so they often are. In fact, this position starts with side-lying
because the pelvis cannot leak in space laterally when lying down on the ground on one’s side. The ground literally centers the us, and gravity
prevents lateral shift away from the stance side
foot and hip shift side pelvis. I keep subjects on
the ground for a while with this drill, and, after
I transition them to upright activity, I’ll typically
keep bringing them back to the ground, to reinforce the practice of keeping track of the pelvis
in space.
Dominant Positions and Fitness Realms
•Dominant stance: Sport specific
•Dominant plane: Frontal
•Dominant load: Low
•Dominant velocity: Low
•Dominant duration: Moderate
While core exercises can create incredible levels of contractile activity for muscles of
the thorax and pelvis, their focus is non-quantitative. Instead, they are subjective drills, which
aim to improve sensorimotor competencies associated with the three planes. The key to core
exercises is control. Core exercises are opportunities to teach important conceptual matters
that will relate to sporting movements as well as
higher load, higher velocity training movements.
A major key to success with core exercises is finding a way to connect the activity
with the subject’s goals. If you can manage to
do that, you will probably get buy-in from your
subject. When it comes to athletic movements
like running, jumping, throwing, and changing
direction, the key plane for pelvic movement
is the frontal plane. You set the stage for frontal plane competency by developing a sagittal
foundation. If you stick to the basics and get
to the point where your subject can nail frontal plane pelvis core exercises, you’ve already
done an incredible job. It’s great if you get to
throw some transverse icing on the cake, but
the frontal plane is the show when it comes to
core pelvis exercises. 07
Pattern 3: Core: Thorax Focus
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Pattern 3: Core:
Thorax Focus
Chapter 7
Before he went to jail, Mike Tyson had
the most dynamic ribcage in the history of
sports. If you have a chance to catch some
early film of him training and fighting, the power and ferocity of those punches will give you
chills. The speed that he could bob and weave
made him untouchable, and the look in eyes
when he knew he was the baddest man on
the planet gave him an aura of invincibility that
made him an icon. By the time Iron Mike got out
of jail, the iron had gotten a bit rusty. The big
difference was that his ribcage stiffened. Great
ribcages can flex, extend, side bend, and twist.
A mobile ribcage can forgive a thousand sins.
our most important internal organs: the heart
and the lungs. If something catastrophic happens to either of those objects, you’re surely
dead. We need protection against impact from
falls, and objects from the outside world hitting
us, and we certainly need the contents housed
inside the ribcage to stay within its confines. In
an ironic sense, a great ribcage is one that can
demonstrate freedom of motion.
When I think of the word cage, I think of
a device that is made to keep something in, of
something rigid with iron bars, leaving me with
a hopeless, despondent feeling. Like it or not,
I get where the name comes from. We need a
structure that is supportive and protective for
Fig 7.1 - Rib cage shown protecting the heart and
lungs
The rib cage should be able to expand
and contract with the breathing cycle. I should
be able to close the space between my ribs
when I side bend in one direction, while I open
the space between the ribs on the opposite
side. I should be able to coil up like a snake via
compression and transverse plane motion with
my ribs. My ribcage should be able to anterior
tilt and posterior tilt. My ribcage should be able
to do it all.
In the fitness, and strength and conditioning world, you’ll hear a lot of talk about the
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thoracic spine. Of course, the thoracic spine is
important, but as far as the thorax is concerned,
the ribcage is the show. In light of this, I look
forward to a shift from talking exclusively about
t-spine mobility to increasing our ribcage dialogue. Getting subjects to understand how to
move their ribs via respiration, and how to bias
air into certain compartments of the lungs is a
physical skill most can learn, and use to improve their overall movement competencies and
capabilities. reduced, and pressure rises. If pressure rises
past the pressure of the ambient air, then air
will flow down its concentration gradient, and
move from inside the lungs into the environment
outside the body.
Anatomical Considerations, The Thorax
I don’t think I’ve ever had my mind blown more
than when listening to Bill Hartman explain the
thorax. In his “The Intensive” course where I
was in attendance, Bill began with the thorax to
illustrate how joints work. It is easier to see the
thorax than an elbow joint, so if we could understand something that was more observable, we
could apply the same rules to joints we couldn’t
see as readily.
It begins with understanding pressure
and volume. In the thorax, we can have high
volume areas, but here, the rules are a little bit
different than the inverse relationship between
pressure and volume in breathing. When we
are talking about the classical understanding
of breathing, we are typically talking about the
fact that, when I inhale, air comes in because
my diaphragm concentrically orients. When
the diaphragm concentrically orients, it flattens,
and the dome that pushes up into the thorax
descends. When the dome descends, there
is more volume inside the chest cavity. When
the volume of the chest cavity increases, the
pressure of air inside the chest cavity decreases. If the pressure becomes lower than the
ambient air pressure, then air will move down
its concentration gradient, and go from the
external environment to inside the lungs. When
I exhale, the diaphragm eccentrically orients.
When the diaphragm eccentrically orients, it
forms a dome, and takes up more space inside
the chest cavity. When the diaphragm takes up
more space inside the chest cavity, volume is
Fig 7.2 - Diaphragm during inhalation and
exhalation
What Bill is getting us to visualize about
volume in this context is air moving into a region
of the lungs/chest, and expanding that physical
space. A region expanded by air wherein air
starts to take up space can be said to be in a
high volume state. The more expanded that a
part of the lung is, the greater the volume in that
area. When it comes to the thoraco-abdominal
area, air being present in a region can increase
volume, but so can fluid. As such, areas that
are high in volume are going to be off limits
areas for moving towards or into. Oftentimes,
those high volume areas will also push the body
in the opposite direction. A high volume area
is one that is using an expansion movement
strategy, characterized by the respiratory and
skeletal systems being in an inhaled state, and
the muscles assuming an eccentric orientation.
This is not contradictory to previously stated
material. When I say, “off limits areas for moving towards or into”, I’m referring to overcoming
actions.
Areas that are high pressure regions are
those which are compressed, and hence, those
with a concentric muscle orientation. Compressing and assuming a concentric orientation
acts to reduce volume and increase pressure. Page
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The more a region is squeezed and shrunk,
the greater the pressure that will build in it. High-pressure areas are also those our bodies
are able to move towards or into (overcoming
actions). If I want to send my center of mass
to the right, I need to compress my right ribs. If I want to do a backbend and go into a wheel
pose in yoga, I need to compress my posterior
ribs. If I want to touch my toes with a forward
bend, I need to compress my anterior ribs.
Full movement in a given direction occurs when I’m able to create high pressure on
one side of a joint, and low pressure on the
other side of that joint, creating a concentric
orientation on one side and an eccentric orientation on the other side. The movement will
take place towards the concentric side. If you
are concentric on both sides, it is a rigid system,
where little movement is possible. If you are
eccentric on both sides, it is a chaotic system,
characterized by movement resembling a lava
lamp, as fluid sloshes back and forth between
two open sides.
We used the thorax as our guide because it was easier to see. A good forward
bend occurs with compression of the anterior
thorax, and expansion of the posterior thorax. If
you can exhale effectively and approximate the
ribs in the front, and keep them approximated
while inhaling, you will expand the posterior rib
cage, and create a high pressure front and high
volume back. This will allow you to toe-touch
effectively. For an upwards and backwards full
extension reach, you need to compress the
posterior ribs with your exhale and keep them
compressed while inhaling, to expand the anterior chest wall. This will create a high pressure
posterior side and a high volume anterior chest
wall, which will allow for full extension and posterior tilting of the thorax.
The thoraco-abdominal region is one big
synovial joint. You can watch and feel the way
the thoraco-abdominal region works, and by doing so, gain incredible insight into all the synovial joints of the body. The movement system is a
fractal system. If you can understand the rules
that govern how one part moves, you under-
stand the rules that govern how all
the other parts move as well. Anatomical Considerations, The
Scapulae
The pelvis is a little easier to understand
than the thorax, in part because the former
consists of fewer moving pieces. To review,
we have our innominate bones connecting at
the pubis, and the sacrum/coccyx in the back. With the thorax, we have the spine, the ribs, the
sternum, and the scapulae. On the bright side,
the scapulae and the innominate bones are
fairly similar to each other. The sacrum and the
spine are fairly similar to each other. The pubis
and the sternum are fairly similar to each other. There’s just a lot more freedom of motion at the
thorax as compared to the pelvis. And, nowhere
is this freedom more apparent than at the scapulae.
When Gray Cook came out with the joint
by joint approach to training, everyone fell in
love with the concept for its ease of use. This
joint by joint approach to training posited that
some joints are intended to be highly mobile
joints and some joints are intended to be highly stable joints. The shoulder for instance is a
great example of a joint meant to be highly mobile, whereas the lumbar spine is intended to be
highly stable. Mobile joints need some stability,
and stable joints need some mobility, but, for
the most part, each should be able to display its
dominant characteristic.
The really cool part of the joint by joint
approach to training is that mobile and stable
joints would alternate with each other as you
made your way throughout the body. If we start
at the ankle and work our way up, we’d label
the ankle a mobile joint, the knee a stable joint,
the hip a mobile joint, the lumbar spine a stable joint, the thoracic spine a mobile joint, the
scapula a stable joint, and the glenohumeral a
mobile joint.
This concept goes on to extrapolate that,
when a mobile joint loses some of its mobility,
what often happens is that it becomes more
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stable (stiffer), and the stable joint that is next
in the chain has to pick up more mobility. That
all sounds fine, except that when a stable joint
increases in mobility, this is often a site of pain. If there is a site of pain, such as the knee, look
to the joint above or below for the solution, as
the pain site is often the victim of a problem that
has roots elsewhere. To alleviate knee pain,
you should first see if there is a limitation in hip
and/or ankle mobility. If there is limited mobility at one or both of these joints, attempting to
restore that mobility should be the first order of
business. If you are successful in this pursuit,
the knee will typically drop its attempts to pick
up excess motion, which in itself will remedy the
pain.
Fig 7.3 - Scapula sitting on top of ribcage
Reversing this thought process would
apply to problems caused by limitation in motion at mobile joints. In these cases, it pays
to seek a stability limitation at the stable joint
directly above or below the mobile joint. When
it comes to issues having to do with lack of
shoulder mobility, a common fix is to enhance
the stability of the scapula. I can remember
hearing Eric Cressey being the first to say that a
mobile humerus acting on an unstable scapula
is like, “firing a cannon out of a canoe”. In such
a setting, the brain will often know that, “firing
a cannon from a canoe” will be threatening, so
it will reduce motion potential and stiffen the
shoulder. Recruiting muscles such as low trap
and serratus anterior more frequently will serve
to solve such problems.
Now might be a good time to share that
I’m not actually a subscriber to the joint by joint
approach to training, because I don’t find it particularly helpful in my work. In my mind, every
joint should have a certain range of motion, the
norm of which I can look up in any anatomy
textbook. Of far greater interest to me is the
ability to measure the range of motion of joints
in all of the available planes within which each
can move. If I discover that a given joint does
not possess expected range of motion, part of
my work lies in attempting to restore the norm
for range of motion to that joint. If I can improve
the range of motion through the techniques I
use, then I can train that subject using all of
the available training patterns described in this
book, not to mention that the subject would also
gain the ability to properly execute sports movements.
As explained earlier, I will use table tests
to verify that a subject is eligible to enter “Motor
Learning 101”, and improve his or her capabilities in his or her chosen movement activities. I do not use the terms mobility or stability,
because they mean little to me. Instead, I use
the term “range of motion”, because I’m able to
actually measure it in degrees. Another term I
use is “sensorimotor competency”, because I
can in fact apply standards to and grade it on a
binary scale.
Back to the scapula, I have yet to hear
mention of the fact that the scapulae sit on top
of the ribcage. When you’re examining what is
happening at the scapula, you have to be aware
of the relationship between the ribs and the
scaps. The ribs are the foundation on which the
scapula rests and moves.
Another way of thinking about it is to
think of the ribs as the ground, and the scapula
as a set of feet, trying to find the ground. The
position and shape of the rib cage will impact
the position and status of the scapula. When
talking about what is happening at the ribs,
we have to address what moves the ribs, and
changes their shape. The answer is, of course,
the lungs. But what moves the lungs? The
answer to that is airflow.
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If you care about the status of the scapula but are unaware of the impact that airflow has
on it, you’re missing some puzzle pieces. Air
moving into the alveoli expands the lungs. The
expansion of the lungs causes the ribs to push
outward in a 360 degree manner. When the
ribs expand posteriorly, they push backwards
into the scapula. When the ribs push back into
the scapula, the scapula will reflexively push
back on the ribs. When a force pushes a joint
in one direction, and the joint reflexively pushes back in the opposite direction, this is called
Reactive Neuromuscular Training (RNT). Gray
Cook is fond of putting bands around knees
to create a force that would cave the knees in
on the squat. Humans reflexively react to the
band caving their knees in by pushing their
knees out. He would say that the use of RNT
reflexively stabilizes the system. So, if I’m after
great humeral mobility on a stable scapula, but
worried about firing a cannon out of a canoe,
what I’ve really been looking for all along is air,
to push the ribs back into the scapulae.
As you already know, I’m not fond of
using the terms mobility or stability, because, at
any joint, a subject is either closer to or further
from human norms for range of motion. You
are either sensorimotor competent with planar
movement, or incompetent in regards to said
movement, either stronger or weaker. I am
only concerned with that which I can measure,
grade, or categorize within a binary system. In
regards to the ribs, the scapula, and the humerus, I want to measure that from which I can
make logical inferences, and then proceed to
utilize interventions that change initial measurements in a demonstrable, desired manner.
The scaps have a stereotypical inhale
and exhale position associated with them. The
scapular positions reflective of expansion and
compression mirror those of the pelvis. The
motion of the scapula that corresponds to
extension, adduction, and IR of the superior
ilium is upward rotation, making it the compression/exhale position of the scapula. This
makes downward rotation the expansion/inhale
position of the scapula, and the motion of the
scapula mirrors the flexion, abduction, and ER
movement of the superior ilium using an inhale
strategy at the pelvis.
Fig 7.4 - Scapula in downward rotaion
Fig 7.5 - Scapula in upward rotaion
The humerus has stereotypical positions
associated with expansion and compression
that are fairly straightforward. Flexion, abduction, and ER are the expansion strategies of the
humerus, and extension, adduction, and IR are
the compression strategies of the humerus. We
want the humerus to be capable of displaying
full ROM for all expansion and compression-related motions. If the humerus is lacking any
of the expansion motions, then full expansion
of the upper extremity is not possible, and the
same goes for the compression motions.
In order for the humerus to be able to
demonstrate human norms for these movements, the scapula needs to be able to go
through its normal excursions. For the scapula
to go through its full movement capabilities, it
needs the rib cage underneath it to have access
to the full archetype of expansion and compression. Moving arms is more about moving air
and managing pressure than many of us real-
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ize. You can keep on trying to stretch your lats
until the cows come home, but if you do not get
air to move to expand and compress your ribs,
nothing will happen.
The propulsion arc is a huge key to tying
the motions of the upper extremity together, and
guiding us towards how to use this information
to our advantage. We will examine the arc by
talking about what happens when we bring our
arms from a resting position down by our sides
up through full shoulder flexion. Zone 1 will be
from zero degrees of flexion up to 60 degrees. Zone 2 will be between 60 and 120 degrees of
flexion. Zone 3 will be between 120 and 180
degrees of flexion. Zones 1 and 3 will be our
expansion-biased zones, and Zone 2 will be
our compression-biased zone. We will return to
this topic and cover it in much greater detail in
the vertical push chapter. For now, we’ll simply
introduce the concept.
Fig 7.6 - Propulsion Arc
In Zone 1, we are flexing the humerus
between zero and 60 degrees of flexion. This
is an expansion-related zone. The primary site
of expansion to create this flexion is the lowest
part of the posterior zone of the lungs. The primary moving structure in zone 1 is the humerus.
In Zone 2, we are flexing the humerus
between 60 and 120 degrees. This is a compression-related zone. The primary site of
compression is the mid-scapular region. The
primary moving structure in zone 2 is the scapula. This is the only time during the propulsion
arc for the upper extremity that the scapula is
going through upward rotation. Once we reach
120 degrees of flexion, the scapula is done with
its upward rotation/compression movement.
In Zone 3, we are flexing the humerus between 120 and 180 degrees. This is an
expansion-related zone. The primary site of
expansion is the upper back, just below the
cervical spine. The primary moving structure in
Zone 3 is the humerus. The scapula is through
with its movement contributions by the time we
reach Zone 3. If you cannot get full expansion
of the upper back, you will not be able to reach
full shoulder flexion.
The major takeaways from all of this are
going to shine through in the coaching directions we give our subjects during core thorax
exercises. I want to bias my wide infrasternal
angle/compressed subjects towards reaching
into expansion-biased zones, and I want to bias
my narrow infrasternal angle/expanded subjects towards reaching into the compression
biased zone. If I have compressed subjects
reaching in the direction of Zone 1 or Zone 3, I’ll
have them feature supination and ER with their
reaching hands and arms. If I have expanded
subjects reaching in the direction of Zone 2, I’ll
have them feature pronation and IR with their
reaching hands and arms. I’ll start my compressed subjects with reaching towards zone 1
before I progress them to Zone 3 reaches.
If I can get my compressed subjects to
reach towards Zones 1 and 3, and exhale with
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force while pursing their lips, I’d be giving them
vital tools to help them recapture lost movement
capabilities. If I can get my expanded subjects
to reach towards Zone 2, and exhale effortlessly, with an open mouth, I’d also be giving
them vital tools to help them recapture lost
movement capabilities. Ultimately, we’re trying
to take someone who is biased towards one of
the respiratory archetypes and give him or her
an activity that recaptures the opposite archetype. If the subject can recapture the opposite
archetype, then they should have access to the
movement capabilities that lie between the two
archetype presentations.
Thank you Bill Hartman, for making me
think of the fractal nature of biology, and for
letting me see all of this having first examined
the thorax. My hope is that this book might
assist your aim of raising standards and practices used in the fitness and rehabilitation fields
through reinforcing and adapting your revolutionary model for systematic fitness development.
Sagittal Applications
If you do not like coaching the sagittal
plane, you are in the wrong line of work. Tempting as it may be, rushing through sagittal plane
drills to get to the frontal plane is ill-conceived,
because those frontal plane drills won’t work
without a sagittal foundation. What we’re going
to be looking for in the sagittal plane is humeral extension that can occur without a massive
compensatory anterior tilt of the scapula, and
humeral flexion that does not involve anterior
translation of the humeral head out the front of
the glenoid fossa, or compensatory posterior tilt
of the ribcage and hyperextension of the spine.
The goal is to be able to fully flex and extend your humerus without compensating at the
sternum, ribcage, scapula, or spine. Have you
ever seen someone try to press a bar overhead,
but the only way they can accomplish the action
is by arching their back to the highest possible
degree? That’s a good example of compensation through the spine and ribcage due to
an inability to fully flex the humerus. Have you
ever watched someone do rows, shrugging and
rolling their shoulders forward in the attempt? You’re watching compensation at the scapula,
for lack of humeral extension.
When I am evaluating the sagittal capabilities of the thorax and the arms, I’m typically
thinking about the following groupings of muscular activity:
For flexion, can my subject get the serratus anterior to move the scapula into abduction
(protraction) and upward rotation? Tight biceps
or pec minor are often cited as causing anterior tilt of the scapula, which would limit upward
rotation on an abducted scapula. This may
certainly be true. When we have agonist and
antagonist groups that exist on opposite sides
of a faulty joint, one group is usually long and
weak, while the other is short and tight. Be that
as it may, the solution tends to be more complicated than simply stretching the short side and
strengthening the weak side. Instead, what we
need to do is root cause the culprit responsible
for creating this short/long imbalance.
Fig 7.7 - Arm in flexion
Many highly muscular lifters demonstrate
limited shoulder ROM, and are incapable of
full flexion and extension. Is there a plague
of scapular dyskinesis running rampant in the
highly muscled? In reality, their limited shoulder
motion is probably being caused by the shape
the ribcage has assumed. Though you’re unlikely to find this in an anatomy textbook, muscles can create forces that compress inwards
on joints.
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We can think of the entire thorax as
being like one big synovial joint, and there
are muscles that create compressive forces
inward from the front, back, and sides. The
serratus anterior and external obliques compress inwards from the sides a bit like someone
squeezing an accordion. The pecs squeeze
you in from the front. The middle traps, rhomboids, and lats squeeze the posterior thorax
inwards towards the front. The argument that
is going to be made here is that a lot of people
who lift heavy weights all the time are going to
be creating anterior compressive forces on the
thorax via the pecs and posterior compressive
forces via the rhomboids, middle traps, and lats,
and that this combination will squeeze the rib
cage towards the middle from an anterior/posterior perspective, which would widen it side to
side in the medial/lateral direction.
When I think about the thorax during
a normal human activity like walking, I think
about how it has to rotate through space to help
you go forward. You step on your right heel
while walking, and your thorax is rotated right
with your left arm swinging forward to assist
the movement. When you land on your left
heel, the opposite trunk rotation and arm swing
occurs. In essence, the thorax turns back and
forth over and over while we walk. I picture this
almost like a car steering wheel having to turn,
or a rocking horse, or one of those pirate ship
rides at the fair.
The rib cage should be rounded or barrel-shaped to help it roll back and forth through
space when we walk and run. Now, imagine
what happens to a ribcage when it is compressed from the front and the back towards
the middle, and it widens out side to side. We
change the shape from barrel to more like that
of a pill capsule, or a rectangle, or a 2 x 4 board
of wood. Picture a 2 x 4 trying to rotate back
and forth through space. Think about riding the
pirate ship fair ride if it assumed this rectangular
kind of a shape. The ride would go straight up
on the sides, and then it would come straight
down until it gets to the bottom, whereupon it
would rotate 90 degrees and explode straight
ahead like a car on a flat track, only to get to the
other side where it would now have to take a
hairpin turn and go straight up. That would be a
hellacious ride.
Can you imagine how much more energy it would take to power the rectangular
pirate ship ride compared to the smooth arcing one we know and love? I bet the former
ride would also be susceptible to greater wear
and tear and require more frequent repairs as
well. Have you ever seen a really jacked guy
or a college wrestling team go for a jog? If you
have, maybe you can picture what I am describing. There is a very stereotypical movement
associated with seeing highly muscular people
run. The motion is a little choppier. Usually
the arms are sticking more out to the side. And
all things being equal, very muscular folks are
seldom known for their running economy and
endurance running prowess.
How does all of this relate to sagittal
plane arm motions? In order to achieve full arm
flexion, the scapula needs to be able to abduct
all the way to the midaxillary line (under your
armpit) so it can go through upward rotation. If
your rib cage has undergone some compression-induced shape change, it will have flatter
ribs on the back and the front, and it will be
wider than it was before. On a narrower, more
barrel-shaped thorax, the scapula needs to
travel a shorter distance to reach the midaxillary line. On a wider, more rectangular shaped
thorax, this distance is greater. The trouble is,
you only get so much total distance of motion. If you have gone through all your available motion, you’re done and you can go no farther.
The scapula is a bit like a car driving down a
road, where the road is the ribcage. When
highly muscular subjects are unable to get into
overhead positions, often, the car isn’t the problem... the road is. And a short, rounded road
makes for the best “trip” in our analogy, whereas a long, flat one spells trouble ahead.
Big, strong people tend to also be wide,
because being wide is a great adaptation for
lifting really heavy weights. If you’re wide, your
body will not rotate as easily, which is a good
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thing, since rotating while performing heavy
compound lifts is often very bad news for the
lifter. So, width is an advantage for moving
more weight. If you have a wider base on the
bench, you have a better structure to press
away from. Stances in the squat get wider and
wider as people get stronger. The sumo deadlift is quickly becoming the standard for moving
maximal weight in powerlifting. The body will
go through adaptations to gain this advantage. The exercise science research community
has done a good job of documenting changes in muscle size and shape, but, somehow, we have missed the boat about stereotypical
changes in the skeleton as a result of repeated
heavy lifting exposure.
Watch big, strong people try to swing
their arms up and down or backwards and forward through space. Their motions will typically
lack fluidly. At the bottom of the motion, where
the humerus attempts to go into extension but
doesn’t quite make it, it instead abducts, to be
able to move backwards to a greater degree. At
the top, it usually adducts with a flexed elbow,
and the fingertips move towards each other. If
you bench press over 400 pounds, give this a
try and see what happens. I bet you’ll get to the
top, and if you pause, your arms will be in a position for you to do a highly comedic overhead
pirouette...
Back to the structures in question, there
is just too much real estate for the scapula
to cover to allow the humerus to get into full
flexion and extension. Here’s what I want you
to try. Lie down on your side, and load some
heavy stuff onto the side of your hip and your
ribcage. I find weight vests and sandbags work
best here, but don’t be afraid of going fairly
heavy. I will often put about 150 pounds on the
side of my hip alone. Just lie there for a few
minutes and try to relax and breathe. You are
essentially crushing your hips and your ribs
towards the middle. If your problem is that you
have gotten too wide, use some outside force
(weighted vests, sandbags, etc) to make yourself narrower. See how you feel when you get
up. I won’t be the least bit surprised if you witness demonstrable increases in ROM displays,
and have a much easier time performing the
arm-swinging motion.
Most of us have heard the time-tested
adage that form dictates function. In other
words, the shape of things determines the ways
in which they can move, and the shape of the
skeleton is the form that dictates the function of
the animal’s movement. Though some look to
fascia to solve movement woes, muscle is the
driver of the movement bus, with fascia revealing the roads that the bus travels down, and
the skeleton determining the roads available. So, if you really want to change the movement
options available to someone, you’d want to
reshape and reposition that person’s skeleton. Incidentally, the ribcage is one of the most malleable parts of our skeleton. Not coincidentally,
scapular and humeral range of motion capabilities start to approach gold standards for table
tests only when the cage features its optimal
shape.
Frontal Applications
Have you ever seen a lizard climb up a
wall? Reptiles do an amazing job of closing
one side of their ribcage while simultaneously
opening the other side as they move through
space. This ability to create alternating mirror
asymmetry of the ribcage is a great representation of what we are trying to do for frontal plane
thoracic mechanics. Of course, the skeleton of
a reptile is a much older design than ours. As
discussed in our introductory chapters, the way
reptiles walk is somewhat similar to the frontal
plane actions that fish use to swim, whereas
quadruped mammals feature far less of this
pronounced frontal plane thoracic action while
ambulating. Very short limbs that shoot straight
out to the sides of their body compared to most
quadruped mammals, and bodies that are very
close to the ground evidence skeletal shape
differences that drive the lizard’s stereotypical
and prominent frontal plane movements.
Humans typically display a high degree
of frontal plane thoracic activity during movements that implicate vertical reach. If you are
trying to climb mountains, trees, or anything
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else, you’ll have to reach upwards with one
arm at a time. In doing so, you’ll open the
thorax on the side that you’re reaching with,
and close it on the opposite side. Opening the
thorax involves separating each rib from the
adjacent one, and closing the thorax involves
approximating the ribs on that side, as well as
side-bending towards the closed side.
We’ll also discuss shifting the center of
mass side to side in respect to the frontal plane
thorax. This involves the relative position of
your sternum and belly button to each of your
feet, as well as your head and pelvis. Think
back to our frontal plane motor competencies,
which revolve around centering the body mass
over each foot. With centering, we want to have
the nose over the sternum, over the belly button, over the zipper, over the stance side knee,
over the big toe of that foot. It’s not uncommon
to see the subject’s nose being positioned not
over the big toe but, instead, leaning towards
the pinky toe. Other folks list, positioning the
zipper over their stance-side foot, while the
sternum and nose careen towards the nonstance side foot. The cause of both leaning and
listing can sometimes be traced to frontal plane
thoracic mechanics. We should be closing the
thorax on the stance side, and opening it on the
other side. Opening the stance foot side of the
ribcage and closing the other side will result in
listing, while excessively closing the stance foot
side of the rib cage results in leaning.
From an anatomical standpoint, a few
thoraco-abdominal muscle groups are key
players in frontal plane factors. Namely, these
are the transversus abdominis (TA) and the
serratus anterior. When most people think of
the TA, they think of it as the abdominal vacuum muscle, which draws your belly button in
towards your spine. This muscle gained some
attention in the 90s, when the literature was
indicating that those with back pain displayed
decreased activity of the TA. After that came
out, everyone was drawing in at every possible
moment that they could. As with any time when
we myopically fixate on the role of one muscle,
this explanation did not pan out. Where I see
the TA shine is as a draw-in muscle, but when it
performs this function one side at a time. When
the left side of the TA can draw in on the side
of the body, this decreases abdominal volume,
and allows the ribs to move closer to the ilium
on this side, allowing the system to globally
move its mass to the left.
The serratus anterior originates on the
medial border of the deep side of the scapula,
runs laterally, wraps around the ribcage under
the armpit, and eventually interdigitates with
the external obliques on the front side of the
body. The serratus wraps around the side of
the body, and is almost like a hand grabbing the
under-armpit. Most of the time when we talk
about the serratus, we talk about it as a protractor and upward rotator of the scapula. But,
when I think of the serratus from a frontal plane
perspective, it also has the job of laterally shifting the thorax in the contralateral direction.
The idea of lateralizing your weight
through space is one that does not make its
way into anatomical texts, though its relevance
in the real world is paramount. Like any other
movement, lateralization is also powered by
muscles. The serratus anterior is the power
player of the thorax for this function. When
the right-side serratus anterior functions as a
thoracic contralateral lateralizer (a handy term
I absolutely just made up), I picture it as someone putting a hand under your armpit on the
right side and shoving your thorax to the left.
As we’ve already learned, being able to
center is the critical concept with frontal plane
related matters. The transverse abdominis on
one side and the serratus on the other side are
two really important frontal plane muscles for
getting the thorax to participate in centering the
entire body over the TA side foot. The TA participates in closing the abdominal space on its
side, which reduces the volume of the abdominal viscera and fluid. The serratus on the other
side forms a dome around the side of the ribcage under the armpit, and essentially rounds
out the ribcage. We talked about the importance of a round-shaped ribcage earlier in this
chapter. Part of the importance of maintaining
a rounded rib cage stems from the ability to bias
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air into the alveoli that are found in that compartment of the lung. If I can bias air into the
upper right lateral lung, this will increase volume
in this space, which will push mass out of that
space.
Thoracic movement is a process of
redistributing air, fluid, and volume into different
compartments in order to shift the bones around
in this space. Conversely, air, fluid, and volume are also shifted around via the movement
of bones. Asking which came first is a bit of a
chicken or the egg conundrum, but suffice it to
say they impact one another. Increased volume
in one area will create an eccentric orientation
of the muscles in that region. Getting the muscle to start behaving in an overcoming manner
to reach a concentric orientation results in a
decrease in volume, which creates more space
that can be filled. I prefer to work muscularly,
because I can exert definitive, conscious control over muscle tissue, which can in turn move
bones, altering the volume of that particular region of the skeleton. If I can exert control over
the skeleton, now I can create mirror asymmetry, which leads to the ability to open one side of
the axial skeleton, while simultaneously closing
the other side from a frontal plane perspective.
What is this ability to open and close
opposite sides of the ribcage all about? Really,
it comes down to being able to manage the fluid
movement of the abdominal cavity and the air
movement inside the lungs. You’ve got to be
able to squeeze the air out of one side of the
chest cavity and decrease the volume of air on
that side to move the bones in that direction
and center your mass over the foot on that side. You’ve got to be able to push fluids out of one
side of your abdominal cavity to allow the ilium
bone to elevate on that side, so you can center
your mass over that foot. You’ve got to be able
to put air and fluid into the opposite side so that
it increases the volume there, which will push
your body in the opposite direction.
If I want to move myself to the left in
space, I need to increase the volume of my right
side (expansion). The great movers redistribute
fluids and gasses in their body to the opposite
direction of where they want to go. Great movers take advantage of concentration gradients
as well as action/reaction principles, to move
themselves in the opposite direction of where
their fluids and gasses reside and take up the
most space. If you want to be great at change
of direction, you better have an amazing frontal plane thorax, and if you want a great frontal
plane thorax, you better be able to compress
one side while you expand the other.
Fig 7.8 - Serratus anterior
Transverse Applications
In regards to the thorax, the transverse
plane is the show. Humans are creatures
whose locomotion strategy involves a twisting
trunk. When it comes to distinct human actions
that separate them from other creatures, our
bipedal walking and running style is one example, and two other big ones are our ability to
throw projectiles, and our ability to punch. Apes
can hurl things, and kangaroos are known for
punching, but neither creature uses the same
methods humans employ for these actions. The members of our species that throw rockets
and can knock your head off your neck with a
punch manage to create the power that they do,
not from the arms, but rather with a powerful
twisting torso as the driver of the arms through
space.
Transverse thoracic activity is a bit like
the movement peak of the pyramid. When you
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see this motion capability being displayed, it is
because everything else is in place. Yet, when I
think of training transverse plane thoracic activity, I don’t wait until everything is perfect before
introducing it. To me, thoracic rotation activity
is a bit like pizza. When it comes to pizza, even
when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good. That said,
contaminated pizza can still make you sick, and
asinine rotational exercises can cause some serious injuries. But, having a basic understanding of the elements that drive transverse plane
actions versus sagittal or frontal plane actions,
you should be able to implement these principles pretty easily and effectively.
Sagittal plane thoracic training generally revolves around owning the sternal position
while recruiting the internal obliques to draw
the ribs down and back in space. The latter is
more elusive than it sounds, causing many of
the folks I train to believe that they are getting
their ribs down and back, when in reality, they
are just moving their sternums towards their
belly buttons, making their backs into the shape
of a turtle shell. My job here is to get subjects
to keep their sternums aimed at the level of the
horizon, while simultaneously getting their ribs
to move. I recommend attacking the sagittal
plane first, using drills involving bilateral arm
reaching in the proper region of the propulsion
arc.
Now that you can display sensorimotor
competency of the sagittal thorax, let’s play
with frontalism. To recruit ipsilateral TA, I need
to simultaneously have one arm reaching up
overhead, while the other arm reaches down
towards the feet. If I want to maximally recruit
serratus from a strictly frontal plane standpoint,
I need to reach forward with my arm on that
side. When performing a unilateral horizontal
reach for the frontal plane trunk via serratus, I
do not need to turn my sternum in the contralateral direction. Before we start doing that, we
need to demonstrate an ability to control the sternum and keep it pointing straight ahead. Once you have demonstrated that you can
control your sternum and lateralize your weight
so that it can center over each foot, transverse
trunk training can really commence at full
speed.
The primary difference in training between transverse thorax and frontal thorax will
come down to the direction in which you’re
reaching your arms. If I’m focusing on training
the frontal plane, I will be reaching vertically. If
I am focusing on training the transverse plane
I will be reaching horizontally. Most of this
training will involve both arms moving at the
same time, which is called alternate arm reaching. You can try it right now wherever you are. Reach upwards with your right arm while you
reach downwards with your left arm. Do you
feel the abs on the left side of your body work?
Do you feel the way your ribs and pelvis on
the left side approximate? If not, reach a little
more. Now, reach forward with your left arm
while you row your right elbow back. You are
moving your left arm into a compression zone
and your right into an expansion zone, so compress your left ribs. Do you feel your left abs
fire? Do you feel your ribs and thorax twisting
to the right? If not, reach and row a little more. Climbing, a primarily frontal plane thoracic
activity, is based on vertical reaching, whereas
punching and throwing, primarily transverse
plane thoracic activities, are based on horizontal reaching.
When it comes to muscles of the transverse plane, we have some important muscles
that rotate the spine, and some important muscles that move the ribs. The low trap is the big
player for thoracic spine rotation. The low trap
is a contralateral rotator of the thoracic spine,
whose attachment is on the spinous process of
the thoracic vertebrae. The spinous process
is the part of the vertebrae that projects backwards, off the backside of the vertebrae, resembling the mast of a boat. The low trap runs from
the inferior border of the scapula to the spinous
process of the thoracic vertebrae. The low trap
is a bit like the sail of a sailboat, which attaches
to the mast. From this perspective, when the
right low trap activates for transverse spinal
movement, it grabs onto the spinous process
and pulls it to the right, which turns the front
side of the body to the left. This is the primary
function I am looking to accomplish via horizon-
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tal reaching for transverse plane spinal movement.
Fig 7.9 - Low trapezius
At the level of the ribs, I see transverse
plane activity being a combination of internal
obliques, external obliques, and TA, collaborating to accomplish the rotational phenomenon. To truly turn the trunk to its highest levels, I
need to be able to coil and subsequently uncoil
the body. When I think of coiling, this means
that I am able to flex, side bend, and twist all
at the same time. To coil, I need the internal
obliques to draw the ribs down and back sagittally. To side bend, I need the TA to approximate the ribs with the pelvis on the side I’m
coiling towards. To twist, I need the contralateral side external obliques to coordinate with
the ipsilateral side internal obliques to rotate my
ribs. Thoracic plane trunk activity is a logistical
bee hive of muscular recruitment. This is why I
focus on subjects feeling their ribs rotate in the
sensory competency portion of transverse plane
training.
Training the Core Thorax Pattern
Available Planes: All
Available Stances: All
Available Loads: Low
Available Velocities: Low
Available Durations: Moderate and Long
Sagittal Bilateral Core Thorax
These exercises will involve bilateral
reaching. These are drills that can be customized for either a narrow or wide infra-sternal
angle. In the confines of the model that is being
presented here, I am basing my progressions
on the assumption that the subject’s thorax is
already neutralized, and that you are training
the core thorax for fitness. To me, one of the
big differences between fitness and rehabilitation is that rehab only puts people in certain,
specific positions associated with restoring
movement variability with the goal of alleviating the subject’s pain or discomfort. Training,
on the other hand, puts subjects into as many
positions as possible that can challenge the
organism to adapt in ways that drive it towards
specific sport or fitness goals. A great way to
systematize progressions for core thorax exercises is to follow the propulsion arc. Start
subjects with activities in Zone 1 (0 to 60 degrees of shoulder flexion), move to Zone 2 (60
to 120 degrees of shoulder flexion), and finally
go to Zone 3 (120 to 180 degrees of shoulder
flexion). When it comes to core thorax exercises, “reaching” is the key word we’ll come back
to over and over. Reaching is going to equal
abs. Cueing the reach will be covered in the
coaching points section, but, rest assured, it
will be the dominant movement in this realm
of exercise. With sagittal bilateral core thorax
exercises, the key was for the subject to feel his
or her heels going backwards as the knees go
forward. You could say that, with the core pelvis exercises, we are reaching the knees. With
the core thorax exercises, we are reaching the
arms. Core pelvis exercises also emphasized
feeling the heels go backwards as the knees go
forward. Similarly, with core thorax exercises,
the thorax will be going backwards as the arms
come forward. So, the key to creating the right
list of exercises that progress appropriately is to
put the subject in the best positions to facilitate
owning this concept of reaching arms forward, and feeling the back go backwards.
The following list is the progressions for
sagittal bilateral core thorax exercises. The exercises go from supine, to seated, to tall-kneeling, to quadruped, to standing, to squatting. Page
110
The decision to go to seated and tall-kneeling
prior to quadruped stems from the difficulty of
keeping your thorax back when your abs are
aimed straight down at the ground. The quadruped position is a difficult place to put a subject
whom you’re also asking to manage his or her
thorax and abdominal region relative to gravity. Ergo, putting someone in quadruped positions
too early gives rise to terrible planks, with backs
assuming the shape of horse saddles or turtle
shells:
1. Supine 90/90 hemi-bridge w/Zone 1… Zone
2… Zone 3 reach
2. Supine hook lying w/Zone 1… Zone 2…
Zone 3 reach
3. Supine 90/90 glute bridge w/Zone 1… Zone
2… Zone 3 reach
7. Quadruped w/ heels on wall
8. Quadruped
9. Standing w/back on wall w/Zone 1… Zone
2… Zone 3 reach
10. Standing w/Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3
reach
11. Squatting w/Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3
reach
Once we get subjects up into a seated
position with their hands off the ground, I like to
initially provide them with something they can
feel in their hands on their reaches. Sometimes, I’ll use a resistance band that is hooked
behind the subject to push against. Other
times, it’s a foam roller positioned vertically,
particularly in the tall kneeling position. Tall
kneeling with a Zone 2 reach is a very challenging drill that can really ramp up core musculature. When starting out with it, I find that
providing something the subject can feel with
his or her hands can boost confidence and help
own the position properly. As subjects get more
comfortable with the position and demonstrate
sensorimotor competency, I’ll have them remove hands from the roller and rely on nothing
but their axial skeleton control to maintain position. The same assisted reaching ideas used
in tall kneeling can be brought back in the more
difficult positions (standing and squatting) with
free hands.
Coaching Points
4. Seated w/Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3 reach
5. Tall kneeling w/feet on wall and w/Zone 1…
Zone 2… Zone 3 reach
6. Tall kneeling w/Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3
reach
With bilateral reaching exercises, I am
always trying to teach strategy, focusing on
the sternum as our main body landmark. The
reason we reach is to shift the mass of the
thorax backwards, and, when the thorax goes
backwards, the abdominal muscles naturally
fire. They do so because the sensation of the
thorax moving backwards when in a standing
position indicates to our brains that we might be
falling on our backs. Optimally positioned on the
front side of the body to prevent posterior falling of your thorax, your abdominals leap to the
rescue. So for simplicity’s sake, let’s say that
reaching equals thorax back, and thorax back
equals abdominal recruitment.
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The question becomes: which abdominals? I believe that the answer to this comes
down to determining the position of the sternum. With the sternum moving down towards
the belly button, a forward reach will recruit
rectus abdominis. If your sternum remains
aimed straight ahead at the horizon, then you
will be using your obliques. If you reach too far,
this effort will drag the sternum down. I typically
guide subjects through their full reach potential. When they start moving into the zone where
their sternum moves, I slow them down, have
them focus on what is happening, and notice
the moment when they feel their sternum drop. Most can quickly learn to stop reaching just
before the sternum is about to drop.
When I am using the supported reach
with the foam roller, I cue the subject very
specifically for how I want them to remove one,
and/or, both hands from the roller. Similarly to
how I’ll coach the heel taps exercise in the sagittal front/back core pelvis exercise, I will get the
subject to gradually load one hand into the roller
and simultaneously unload the other hand from
it. When done well, oftentimes, the unloaded
hand does not leave the roller, or barely lifts
off the roller. As we do this drill, I’ll remind the
subject that I do not want their thoracic position
to deviate even one millimeter, challenging him
or her to remain still as a statue. When cued to
keep the thorax still while moving their hands
slowly, subjects quickly notice how much they
shift, side bend, rotate, or bail out in one direction or another.
walls, perpendicular to one another in orientation. The subject simply places a foot on each
wall. A pillow, a couple airex pads or a yoga
block under the head should be provided for
these drills.
The following is a list of the sagittal front/
back core thorax exercises. These drills go
from supine, to side-lying, to half-kneeling, to
standing staggered, to split squatting. With the
supine activities, we’re starting in short lever
hamstring positions prior to moving to longer
lever glute drills. Throughout, we also utilize
opportunities for wall support for the feet, provided at every level of these exercises: 1. Supine 90/90 hemi-bridge w/stationary swing
heel tap w/Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3 reach
2. Supine 90/90 glute bridge w/stationary swing heel tap w/Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3 reach
3. Side-lying reciprocal 90/90 in a corner w/
Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3 reach
4. Half-kneeling w/rear foot on wall w/Zone 1…
Zone 2… Zone 3 reach
Sagittal Front/Back Core Thorax
In our front/back sagittal core thorax
exercises, the progressions follow along in a
similar manner to what we saw with the bilateral
stance. The primary difference in this stance
is that we have the advantage of the side-lying
reciprocal 90/90 position to take advantage of. This position can be hard to picture. Side-lying reciprocal 90/90 is basically a half kneeling
position, but flipped sideways and placed on the
ground, with the feet on a wall, or, rather, two
walls. A corner of a room is essential for being
able to do this exercise, as it provides the two
5. Half-kneeling w/Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3 reach
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6. Standing w/rear foot on wall w/Zone 1…
Zone 2… Zone 3 reach
7. Standing w/Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3 reach
8. Split squat w/rear foot on wall w/Zone 1…
Zone 2… Zone 3 reach
9. Split squat w/Zone 1… Zone 2… Zone 3
reach
Coaching Points
Though not listed here, do not be afraid
to use hand-supported reaches for any of the
non-ground-based drills. These are difficult positions to manage, and I recommend using the
same cueing approach of lifting one hand at a
time off the roller, increasing load into one hand
while unloading the other hand.
To set someone up for the half kneeling positions, I take advantage of the side-lying exercises quite a bit. In doing so, I really focus on
the feet, ingraining the importance of getting as
much of each foot to be in contact with the wall. In the case of these thorax drills, I’m going for
abs as the primary muscle group. Interestingly,
regardless of what sagittal muscles I’m going
for, once subjects achieve great foot contact
with the surface they’re on top of, they’re much
more likely to successfully find and feel the appropriate muscles.
Placing an object behind someone’s
back and head on the upright drills help those
who tend to drive their heads forward in the
upright drills. PVC pipes work well, and I’ll often
cue subjects to keep their butt, back, and head
on the pipe. From there, I have them reach
and breathe. I’ll cue them to try to exhale their
back into the pipe without letting their sternum
drop towards their belly button. This has really
helped some gain sensorimotor competency in
this stance.
Frontal Bilateral Core Thorax
As stated earlier in this chapter, the
primary difference between training the frontal
plane and the transverse plane is the direction
that you are reaching in. Frontal plane reaching
is going to involve one arm at a time, reaching
vertically. The arm reaching overhead is used
to open the thorax on that side, while closing
the thorax on the opposite side. Something that
I will reiterate over and over with core thorax exercises is ownership over the sternum. When
I start someone on sagittal core thorax drills, I
have him or her reach in a manner that does
not alter the position of the sternum by tilting
it down towards the belly button. When I start
someone on frontal plane core thorax drills, I
have him or her reach in a manner that does
not alter the position of the by tipping it side to
side like a metronome hand. I want subjects
to show me that they can open one side of the
thorax, close the other side of the thorax, and
keep the top and bottom of the sternum in the
same vertical line during the process. The point
of the early exercise progressions is to provide
the simplest path for accomplishing that goal,
while keeping in mind the other sensorimotor
competencies of the frontal plane.
The following is a list of the progressions for frontal bilateral thorax core exercises. These drills go from supine, to side plank, to
seated, to tall-kneeling, to standing, to squatting. They feature the term “reciprocal arms”,
which refers to having one arm reaching vertically while the other arm is reaching down in
the opposite direction. Typically, the arm that is
reaching down is bent at the elbow, so the cue
will be to bring the elbow towards the hip, with
that arm. With reciprocal arms, the objective
is not to continue to keep moving both arms
(which would make them “alternating arms”). Rather, the objective is to keep one arm reaching up, and the other reaching down for a certain amount of time/number of breaths/other
desired measure. Later in the book, we will get
to frontal plane vertical pushing and pulling. In
those sections, we’ll encounter the term “alter-
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nating arms”, wherein both arms are moving
continuously, and switching positions with one
another:
1. Supine 90/90 hemi-bridge w/reciprocal
vertical arms
2. Side plank w/short lever legs and top side hand on ground
3. Side plank w/short lever legs and top side
hand reaching vertical
4. Side plank w/long lever legs and top side
hand on ground
5. Side plank w/long lever legs and top side
hand reaching vertical
6. Seated w/reciprocal vertical arms
7. Tall kneeling w/feet on wall and w/reciprocal
vertical arms
8. Tall kneeling w/reciprocal vertical arms
9. Standing w/back on wall and reciprocal
vertical arms
10. Standing w/reciprocal vertical arms
11. Squatting w/reciprocal vertical arms
Coaching Points
For all these drills, the crucial coaching point is
control over the sternum. In the sagittal plane
drills, we were looking to control the sternum to
prevent it from tipping forwards or backwards
like a rocking horse. In frontal plane drills, we
are looking to control the sternum to prevent
it from tipping side to side like a metronome. Recall from the Big 10 Principles of Progression
that we are looking to start static. As in many
other areas of training, for these thoracic core
exercises, starting static, or creating appropriate
focal points that remain still, increases sensorimotor competency potential and ability to
optimize the drill.
With all of the drills listed above, we want
to start from a place of great vertical alignment
of their sternum. From there, we challenge
subjects to keep the sternum still in space
while they execute these drills. Those who can
create great reciprocal overhead reaching with
mirror asymmetry at the ribcage and a static,
frontal plane sternum “get it”, and can own their
bodies during these drills. Once someone has
developed that level of competency, we can
progress to drills that feature a dynamic frontal
plane sternum.
I coach the first exercise on the list
almost as if I was having someone do a wall
slide. I position them with the entire back of
their arm, wrist, and hand of both arms on the
floor. Assuming this position can be difficult,
particularly for extremely tight subjects. In such
cases, I will modify the drill in one of a couple
of ways. One way to modify is to continue to
widen the arms until the hands are very far
away from the body laterally. If the person
cannot get the back of his or her arms on the
ground at all, you can put something under the
arms, like a blanket, and have him or her slide
the blanket up and down on the ground. I will
also sometimes assist the subject with moving
his or her arms. I’ll do this by gripping the wrist
and helping to push and pull the arms into the
desired positions.
The side plank is a very useful drill in this
plane and pattern. Being in the plank should
strongly assist in closing the side of the thorax closest to the ground. Sometimes, having
the top hand on the ground can cause problems with the sternum position, particularly in
the sagittal plane. The reason for this is that
subjects will often lack the ability to create this
reach without tipping the sternum down towards
the belly button. When I see this, I simply bring
the ground up (so to speak) to his or her hand. I’ll use boxes to accomplish this task, and I’ll
often stack them as high as 6-8”.
When you get to the tall-kneeling drills
and the subsequent progressions where subjects are up off the ground, you may need some
hand assists for the down-side hand. Typically,
I’ll put a short foam roller next to the body on
the down side arm, and have subjects push
down into that roller. This helps them maintain
balance, keep their thorax closed on that side,
and demonstrate better sensorimotor competency when we segue into the upright drills.
Frontal Front/Back Core Thorax
In these drills, we’re after a display of
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sagittal competencies at the pelvis, and targeting the frontal plane elements of the thorax
in a front/back staggered stance. In the prior
category, displaying strong sagittal control over
the pelvis was also a focus. If you do not have
a sagittally-competent pelvis, and attempt to do
frontal drills in the thorax, you are, “firing a cannon out of a canoe”. To ensure you’re not firing
a rocket off a sinkhole, you need a solid base to
push another object off of it. In the progressions for these frontal front/
back core thorax drills, we will be moving from
supine drills to side plank drills to half-kneeling
drills to retro step drills to staggered-standing
drills to split-squat drills. There are a lot of positions for these drills. Same as for the previous
group of exercises, control of the sternum in all
directions is important, as is putting effort into
reaching.
With the side plank drills, you’ll see that
there is only one version, which is a short-lever
side plank, performed from a reciprocal 90/90
position with an extended top leg. This is a drill
that can be performed well in a corner. In this
drill, the bottom leg is flexed 90 degrees at the
hip, and the knee is in front of you. The top leg
is extended at the hip and flexed at the knee,
creating the appearance of a half kneeling/split
squat position. This drill works best when you
can have both feet pushing into a wall. With the
first side plank drill, bring the ground up to the
subject if his or her position is being compromised by attempts to get his or her hand to the
ground. There is a retro step in this grouping
of exercises, which tends to put the pelvis into
a frontal plane-dominant position. Though well
and good if you’re going for a strong frontal
plane pelvis, but that’s not the intended focus
here. The following is the list of exercises for
frontal plane, front/back stance, core thorax
activities:
1. Supine 90/90 hemibridge w/heel tap
w/reciprocal vertical reaching
2. Supine 90/90 glute bridge w/heel tap
w/reciprocal vertical reaching
3. Reciprocal 90/90 side plank w/top leg
extended, top hand on ground
4. Reciprocal 90/90 side plank w/top leg
extended, arm vertical reach
5. Retro step w/stance foot elevated and
reciprocal vertical reaching
6. Retro step w/reciprocal vertical reaching
7. Half kneeling w/back foot on wall and
reciprocal vertical reaching
8. Half kneeling w/reciprocal vertical reaching
9. Standing w/back foot on wall and reciprocal
vertical reaching
10. Standing w/reciprocal vertical reaching
11. Split squat w/back foot on wall and
reciprocal vertical reaching
12. Split squat w/reciprocal vertical reaching
Coaching Points
These are exercises that are a good
choice for athletes who do a lot of running that
involves cornering. Cornering is not quite a
change of direction, but is more like running
rounded routes. You see cornering all the time
in certain positions in sports like basketball
and football. Perimeter shooters often have
to display this ability when running around the
baseline and then coming off screens to catch
the ball on the wing. In football, we see this
with receivers getting a ball on a reverse, or an
edge rusher trying to get around a left tackle. Cornering is also important in baseball when
base running.
In all these examples of cornering in
sport, being able to take advantage of leaning
is very important. To corner effectively, you’ve
got to be able to control the position of the fluids
and organs in your thoraco-abdominal space. You’re always going to be moving in the opposite direction of the high volume of guts and
fluids, which means you have to close one side
and open the other. This also means that you
will always be curving towards the closed side. These drills put subjects in positions that necessitate putting one foot in front of the other, as
when running, and offer practice at closing and
opening the sides of the thorax. Mastery of this
ability at low velocities is a prerequisite for replicating it when the difficulty of the task increases
due to increased velocity and/or force.
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For these drills, the coaching focus
should be on the feet, the reaching, and the
breath. Though each of these areas is applicable to practically any core exercise category,
they are especially important here. The front/
back stance provides a smaller base of support
than the bilateral one, and the thorax shifting
back and forth laterally in space challenges our
ability to maintain proper weight distribution
over the feet. In absence of well-anchored feet,
a quality sagittal plane pelvis is unlikely, without
which one is destined to flail in the wind during
both reaching and thoracic activity, accomplishing little as you do. Once you have your base,
coach reaching to open and close the sides of
the thorax, and breathe in a manner that furthers the ability to reach and open and close.
Frontal Lateral Core Thorax
There are a lot of drills provided for this
category, but there are only three positions
listed here. The most prominent position in this
category is the side plank position, and the one
in which many will permanently remain once
this pattern, stance, and plane makes its way
into their training algorithm. In my experience,
any time the lateral stance appears, I know I’m
going to have to coach intensively, and probably get very hands on. I’m reminded of the
way my grandfather taught me to hit a baseball. He would stand behind me and put his hands
on the bat alongside mine so we could swing
together. The purpose of this “four-handed”
swing was to ingrain me with the pathway for
bringing the bat through. Similarly, coaching
these drills requires getting hands-on with the
subject’s pelvis, and guiding it through space
from start to finish. When I look at these frontal plane, lateral
stance, core thorax exercises, I see subjects
changing directions in a shuttle run. In a core
thorax drill, I’m freezing time right at the point of
the change of direction. When we are upright
and performing shuttle runs, everything is happening fast, and I want the person to just react
instinctively. My only cues during a shuttle run
will be “be an athlete”, “be aggressive”, “go get
it”, “quick, quick, quick”, or, “hammer”. When it
is time to perform the core exercises, I’m hoping
to slow cook the subject’s stance side adductors
and frontal plane abs. I will never cue, “brace”,
or “squeeze”. The most I’ll do is guide and
instruct the subject to get into the right position. When the position is achieved, the muscles find
the subject, not the other way around.
If you truly appreciate the details of the
most perfect cut someone can make in a shuttle
run, you would simply recreate this position in
all of these drills. The easiest place to start to
recreate this position is in a side plank, with the
top leg passively abducted (you would be cutting off the bottom leg in this scenario). From
the side plank, the next available position is
lateral kneeling, and finally, we come upright for
a lateral squat position. The following is the list
of frontal lateral core thorax drills:
1. Side plank w/top leg supported, abducted w/
short leg levers and top hand on ground
2. Side plank w/top leg supported, abducted w/
short leg levers and vertical reaching top arm
3. Side plank w/top leg supported, abducted w/
long leg levers and top hand on ground
4. Side plank w/top leg unsupported, abducted w/short leg levers and vertical reaching
top arm
5. Side plank w/top leg unsupported, abducted
w/short leg levers and top hand on ground
6. Side plank w/top leg unsupported, abducted
w/short leg levers and top hand reaching vertical
7. Side plank w/top leg unsupported, abducted
w/long leg levers and top hand on ground
8. Side plank w/top leg unsupported, abducted
w/long leg levers and top hand reaching
vertical
9. Lateral kneeling w/stance leg ipsilateral arm
supported & contralateral arm vertical reach
10. Lateral kneeling w/reciprocal vertical
reaching
11. Lateral squat w/stance foot elevated,
ipsilateral arm supported & contralateral arm vertical reach
12. Lateral squat w/stance leg ipsilateral arm
supported & contralateral arm vertical reach
13. Lateral squat w/stance foot elevated &
reciprocal vertical reaching arms
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14. Lateral squat w/vertical reciprocal reaching
arms
Coaching Points
As with previous exercise types that utilize a side plank, I want to see a sternum that is
perfectly parallel with the ground, and devoid of
compensatory pump handle down sagittal plane
activity. To accomplish this with a top hand on
the ground, it is likely that I will have to bring the
ground up to the hand via boxes or some other
object.
For fans of coaching the Copenhagen side
plank, this is the category of exercises to which
it belongs, falling under progression numbers 3
and 4. If you can coach a Copenhagen with a
hip shift and sagittal plane sensorimotor competencies, you will exponentially enhance this drill.
With all of these drills, you want to strive
for creating the see-saw pelvis movement, as
well as the armpit moving towards the ilium
bone that is raised up in space to maximally
close the thorax on that side. To maximize the
see-saw pelvis, I coach the subject to reach
long through the swing side foot. I’ll often cue
to reach the foot away from the armpit and the
armpit away from the foot on that side.
The lateral kneeling drill offers a nice
transition between the ground and being fully
upright. I’ll put one knee on a bench, or boxes,
which should come up to just about the height
of the subject’s knee. Kneeling on the one
knee will flex it on this leg. For greater sagittal
plane sensation, I’ll frequently put this kneeling,
stance-side leg’s foot up against a wall. The
leg that is not on the bench will be kicked out to
the side in an abducted femur, extended knee
position.
Keep in mind that these drills are in the
thorax core section and not the pelvis core
section. While you could coach the hell out of
these drills in a fashion that targets late propulsion on the leg that is kicked out, and early
to mid-propulsion on the stance-side leg, programming these drills as thorax core activities
places the focus on the abs. Put the focus on
the thorax, targeting which is predominantly
accomplished by reaching with the arms. With
the frontal plane thorax, the reaching direction
is vertical: one arm going up, and the other arm
going down. I require subjects to show me that
they can accomplish this reach in these positions with planar competency without affecting
the position of the sternum. Once the drill can
be executed with a controlled, static sternum,
move to executing it with a controlled, dynamic
sternum.
Transverse Bilateral Core Thorax
Transverse thorax activity is essentially
upper body locomotion drills slowed down to
a snail’s pace. Given our upright style of gait,
we are frontal plane pelvis pumpers, and transverse thorax twisters. If I want to completely
focus on the transverse elements of the thorax,
the most obvious stance to use is a bilateral
symmetrical stance. In this stance, I can maximize the sagittal plane competencies of the
pelvis, while keeping it in place and noting the
rotational elements of the thorax happening
above it. In order for one thing to move with
sensorimotor competence, something else must
stay still. To facilitate transverse plane thoracic
activity, we will be performing drills that involve
horizontal reaching with the arms, and we will
demonstrate control over the sternum in the
process.
The sternum is one of the three, “S”,
bones covered in PRI courses. These are the
sphenoid, the sternum, and the sacrum, and all
three are non-paired, midline bones. With most
of our bones, there is a left and right counterpart, but this is not the case with the S bones. Being located at our midlines, the S bones also
represent the frontal plane center of mass. One
S bone represents cranial centering, another,
thoracic centering and the third, pelvic centering. When we can get them to line up over
each other with mirror asymmetry movement
taking place around them, we are able to balance optimally over each foot, move extremely
fluidly, change direction easily, and maximize
economy for gait. When it comes to the thorax,
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we’re looking for the ability to keep the sternum
fixed in space first and foremost, while creating
mirror asymmetry movement of the ribs around
the sternum. Once this ability is demonstrated,
we can do drills that promote movement of the
sternum. The same logic would apply to the
other S bones.
For transverse plane, bilateral stance,
core thorax exercises, we have drills performed
in supine, seated, tall-kneeling, standing, quadruped, and squatting positions. Quadruped
drills come fairly late in this category. The
reason is that these drills are incredibly difficult
to perform in the quadruped position, requiring
insanely powerful core control. Simply put:
don’t rush folks through the progressions here. These drills are extremely difficult, and blowing
through them really fast and sloppy robs subjects of getting any benefits from them. The
following is the list of transverse bilateral thorax
core exercises:
1. Supine w/reciprocal horizontal reaching
2. Seated w/reciprocal horizontal reaching
3. Tall kneeling w/feet on wall and reciprocal
horizontal reaching
4. Tall kneeling w/reciprocal horizontal reaching
5. Standing w/back on wall and reciprocal
horizontal reaching
6. Standing one arm support and opposite arm
horizontal reaching and rowing
7. Standing w/reciprocal horizontal reaching
8. Quadruped w/alternating hand loading &
unloading
9. Quadruped w/alternating hand lifts
10. Squatting w/one arm support and opposite
arm horizontal reaching and rowing
11. Squatting w/reciprocal reaching
Coaching Points
Attempting these drills without a sagittal competent pelvis is a waste of time. When
starting out on these drills, get the hamstrings to
pull the pelvis under the body, keep the sternum still, reach slowly with an awareness for
what the reaching does to sternal position, and
ensure proper breathing. If there is no sagittal
competency, the drill will feel completely worth-
less, but, if sagittal competency is maintained
and sternal compensation is eliminated, the drill
will be ferocious.
With all of these drills, there is a progression from a static sternum to a dynamic
sternum. The first paragraph explained the
approach you would take with a static sternum. Ultimately, you do want to begin training
a dynamic transverse sternum. When doing so,
the key is connecting compression of the contralateral abdominal wall to the rotation. This
means that if you want to rotate your trunk and
sternum to the left, you will need to compress
the right abs. The primary muscle group you are
looking to reach a concentric orientation with
is the right external obliques. You do not want
to lose a control of the ipsilateral ab wall while
creating rotation in that direction. The ipsilateral
ab wall needs to still leverage the sagittal plane
dominant internal obliques, and frontal plane
dominant TA.
With the supine drills, you can start with
short levers in a 90/90 hemibridge drill and
progress to longer levers in a glute bridge if you
would like, which would denote a logical progression. Just keep in mind that the focus here
is on the thorax, so find a supine position for the
pelvis that is “good enough” and stay there so
you can focus on the thorax. With seated drills,
I’ve found that using a rowing ergometer is a
great option. Sitting backwards on the rower,
you can use the feet of the rower as reference
for your subject’s heels, so that he or she is
essentially doing an upright 90/90 hemibridge in
a seated position. You can hook bands around
the rower display panel behind him or her, and
use those as resistance if you would like to provide RNT for the drill.
I personally use the Keiser bilateral chest press
machine a lot for the seated exercises. I like it
because each hand moves independently, and
there is a back rest on the machine that provides reference for where the user’s thorax, pelvis, and cranium positions in space. Coaching
on the Keiser with the backrest also makes it
easy to spot when subjects pump handle down
their sternum during the drill.
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To me, the differences between transverse core thorax drills and transverse horizontal pushing and pulling drills amount to both
exercise velocity and exercise intent. When
pushing and pulling, my intent is that of moving
external load, rather than exerting maximal control over my axial skeleton. During pushing and
pulling drills, there is some attention on control,
but it is minimal attention to the axial skeleton. By contrast, when doing core exercises, the
amount of weight being moved is irrelevant, as
the intent is on axial control. During core drills,
there is some attention on moving arms, but it
is minimal attention on the force or velocity of
arm action. Transverse horizontal pushing drills
may look exactly the same as transverse thorax
core drills, but the subject’s focus is quite different from one to the other. Know the desired
outcome of . each drill, and divide and conquer
based on the unique intent of each. 1. Supine 90/90 hemibridge w/heel tap,
w/reciprocal horizontal reaching
2. Supine 90/90 glute bridge w/heel tap,
w/reciprocal horizontal reaching
3. Top leg forward w/short lever side plank, top
hand horizontal reaching and rowing
4. Top leg forward w/long lever side plank, top
hand horizontal reaching and rowing
5. Retro step w/stance foot elevated and
reciprocal horizontal reaching
6. Retro step w/reciprocal horizontal reaching
Transverse Front/Back Core Thorax
This is a category of exercise with a
tremendous number of progressions, and a
wide range of applications. To me, this category is the foundation for what the thorax does
in walking, running, throwing and punching
alike. Gait, along with throwing and punching,
are universal human stereotypical movements,
and critical movement patterns for our species. With these core exercises, we’re just accentuating these actions, and freezing time at critical
points. If I was forced to choose which plane
and stance was most important for the thorax, I
would choose this category. But, be forewarned
that this is another extremely advanced category, so, even though it is incredibly important,
do not rush to get here. Instead, take your time
building the foundation, such that, when you do
arrive here, the subject is more apt to do the
drill correctly and receive its benefit.
The positions available for this category
are numerous. For starters, we have supine,
side plank, retro step, half-kneeling, standing,
and split squat available to us. The following is
the list of drills for transverse plane, front/back
stance, core thorax activities:
7. Half kneeling w/back foot on wall and
reciprocal horizontal reaching
8. Half kneeling w/reciprocal horizontal reaching
9. Half kneeling unloaded windmill w/back foot
on wall
10. Half kneeling unloaded windmill
11. Standing w/back foot on wall and reciprocal
horizontal reaching
12. Standing w/reciprocal horizontal reaching
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13. Standing unloaded windmill w/back foot on wall
14. Standing unloaded windmill
15. Split squat w/back foot on wall and
reciprocal horizontal reaching
16. Split squat w/reciprocal horizontal reaching
17. Split squat unloaded windmill w/back foot on wall
18. Split squat unloaded windmill w/back foot on
wall
Coaching Points
The half-kneeling windmill drill is one of
my personal favorite exercises to coach. It is a
drill that demonstrates how useless an activity can be when planar competencies are not
observed, and how devastatingly effective a drill
can become when competencies are present. Once subjects gain sagittal competency by way
of feeling both heels and hamstrings, I center
them in the frontal plane, have them twist the
thorax in the transverse plane. Here again,
I’ll often see eyes as wide as saucers, telling
me the subject feels the real deal. Initially, this
drill will typically require a lot of constraints,
which I will often use my hands to provide. For
instance, I’ll have to hold the subject’s hips
laterally in space over the stance foot side (the
front foot), while blocking his or her femur from
laterally shifting outside his or her foot the minute he or she starts to reach for the ground with
the down-hand.
The toughest aspect of coaching these
drills is tracking the pelvis laterally in space. Subjects will frequently allow the pelvis to drift
away from the stance leg side, towards the
swing leg side. The drifting pelvis is a lazy,
non-muscular strategy employed in attempting
to accomplish the task. Getting subjects to re-
main stacked in the frontal plane will force them
to use adductors, glute med, and obliques all at
the same time. Using those muscles simultaneously is difficult and energy costly… two things
we humans generally find disagreeable. If the
subject has yet to learn how to hip shift, do not
bring him or her to this category of exercise. If
he or she isn’t quite proficient at sagittal plane
drills, he or she isn’t ready for this category,
which is presented near the end of this chapter
for a reason. Start at the beginning, and move
towards it slowly and gradually, resisting the
urge to eat dessert before dinner.
Transverse Lateral Core Thorax
Athletes like baseball players and tennis players get into this stance and frequently
demonstrate rotation through the thorax in
their respective sport. Observing how baseball
players hit the ball, at the point of contact and
midway through the follow-through, we find the
athlete in the position referred to as “power
L”. The power L is really a lateral stance with
a transverse trunk moving the limbs and bat
through the zone. Tennis players have to rotate
their trunk with power all the time in their sport,
and they do not get to choose which stance
they will be in prior to their shot. Tennis players
assume every imaginable stance, with every
gradation in between the archetypical stances
we focus on in the training world. Generally
speaking, flat plane rotational actions like a
baseball swing require the ability to transition
between bilateral stances and lateral stances
while featuring incredible torque through the
trunk for high-level performance. Being able to
get the athletes into the prerequisite positions
for optimizing this type of rotational power is the
job of the transverse plane lateral stance core
thorax exercises.
There are three positional options for
these lateral stance transverse plane core
thorax exercises. The starting drills are performed in a side plank with the top leg held in
an abducted position. These drills can also be
performed in a lateral kneeling position, as well
as a lateral squat. The list of transverse plane,
lateral stance, core thorax exercises is as
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follows:
1. Side plank w/top leg supported, abducted w
short leg levers and horizontal reaching top
arm
You need to have a frontal plane competent pelvis as your foundation for performing these drills. Any time you are in a lateral
stance, you are automatically in the frontal
plane for the pelvis. When we have a frontal
plane pelvis, this means we need a hip shift,
and a see-saw pelvis, with the high side of the
see-saw on the side of the pelvis that we are
shifting into. The tendency with these drills is
for subjects to lose his or her hip shift while
trying to reach the arms, particularly when it
comes to the alternating reaches at the end of
these progressions.
2. Side plank w/top leg supported, abducted w
long leg levers and horizontal reaching top
arm
3. Side plank w/top leg unsupported, abducted w/short leg levers and horizontal reaching top
arm
4. Side plank w/top leg unsupported, abducted
w/long leg levers and horizontal reaching top
arm
5. Lateral kneeling w/stance leg ipsilateral arm
supported & contralateral arm horizontal
reach
Please note that these are the most difficult core thorax drills available, geared towards
highly competent athletes of an advanced training age. Even if the subject meets this criteria,
make sure he or she really needs these drills in
his or her program. An offensive lineman does
not need to have these drills included in his
program. If you determine that this activity is
critical for the athlete you work with, first make
certain that he or she is competent in the sagittal plane for the pelvis and the thorax. Once
he or she is competent sagittally, you need to
make sure he or she has frontal plane competency for the pelvis. Lastly, also make sure the
athlete is competent in the transverse plane in
the other stances before moving to this stance. As you’re seeing, there are a lot of prerequisite
boxes to check off before arriving at these drills,
so do your best to not get over-excited and rush
athletes here.
6. Lateral kneeling w/reciprocal horizontal
reaching
7. Lateral squat w/stance foot elevated,
ipsilateral arm supported & contralateral arm
horizontal reach
8. Lateral squat w/stance leg ipsilateral arm
supported & contralateral arm horizontal
reach
9. Lateral squat w/stance foot elevated &
alternating horizontal reaching arms
10. Lateral squat w/horizontal alternating
reaching arms
Dominant Positions and Fitness Realms
Coaching Points
•Dominant stance: Sport specific
•Dominant plane: Transverse
•Dominant load: Low
•Dominant velocity: Low
•Dominant duration: Moderate
The transverse plane is the show when
it comes to the core thorax pattern. Getting the
trunk to twist effectively is key to many of the
actions that were important to humans from an
evolutionary perspective, as well as those that
matter in many modern sports. Athletes who
can rotate fluidly and with power are the ones
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who make jaws drop, and boast legions of fans. This ability to make the thorax twist has a couple of prerequisite cornerstones, namely axial
sagittal competency and respiratory variability. Show me someone who has great sagittal axial
alignment, who can fully expand and compress
with ventilation, with a halfway decent anthropometric set up and fiber type, and I’ll show you
someone who can likely rotate and successfully
compete in many sports.
Someone who has movement variability,
knows how to breathe, can get into great core
positions, and understands what his or her body
is doing in space, this athlete can be trained at
a high level with all the fun, dynamic patterns
that will make up the remainder of the book. If
you are invested in an athlete’s long-term development, and have the opportunity to guide this
athlete from a young age, make sure not to skip
over the foundational patterns covered in the
first seven chapters of this book. Remember
that breathing and core exercises develop the
mind-muscle connection, which really allows
subjects to understand where they are and how
to control their bodies in space.
And, once you and your subject have done the
hard work of achieving that control and confidence, time to put in a twin turbo engine, and
party!
08
Pattern 4: Locomotion
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Pattern 4:
Locomotion
Chapter 8
As we’ve discussed, perhaps the most defining
characteristic of the human animal is the upright
stance with bipedal locomotion. The shift to
being upright is what Darwin originally posited
as the critical variable that led to the evolution
of our species as it currently stands (pun intended). This chapter does not intend to overload
you with the minutiae of the gait cycle. Instead,
it is intended to point out all of the potential
locomotion activities that we can possibly train,
and how to go about training the really important ones.
In this book, locomotion is going to be
considered rhythmic, cyclical movements that
are intended to move the organism through
space. Examples of activities that fall under
that description are walking, running, cycling,
swimming, crawling, and climbing. This is by no
means an exhaustive list, however, as there is
an incredibly wide range of locomotion activi-
ties, and specific skill coaches would be needed
to teach the intricate movements for some of its
variants. For instance, not being a swim coach,
I will not be covering technique or program design for swimming locomotion.
Locomotion has a lot of training options
to it, because, when you really start considering the category more carefully, many training
activities begin to emerge. The one big limitation in the locomotion category is in the realm
of stance, where only one option, the front/back
stance is found. Other than this one constraint,
there are a lot of examples of different activities
that are good choices for training locomotion
in different planes, and with different loading,
velocity, and duration zones.
For low load and low to moderate velocity activities, we can break our choices down
into activities that make sense based on the
plane that you are trying to target. In many instances, the design of the device you are training on, determines the plane you are targeting. The following list provides some common training tool choices for targeting each plane at low
load, and low to moderate velocity:
•Sagittal plane available options: Crawling, Spin
Bike, Jacob’s Ladder
•Frontal plane available options:
VersaClimber
•Transverse plane available options: Arm & Leg
Bike, Swimming
•Tri-Planar available options: Bipedal gait
(walking and jogging)
For low load and high velocity activities,
there are some options for training locomotion. Page
124
When the velocity reaches critically high levels,
these choices all basically become drills that
you perform in a sagittal manner. The most obvious choice is sprinting for most subjects who
are not injured or overweight at time of training. In these cases, other low load, high velocity
locomotion activities may be more suitable,
including the VersaClimber, arm and leg bikes,
and spin bikes.
rationale for categorizing crawling as a sagittal
activity, I think about it in relation to how mammals evolved over time and differentiated themselves from reptiles. When you watch a mammal walk on all fours as compared to a lizard,
the activities are very different-looking. Lizards
use much more frontal plane axial skeleton
activity, and mammals feature a more sagittal
approach.
There is also the realm of moderate to
high load locomotion. In this realm, you have
loaded carries available to you. This chapter features a progressive implementation of
specific loaded-carry drills. If you follow these
recommendations, you will make the right drill
choice for starting loaded carries, and progress
subjects appropriately, up to the most difficult
activities of this type.
When I think about mammals versus non-mammals, I often think about the approaches whales
and dolphins take in the water versus the approaches that snakes and lizards take on land. The animals that evolved from fish—the classical frontal plane-utilizing, aquatic vertebrate
animal—but migrated to land; continued to
use this frontal plane strategy on the terrestrial
surface. We can see this frontal plane strategy
at its highest level in observing snakes, who are
essentially “swimming” on land. Over time, terrestrial animals evolved new methods for locomotion. Being newer on the evolutionary scene
than reptiles, mammals employ the sagittal style
of traveling from point A to point B, which is
distinct from the reptilian approach. Interestingly, not all mammals chose to stay on land. The
animals that became dolphins and whales were
mammals that returned to the sea, and they
brought their sagittal style with them. As such
(and as previously observed), you could say
that dolphins “run” through water.
Training Locomotion
Overview
Available Stances: Front/back
Available Planes: All
Available Loads: All
Available Velocities: All
Available Durations: All
Low Load, Low to Moderate Velocity
Locomotion
Sagittal Plane Options
The header “Sagittal Plane Options” may
be off putting in the context of locomotion, given
that, strictly speaking, all locomotion is triplanar
in nature. While its triplanar nature is technically true, for optimum training usefulness, it
serves us to categorize movement into groupings that feature a dominant characteristic. In
the case of sagittal plane locomotion training,
three exercises fall in this realm: crawling, the
spin bike, and the Jacob’s Ladder.
Crawling is the type of exercise that critics would call highly multi-planar. To explain my
The primate lineage has gone from using
a quadruped locomotion style to displaying a
bipedal strategy with the advent of humans. Our knuckle-dragging primate relatives and
other kinds of quadruped mammals do attempt
to rear up on their hind legs and ambulate from
time to time. When these non-human mammals
attempt to walk with a bipedal strategy, they’re
typically unable to fully extend and achieve a
fully upright stance, and they typically rock
back and forth in the frontal plane when they try
to go forward. This excess swaying movement
is compensatory frontal plane activity. Down on
all fours, these mammals display high sagittal
competency, but lose it when presented with
the greater anti-gravity management challenge
inherent in a longer-lever position. As we have
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covered, what we are seeing here is Jacksonian
Dissolution at work. These animals can’t execute bipedal walking, so they try to swim. The
same concept would apply to humans: if I ask
you to crawl forward from a quadruped position,
you’ll likely display sagittal competency in favor
of aberrant frontal plane motion.
When I drill crawling, I start subjects
on their hands and knees, and just have them
crawl forwards and backwards. To progress
crawling, I’ll ask the subject to bring his or her
knees one inch off the ground, but no higher. Most of the time, people bring their knees
higher and higher, which brings their butt much
higher off the ground, and the drill breaks down
as the person starts displaying too much compensatory “multi-planar” movement. I use air
quotes around multi-planar, because what you
typically see is actually pseudo-transverse
plane movement. I call it the pseudo-transverse
plane, because, in reality, nothing is really rotating or dissociating. Instead, the center of mass
orients back and forth, like a weather vane, with
wasted, compensatory activity that is unproductive and indicative of fatigue accumulation. High level crawling is where body parts stay in
line, and the body as a whole doesn’t shift or
rock back and forth. When you see excessive
accessory movement, shut the drill down, or
return the subject back to his or her hands and
knees to try again.
The reason that the subject starts to
display compensatory frontal/transverse movement in crawling patterns is because he or she
loses sagittal sensorimotor competency. To
prevent this, I would hold off on crawling patterns until your subject has been thoroughly
trained on the pelvis and thorax core exercises
from the previous chapters. This is in keeping
with our “go from static to dynamic” principle of
progression. Make sure the subject possesses
the ability to do quadruped activities, with heels
both on and off the wall, and can maintain position for adequate duration prior to making the
move to crawling. Keeping sagittal centering is
extremely difficult. People usually end up with
either the skull or the thorax in front of the pelvis
at some point during quadruped and crawling
drills. A focus on keeping sagittal centering will lead to proper
execution of crawling drills.
The spin bike is a popular device that
requires very little knowledge or coaching
prowess to use. Perhaps due the low level of
skill involved, or the low impact on the joints, or
their gregarious group nature, spin classes are
a very popular exercise class. My recommendation for coaches who choose to train subjects
using the spin bike is to find elements that can
be quantitatively tracked, such as heart rate via
a heart rate monitor. Alternatively, some bikes
have built-in quantitative display panels that
show you the level of resistance, the watts, and
the distance traveled. But, if you can measure
something, knowing this, subjects will typically
put in more effort, and you as the coach will
gain the ability to monitor their training volume
and determine their exercise intensity.
Essentially a ladder with wooden rungs
on an inclined treadmill track, the Jacob’s Ladder is my personal favorite device in this category. Using this device feels like some kind
of hybrid between climbing and crawling. The
~ 30 degree angle the piece sits on renders
moving easier than climbing a ladder or crawling on the ground, twenty straight minutes of
each of which would be brutal, if not downright
impossible. That said, I do not want to give the
impression that using this machine is a climb/
crawl in the park, so to speak. On the contrary,
the Jacob’s Ladder is one of the most unforgiving pieces of equipment I have ever used,
that would probably be welcome in any of the
9 Circles of Hell. But, the beautiful thing about
the Jacob’s Ladder, is that most will automatically put themselves in a perfect sensorimotor
competency position when using it, and will feel
glutes, quads, and abs working like crazy when
they are on the device. With zero coaching, this
device simultaneously provides an incredible
cardiovascular workout and a strong muscular
response in some of the most critical sagittal
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Frontal Plane Options
For this category, only the VersaClimber
comes to mind, making it uniquely indispensable for any gym. The VersaClimber makes
you move the way lizards walk through space. The motion of the device creates closure of the
rib cage on one side while separating the ribcage on the other side.
I find a couple of features of the VersaClimber
particularly valuable. The first is the ability to
flip the foot pedals upside down. If you use the
foot pedals in the normal position, you have to
put your foot in a strap, which secures the front
of your foot on the pedal, with your heel hanging off the back end of the pedal. Flipping the
pedal over allows you to reverse the situation,
positioning your heel on the pedal and your toes
hanging off of it.
For those who report knee pain when using
the VersaClimber, flipping the pedals to get on
their heels seems to alleviate it every time. The
same clients who used this “fix” also reported
feeling much more glute activity with the flipped
pedal setup.
The second recommendation I have for the VersaClimber is to make sure the user keeps his or
her pelvis under the skull and thorax. Tiredness
(or laziness!) can cause the butt to stick out and
back on this device. When this takes place, the
user cannot keep sagittal sensorimotor competency, and the whole exercise breaks down.
Conversely, when you are on your heels and
you stay stacked, the VersaClimber is both a
tremendous cardiovascular tool, and a powerful
frontal plane muscle-recruiting device.
Transverse Options
There are three options in this category;
walking, jogging, and the arm and leg bike. I’m
not going to cover walking and jogging here, as
we’ll do that in a coming section of this chapter
dedicated to sprinting, which will also touch on
elements of slower-speed running. Instead,
I’ll talk about the arm and leg bike here, a very
common piece of equipment found in training
facilities. Common examples of arm and leg
bikes include the Airdyne, the Assault Bike,
the Echo bike, and the Keiser M5. I generally
prefer the arm and leg bike over the traditional
spin bike, because the arm and leg bike recruits
much more muscle mass.
With arm and leg bikes, I try not to do
any coaching. That’s because, in my opinion,
it falls into our aforementioned “pizza” category. This is a device that’s all about hard work,
and very little can go wrong with it… so, like
pizza, even when the workout is “bad” it’s still
pretty good. The reason that the arm and leg
bike falls into the transverse plane category
is because of the heavy dose of forward and
backward horizontal reaching with the arms as
they follow the arm path of the bike. Alternating
horizontal pushing and pulling with the arms,
leads to the trunk rotating in space. This kind
of trunk rotation happens pretty naturally on the
arm and leg bike, all while the user receives a
demanding cardiovascular training session.
Be aware of just how demanding the arm
and leg bike can be, particularly on those who
are starting out on the less physically fit side. I would certainly stay away from this device
early in a beginner’s training session, as the
fatigue accumulated on it may compromise any
following exercises you have planned. On the
flip side, I would also stay away from putting a
worn-out beginner on this machine towards the
end of the training session… unless you want to
make your client throw up (or clean it up)!
Unskilled exercise participants will have few
options available that will actually challenge
their physiology to a really high level. Instead,
technical limitations will often shut them down
while performing an exercise, not to mention
that beginners will lack both the skill and “horsepower” to disrupt homeostasis to an appreciable
degree. The arm and leg bike may be an exception, given its combination of being low skill
while offering sufficiently high resistance. With
weak, out of shape novices, typically the loads
that represent their one-rep max and their twenty-rep max are very close together, so you may
as well go for that twenty-rep max. When used
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to capacity, the arm and leg bike, meanwhile, probably gets newbies closer to their thirty-rep
max in leg exercises, providing tremendous
stimulus, but, as cautioned, tremendous fatigue. Low Load, High Velocity Locomotion
Sprinting
I have been very fortunate to form a
friendship with Derek Hansen over the past five
years. We met while presenting at an event
at Northeastern University. Since that first
meeting, we have co-taught a seminar together, collaborated on papers, done a few joint
podcasts, and enjoyed social outings. A high
level track athlete in his youth, Derek ultimately
became a speed development coach for athletes. Derek’s primary coaching mentor was
the legendary Charlie Francis. Derek continues
to work with athletes from a variety of different
sports, including NFL players. He educates fellow coaches around the globe, and has recently
created the Running Mechanics Professional
certification, aimed at providing professionals in
the areas of sport, fitness and rehabilitation with
effective strategies and protocols for improving
running performance and resiliency. The following is largely based on what I have learned from
Derek over the years, as well as the treasure
trove of knowledge that are the writings of Charlie Francis. For more information on this topic,
I strongly recommend attending one of Derek’s
teaching events if you can. Force Output Qualities that Factor Into Sprint
Performance
There are a number of strategies that the
body uses to absorb and produce force. The
human body is a viscoelastic, antigravitational,
electrochemically-charged, membrane-divided
meat suit, whose form and movement possibilities are constrained by the anthropometrics
of the skeleton. When the organism moves at
different velocities, or against different loading levels, different qualities of absorption and
propulsion emerge. To explain these qualities,
for a long time now, coaches have been using
a classical speed-to-strength continuum, which
are somewhat distinct and separate from each
other.
The speed-to-strength continuum is based on
trying to move either a joint, a segment of the
body, or the entire body through space, with the
intent of creating the greatest possible force
and velocity. At one end of the continuum is
speed, which is when the participant is moving
in an unloaded or an extremely lightly loaded
situation (like moving an arm with a boxing
glove on the hand). In the expression of the
speed quality, the participant will move a joint,
segment, or entire body at the highest possible achievable velocity. At the other end of the
continuum is strength, where the participant is
loaded with the heaviest possible load that his
or her system can support. In the expression of
strength, the participant will move at an isometric or near-isometric velocity. As one moves
away from speed and towards strength, he or
she would be increasing load, and decreasing
velocity.
There are two zones in between speed and
strength that are generally recognized. One
is speed-strength, which is halfway between
speed and the midpoint of the continuum. The
other zone is strength-speed, which is halfway
between strength and the midpoint of the continuum.
Examples of activities that represent
speed would be sprinting, punching, kicking,
and throwing very light objects. Examples of
activities that represent strength would be one
rep-max pressing, squatting, and deadlifting. Speed-strength activities include medicine
ball throws and static jumps without a counter-movement. Strength-speed activities would
be dynamic effort method lifting (a la Westside
Barbell) and kettlebell swings.
With these different realms of the speed-tostrength continuum, the four different zones
are considered to be separate from one another, and carryover from one to another region
is extremely limited. Put another way: one
would need to train activities that fall under
the umbrella of each zone in order to develop
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that specific quality. Moreover, failing to train
any of these four specific qualities will result in
diminished fitness in that realm. Perhaps this
is why these different realms are referred to as
“perishable strength quality”.
Now that we have a simple construct for looking
at physical expression and dividing it into different realms, let’s look at Charlie’s delineation for
these qualities. Charlie had five different realms
of unique qualities, each of which needed development to improve a sprinter’s performance:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Strength
Power
Power-Speed
Speed
Special Endurance
points in a sprint. For instance, strength is the
dominant quality for accelerating athletes out of
the blocks, for up to about 10 meters. From 10
to almost 20 meters, power is the critical variable. From 20 to 30 meters, power-speed is the
primary driver. From 30 to 65 meters, speed is
the main thing that matters. Beyond 65 meters,
special endurance is what allows the athlete to
maintain speed, or prevent speed from deteriorating too rapidly.
The National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) has a great definition of strength
in its textbook, The Essentials of Strength and
Conditioning. They say that strength is the
amount of force that the body, segment, or joint
can create at a given velocity of movement. This definition is far-reaching and useful, and
facilitates discussions about perishable strength
qualities. The strength quality that Charlie
would call “speed” would be how much force we
are creating at the highest running velocities. Our ability to express physical capabilities
always comes down to how much force we can
generate: force in certain positions, force at certain velocities, force in different environments,
force in specific motor patterns, force in specific
stances, and force in specific planes. The separation of strength qualities simply point out the
fact that some are skilled at demonstrating force
in one instance, but perhaps do not have the
ability to demonstrate a lot of force under different circumstances. If you can determine what
strength qualities are critical for a specific athlete relative to his or her specific goals, you’re
on the right track.
Next, you would have to perform a gap analysis.The gap analysis is a three-part process:
Fig 8.1 - Characteristics of the Lactic and Alactic Phases of
Sprinting
In the system that Charlie put forth, there were
certain modalities and exercises that made
sense to develop each of these perishable
strength qualities. The other fascinating part
about these perishable strength qualities is the
idea that each plays a dominant role in different
Part One:
Is the athlete measuring and training every
strength quality that is important to him or her?
Part Two:
Does the athlete demonstrate a
significant weakness in one of the critical
strength qualities associated with his or her
goals? Page
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Part Three:
Will training the deficient strength quality improve this athlete’s fitness in that region, and
will this fitness improvement translate to moving
him or her towards his or her goal? The assumption is that, if you find a glaring gap
in your training model and plug it up, things
should get better from this point forward. Of
course sometimes, transfer of training isn’t quite
so cut and dry.
Charlie had certain modalities of exercise
for each strength quality that was associated
with the various stages of sprinting. “Strength”
goes along with the first ten meters, and exercises that improve that quality include: weights,
electro muscular stimulation (EMS), single
jumps, and medicine ball throws. “Power”,
which goes from about 10 to just shy of 20 meters, is improved by exercises such as weights,
multiple jumps in a row, box jumps (up only),
and medicine ball throws. Activities that develop “Power-Speed”, which goes from about 20
meters to just shy of 30 meters, are box jumps
(up and down off the floor), and medicine ball
throws with hops, bounds, and short accelerations following the throw. “Speed”, which goes
from 30 meters up to 65 meters and is primarily
driven by the elasticity of tissues, is developed
via depth jumps, medicine ball throws, bounds,
and full speed runs that are less than 8 seconds
in duration. Lastly, “Special Endurance”, which
goes from 65 meters up to 200 meters, is developed through Special Endurance Type 1 runs,
which are the fastest you can run distances that
take you 8 to 15 seconds, as well as Special
Endurance Type 2 runs, which are the fastest
you can run distances that take you 15 to 45
seconds in duration, and finally, “A” runs, completed between 45 seconds and 2:30.
As you can see, there are not a tremendous number of activities listed in the previous
paragraph for improving the relative strength
qualities associated with sprinting abilities. In
getting to know Derek over the years, I’ve come
to refer to him in my head as “the great gardener of the strength and conditioning field”. What I mean by this is that this guy prunes
away more useless drills than anyone I know. I, too, am a big believer in identifying wastes
of time and getting rid of them, but I think Derek takes it much farther. A skill Charlie likely
helped him hone. One of my favorite Charlie
Francis quotes is “I re-examined every drill. If
I couldn’t find a good reason for keeping it, it
disappeared.” In other words, some of us are
of the mind that creating “To Not Do” lists is
much more effective than creating “To Do” lists. Avoiding that which isn’t helping or is detracting
from moving towards the goal is just as important as doing what you should be, if not moreso.
In this discussion of strength qualities
and drills that develop those qualities, you have
to consider the duration for which you can train
to develop each quality. Charlie Francis called
his program design model Vertical Integration. With the Vertical Integration system, every quality is trained all the time, but there is a focus on
developing one quality at a time, while the other
qualities are simply maintained. The level of
the athlete would largely determine the quality
to focus on, but, even with elites, at different
times of year, the focus would be rotated to
different qualities. When developing most beginner sprinters,
Charlie would take a right-to-left approach. This
approach is from the perspective of looking at
a sprint as an observer. The athletes start on
the left side of our visual field, and end it on
our right. You would focus on the qualities that
would allow them to sustain endurance early
in their career, and gradually shift the focus
increasingly left, where you would finish with
a focus on things like starts, acceleration, and
strength. Of course this doesn’t mean that the
beginner athlete isn’t working on starts, acceleration, and strength in the early parts of his or
her training career. These simply aren’t early-stage training focal points.
Ultimately, you need to rotate the
strength quality that is the focal point, and if
you are going to be doing this, you should have
some idea how long to keep one element as
the focal point before rotating it out in favor of
something new. Charlie provided some guidelines for how long he felt you could focus on
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specific qualities. For instance, with aerobic
fitness, he felt that quality could be focused on
and improved for over 24 straight weeks, the
lengthiest fitness element for sustained improvement. The next lengthiest quality for sustained development in Charlie’s model is muscle endurance, listed at 20 weeks. Hypertrophy
style lifting is next, coming in at 16 weeks. Speed Endurance, characterized by Type 1 and
Type 2 Special Endurance runs, also gets a 16
week duration. Plyometrics, maximum speed
work, and maximal strength lifting all have a
shelf life of 12 weeks. Maximal strength EMS
taps out at about 4 weeks.
for training that realm. For the other strength
qualities, you typically just need to shoot for
“good enough”. You’ll generally know you’ve
gotten there for a given quality when further
development of said quality starts to impair development of another equally or more important
quality.
As you decide on the strength qualities an athlete needs to focus on and an appropriate level
of development for each, the last thing to consider is the most fitting drill selection for a given
quality. If you have barbells and a track, let the
barbells be your strength development tool and
the track your speed development tool. Note
that “crossing streams” isn’t necessarily wise. For instance, you can put a ton of effort into
doing high velocity lifting, and drive tremendous
volume into a given strength quality pathway,
but in doing so, you have now also fatigued that
pathway, possibly preventing your athlete from
doing requisite track work. Rather than using
hammers to put in lightbulbs, identify what you
are trying to accomplish, and wisely choose
the tools for the different strength qualities that
you’ll be developing. The Nature of Accelerating and Decelerating
Fig 8.2 - Effective adaption periods, per training block
As a coach, what you need to figure out
is how far you have to develop any of these
qualities for any given individual you’re working
with. Do you need to bring a basketball player
to the 99th percentile of where their hypertrophy
could reach? Likely not, and, on the contrary,
this may adversely affect the athlete’s career. With most of these qualities, you can get a
high return on investment in the early stages of
development, and then, as you get closer to the
peak for each quality, you’ll enter diminishing
returns for the effort being put in.
If you identify the one strength quality that is
of paramount importance, you may have to
go deep into the realm of diminishing returns
During a sprint, no two steps will ever be
the same, and you are either accelerating or decelerating with the step you are currently taking. The thing that determines whether you are going faster is the relationship between the speed
that you are currently moving over the ground
(the speed of the ground), and the speed of
the current foot strike relative to the speed of
the ground (negative foot speed). If you hit the
ground with your foot, and the foot accelerates
backwards (negative foot speed) at a rate faster
than the current speed at which you are moving, then you accelerate. The amount of ground
contact force is the determinant of negative foot
speed. Whenever your foot hits the ground
while you are running, there is always an initial
deceleration of the foot, and you must overcome this deceleration rapidly, and with great
force, to create sufficient negative foot speed
to accelerate. As you move faster over the
ground, the amount of time you have to create
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ground contact force and maximize negative
foot speed decreases. Those who will be able
to run very fast have the unique ability to create
tremendous force in very little time.
As such, the ability to sprint effectively is
really based on the relationship the athlete has
with the ground. A slow jog results in movement that might be thought of as sinking into
the ground, whereas, the sprinter explodes
up and over it. This ability to display an upward-thrusting, verticality-based relationship
with the ground is related to ground contact
time. When you go faster, there is less ground
contact time per stride, and less time spent on
the ground for the entirety of the race. Mind
you, this reduction in ground contact time is
not consciously sought out by the runner. Less
ground contact time is the outcome of running
faster, not the explicit means by which you
achieve running faster.
The other variable that is strongly linked with
ground contact time is hip height. To understand
hip height, think of watching someone run from
a profile view. When you’re watching them go
by you, does the height of their hip come to
Fig 8.3 - Relationship between hip height and ground
contact time
baseline and only go up, or do they shrink at
points while they run? Hip height is based on
where the foot contacts the ground relative to
the center of mass while running. When the
foot hits the ground out in front of the center
of mass, hip height decreases. When the foot
strikes the ground right under the body and
creates great negative foot speed, hip height
stays high and only gets higher, which is what
we want to see from runners. The foot striking
out in front of the center of mass will cause it
to be on the ground longer, which ultimately
leads to more breaking time; and increases the
difficulty of creating enough force to generate
negative foot speed that exceeds the speed of
the ground.
To understand sprinting, we need to
understand the dynamics of the ground. The
faster that a runner is moving over the ground,
the less resistance the ground provides. At the
starting blocks, before the runner begins moving, the ground provides its greatest amount of
resistance. On the bright side, when the ground
provides high resistance, it’s easier to push on
it, to overcome the speed of the ground with
negative foot speed, and thereby accelerate. As you start going faster in a sprint, the ground
begins to offer less and less resistance. As
resistance from the ground decreases, the legs
can cycle through faster and faster. This is a
lot like riding a bicycle with gears. The start of
a sprint would be like being in high gear, where
there’s a lot of resistance, it’s easier to pedal
hard, and a significant amount of acceleration
is generated by each pedal stroke. Think about
going fast on a bicycle, and switching it into first
gear. Now, there is practically no resistance on
the pedals, and your legs can whip around at an
unbelievable speed. The problem with the bike
in first gear is that there is no resistance to push
against, making it fairly difficult to accelerate,
particularly if you are already going fast.
In order to prepare someone to run
faster, we must first understand how to prepare
him or her for the variables and obstacles that
present themselves during the task of sprinting. In other words, to understand how to attack
low load, high velocity locomotion, we need to
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be aware of the speed of the ground, negative
foot speed, ground contact time, hip height, and
the resistance of the ground. Charlie Francis
recommended increasing the overall strength
qualities of the runner, while simultaneously
embedding the most optimal sprinting technique possible. In later chapters, we’ll cover
the optimal way to train patterns like throwing,
knee dominant, hip dominant, triple extension,
and pushing and pulling. As for the remainder
of this section on low load, high velocity locomotion, let me walk you through the technical
elements of drills and running form that I have
learned from Derek. Technical Elements and Coaching Points
Involved with Sprinting
During the course of their training, the skills
taught to runners would be aimed at increasing hip height, reducing ground contact time,
increasing ground reaction forces, improving
elastic return from foot strike, increasing negative foot speed, and reducing the time it takes
to run a given distance. Importantly, there are
mechanical considerations that either promote
or impede each of these variables. The direction and emphasis of arm and leg swing are
two of the most important factors that the coach
imparts on the athlete. What happens with the
arms and the legs will impact the orientation of
center of mass, and what happens with the orientation of center of mass will affect the nature
of limb swing.
When examining the swing of the legs,
picture the shape that would result if you traced
the direction that the foot moves as it finds the
ground, pushes off the ground, circles backwards and up, comes forward again in preparation for the ground, and then makes ground
contact again on the next step. Does the foot
trace the shape of a circle, or more like an extremely flattened ellipse? The shape that Derek
is looking for is the circle, the problematic shape
being the flat ellipse. When the runner’s foot
“draws” the latter, this is due to an excess of
backside mechanics at the legs, while the circle
shape is facilitated by the appropriate amount of
front side mechanics.
Fig 8.4 - Vertical displacement
Backside mechanics refers to the activity that is happening when the foot and leg is
behind the center of mass. This results from
the runner pushing off the ground with his or
her leg going backwards, behind the torso. If
you do this excessively, the foot goes too far
backwards, and generally fails to arc very high
on the recovery, which often results in the foot
reaching farther out in front of the center of
mass on the next step. This “overreaching”
happens as a compensation for the other leg’s
excessive backside mechanics display. When
one limb goes too far back, the other will go
too far forward. And hitting the ground too far
out in front means losing hip height, spending
too much time on the ground, losing too much
potential elastic energy as heat, reducing negative foot speed, decreasing potential ground
reaction forces, and, as a result of all of these
impeding forces, running slower.
It’s certainly worth noting that spending too
much time on the ground, reducing elastic
energy, and spending more time in the yielding
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muscular action of absorbing force, can also
increase the time and opportunity for the mechanism of injury for things like hamstring strains
to occur. When your legs are going too far out
behind you, this will pitch your center of mass
too far forward, promoting the action of falling. The center of mass needs to remain up, never
falling forward.
“Front side mechanics” refers to the activity that
is happening when the foot and leg is in front
of the center of mass. This is what happens
during the swing phase of the running stride
when the runner is in preparation for hitting the
ground on the next step. The emphasis in proper front side mechanics is on keeping the center of mass up and back. When the center of
mass remains in this position, foot strike occurs
almost directly underneath the center of mass. When this is the case, hip height is maintained
during early and mid-stance, and then increased on push-off, and ground contact time is
minimized. In response, the elastic return from
foot strike is maximized. The powerful elastic
return springs the foot up, which creates a high
heel-recovery position on the backside, with
full knee flexion. The shape the foot traces as
it goes through the entire stride is our desired
circle, facilitating maximal efficiency.
By contrast, picture the ellipse shaped
stride, and think of how much horizontal action, and space, is being used. These would
be long, slow, dragging steps. The foot never
gets high enough to drop straight down on the
ground like a hammer. The hip never gets high
enough to assist the foot coming down into the
ground with authority. The ellipse-shaped foot
path running mechanic is like pulling yourself
through the ocean in hip-deep water. The circular shaped running stride, meanwhile, raises the
hammer up high, and drops it straight down into
the ground at maximal speed, achieving incredible contact force in minimal contact time.
A good portion of my coaching on running mechanics amounts to aiding the runner in creating
the circle instead of the ellipse. The cue that
Derek gives over and over is “up” or “lift”, and
generally avoids the terms “down” and “push”. Interestingly, the more the ground reaction
forces increase, the faster the athlete sprints. Yet, we do not want to coach them to try to
strike down into the ground, as doing so is more
likely to encourage the ellipse-shape footpath,
bypassing the right hip height or heel recovery
height for the foot to drive down into the ground
with force. When the athlete thinks “up”, on the
other hand, the resulting mechanics and shapes
generate increased ground reaction forces, and
decreased ground contact time. When coaching the athlete running
posture, you want them to think “tall”. Helpful imagery here is having the athlete picture
a string pulling the middle of his or her head
straight up. The other major posture-centric
cue is to ask athletes to look forward instead of
at the ground. When you’re looking to create
the appropriate arm actions, there are a couple
of things to consider. Firstly, the arms should
be in about a 90 degree position. Secondly, the
arms should rotate around the shoulder joint. A lot of people turn into elbow flexors and extenders when they are trying to use their arms,
which may be handy for karate or trying out for
Top Chef, but is an error when trying to run fast. Getting people to figure out how to hinge at the
shoulder can be challenging. The arms should
go through a full range of motion, where, at the
top, the hand is at the height of the nose, and is
next to the glute at the bottom. Telling folks to
go from cheek to cheek can help some achieve
full ROM. At the top of the ROM, the hand
should come towards midline, and be in line
with the nose, or at least close to it. Once the
runner is demonstrating full ROM and appropriately using his or her shoulder joint, you want to
tell them to focus on driving their arms up.
Coaching runners from their arms is a
strong approach to take. If the runner is driving
the right arm mechanics, oftentimes, the legs
will be brought along for the ride. The other advantage of focusing on the arms is the athlete’s
ability to see his or her swinging hands out in
front of the torso while running. A tendency to
watch out for is that of creating too much elbow
flexion at the top of the arm swing in order to
get the hand up as high as the nose. By exces-
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sively flexing the elbow, the athlete decreases
his or her shoulder flexion range of motion. Getting the arms to go through full ROM with
the focus on the “up” direction will help create
appropriate hip height during a sprint. A great
drill that illustrates this concept is long seated
arm swings. When the athlete swings their
arms with maximal intent and maximal velocity,
his or her butt will bounce up and down off the
ground.
Fig 8.5 - Hip mobility and rotation towards the
centerline
As athletes progress in their mechanical proficiency, we can start to incorporate the
“down” cue for arm mechanics. When the hand
has reached the top of its arc, it’s time to pull it
straight down. Thinking “back” in this scenario
is likely to drive excessive backside mechanics,
and lead to improper foot position on the next
ground contact. The up and the down cues,
however, create a very powerful oppositional
stroke, setting the stage for an extremely powerful sprint performance. The sprinter who can
leverage outstanding arm mechanics to display
tremendous power while maintaining relaxed
shoulders that do not shrug up towards the ears
is likely highly mechanically proficient. Again,
the coaching takeaway is that the arms should
always lead the legs, and not vice versa.
When coaching the athlete at the level
of the lower body, the go-to cue will once again
be “up”, only, now, you’re cueing the athlete to
bring the feet up. Marching, skipping, or high
knees running drills will often feature too much
plantar flexion. To move them towards dorsiflexion, you can ask runners to bring up their
shoelaces. The more the runner can raise one
foot with speed and authority, the harder the
other foot will push down to assist its counterpart.
So, is there such a thing as “too high”,
which might result from an excessive focus on
the “up”? The answer here is yes, and the perpetrators tend to be less experienced athletes. During marching or in-place running drills,
such athletes will sometimes bring their knees
up well past 90 degrees. When observing the
athlete create simultaneous hip and knee flexion in an attempt to raise his or her feet, notice
the horizontal position of the knee. When the
athlete starts flexing the hip, the knee goes forward. As he or she continues to flex the hip up
to about 90 degrees of flexion, the knee continues to move forward. When the athlete passes
90 degrees, the knee now starts to cycle back
towards the body, and is moving backwards
relative to its forward-most position. The hip
flexion angle associated with the most forward
position of the knee should be the maximal
height reached by the knee. Once you identify
this maximal height, the next task is to increase
the frequency with which the athlete can bring
each leg up to that position.
The same thing would be true of the arms,
though it is quite rare to see that much shoulder
flexion during running drills. The main problem
with the arms is that when the athlete focuses
on “up”; they begin to lose full ROM, and their
extending arm does not go low enough (which,
in my humble opinion, has the comical appearance of training to enter a cow milking contest). The other common error is to bring the hands
back towards the face too much. When runners
look like they’re trying to brush their hair with
their hands, cue them with “up and away”; to
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Fig 8.6 - Examples of Mach drills
Average sprinters run 100 meters in
about 11.5 seconds. Elite sprinters run the
100 in 10 seconds or less. In Charlie Francis’ writings, he states that average sprinters
spend approximately 5.68 seconds of their 11.5
second run with their feet in contact with the
ground. Elite sprinters spend approximately 1.9
seconds out of 10 with their feet in contact with
the ground. There’s about a 16% difference in
the time it takes for the average and the elite
sprinter to finish the 100 meters, but there is
about a 300% difference in how much time they
spend in ground contact time, likely accounting
for the biggest comparative difference between
the populations.
The drills that you would use to help
runners improve their upright top speed running
mechanics generally fall into the categories
of marching, skipping, “A” runs, and “B” runs. Originally developed by Gerard Mach, these are
also the primary drills that Derek recommends. You can easily find more information on these
“Mach” drills and refine your ability to coach
them. Here is the list of drills that you can use
to develop running mechanics in a progressive
manner: 1. Long seated arm action
2. In place marching
3. Forward marching
4. Skipping
5. Run in place
Low amplitude limbs to high amplitude
6. High knee runs forward
Frequency with low amplitude moving to high
amplitude
7. Short sprints (lower velocity)
Acceleration drills
8. Longer sprints (higher velocity)
Starts and Acceleration
An elite sprinter can observe some general
rules to come out of the blocks. The angle
between the hip and the knee on the front leg
should never be less than 90 degrees, or less
than 120 degrees for on the back leg. Angles
smaller than these for the front or back leg are
indicative that the hips are too low or too far
back in the start position. Instead, the hips
should be high, and in front of the front foot. To
ensure that the hips are at the right height, you
should see an approximate 45 degree angle between the hip and shoulder in the start position. The stronger the athlete, the greater the possible angle between hip and shoulder, as weaker
athletes will not be able to handle an extreme
body angle in the start position. The easiest
way to change the body angle is to play with the
hand width position. Widen the hands to increase the angle, and narrow them to decrease
it. The decreased body angle comes closer to
mimicking the upright start position, which is
also optimal for children. The head position can
simply be one that’s comfortable for the athlete.
Again, the critical component of coming
out of the blocks is the position of the hands. The hand that will be the forward hand on the
first stride needs to flick off the ground and
move in the direction one wants to go. This
hand should move in a straight line forward to
avoid creating an arc motion, which doesn’t
optimize speed.
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foot placement is critical, and relatively similar
in setup, regardless of whether we are talking
soft or hard starts. The feet should be about
hip-width distance apart. The back foot should
not be too far behind the front foot. The tips of
the toes of the back foot should be at the same
level as the back of the heel of the front foot. A
lot of people want to put the back foot much farther behind the front foot, because they report
feeling stronger and more stable in this position. The trouble is, strong and stable doesn’t necessarily equal fast. Starts are a lot like a golf
swing. Putting the athlete in the right setup,
and then simply allowing the natural motion of
the body to take place often facilitates the best
possible outcome.
Fig 8.7 - Starting block set position
With regard to how you coach the initial
acceleration steps, you should not do much to
change what will happen naturally. Focus on
starts training tends to come later in an elite
sprinter’s development. Non-specific strength
training will have the greatest impact on improving start capabilities early in the athlete’s career. The major points with teaching acceleration
concepts to athletes is to get them to swing
their arms effectively through full ROM with a
focus on the “up”, as well as relaxing and being
efficient. The drills you choose should facilitate
all of the above, without requiring too much conscious thought from your athlete.
With these drills, you will generally bring sprinters from soft starts to hard starts in a progressive fashion. Soft starts involve starting from an
upright position, with the feet as the only points
of contact with the ground, aka “2 point starts”. Hard starts will feature the hands and feet in
contact with the ground, aka “3 and 4 point
starts”.
When dealing with all forms of starts,
With the softest of soft starts, the athlete
is standing up, in a front/back staggered stance,
the upright-most stance for taking off in a sprint. Instruct the athlete to have a little bend to their
knees, and have their hands out in front of
them. The latter is critical. The athlete will keep
both hands out in front, and reach forward with
them. This will work to drag the body along,
behind the hands. Leaning forward will ready
the runner for takeoff on cue. As soon as this
cue is received, the same-side hand of the forward leg should be flicked up and forward. This
movement of the hand and arm will trigger the
back foot to step forward, propelling the athlete
through the initial acceleration steps. Except in
cases where egregious movements may result
in a performance drop, allow the athlete’s natural movements to dominate. Look out for the
athlete appearing “too tight”, and encourage
him or her to relax if so. Otherwise, stand back,
and allow the athlete to independently practice
and tune his or her starts. As starts gradually progress from softest to increasingly harder, you may see more
bend in the knees, particularly the front knee. To achieve upright technique, use the same
approach of having the hands out in front, and
reaching the arms forward. Keep in mind that
the lower the center of mass, the less soft the
soft start will be. Likewise, if your athlete is
recovering from any kind of Achilles injury, you
may want to avoid the harder start positions. Page
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Play it safe with the softest of soft starts to
avoid putting eccentrically-oriented force strain
on that tissue.
Fig 8.8 - Example of falling start
acceleration training. That said, as with any
good periodized training system, some variation
of starting position is also a good idea, which
allows you to change up, and hence increase,
the stimulus you are providing to the athlete.
The push-up start position is a tremendous training tool for developing hard starts. An excellent push-up start position drill is one
where you put the athlete in the top of the
push-up, have him or her comfortably step one
foot forward, and then take off. For the takeoff, remember to cue the athlete to flick up the
same-side hand as the foot he or she stepped
forward. The result of putting sprinters into this
position and giving that singular cue is generally
a pretty perfect-looking acceleration, enabling
the sprinter to “be the hashtag” (as shown in the
diagram below).
Fig 8.9 - Example of pushup
The medicine ball is a great tool for helping
develop soft starts. Doing a medicine ball
chest throw from a soft start prevents overthinking start technique. With the med ball throw,
the arms will go forward in a way that creates
momentum that correctly drags the body behind them. From there, the athlete accelerates
forward, naturally and properly.
As hard starts are concerned, the hardest of them is a start off the blocks on a track,
and the least hard is a push-up position hard
start. With your progressions, go from least
hard to hardest. The higher the hips in the
starting position, the harder the hard start. In
working with a given athlete, you’re likely to
uncover his or her start position sweet spot,
and you will likely stick with that for his or her
Fig 8.10 - BeTheHashtag concept
Relaxation
Getting powerful athletes to be able to
sprint while staying extremely relaxed is perhaps the most important—and surprisingly
difficult—thing to accomplish. Some coaches
talk about this ability as that of quickly inhibiting muscles once you facilitate them. Whether
or not this is physiologically possible is very
unclear. What is clear is that, to attain highest
speed potential, the athlete has to experience
a rapid state change. This state change may
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amount to the cycling back and forth between
the expansion and compression strategies. Or,
maybe this state change is electrical. Or, one of
muscular orientation. The reality is that we haven’t been able to definitively identify the nature
of this state change from a research standpoint,
so, for now, we just don’t know.
Charlie Francis talked about how sprinting is all about relaxation and rhythm, how it’s a
dance between the athlete and the ground. In
his writing, he indicated that the biggest error
he typically saw sprinters make is tightening
up their shoulders. If he could get someone’s
shoulders to drop while maintaining an upright
body, a lot of other technique improvements
would follow. When things look right, they look
fluid, which wouldn’t surprise Bill Hartman,
who believes the body to behave according
to the principles of water. Being able to move
pressures and volumes and fluids around the
body in the right direction, at the right time, in
the right position, seems to lead to fluidity. And
some body shapes and orientations allow their
owners to accomplish this more easily than others.
Certainly, most of us have the ability to improve
in our mechanics via proper training. It’s a thing
of beauty to watch Derek Hansen almost immediately improve an athlete’s running mechanics. The interesting thing is that he does this by
saying little, but putting the athlete in the right
setup, and giving him or her just one thing to
think about at a time. Not having to think about
too much at once facilitates relaxation. Rather
than unload a plethora of knowledge about the
sprint pattern, he allows the athlete to learn the
activity on his or her own. Imitation isn’t only the sincerest form of flattery,
but an amazingly effective tool for improving
one’s coaching. Whatever your coaching area
of expertise or interest, find “the great ones” in
this area, shadow them at work if you can, and
then imitate the heck out of them in your own
work. In time, you’ll appreciate the finer details
that explain why their strategies work so well,
but, until then, learn from the best, and fake it till
you make it. Moderate to High Load Locomotion
Loaded Carries
I find loaded carries to be a fairly controversial topic in the realm of fitness and movement quality development. To me, training loaded carries makes you better at loaded carries,
with limited to no carryover to any other task or
adaptation. Now, there are great professionals
in the fields of rehabilitation and fitness development who would adamantly disagree with
me on this. And, in fairness, I’ve seen carefully
selected positioning of loaded carries change
table test results for range of motion, which is
hard to argue with. I’ve also seen fitness beginners gain a lot of confidence for lifting heavy
weights through carrying around heavy farmer’s walk handles. I’ve seen elite professional
strongman athletes carry well over a thousand
pounds at blistering speeds. Yet, in spite of all
this, and in spite of having personally competed
at a high level in the sport of strongman, I still
view loaded carriers as a poor choice for most
people’s goals.
In short, I don’t see carries as being as
good as traditional compound lifts for hypertrophy, or traditional compound lifts for strength
development, or core exercises for changing
movement capabilities, or conditioning exercise
for running. To me, loaded carries belong on
the Island of Misfit Toys in the world of training. I don’t think they’re “bad” by any means. But, if
you were to ask me to recommend a drill to develop a specific fitness quality, I would probably
choose something different from loaded carries
under every single circumstance, except for the
circumstance of training to be better at loaded
carries.
Let’s say you are someone who disagrees with me, and you see incredible return
on investment from including loaded carries
in your program. Let’s say you see carryover
from doing loaded carries to trying to continue
to run forward in football when you have people
hanging off of you trying to tackle you. Let’s
say you believe in the concept of gap analysis
within program design, and that, by filling in this
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loaded carry gap, every other element of their
fitness will improve. Let’s say you like EMG
results a ton, and, seeing QL readings skyrocket in some study, you get super excited about
this effect of loading the walking motion. Let’s
just say you’re gung-ho for putting weight on
somebody and making them go from point A to
point B… what’s the best way to progress this
concept?
The list I’ve got here is based on using
implements, and positioning those implements
in ways that will decrease the likelihood of
somebody going into an excessive extension
pattern through the spine and thorax during the
carry. This is an interesting list, starting with the
duck walk. No, this isn’t the low squat position
duck walk your high school football coach may
have made you do. In strongman, the duck
walk involves carrying what looks like a cartoon
detonator for an explosive with your hands between your legs.
This carry basically puts you in a position that is about three quarters of the way
to lockout in a sumo deadlift, and keeps you
there as you try to carry the object from point
A to point B. As you might imagine, this drill
makes for some comical walking. You rapidly
waddle from side to side like a windup toy, or,
of course, a duck. Some might think that this is
an odd choice for where to start training, but the
constraints imposed by the shape of the object
and its position relative to the body do prevent
an exaggerated chest up and forward position,
placing emphasis on abs and glutes. Every other exercise that follows the duck walk involves
bringing the hands further and further out to the
side, and then up in an arc of flexion, moving
the humerus from Zone 1, to Zone 2, to Zone 3
in the propulsion arc. Here is the list of progressions for loaded carry exercises:
1. Between legs carries (duck walks)
2. Side handle carries (farmer’s carries)
3. Front rack carries (Zercher, sandbags, etc.)
4. Shoulder supported carries (yoke walk)
5. Overhead carries (overhead yoke, waiter’s
carries, etc.)
Coaching Points
While the degree to which I doubt the
efficacy of loaded carriers in improving overall
fitness cannot be overstated, please don’t get
the idea that I’m advocating for coaching light
carries, held with “perfect posture”, while strolling up and down the floor. To get any benefit
from them, if I am going to include carries in
someone’s program, I want them to be heavy,
and I want the participant to be aggressive.
My two biggest “carrier coaching points”
are telling athletes to look to and past the finish
line, and quickly move their feet. In the same
way that the elderly stare at the ground in front
of them to help visually anchor and stabilize
themselves, most athletes will immediately start
looking at the ground in front of them when they
do a carry. In regards to moving the feet fast, I don’t
care about the size of the steps you’re taking,
which will be bigger when the weight is light,
and smaller when the weight is heavy. But, all
I care about is that the steps are being made
in rapid succession of each other. At a certain point, the load will be too heavy to go fast. When this happens, I coach channeling being
tough and aggressive. Limit weight loaded carries are a test of heart and will.
Fig 8.11 - Example duck walks
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The athlete who is to be successful with
limit weight loaded carries will often need to go
to a very demanding, even dark mental place. With heavy carries, something is going to feel
like it’s going to give. Maybe the grip with
farmer’s carry. Maybe the back with the yoke. Maybe the abs with a Zercher carry. Maybe the
glutes with a duck walk. Maybe the mind with
any of them. To that end, cultivate the attitude
that physical constraints should always limit
athletes before their minds do.
If there was one implement that I would
avoid if I were using carries with athletes, it
would be the yoke, and most fellow strongman
competitors would vote it as their least favorite. Typically the heaviest event in all of strongman,
a lot of back injuries and broken spirits alike
have been left in this implement’s wake. As a
result, many of us view it as a reminder that,
just because we can lift something, doesn’t
mean doing so is smart, let alone carrying it
from point A to B. My related reservation about
the yoke is that using it with athletes ultimately
invokes the ego, and ego tends to extinguish
caution, and, in the worst cases, promising careers.
With that, keep the load on carries fairly
moderate, and work on speed. Most strongman athletes do exactly this in their training,
imposing time caps for traveling a given distance with a particular implement. You train
with loads where you can stay within that time. If the athlete is unable to cover the requisite
distance within the established time cap, he or
she needs to go down in load, and work up to
the heavier one. This makes sense on a lot
of levels. Nobody wins a carry event by going
slow, so training for it should also emphasize
an aggressive timeframe, not to mention that
non-excessive loads are more forgiving on the
skeleton.
Dominant Positions and Fitness Realms
Dominant plane
Transverse thorax
Frontal pelvis
Sagittal limbs
Dominant stance
Front/Back
Dominant load
Goal specific
Dominant velocity
Goal specific
Dominant duration
Goal specific
This list is probably the biggest cop out in
this book, because it’s one of those “it depends”
lists. How could it not, though? If you are a
marathon runner, you’re going to be training at
different velocities and durations than a sprinter,
and different loads than a strongman. With locomotion, the one common denominator is that
it will be done from a front/back stance perspective under all settings.
What I would like for fellow coaches to take
away from this is that sprinters and marathoners should not train the same way, strongman
athletes and sprinters should not train the same
way, and so on. Specificity will always rule the
day, and those who fail to recognize that will
make up excuses for why they consistently fail
to dominate. Size, shape, genetic potential,
and preparedness are the major contributors to
overall success rates, but, of these, preparedness is the only variable the athlete can significantly alter. The ever-present challenge for
coaching athletes is making sure to avoid training exercises that do not aid the athlete’s goals,
while emphasizing high and consistent effort
towards the ones that do. Because successfully motivating the athlete’s level of effort will vary
from one to the next, optimal exercise selection,
and, perhaps more importantly, suboptimal
exercise rejection, becomes our vital function as
coaches.
09
Pattern 5: Change of Direction
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Pattern 5:
Change of Direction
Chapter 9
Few American and Western sports feature full speed running for extended periods of
time. Instead, the athlete spends most of the
game stopping, starting, accelerating and decelerating, and rarely moving in straight lines. The
fitness industry has responded to this phenomenon with speed and agility camps, and devices
like agility ladders. Because many sport coaches see a resemblance between these agility
drills and the movements required of their athletes in their given sport, they gravitate towards
agility training as the most specific and effective
training their athletes can get.
Supporters of “gap analysis” point out that
the majority of time playing the sport involves
demonstrating agility qualities, so focusing on
these during fitness development time is redundant. In their view, fitness development time
should instead be spent on training the athlete
to produce greater force, and become more
robust and well rounded by filling fitness gaps
associated with his or her sport. In addition to
examining fitness quality gaps, coaches have
found that improving the ability to change direction may be better facilitated by certain weight
room training than by agility drills. This is because, rather than requiring “fast feet”, ground
contact times are actually driven by slow speed
strength.
And, what do I think? I think that improving an
athlete’s change of direction abilities emerges
from his or her ability to optimally shape-change
his or her thorax and pelvis. This is to express
tremendous force absorption and production,
as well as the ability to optimally position him
or herself for change of direction challenges. Change of direction coaches remind me a lot
of good golf swing coaches, in that they both
emphasize setup as the most important element
of success. Using the right stance and grip are
the main components of a desired outcome,
which will often come about as a result of simply allowing the club to “swing itself”. Similarly, possessing requisite range of motion and
strength ensures the ball’s flight path features
the optimal shape, and can hence travel farther.
When hearing Lee Taft speak on athleticism,
movement expression, and change of direction,
I hear a similar message. The organism will
always perform the most effective execution
of the task. The coach’s challenge is to put
the athlete in a starting position that maximally
facilitates the athlete’s natural instincts to optimally perform the task at hand. By the same
token, the setup is where many athletes—and,
by extension, their coaches—go wrong. Optimize the set up, and the expression of the sport
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movement you’re after will likely emerge.
If we stop to think about it, experienced and
wise as it may be, your “coaching brain” is likely
no competition for the billions of years of human
evolution that are informing your athlete’s physical and spatial-navigational movements. What
we coaches can bring to the table are drills with
built-in constraints, which force the athlete into
desired positions, featuring optimal arrangement of the body. From there, to promote technical mastery of given movement, we can stand
back, and let the athlete’s natural movements
flow.
If you’re considering a focus in this realm of
fitness development, do yourself a favor and
check out Lee Taft’s work, and/or attend one of
his seminars. To become a great coach in this
realm, you’ll want to immerse yourself in that
world. Chris Chase, who currently works with
the Memphis Grizzlies basketball team, is another invaluable resource for great information
and advice on change of direction coaching.
Physical Factors Related to Change of
Direction
Cal Dietz, the strength and conditioning coach
at the University of Minnesota who is best
known for developing the hockey players there,
is also the author of Triphasic Training, which
has become one of the more popular books
in the strength and conditioning field. Utilizing
the 5-10-5 “Pro Agility” test, Triphasic Training
documents substantially greater improvements
in athletes using an eccentric and isometric-focused strength training program, versus those
using typical agility training. (Sidebar: in this
section, I’ll be using the word “eccentric” to refer
to lowering a weight.) Though peer reviewed
literature about the effects of strength training
on agility and change of direction abilities is
sparse, a few studies have been conducted.
Sheppard and Young (2006) conducted a review of the characteristics associated with the
concept of agility. They concluded that physical
factors, such as strength, power, and technique
play a role in being able to display agility, and
that factors like visual scanning technique,
visual scanning speed, and pattern recognition
associated with anticipation are major factors in
agility. McBride et al. (2002) found that squat
jump training at both 80% 1RM and 30% 1RM
significantly improved agility performances. Keiner et al. (2014) demonstrated that long term
strength training for soccer players (two years)
led to improved change of direction capabilities
compared to players who did not strength train.
Strength then appears to be an important contributing factor for agility and change of direction
capabilities. Change of direction challenges
involve being able to decelerate the momentum
of the body mass going in one direction, and
redirect the body mass in another direction. Some changes of direction require a complete
stoppage of the body’s momentum prior to redirection, while others require cornering actions,
characterized by continuous movement as the
body shifts directions. Incalculable change of
direction nuances aside, all such maneuvers
will be characterized by strong yielding and
overcoming actions.
An underdeveloped element of muscular contractile behavior will compromise change of
direction ability. In Triphasic Training, Cal
attributes incredible improvements in change of
direction capabilities to focused eccentric and
isometric training methods of the aforementioned specialized strength training program.
Likewise, he notes that force plate analysis of
higher-level athletes revealed a very specific
shape on the activity graph that plotted their
eccentric-to-isometric-to-concentric- contractile movements. These elite athletes had rapid
eccentric activities, miniscule time spent in the
isometric phase, and a quick concentric action. While lower-level athletes also displayed quick
concentric actions, their eccentric and isometric
actions were slow and prolonged compared to
their higher level counterparts. As such, Cal
posited that the most important thing he could
do is improve the eccentric and isometric capabilities of his athletes. He viewed the foun-
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dation of developing these capabilities as the
ability to absorb and hold significant amounts
of weight. Once this foundation was in place,
training would focus on using faster and faster
eccentric and isometric lifts. Completion of this
second stage should then result in significantly
improved abilities in change of direction capabilities, which is indeed supported by findings in
the relevant literature.
To me, the ability to cut, corner, juke, dodge,
cross over, and break ankles can’t necessarily
be attributed to just one quality. If you spend
time around high-level athletes, you’ll probably find that some of the most elusively agile
athletes have largely avoided the weightroom,
and that many of the strongest weight room
frequenters are not the most elusive. Now, I am
not dismissing the weightroom and the many,
career-long benefits of consistent strength
training. I’m just pointing out that there doesn’t
appear to be a one-to-one correlation between
strength and change of direction capabilities,
suggesting that strength training isn’t the sole
predictor of these capabilities.
From what I’ve heard about Allen Iverson’s
weight room utilization, he was not particularly
fond of training, and essentially never did it. Yet, this man may be the most elusive individual
in basketball history, and his crossover dribble
is one of the most unstoppable moves ever
displayed on a basketball court. It could be
that Iverson’s rate of yielding force production
was off the charts, and that this variable is fully
responsible for his agility abilities, but my guess
is that other variables are involved.
If there’s more to change of direction than
absolute strength, the next logical argument to
be made is that perhaps relative strength is the
most significant factor at play. I consider this an
intelligent argument, on which I will briefly touch
here. The greatest degree of absolute strength
will be displayed by your offensive linemen and
sumo wrestlers, but these guys won’t fare well
in change of direction challenges against your
running backs and defensive backs, who will
certainly beat the offensive linemen and sumo
wrestlers in relative strength testing. Relatedly,
we would probably see differences in relative
strength measures between Division 3 and
Division 1 defensive backs, as well as differences between college kids and pros. So, while
we won’t delve into it here, relative strength is
probably highly correlated with ability level in
football, as well as change of direction testing
performance.
But, there’s yet more to the change of
direction success equation. Athlete scouting reports provide useful nuance about an athlete’s
change of direction capabilities, irrespective of
said athlete’s relative strength. One athlete’s
report might mention that he “has to rely on
closing speed in coverage”, while others may
cite “great linear speed, but can’t separate on
routes”. These reports describe athletes who
struggle with “level change”: rotating their bodies, and being able to get in and out of breaks.
They will test every degree as talented as those
who are beating them out at their position. One
differentiator is their lesser ability to shapechange their thorax and pelvis to the same
extent as the most dominant players. Another
is a lesser ability to direct fluids and pressures
inside their bodies, and yet another is a lesser
ability to recognize athletic patterns as their
more agile direction-changing peers. There are limitless limitations for moving in the optimal fashion required by a given
sport. A coach’s job is to tease out the most
likely limitation a given athlete is bumping up
against. Maybe he or she truly isn’t strong
enough. Do you have some relative strength
standards that may be indicative of this? Maybe he or she lacks the ability to create certain
shapes and get body segments into specific
positions that serve to maximize the technique
required for the change of direction demands of
his or her sport. Do you have table test standards to determine if they lack the potential to
position their body appropriately? Could this
athlete have some cognitive pattern recognition
deficits, resulting in inadequately slow or suboptimal responses to environmental stimuli? Can
you create standardized tests to quantify the
athlete’s knowledge of specific game situations
and tactics that go along with those events?
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When assessing change-of-direction capabilities, this book aims to examine strategies,
orientation, and action, as it relates to a given
task. Findings have suggested that improving
muscular strength through resistance training
also improves change of direction. Strength
training is a compression-dominant phenomenon. What probably helps athletes in agility
tests is the ability to maintain a concentric orientation while performing yielding actions during
change of direction tasks. When you maintain
a concentric orientation in a yielding action, you
reduce the yielding ROM. By reducing yielding
ROM, you decrease the time spent going in the
yielding direction, which would lead to reduced
ground contact times.
Actual in-game change of direction
capabilities may necessitate the simultaneous
ability to get into eccentric orientations while
performing the yielding action of a change of
direction task. If the athlete is unable to get into
the eccentric orientation of the relevant yielding
tissues, this would impair his or her change of
direction potential. The solution here would
be to continue to monitor relevant table tests
of joint ROM throughout the athlete’s training
career. If the athlete begins to lose critical joint
motion as a result of improving strength, this
could be the canary in the coal mine, to suggest
that the ability to create an eccentric orientation
could be getting compromised.
For certain cuts, the athlete is best
served by holding a concentric orientation
during the yielding action. Other circumstances
may require achieving an eccentric orientation. Great athletes have the ability to assume either
orientation during their yielding actions. The
ability to call upon the right orientation at the
right time for the appropriate task is probably
the differentiating factor for expressing change
of direction capabilities. First, ensure that the
athlete has the ability to use all strategies,
orientations, and actions. From there, skilled
coaches can develop the combinations of orientations and actions that best serve the athlete’s
most needed sports movements, including his
or her change of direction needs.
Change of direction ability should be developed by training with specific drills. The takehome for this chapter is that we have probably
over-emphasized a single mode of training
for developing this ability. If you ask me, we
should always try to understand the underlying
components of what allows a phenomenon to
be expressed, and target the rate-limiting factor for optimal expression of the ability. What
we should not do is assume every athlete is
inhibited in his or her ability to express a quality by the same underlying limiting factor. We
should also attempt to improve this ability by
coaching athletes on the ideal starting position
for success in the skills demanded by a given
sport, and then step back and allow their natural
abilities to take charge. Explain the intent of the
task to the athlete, let the athlete compete, have
fun, and be aggressive in the drills, and you’ll
probably have success. Once armed with the
requisite movement potential tools, the athlete
will typically self-organize to accomplish the
task to the best of his or her abilities.
General Guidelines to Follow for COD Progressions
When starting change of direction training, there are some basic guidelines to follow
that will minimize problems, help speed up
acquisition of learning great technique, and set
the stage for reaching optimal expression of this
ability. Change of direction is not vastly different from other motor patterns for fitness development, but there are a few quirks to this particular pattern. The four big change of direction
coaching progressions follow:
1.Start with focusing on stopping
2.Start with shorter distances of
acceleration (slower top speed)
With the exception of slideboard
(where longer distances equal less impact
velocity)
3.Increase distance progressively
4.Track volume on number of starts and
stops, as well as yardage accumulated
5.Increase volume progressively
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Everyone wants to get right into getting in and
out of cuts in their change of direction training,
but I would recommend first having your athletes learn how to come to a complete stop. Once an athlete has that down, they can then
move onto mastering how to reaccelerate out of
their break. Cal Dietz did a great job of pointing
out to the performance coaching world that we
need to do a better job of focusing on eccentric
and isometric-specific strength training. This
“focus on the stop” recommendation reflects a
similar concept. The recommendation also fits
well into the model proposed here, as this is
another way of saying: “Start static before progressing to dynamic”. The other element that I
am trying to focus on with this recommendation
is paying homage to the fact that change of
direction training relies so heavily on putting the
athletes in a great starting position, and allowing them to spontaneously display their athleticism. So, on the other end of the spectrum,
“Focus on the start” teaches the importance of
the proper static positioning to move out of.
Next up, “Start with shorter distances of acceleration” is another way of recommending graded exposure to progressively greater forces in
the athlete’s training. If you permit the athlete
a five yard zone to start and stop in, they will
reach a lower top speed than would be achievable in a 15 yard zone. The only exception to
this is the slide board. With the slide board, the
further the lateral barriers are from each other,
the more time there is for friction to decelerate
the athlete before coming in contact with the
wooden foot barrier. There is probably a point
at which increasing the distance between start
and stop lines doesn’t matter, as most athletes
will probably be unable to accelerate beyond
25 to 30 meters, and change of direction zones
longer than this are uncommon. Increase
distances progressively, and keep these intensity changes in mind for calculating changes in
training volume, to minimize the negative side
effects of excess training load spikes.
When tracking change of direction training
volume, you should account for the number
of starts and stops, as well as the total yardage of movement accumulated. Admittedly, I
do not have an exact mathematical formula to
provide for this. I would simply suggest data
tracking yardage in one column, and stops and
starts in the other. Stay away from dramatically increasing both at the same time. Yardage
will express total mechanical work. Starts and
stops will express the cyclical transitions from
overcoming, to yielding, and back to overcoming, in which the athlete will engage. These
cycles are incredibly demanding on an athlete’s
musculature. The effects of direction-change
cycles on an athlete’s system are more difficult to interpret than total yardage accrued, but
counting them will aid better determinations for
quantitatively progressing change of direction
training.
Training Change-of-Direction
Overview
•Available Stances: All
•Available Planes: All
•Available Loads: Light and Moderate
(weight vest on slideboard)
•Available Velocities: Moderate and Fast
•Available Durations: All (slide board for
long duration)
Sagittal Plane
The available options for sagittal plane
change of direction training are drills done from
the bilateral stance and the front/back stance. All drills will be done at high velocity, and duration will be short and moderate. With bilateral
stance drills, this will involve starting the athlete
in the “athletic position” accelerating out of that
position, then decelerating, and coming to an
isometric athletic position/bilateral stance on the
change of direction/stop line. With front/back
stance drills, the athlete will start in a soft start
position, accelerate from this position, decelerate, and then come to an isometric front/back
stance at the change of direction/stop line.
With sagittal plane drills, we have sprintto-stop, sprint-to-backpedal, backpedal-to-stop,
and backpedal-to-sprint drills as our available
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options. You cannot do sprint-to-sprint drills at
the change of direction line, because this would
involve a turn at the change of direction, as well
as getting into a lateral stance. With sagittal
plane drills, you will be facing the same direction at all points in the drill, as these drills are
linear at heart. Here is the list of sagittal plane
change of direction drills:
Bilateral symmetrical
Sprint to stop
Sprint to backpedal
Backpedal to stop
Backpedal to sprint
Front/Back staggered
Sprint to stop
Sprint to backpedal
Backpedal to stop
Backpedal to sprint
Coaching Points
Her research on internal versus external
coaching cues gained Gabrielle Wulfe recognition. The most popularized amongst her findings is that external cues are generally going to
be more helpful to athletes than internal cues,
which can actually be detrimental to performance in many instances. If you want to make
a tennis player much worse at hitting the ball,
ask her to focus on what she’s doing with her
wrist during their swing. Instead, prompting the
athlete to focus on elements outside his or her
body, and generally explaining any task, as well
as intent with which it should be approached,
are recipes for coaching success. Give the
athlete a direction to move in and an attitude to
bring to the job, and paint mental pictures of the
expected shapes his or her body should take
during the drill, and positive results will consistently follow.
The task for all change of direction drills
is pretty straight forward: to go back and forth
between two points as quickly as possible. The
intent that I like to have athletes bring to this
task is that of being competitors. “Just win,
baby. Like a jungle cat, I need you to be relaxed, yet aggressive, supple, powerful, light
on your feet, ferocious. The other approach I
want you to be aware of is the ability to level
change. To stop, I need you to be able to drop
your center of mass. I’m going to need you to
break down effectively to decelerate, stop, and
change direction. If you’re going to sprint really
fast, I need you to think ‘Up!’ If you’re going to
slow down quickly, I need you to think ‘Down’. Get down, break down, chop and drop.”
Frontal Plane
To me, the frontal plane is the show
when you talk about change of direction, elusiveness, and being able to break ankles. There are all kinds of jukes that are done in
sports. Sometimes, athletes will do stop/start
moves that are sagittal in nature, sometimes
athletes will do spin moves and pivots, but
most of the time, lateral jukes are the weapon
of choice. I view the shuttle run is the most
natural drill in existence for training change of
direction. If you were going to try to go back
and forth between two points multiple times,
the shuttle run method would always be the
approach that you would take. The cut on the
shuttle run is always the lateral stance, and
the change of direction is always dominated by
redirecting pressures and volumes inside the
body in the frontal plane. There are special
circumstances and contexts where athletes
choose to use other moves to fake out their opponents with sagittal or transverse change of direction moves, but, when push comes to shove
and you’re trying to go back and forth as fast as
you possibly can, it’s the ability to change direction in the frontal plane that dominates.
The archetype for frontal plane change
of direction is Barry Sanders. Sanders was like
a human pinball, and he made NFL defender’s
look silly when they tried to tackle him. When
you look at still shots of Sanders making moves
on opponents, you can actually see his full ability to compress one side of his body and expand
the other side. The positions Sanders was able
to get into at full speed are beyond belief, all
while NFL linebackers were trying to kill him, no
less. We’re talking positions most of us would
fail to achieve in a low stress, static situation. Frontal plane change of direction truly is the
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ability to sequester volume to one side, while
simultaneously compressing the opposite side
of the body. If you really want to know what that
looks like, watch a Barry Sanders highlight reel,
and then do an internet search for images of
Sanders in the middle of his cuts.
There are more available options for
training change of direction in the frontal plane
than there are for the sagittal plane. All three
stances are available. Sprinting, backpedaling, and side-shuffling are the available modes
for getting through space. You also have the
slide board as an additional tool. When we
talk about velocities, we will generally still be
working in the high velocity range, but if we
are doing slide board for an extended period of
time, the velocity can move down to a moderate
range.
When it comes to change of direction and working in the long duration domain, the slide board
is the only tool and approach I would recommend. It removes all ground contacts from the
equation, and is pretty easy on the body. If you
did long-duration shuttle runs, you would probably be so sore the next day that you wouldn’t
be able to get out of bed. That said, accumulating 30 plus minutes of slide board work in a
training session is certainly not something that
is unheard of for trained individuals, and I have
personally accumulated more than that without
incurring severe DOMS the next day.
There is a lot of bleedover between transverse
and frontal plane work with change of direction. If you are rotating your whole body to get into
and out of cuts, you’re going into the realm of
transverse… but the general idea is that some
drills are more frontal/transverse than others,
and they will be categorized into one of those
two planar domains, depending on which is
more dominant. As a general rule of thumb,
side shuffling places the drill into frontal plane
dominance. The following is a list of available
options for frontal plane change of direction
work:
Bilateral
Side shuffle to stick
Side shuffle shuttle
Front/Back
Sprint to side shuffle
Back pedal to side shuffle
Lateral
Sprint to shuttle run stick
Shuttle run
Ladder drills (Icky shuffle variants)
Side shuffle to sprint
Cross-over step to sprint
Slideboard
Fig 9.1 - Person that is shuffling in the frontal plane
Fig 9.2 - Person on the slideboard
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Coaching Points
The most common cue coaches will give
for changing direction and coming in and out
of brakes is to “stay low”. Being able to drop
center of mass allows for rapid deceleration and
stopping ability. Insufficient strength and joint
range of motion access are the two common
culprits behind the inability to get low, and get
in and out of breaks. And, if either weakness or
positional insufficiency are at play, more agility
work is probably not the right solution for improving agility performance. Those who struggle with change of direction can benefit from
diagnostic tests, to help identify the main limiter
of performance. The table and the barbell are
two good tools for this. Can the athlete demonstrate close to human norms for joint range of
motion? Can the athlete yield with a heavy
barbell and hold it still at any point in the range
of motion? Can the athlete perform fast yielding
actions with a barbell, and stop it like a statue
at any point in the range of motion? You don’t
need a force plate and a laboratory biomechanics camera setup to get a good idea about what
the athlete is lacking.
If you believe your athlete is strong
enough and has the joint range of motion potential to be able to perform change of direction
tasks well, there are a few other things that
may be holding him or her back in the actual
performance of the task. Some of the common
factors I’ve encountered are improper footwear,
inappropriate training surface, and lack of competition. If the interaction between the athlete
and the ground is compromised, so is the athlete’s ability to demonstrate a high level change
of direction capabilities. First, make sure
you have an appropriate floor on which to do
change of direction work, and do not take risks
here; you do not want people slipping, turning
ankles, or wiping out while doing these drills. To reduce risk of slipping, check your athlete’s
footwear for proper lacing and sufficient tread. Injuries resulting from an inappropriate training
surface or footwear are largely avoidable, and
certainly something fitness professionals should
take care to avoid on our watch.
As for creating a competitive environment for
the change of direction work, we typically get
more from the athletes we train when they’re
competing against other athletes. If they’re
sheltered from competition throughout their
change of direction training, they’re unlikely to
ever go as fast as they could, and hence likely to leave a lot of training adaptations on the
table.
Transverse Plane
When I think of great transverse-plane
change of direction and agility, I think of the
great post players in NBA history. The person who comes to mind first is Hakeem “The
Dream” Olajuwon. Olajuwon made other centers look foolish as he pivoted towards and
away from the baseline before going up and
under, or faded away with a jumper. Hakeem’s
signature “dream shake” is one of the most
unstoppable moves in NBA history, right up
there with Kareem’s one and only “sky hook”,
Jordan’s fade away, and Harden’s step back. Olajuwon’s footwork was second to none,
and at 7 feet tall, the speed and fluidity of his
reverse pivot seemed unfair to opposing defenders. Similarly, my archetype for transverse
plane change of direction is the Dream Shake. If you remember Hakeem “The Dream”, you
know exactly what I’m talking about. If not, and
you appreciate poetry in motion, do yourself a
favor and look it up.
Transverse plane change of direction
involves being able to pivot from a static start,
and then either accelerating out of that position, or decelerating your momentum in a given
direction, followed by pivoting into a change
of direction. My conviction is that the ability to
orient and control one’s sphenoid, sternum, and
sacrum in the transverse plane is what makes
for great pivoting. Can these structures turn like
a weather vane through space? Are they able
to link up and work together, as well as separate and dissociate from each other? In order
to pivot at full speed and go in a given direction,
all three must work together. To fake a pivot in
one direction and then go the other, these central “S” bones need to be able to dissociate from
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each other.
All three stances are available for transverse plane change of direction drills. These
drills are all about being able to pivot into some
form of acceleration (sprint, back pedal, or
shuffle), or decelerate from some form of acceleration into a pivot change of direction. Here is
the list of available options for transverse plane
change of direction training:
Transverse plane available options
Bilateral symmetrical
Pivot to sprint
Pivot to shuffle
Front/Back staggered
Sprint to Pivot
Back pedal to Pivot
Lateral staggered
Side shuffle to Pivot
around quickly, the body will follow. In wrestling, you hear: “Control the head, and you’ll
control the body”. By the same token, you need
to let your eyes direct you into and out of your
turns on a motorcycle; look where you want to
go, and the bike will follow. Rotating, pivoting,
and turning with optimal efficacy are also movements where the head controls the body, and
the eyes can guide you where you want to go.
Technique aside, the use of spin moves in
sports also demands confidence and aggressiveness. When you see a mixed martial artist
go for a spinning back kick or a spinning back
hand, you know you’re watching a confident
fighter. When a hockey player attempts a spino-rama, in that moment, that player isn’t holding
back. A running back who spins on a linebacker
in the A gap is out to dominate the game. When
pulled off as intended, transverse plane change
of direction can be downright spectacular. But,
if something goes wrong during their execution, they can also leave the athlete particularly
vulnerable, as they require momentarily giving
up some control. You might not see something coming, or miscalculate one of the many
moving parts of performing these moves. One
thing’s for sure: you cannot be unsure of yourself during a spin, nor doubt its outcome.
Dominant Positions and Fitness Realms
Fig 9.3 - Person going from back pedaling to a
reverse pivot
Coaching Points
Pivoting quickly hinges on the ability to get the
head around fast. If you are going to be doing
pirouettes, you need to have a visual focal point
you can find when you spin back around to your
starting position. Before you turn, you should
think about where you plan to look at the end
of your turn, and practice finding that object as
quickly as you can. If you can get the head
Dominant Plane: Frontal
Dominant Stance: Lateral
Dominant Load: Low
Dominant Velocity: High
Dominant Duration: Short to Moderate
Evolutionarily speaking, change of direction is
based on the relationship between predator
and prey. In sports, sometimes a player is the
predator, and sometimes the prey. Both individuals need to be able to demonstrate change of
direction capabilities. Are you evading or pursuing? This is not exclusive to offense or defense. Sometimes, a football player on offense is seeking to get a defender slightly off balance, and
then run straight through his chest. Sometimes,
the defender is setting up the offensive player,
to strategically move him or her in a direction
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that allows the defender to close the gap, and
close on the offensive player in a specific way. Nature endowed us with quick responses,
rooted in the relationship of pursuit and evasion. Thanks to this gift, without conscious thought on
our parts, our bodies will do the exact best thing
they know how so as to survive. Sports exploit
these built-in fight or flight responses, though,
unlike nature, often allow players to change
roles midstream, being the predator one minute
and prey the next. So, if the instincts are a given, what an athlete may lack is pattern recognition of specific situations, and intelligent tactics
for ensuring the desired outcome therein. Back to nature: juvenile lions aren’t masters of
the hunt on day one. They have yet to learn
from veteran members of their pride the craft of
taking down prey animals. As such, the targets
their chosen targets are prey animals that find
themselves out of position, the young, the weak
or the injured, all of which likely lack good evasion tactics. As an ambush predator, the lion
carefully sets up her position before unleashing
her attack. Instinctively, she knows that, if her
starting position is suboptimal, the subsequent
takedown may leave her—and hers—unfed. Every animal has its hustle. Alligators will
pretend to be very slow, and then explode at
their prey like a bolt of lightning. Some animals pretend not to be looking, and then strike. Sports, too, often utilize deception, and effective
change of direction is a kind of deception. You
need to work on your craft. You need to get
into the game and recognize the patterns. You
need to learn to set up your opponents to fall
into your traps. You’re likely catching on by now
that change of direction greatness isn’t all about
athleticism. Yes, athleticism is incredibly helpful. But, as the movement pattern of this chapter is concerned, athleticism alone is insufficient
without craftiness, timing, and the set up.
References:
Keiner M, Sander A, Wirth K, Schmidtbleicher D. Long term strength training effects
on change of direction sprint performance. J
Strength Cond Res 28: 223–231, 2014.
Mcbride JM, Triplett-Mcbride T, Davie A, Newton R. The effect of heavy- vs. light- load jump
squats on the development of strength, power
and speed. J Strength Cond Res 16: 75–82,
2002.
Miller MG, Herniman JJ, Ricard MD, Cheatham
CC, Michael TJ. The Effects of a 6-Week Plyometric Training Program on Agility. J Sports
Sci Med. 2006 Sep; 5(3): 459–465. Published
online 2006 Sep 1.
Sheppard JM, Young WB. Agility literature
review: Classifications, training and testing. J
Sports Sci 24: 919–932, 2005.
10
Pattern 6: Throwing
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Pattern 6: Throwing
Chapter 10
Darwin believed that the key evolutionary
step our ancestors took towards the presentation of modern humans was the transition to
upright, bipedal movement. This step unlocked
our ability to perform a slew of distinctly human activities, including running, dissipating
heat, using tools, and cooking. In my opinion,
throwing should be included in the discussion of
movements that differentiate humans from other
animals, because no other animal has the capability of launching projectiles with the velocity
and pinpoint accuracy that we do. Some men
have the ability to send small projectiles hurtling
through the air at over 100 miles per hour, and
can consistently hit small targets from distances of greater than 50 feet away. While smaller,
slower, unable to jump as high or defend ourselves with sharp claws, teeth and other armour
characteristic of our animal brothers, we are the
only animal on this planet that can throw. And,
from both an offensive and a defensive perspective, this ability is a weapon that’s second
to none.
When we think of the hunting style of ancient
humans, we typically think of the persistence
hunting method. We would slowly run down
animals in the peak of heat in the middle of the
day in Africa. These animals would eventually
overheat, collapse, and then we would go in
for the kill. I don’t know about you, but I’m not
taking my chances with a scared, dying zebra
up close. That thing is a very strong, very muscular, wild African horse, and if it lashes out and
kicks me, I’m in bad shape. As such, I would
prefer to keep my distance, and pepper it with
rocks until I’m sure it’s dead. But, once that
happens, buzzards may circle and then swoop
in for a piece of the action, and hyenas may get
wind of a fresh kill. I’m going to need to defend
my prey from these would-be thieves, again
without getting close to them. Again, my chosen
method for accomplishing all this would be to
throw some rocks.
A common complaint about modern athletes
is that they are entirely overcompensated financially for what they do. I don’t share this
complaint, because I can’t help but feel that we
are paying modern athletes for their ancestors’
contributions to our survival as a species. If you
happened to have someone in your tribe who
could throw a sharp rock at 90 mph with great
accuracy, they would be the “breadwinner” on
whose skill the tribe would perpetually rely for
its next meal. Maybe that’s why we watch,
awestruck, as modern athletes throw baseballs
at 100 mph—what we’re really seeing is a gift
that would have fed us, and defended us from
predatory animals thousands of years ago.
The Biomechanics of Throwing and
Striking
Throwing, punching, kicking, and striking objects with sticks and clubs are very similar
actions. They involve the proper rotational se-
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quencing of hips, abdomen, thorax, shoulders,
and appendages to drive the whip-like movement used to launch a projectile through space. When we create the stereotypical act of human
projectile propulsion, we typically see the two
sides of the body simultaneously perform opposite actions.
When an athlete throws a baseball,
the movement will be initiated with a windup,
followed by a preparatory or cocking phase,
then by a drive phase, wherein the athlete will
actively accelerate his or her throwing arm
towards the target to project the ball through
space. Lastly, this motion will be followed by
a follow-through phase with the throwing arm. When examining an athlete throwing a ball, you
will see the ipsilateral arm and leg featuring the
same movement strategies at the same time. So, if the glove-side arm is in a slot associated with compression in the propulsion arc, the
glove-side leg should also be in a compression
region of the arc, using compression joint actions. When you see one side of the body using
a specific strategy, the other side of the body
will be using its opposite.
In the cocking phase, the glove-side arm will
be pronated, internally rotated, and extended,
while the throwing hand will be supinated, externally rotated, and flexed. The athlete will enter
the drive phase of throwing, and the arms will
switch joint actions. The glove-side arm will begin supinating, externally rotating, and flexing. The throwing arm will begin pronating, internally
rotating, and extending.
Fig 10.1 - Different stages of a baseball throw
The lower extremities will work with the upper
extremities to accomplish the task of throwing. During the cocking phase, the glove-side leg
is in the air. The glove-side leg is somewhere
in the middle of the propulsion arc, which is
a compressive zone. Therefore, the primary
actions on this side are compressive in nature. The glove-side leg will move towards the target,
and eventually make contact with the ground. As the glove-side leg moves towards the target,
it is moving further away from the mid-zone
of the propulsion arc, and, at the moment the
glove-side leg makes contact with the ground,
that leg firmly enters early propulsion.
When the glove-side leg hits the ground, this
unequivocally triggers the drive phase of throwing. The glove-side leg is now externally rotating, flexing, and abducting. Meanwhile, the
throwing hand-side leg is doing the opposite,
engaging in late propulsion behaviors during
the cocking phase of throwing, and pushing
off with a powerful display of abduction, external rotation, and supination. The moment the
glove-side leg hits the ground, the throwing-side
leg begins to lift off the ground, increasingly undertaking compressive strategies by internally
rotating, and powerfully adducting.
At the point of release of the ball, the throwing
hand-side arm and leg should be at maximum
compression. The compression, concentric
orientation of the muscles, and overcoming
muscular actions of the throwing hand-side arm
and leg are what launch the baseball through
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space during the drive phase of throwing. After
release, the athlete enters the follow-through. The glove-side arm and leg of the body need to
continue expanding, creating an eccentric orientation of the muscles, and a yielding muscular
action, to help decelerate the throwing-side arm
and leg.
The windup phase is dominated by the expansion of the throwing hand-side arm and leg. By providing sufficient compression during the
windup, the glove-side arm and leg assist the
acquisition of proper throwing-side expansion. The drive phase of throwing is dominated by the
compression of the throwing hand-side arm and
leg. By providing sufficient expansion during
the drive phase, the glove-side arm and leg assist the ability to reach maximum compression
of the throwing side. The follow-through phase
is dominated by the expansion of the glove-side
arm and leg. By providing sufficient compression during the follow-through, the throwing
hand-side arm and leg assist the acquisition of
proper glove-side expansion. Both sides of the
body fluidly work together during the throwing
motion, to maximally prepare it for the throw,
actually project the object, and then decelerate
it afterwards.
Training the Throwing Pattern
Available Options
In the fitness environment, there are a
few modalities available for training the throwing
pattern. The primary tool that is used in most
facilities is the medicine ball. You also have the
ability to do chops and lifts with a stick or rope
attached to a cable machine. Other options to
train this pattern include sledge hammers and
maces, along with kettlebells, kegs, and sand
bags. Some gyms supply equipment for punching and kicking, like bags and mitts.
Sagittal Bilateral, High Load, Moderate
Velocity, Short Duration
Within the quantitative limits of this available option, you have a few choices of drills that
make sense. The choices are all very similar
to throwing events that you would see in something like the Highland Games, or in the sport of
strongman. You can do activities like throwing
kegs, sand bags, or kettlebells in an overhead
direction, and potentially over bars. These drills
feature the athlete swinging the object down
between the legs, and then explosively launching it up and back over the head. These are
fairly simple drills that generate great power,
and are fantastic for synchronous, high rate-offorce development muscular actions. The order
of progressions for these bilateral stance, high
load, moderate velocity, short duration throwing
activities is:
1.Heavy medicine ball overhead throw
2.Kettlebell overhead throw
3.Sandbag overhead throw
4.Keg overhead throw
Coaching Points
Rhythm, sequencing, and timing are all
critical to these types of throws. When looking
to do one throw for maximal height, the athlete will want to take a few preparatory swings
to feel the way the object swings down between the legs, and how it feels when traveling
through its upward arc in the overhead direction. Once he or she feels out the movement’s
rhythm and plots its path, the athlete is ready to
launch the projectile. The connection between
the feet and the ground is critically important
here. You want the feet to be well-anchored to
the ground throughout the throwing motion, but
particularly at the time of the object’s launch. Coaching guidance here is “Be aggressive, and
throw the object with the intent of trying to send
it into outer space.” After the follow-through, the
athlete’s feet should still feel very rooted in the
ground. The only way to throw something very
high off the ground is to push your feet down
into it, which necessitates maintaining the connection between ground and feet. When it comes to larger objects like
kegs, being able to maneuver the object between the legs on the downswing can be challenging. For kegs, the key is to feature ulnar
deviation of the wrist at just the right time,
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meaning flicking the wrist towards the pinky
side of the hand at just the right moment of the
downswing, to prevent the keg from hitting the
ground, instead quickly propelling it through
the legs. Doing this dramatically increases the
speed of the keg as it moves through the throwing zone, keeps the keg unencumbered on its
swing path, and maximizes the ability to throw
the object.
Throwing is a bit like sprinting, in that,
staying too tight is a recipe for failure. Even
for heavy throwing, you need to figure out how
to relax and be rhythmic. Yes, it’s very difficult
to be relaxed when you’re trying to run as fast
as you possibly can, or heave something very
heavy. Yet, this is precisely what’s required to
be good at the task, which requires very quick
bursts of unbelievable initial force and compression, followed by relaxation, natural flow and expansion. You can always spot a stiff in throwing
and sprinting events, and you can bet they’re
going to lose out to athletes who can toggle the
phase change that allows force and relaxation
to alternate.
Sagittal Bilateral, Low Load, High Velocity
This is a realm that is primarily dominated by medicine balls thrown with a chest throw
or an overhead throw. The only other drill that
can live in here is a light overhead medicine ball
throw. When examining chest throws and overhead throws, we can start in positions that train
basic sensorimotor competencies, and then
parlay those skills into progressively more challenging drills. When you examine the progressions for the throws in this category, you will see
that they go from sitting to kneeling to standing
to squatting. Something else to keep in mind is
that you would always do the chest throw variation before the overhead throw. While both are
linear throws, it is much easier to keep sagittal
plane competencies with the chest throw variation. My recommendation would be to start with
chest throws with the number one progression
position, then work on overhead throws in the
number one progression position before moving
on to number two in the chest throws list. The
following is the list of progressions for sagittal
plane, bilateral stance, low load, high velocity
throws:
1. Seated w/heel contact (rower)
2. Long seated w/feet pressing into box
3. Long seated
4. Tall kneeling w/feet on wall
5. Tall kneeling
6. Standing
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7. Semi-squat
8. Deeper squat
Coaching Points
When coaching any of these positions,
once the subject is seated, kneeling, standing,
etc., cue them to get tall through the middle of
their skull. Next, ask him or her to reach for
the wall with the ball without losing any height. Then, have him or her exhale as much air as
possible without losing any height. Now, ask
them if they can feel their abs and hamstrings. If they nod affirmatively, that’s what you want
(If they’re answering you, they haven’t fully
exhaled)! Next, have the subject inhale, while
keeping their height, as well as the position of
the abs and hamstrings, and throw the ball. This is the sequence I personally use to cue
these drills: get tall, reach, exhale, find and feel,
inhale, maintain, and, finally, throw. At first,
this is a little cumbersome, and mistakes are
common. But, after a few sets, things start to
fall into place, at which point you can challenge
your subject to run through this sequence at a
faster pace. Eventually, it becomes automatic
and the sets move fluidly.
With the first drill, which requires sitting
on a rowing ergometer, I sometimes put a band
around the subject’s trunk, and then loop the
other end of the band around the far end of
the rower behind him or her. This utilizes RNT,
providing some resistance for the subject to pull
against. It’s also a surefire way to engage the
hamstrings. When subjects keep their height,
and find abs with their reach on this drill, they
will be highly primed to throw with power. Oftentimes, people are amazed at the power of
their throws as a result of this drill. And, once
they’ve mastered it, they know what to find and
feel to make subsequent throwing drills just as
successful.
For seated drills, you can prompt the
subject to “get tall” by asking them to push their
butts down into the ground. This helps subjects
find their ischial tuberosity (sit bones), to serve
as points of contact on both sides. Similarly, for
kneeling drills, you can cue folks to push their
knees down into the ground, which will often
quickly and effectively engage the hamstrings. In fact, you know you have your work cut out
for you with subjects that do not immediately
feel hamstrings with this cue in this position. That work is to help them develop sagittal plane
sensorimotor competencies, which highly flexible subjects will often need. Don’t be in a rush
to get to other planes with these subjects. It
might be difficult for them to figure out the sagittal plane, but, once they do, a bevy of positive
ripple effects will ensue.
Sagittal, Front/Back, Low Load, High
Velocity, Short Duration
These drills will be limited to linear
throws. The positions available here include
half kneeling, retro step, standing staggered
step, split squat, backwards lunging, and forwards lunging. There is a big gap in ability
needed to do the first progression versus the
last progression in this category. Being able
to properly do an overhead throw from a lunge
step requires a tremendous amount of athleticism and fairly advanced training age and
competency. You will get incredible results
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from many of the early exercise progressions,
so don’t be in a rush to get to the end of the list
just because those exercises look fancy. Find
the drill that lives at the subject’s ability level,
and maximize the adaptations you get from that
drill. The following is the list of progressions for
sagittal plane, front/back stance, low load, high
velocity, short duration throws:
6. Split squat w/back foot on wall
1. Half kneeling w/back foot on wall
7. Split squat
8. Backwards lunge
2. Half kneeling
3. Retro step
9. Forward lunge
10. Forward lunge w/back foot on wall
Coaching Points
4. Standing staggered w/back foot on wall
5. Standing staggered
“Getting tall” is the first order of business in
these positions. From there, coaching through
the feet is really critical, as is identifying the
target muscle in each leg. Look for every opportunity for great foot contact with the floor or a
wall behind the subject. If I manage to get subjects tall, with full foot coverage on the ground,
I get most of the competencies I’m looking for. From there, I follow the previously presented
sequence: go after the same reach with the ball
to get abs without losing height, inhale while
holding sensation of proper muscles, and throw. Now, the question is: which muscle am I going
after on each leg?
If someone is in a half-kneeling position, the
front leg is flexed at the hip, with the foot flat on
the floor. The back leg’s knee is on the ground,
and the sole of the foot is pointing backwards. That makes the target tissue of the front leg the
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hamstring, and the target tissue of the back leg
the glute. Hamstrings are the hip extensors for
a flexed hip. Glutes are the hip extensors for a
leg that is near terminal extension. I’ll often cue
the subject to try to drag the floor backwards
with the front heel, and try to bring the back
pocket down towards the back of the knee on
the back leg, all while not losing any height. The other motor competency red flag is whether
the sternum goes into a down pump handle position. This undesirable sternal motion is usually what drives the loss of height, and is usually
accompanied by a turtle shell-shaped back.
The retro step that is featured in this
series is not one that creates a hip shift. One
simply takes a step backwards with one foot,
keeping the hips and shoulders square. From
there, the trick is to distribute slightly more
weight to the back foot than the front foot, and
sink down into a slight squat with the back heel
as the primary reference point.
Within this category of exercise, linear
throws and rotational throws are available
options. What will make these throws frontal
plane is the hip shift involved. That said, there’s
absolutely bleed-over into the sagittal plane for
linear throws, just as there’s a transverse plane
element in rotational throws. Once you start
doing rotational throws, it’s a drill that could just
as easily be called a transverse plane drill. To
avoid redundancy, the progressions below are
only listed as frontal plane drills, all of which are
also pelvis drills. Linear throws are sagittal thorax, and rotational drills are transverse thorax. The drills listed below only include the position
in which you’re putting the subject. My recommendation is to start with linear throws in each
position, and then progress to rotational throws: 1. Tall kneeling w/stance knee elevated, feet on
wall, & w/hip shift
While executing the lunge steps and throws,
you are looking to keep height through the thorax and skull. The common motor errors that
you will see are as follows:
1.Demonstrating too much trunk lean.
2.The hip goes into a hinge (rides along with trunk lean).
3.The angle of the back leg features a
negative thigh angle that is excessive (you’re
looking for the thigh to be close to straight up
and down).
4.The knee does not track forward enough on the front leg (you want to see dorsiflexion and
shooting forward of the knee).
5.The front foot does not pronate enough (first ray doesn’t drop, big toe doesn’t have good contact with the ground). If you get a subject to move into a great lunge with an ankle that
dorsiflexes, a back hip that extends, and a
body that looks like it could drop down in a
very tight elevator shaft, you’ve got some
body working at a very high level in front of
you.
Frontal, Bilateral, Low Load, High Velocity,
Short Duration
2. Tall kneeling w/stance knee elevated, and w/ hip shift
3. Tall kneeling w/hip shift
4. Standing w/stance foot elevated w/hip shift
5. Standing w/hip shift
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6. Semi-squat w/stance foot elevated and w/hip
shift
of the femur, which is just following the pelvis. Cueing them through the inside edge of the foot
will commonly result in a cascade of properly
executed movements, saving you both a lot of
time and frustration.
Frontal, Front/Back, Low Load, High
Velocity, Short Duration
7. Semi squat w/hip shift
8. Squat w/stance foot elevated and w/hip shift
9. Squat w/hip shift
Coaching Points
When coaching the frontal plane from the
tall kneeling position, I tell subjects to increasingly load the knee on the hip shift side, and increasingly unload the knee on the side opposite
the hip shift. This cue typically helps the subject center over the stance-side knee, and begin
to rotate into the hip shift-side hip. This same
cue works really well for standing and squatting
positions, with the only difference being that
you’re now asking subjects to load the shift-side
foot and unload the opposite foot.
When I am coaching rotational throws, I
have a few go-to cues that typically work. First,
I get my subject to center, “Load the stance
side and unload the opposite side.” Second,
I ask him or her to bring the ball to the pocket,
and then to bring both the ball and the pocket
towards the wall behind him or her. This cue
typically results in a hip shift of the stance side,
allowing the thorax to rotate nicely over that hip,
and setting the subject up for a powerful throw.
Oftentimes, I’ll see the weight going excessively
to the outside of the subject’s foot. In those circumstances, I’ll guide him or her to plant down
hard on the inside edge of the foot, and keep
the big toe down on the ground. When you see
a subject with the weight on the outside edge
of the foot, you can all but guarantee that he or
she isn’t maintaining control over the position
This category includes linear and rotational throws. All throws done in this category
will feature a hip shift, which makes them frontal
plane throws. The positions we have available
to us are a retro step, half kneeling, standing
staggered, split squat, backwards lunging, and
forwards lunging. This is a large number of
positions, and a big gulf to cross from the early
progression drills to the late progression drills. A significant amount of strength, athleticism,
motor learning skill, and training time needs to
be cultivated and invested in before someone is
going to be able to perform moving lunge variations of these throws with proficiency. Here is
the list of drills from the frontal plane, front/back
stance, low load, high velocity, short duration,
throwing category of exercise: 1. Elevated stance foot retro step w/hip shift
2. Retro step w/hip shift
3. Half kneeling w/hip shift and w/rear foot on
wall
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4. Half kneeling w/hip shift
5. Standing staggered w/hip shift and w/rear
foot on wall
6. Standing staggered w/hip shift
7. Semi-split squat w/hip shift and w/rear foot on
wall
8. Semi-split squat w/hip shift
9. Split squat w/hip shift and w/rear foot on wall
10. Split squat w/hip shift
11. Backwards lunge w/hip shift
12. Forward lunge w/hip shift
Coaching Points
This is one of my favorite categories in
all of exercise, and drill number one is one of
my favorite exercises available therein. Both
in my own training and that of my subjects, I
feel like I’m constantly reverting to early drills
from the progression lists. Many of these early progression drills are fairly easy to execute,
stimulate a great response, and facilitate continued learning and improvement on their underlying concept. My advice with most of the drills
throughout this book is to not be afraid of going
back to earlier progressions, even if you’ve
become proficient at some of the later ones. When you return to them, you’ll probably find
that there’s more water in those early wells.
The other thing that you may find is that most
of your clients will not get sick of the early
exercises as quickly as you may become sick
of coaching them. You’re going to train ten to
twelve people per day, one-on-one, or sixty to
eighty in small group training, and witness the
same exercises being performed over and over. Make that hundreds of people if you’re working
with big groups or teams. The thing to remember is: just because you’re sick of seeing it and
coaching it, doesn’t mean that the subjects actually doing the drills are. If you keep this in
mind, it’s easier to think twice before switching
a drill to the next level of progression.
For some, these front/back throws will
come easier than the bilateral throws. Every
pattern will have its own little quirks. Throwing
isn’t something that people do much of in a bilateral stance, so it can lock the action up a little
bit. Staggering the feet can help make throwing
feel a bit more natural. The cues will not be
dissimilar from those recommended in the previous section: “Load the foot on the side of the
hip shift, and unload the foot on the other side. Bring the ball to the pocket, and then bring the
pocket back.” These will help promote thoracic
and hip rotation to the hip shift side. The word
“coil” helps get some subjects to move in the
right direction. Also, having subjects reference
the inside edge of their foot on the side that
they are rotating towards will help keep the femur centered, and should help lend more power
to the throw.
Frontal, Lateral, Low Load, High Velocity,
Short Duration
Proper execution of the backswing of
a slap shot or a golf swing relies on the same
concept as the setup for the throws in this category. The backswing for these kinds of movements involves lateralizing one’s weight over
the hip shift-side foot, and having the other leg
guide the subject into the windup. The windup
lateralization towards the backside (hip shiftside) foot sets the stage for the pelvis to lateralize towards the frontside foot, as the body is ro-
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tating to drive the stick/club through the impact
zone. The lateralization of the pelvis towards
the backside foot on the windup and towards
the frontside foot through the impact zone is a
primary driver of power for these rotary activities. All of these lateral stance drills are great
devices for teaching this concept and training
athletes to maximize this ubiquitous movement
strategy.
Both linear and rotational throws are available
in this category. The positions available include
lateral kneeling, lateral staggered standing, lateral squatting, and lateral lunging. Being able
to properly step into a lateral lunge and then
execute a throw from there is one of the most
difficult exercises around. The throws in this
category are the most difficult, and the lunge is
the most difficult drill within this category. Make
sure your subjects are fully ready for it before
embarking on this exercise. The following is the
list of drills for the frontal plane, lateral stance,
low load, high velocity, short duration category
of throws:
4. Elevated stance foot lateral semi-squat w/hip
shift
5. Lateral semi-squat w/hip shift
6. Lateral squat w/hip shift
7. Lateral lunge w/hip shift
1. Lateral kneeling w/hip shift
Coaching Points
2. Elevated stance foot lateral standing w/hip
shift
3. Lateral standing w/hip shift
While my cues rarely change that much
from drill to drill, and from category to category,
a given subject’s challenges may get magnified
by certain categories of drills. The ability to
lateralize one’s body weight is the big challenge
in this category, as frontal plane centering is a
very difficult thing to do. Add trying to throw a
medicine ball on top of the difficulty of trying to
center, and now you’re going to see all sorts of
breakdowns. The two most common errors are
seeing the head and thorax leaning outside the
base of support, and a variation of listing, where
the pelvis lateralizes away from the hip shiftside foot, while the thorax rotates over the hip
shift-side foot.
A lot of times, video is the best tool for
illustrating what you’re trying to communicate,
yielding quick and effective adjustments. If
not, you go back to the basics found in the Big
10 Principles of Progression. References and
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constraints are incredibly useful in this category. I’ll place an object at hip height, right in line
with where the outside of the hip shift-side foot
is (which is a reference point). I’ll ask the subject to lateralize his or her weight until the side
of the hip hits the object. I’ll have the subject
windup for the throw and maintain that contact. This will prevent listing, and lateralizing the pelvis in the wrong direction. Simultaneously, I will
sometimes have an object outside the knee on
the hip shift side, to prevent the femur from lateralizing too far on the hip shift side, and going
laterally over the pinky side of the foot (which is
a constraint).
When it comes to errors involving the
position of the skull, there are two big ones. First, it may lean outside one’s base of support. When lateralizing weight and centering
over one foot, the neck should be side-bent in
the opposite direction of the supporting foot. When centered over the left foot, the neck will
be laterally flexed to the right. When centered
over the left foot and the neck is laterally flexed
to the right, it will appear as though the head is
straight up and down. This is all part of the zero-sum phenomenon of frontal plane centering.
When I see someone who is leaning, oftentimes this subject has not managed to create
lateral flexion in the neck to offset the thoracic
side-bending in the direction of the stance-side
foot. When I see this, I’ll often pause the subject, and readjust his or her head with my hand. When cueing to get proper offsetting lateral flexion in the trunk and neck, I’ll cue from the armpit
and the ear. If the subject is trying to lateralize
over his or her left foot, I’ll cue left armpit to left
hip, and right ear to right shoulder. I give these
cues when I have pulled the subject out of the
drill, and I am trying to show them what they’re
doing wrong in a slow and controlled manner. I’ll have them focus on feeling certain things,
like a heavy stance-side foot, for instance, and
how these factors influence the movement in
question. Then, when they throw, I’ll typically
have them focus on that foot, bringing the ball
to the pocket, and the pocket to the back wall…
and then simply throwing the ball.
The second error I’ll see with the skull is on the
windup, when the subject lets his or her neck
turn with the body. Instead, the subject should
be looking in the direction of where they want to
throw, not turning all body parts at once, without dissociation. When I see that, I’ll focus on
telling the subject to keep his or her eyes on the
target. Sometimes this works. Other times, it’s
less successful. In these cases, I find myself
putting my hands on the subject’s head, and
manually turning the neck so that he or she is
looking at the target wall. Being able to dissociate the neck from the
thorax on these kinds of swinging drills is very
difficult. Part of the reason is probably that
the ball is heavy, so people need to tense up
to be able to deal with it. This tension causes
many to clench their jaw and recruit a lot of
neck muscles, and a tense jaw and neck is very
difficult to rotate and prevent from following the
thorax. When athletes try to muscle up on golf
swings and baseball swings, the outcome is
usually not as good. The same line of thinking
probably applies to medicine ball throws, which
I’ve found tend to look much better when I cue
subjects to focus on being smooth, as opposed
to trying to throw the ball through the wall. When subjects relax and move smoothly, the
dissociation is better, the impact of the ball into
the wall is stronger, and, bonus: they tend to not
complain as much about stiff necks and backs
afterwards! Frontal Pelvis, Transverse Thorax, Front/
Back, Moderate/Heavy Load, Low Velocity,
Moderate Duration
When I see kettlebell windmill drills, I see
a lot of the elements that live in throwing and
striking activities being done in slow motion. In
my mind, windmills are the heavy, slow version
of throwing. I would also say the same thing
about the initial sit up motion involved with a
Turkish get up. Throwing well is all about a high
functioning pelvis in the frontal plane and a high
functioning thorax in the transverse plane. You
could say the same thing about a lot of other
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patterns, but throwing takes these to a higher
extreme. Windmills really maximize the pelvic
and thorax components, and clearly display
when either is lacking.
In this category of drills, every activity will
be a windmill, performed from some variation
of the front/back stance. The different positions
available here include half kneeling, standing
staggered, and split squat. Here is the list of
drills available for the frontal plane pelvis, transverse plane thorax, front/back stance, moderate
to heavy load, low velocity throwing pattern:
1. Half kneeling windmill w/rear foot on wall
2. Half kneeling windmill
3. Standing staggered windmill w/knee support
and rear foot on wall
4. Standing staggered windmill w/rear foot on
wall
5. Standing staggered windmill
6. Split squat w/rear foot on wall
7. Split squat
Coaching Points
These drills are the ultimate for demonstrating how ineffective an exercise can be if it
lacks sensorimotor competencies, and just how
devastating it can be when all the elements of
this model are followed precisely. With all of
these drills, the front foot is going to be your hip
shift side. You need to get the subject to center
his or her weight over that front foot, rotate into
the front hip, and maintain this as they rotate
their thorax, to maintain the bell in a vertical
direction while the unloaded hand reaches for
the ground. To center the weight over the front
foot, the pelvis needs to lateralize to the side
of the front foot. When this is done while the
position of the femur is maintained, the amount
of adductor and glute med that they feel can
be shocking. When the pelvis is held in this
position and the thorax rotates fully, the oblique
recruitment is incredibly strong.
Before we start, I like seeing subjects perform
a windmill, uncoached. Once they’ve demonstrated it, I’ll ask subjects to hold the bottom
position, where their unloaded hand is on the
ground. Here, it becomes apparent that, almost
invariably, the pelvis has not lateralized in the
appropriate direction. I’ll scoop around their
hips and manually lateralize the pelvis so that
the zipper is centered over the front foot big
toe. It’s not uncommon to see eyes the size of
saucers when they feel the adductor and glute
med engage with the lateralization. I’ll push the
hips away from being lateralized to demonstrate
how these muscles disengage as a result, and
re-engage when I pull them back into being
lateralized.
From this experience, subjects can learn just
how important it is to center the mass over the
stance foot in order for the pelvis to lateralize. The sensation from lateralization only occurs
when they’re also in a hip shift over the front
foot. If the hip shift is absent, you can lateralize
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165
It’s very difficult for people to properly lateralize
and hip shift, while maintaining control of their
femur in space. I often find myself simultaneously lateralizing the pelvis, assisting with the
hip shift, and blocking the femur from going outside the base of support. As the subject learns
the activity, I’ll gradually remove the input of my
hands as references and constraints.
If you are working with throwing athletes,
I think this category is incredibly valuable. You
can really spend some time in the positions that
occur during a throwing motion, and develop
the strength and integrity of the tissues in those
positions with these drills. You will also probably affect table tests and joint range of motion
favorably with many of these drills, which can
improve an athlete’s ability to freely and easily
go through their sport actions. It often pays
to slow an athlete down, and make him or her
really own the positions of their sporting motions, especially when these are fast. Fitness
professionals should not be trying to tinker with
the way that a high level baseball player throws,
but we can help him learn his pelvis and thorax,
and have him begin to understand how the drills
we do in the gym can help him get into positions
that will improve performance in his sport.
The other major thing we can do to help these
athletes is get them to rotate into their opposite side. During follow-through, right-handed
throwers rotate into their left hip thousands and
thousands of reps over. In gym training, it is often highly beneficial to develop the muscles that
would move in the opposite direction of those
heavily necessitated by their sport, to create
some level of balance in the body.
Frontal Pelvis, Transverse Thorax, Lateral,
Moderate/High Load, Low Velocity, Moderate
Duration
Most throwing and striking activities
involve transitioning between front/back and
lateral stance to some degree. In the training
environment, we have the opportunity to hone
in on specific positions that occur during a
sporting action, and train appropriate tissues
at those points. My philosophy is to put delib-
erate practice into each critical detail that can
be trained at particular points in the season/
off season timeline. Improving the pelvic and
thoracic mechanics in each distinct stance for
throwing/striking athletes at different loading
and velocity zones represents such critical details of the training plan.
The fitness professional’s job is to take athletes who are unable to execute the mechanics
required of them, and unlock the joint actions
they previously did not have access to. Once
the fitness professional has done her job, the
sport coach should be able to do his. And, once
in possession of requisite joint actions, strength
and ranges of motion, all the athlete has to do
is simply play the sport, and take direction from
the sports coaches.
When you start to understand fundamental
biomechanical concepts, you begin to see quite
a bit into the mechanics of different sports. This
insight may tempt you to start coaching athletes
on their sporting mechanics. My advice? Don’t. The sport coaches will possess the right cues
and tactical approach for the sporting actions
based on the years of experience in that specific area. Instead of trying to do their job, I recommend starting an open dialogue with them. Ask the coach to show you what he or she
wants the athlete to do, versus what the athlete
is currently doing. Listen to critiques of certain
athletes. If you can both look at still shot photos
and video of the athlete executing the movement, this will really get you working on the
same page. Analyzing areas for improvement
together will enable you to formulate a cohesive
training plan, not to mention demonstrate that
you are on the “same team” as both the sport
coach and the athlete, and just as invested in
improving his or her game. In this category of exercise, all drills will
be windmills. The stances that you will have
available to you are lateral kneeling and lateral
squatting. These positions put an unbelievably
high level of demand on the pelvis. Featuring
a hip shift from a lateral stance position under
load, with a strong transverse thorax action
happening above, these drills will put enormous
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yielding stress on the adductors and glute medius. For sports that have groin injury concerns,
like hockey, these drills can serve as great preventative measures. The following is the
list of exercises found in the training category
of frontal plane pelvis, transverse plane thorax,
lateral stance, moderate to high load, low velocity, moderate duration throwing:
1. Lateral kneeling windmill w/stance foot on
wall
2. Lateral kneeling windmill
3. Lateral semi-squat windmill
4. Lateral squat windmill
Coaching Points
These drills are about as strong a stimulus for the pelvis in the frontal plane as anything
possibly could be. When first beginning them, it
doesn’t take a lot of weight to get the job done. The positioning alone will force even formidable
athletes to work to their limits. So, rather than
worrying about the amount of weight that’s in
the athlete’s hand, for starters, spend time just
coaching this position. I’ll use many of the aforementioned
throwing cues for these drills as well. I’ll cue
the person to increasingly load the stance-side
foot and unload the other foot, to help center
the weight and shift into the hip. I’ll often use
my hands as references and constraints to
lateralize and shift the pelvis into the right spot,
while preventing the femur from going into the
wrong spot. To assist in more dramatically
rotating the thorax, I’ll also provide male athletes with some reference at their chests. That
reference will often be the side of my head. When I’m using my hands to move the pelvis
and femur, I’ll usually position myself on the athlete’s hip shift side, at an oblique angle, slightly
behind him or her. While keeping my hands on
the hip and leg, my ear is usually right around
sternum level. As the athlete is trying to rotate
his thorax in my direction, I’ll put my ear right in
the middle of his chest. On his next inhale, I’ll
tell him to direct air into his chest, to push me
away from him, and to use that inhale to help
him rotate further into the movement. This is a
surprisingly helpful cue, typically resulting in a
dramatic increase in thoracic rotation.
The other big puzzle piece for improving
thoracic positioning, recruiting the obliques,
and rotating the thorax is how you coach the
arms. I try to encourage the athlete to reach
the arms as far away from the body as he or
she possibly can, and make sure the athlete
can get the down arm flat on the ground. If the
actual ground is too far away, and they cannot successfully get there with a flat hand, I’ll
simply use objects to build the ground up to
them. Once within reach, I encourage them to
forcefully push the ground away with their down
hand. While they are pushing the ground away,
you can coach the breath. You want them to
exhale, and feel the ribcage close on the downside hand. On the inhale, you want the downside, closed side of the ribcage to stay closed. You want to promote air going into the chest
on the upside hand side, because the body
will always rotate away from volume. As such,
putting air into the frontside will cause rotation
to the back. I’ll encourage the upside hand to
reach upwards assertively, which should help
open the upside ribcage, and promote airflow into the lungs on the frontside, generating rotation in the proper direction.
Dominant Positions and Fitness Realms:
• Dominant Plane:
Transverse thorax
Frontal pelvis
• Dominant Stance:
Front/back and Lateral
Transitional
• Dominant Load: Low
• Dominant Velocity: High
• Dominant Duration: Short to moderate
If you are working with rotational athletes, and you train them like bodybuilders,
powerlifters, or weightlifters, you probably aren’t
maximizing their training time, and you might
even end up hurting their performance. Oftentimes, the athletes who throw really hard or hit
the ball the farthest have no bulging muscles or
ripped abs, and are unassuming in appearance. Page
167
But, when the time comes for them to strike an
object, it’s poetry in motion, though theirs is an
ominous poem about spin, whips that crack at
the point of impact, and devastation left in their
wakes.
If you are training to be a bodybuilder,
this chapter may not be for you. I don’t know
if anything in these pages is going to strongly
resonate with you or impact your performance. But, if you’re a golfer, baseball, soccer, or hockey player, then this chapter is one you want to
understand and master. If you are going to turn
and smash objects, you do not want a pelvis
and thorax that is highly compressed in the anterior-posterior direction, but rather some roundness to your shape. From there, we want to be
able to send you through the propulsion arc with
great mechanics, and with tissues that are properly developed for all regions involved. I want
you to be able to expand in your backswing
and follow-through. I want you to be able to
compress in the strike zone. I want yielding IR
muscle competency and development in your
backswing. I want overcoming IR muscle competency and development in your impact zone. I want you to have yielding IR muscle competency and development in your follow-through. Any athlete who has all of that going for him or
her must have worked with some fitness coaches who were worth their salt. As the fitness world currently stands, the content in this chapter represents one of its gaping
black holes. If you are reading this, you are
an early adopter of trying to understand these
kinds of biomechanical and training concepts,
as few fitness professionals do. If this chapter
helps get more of us thinking about this stuff in
a systematic, anatomically-informed way, that’s
all I can ask. Developing a frontal plane competent
and powerful pelvis and a transverse plane
competent and powerful thorax is the show for
a lot of sporting actions. If you want to hit a golf
ball over 300 yards, or throw a baseball over 90
mph, or be able to hit home runs over 400 feet,
or be able to knock someone’s head off with a
punch, or hit 100-mile-per-hour-plus slap shots,
or kick 50-yard field goals… this is it. While
getting stronger at the basic lifts early in an
athlete’s career makes for a nice foundation, at
a certain point, specificity will rear its head and
remind us that it is king. You just don’t hit and
throw things from a bilateral stance in the sagittal plane. For throwing and striking activities,
frontal plane pelvis, transverse plane thorax,
transitioning between a lateral stance and a
front/back stance, at high velocity and for short
durations is where it’s at.
11
Pattern 7: Triple Extension
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Pattern 7:
Triple Extension
Chapter 11
Way back when, in the beginnings of
American exercise science, early pioneer researchers were trying to establish how to measure fitness. It was easy to see that some people were more physically capable than others,
yet how do you really define and measure this
quality? Early on, they attempted some very
interesting tests. These included the classics,
like a sprint, a distance run, and a throw of an
object for distance. The rail walk is an example
of one of the “weird ones” among the tons of fitness tests that were devised, where participants
had to walk along a singular railroad track for a
given distance, spin around without falling and
walk back. After some trial and error, fitness pioneers discovered that some of their tests could
be used to predict the results of others, while
others lacked this predictive power. The early pioneers ultimately concluded
that the broad construct of fitness is an amor-
phous, undefinable one, but recognized that its
subcomponents lent themselves to being more
readily defined, identified, and measured. They
identified these as cardiorespiratory fitness,
muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, and body composition. The subsections of
these subcomponents included speed and power. They found that the parlor trick type tests,
such as the rail walk, did not relate to any realm
of fitness. These things were simply random
skills that someone could possess with varying
levels of practice.
The five major subcomponents of fitness, however, came about as a result of the emergence
of statistical correlation between certain types
of tests. When these early fitness researchers
plotted out all the test scores, they started to
see that, if you were good at five mile distance
runs, you’d likely be good at a ten mile run as
well. Conversely, your five mile distance run
score would not necessarily have a high correlation with how much you could bench press. These researchers created a correlation score
cutoff point, which was r = .70. If tests were
correlated with each other at or above .70, then
they were measuring the same physical fitness subcomponent, as this level of correlation
means an over 50% shared variance between
tests. Tests results whose correlation was below .70 were concluded to be measuring different fitness subcomponents.
These researchers started to see that
there were clearly qualities that commonly rode
along together. One such convoy they identified were activities that involved triple extension of the lower body. Triple extension of the
lower body involves extension of the hip, knee,
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and plantar flexion of the ankle. This triad of
motions works together when we perform explosive activities. It was clear to see that those
who could jump high would also be the ones
who would sprint fast, change directions well,
and demonstrate proficiency in sports that involved high levels of speed and power.
I find this information to be very interesting in today’s social media-driven fitness
climate, where we might see bizarre balance
obstacle courses that look like a human version
of the game Mouse Trap. Or, people standing
on top of physio balls and trying to squat weight
or perform some other asinine drill that has the
same likelihood of falling on its face as does
the Jenga tower after move 75. Or strange
ring exercises by wannabe gymnasts that look
more like a scene from the movie Hell Raiser
than anything that belongs in the gym. I’ve
seen handstand after handstand after handstand, posted by people who believe that handstands will cure shoulder ailments, dramatically
improve overhead lift performance, and give
them better posture and movement proficiency. People are also trying to jump onto the highest
possible boxes for box jumps, where all they
are doing is testing how well they can pull their
feet up to their necks. I’ve seen plenty of clips
of high box jumps with people jumping onto
leaning towers of stupid, where the boxes go
flying as soon as the feet hit, and people end up
on the ground in a plow position, as if they were
choke slammed by The Undertaker. The early
pioneers of exercise science did the math to
figure out that random movement skills are just
random movement skills. If you want to learn
one of those skills, go right ahead, but know
that it won’t have carryover to other skills.
The Mechanics of Triple Extension
Triple extension, which relies on the
extension of the hip, knee, and ankle to perform
explosive propulsion activities, involve high levels of compression in the middle of the propulsion arc, and follow through into late propulsion
at the end of the arc. These activities typically
involve some kind of a transition from yielding
action, to halting action, to overcoming action.
In a very common demonstration of triple extension such as a bilateral stance vertical jump,
we would see this series of actions taking place,
where its performer will start standing tall, then
do a counter movement, where they descend
down, then decelerate to stop the descent,
and finally propel themselves upwards, off the
ground and through a flight phase. The height
that the athlete reaches will be based on the
amount of force he or she can put into the
ground relative to his or her body mass. This
force is a combination of contractile muscle
contribution and elastic energy.
Force is the quantifiable representation of that
which tends to change the motion or state of
rest of matter. Work is force expressed through
a measurement of displacement. Power is the
rate at which a quantity of work is performed. The degree of efficacy an athlete brings to
sporting activities such as running and jumping
are dependent upon the ability to demonstrate
force, work, and power. The force, work, and
power that are demonstrated by humans during
sporting activities are the result of utilizing energy from the frictional pulling of muscles and
the storage and release of elastic energy by the
connective tissues.
Net force transmitted by muscles results from
summation of released elastic energy, and the
mechanical work of muscular contraction. Elasticity is the measure of how readily a body will
reform after being deformed by stretching, compression, or twisting. Elastic energy is defined
as the capacity of a body to do work during
reformation. The power production that occurs
during a vertical jump is due to a combination of
muscular force production and the utilization of
elastic energy.
A.V. Hill created the 3-component model
of musculotendinous behavior, which explains
the role of elastic energy in human movement. The three components are the contractile element (CE), the series elastic component (SEC),
and the parallel elastic component (PEC). The
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CE exerts active force as a result of shortening
activity. The SEC stores, and later releases,
elastic energy. The PEC stores elastic energy
in parallel to the contractile components of a
muscle. The SEC exists within the tendinous
tissues, and within the muscle fiber itself. The
importance of the SEC’s existence within muscle fiber is that, when cross bridging of the
contractile elements occurs, and a stretch is
applied, elastic energy can be stored within
the cross bridges. The first action that takes
place when there is a singular muscular twitch
is that the CE takes slack out of the SEC. With
increased firing activity of the muscle, external
work may be accomplished.
Fig 11.1 - A.V. Hill 3 Component Model
Fig 11.2 - (SSC) A: Preactivation B: Stretch C:Shortening
The stretch-shortening cycle (SSC) is
the process that occurs when muscle tissue
is stretched to cause yielding tension immediately before an overcoming contraction is performed. When an isolated muscle is stretched
immediately prior to contraction, work output of
the muscle is increased nearly three-fold. This
increase in work output of a prestretched muscle is due to buildup of force development, storage
and release of elastic energy,
potentiation of contractile machinery, and reflex
contributions.
Power output demonstrated during running
consists of the combination of the intrinsic properties of muscular contraction and the storage
and release of elastic energy in relevant leg
musculature. When examining human running,
the contractile component of force production
from the associated musculature provides the
impetus for the initial gains in running velocity
up to 5 m/s. The subsequent increase in running velocity beyond 5 m/s is due to the storage
and release of elastic energy.
Vertical jump distances following a counter
movement are greater than those characterized
by an equal amount of time to build isometric muscular force preceding the overcoming
action. Improved overcoming actions following
counter movement are the result of increased
time for cross-bridge activity, and the utilization
of stored elastic energy. In regards to stored
elastic energy, SSC activities that are shorter in
duration rely more heavily on the reuse of elastic energy than do longer lasting SSC activities.
Individuals with greater percentages of type
II muscle fibers may have an advantage in
utilizing elastic energy in SSC activities. The
yielding phase of a SSC movement involves the
generation of potential elastic energy. During
yielding actions, fast twitch fibers are predominantly recruited, because the Henneman
Size Principle does not apply to the order of
recruitment during yielding actions. As such,
individuals with high fast twitch fiber makeup,
who possess a greater percentage of fast twitch
fibers, can store more potential energy during
the yielding phase of a SSC activity than those
with low fast twitch fiber makeup.
There are two classifications of SSC activities,
fast and slow. Slow SSC activities are associated with large angular displacements of the ankle, knee, and hip joint, longer contraction times
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and a ground contact time greater than 0.25 s. Fast SSC activities are associated with less angular displacements, quicker yielding-overcoming coupling, and feature ground contact times
of less than 0.25 s. During countermovement,
tendinous and muscle tissues are stretched. In
the overcoming phase, muscles and tendons
behave slightly differently, in that, while the tendinous tissue contracts very quickly, the muscle
tissue responds in a manner that appears to be
isometric in nature.
Stiffness is the property designed to resist an
applied stretch, or the relationship between the
deformation of an object and a given applied
force. The term “leg spring stiffness” is used
to represent the collective stiffness of all lower
limb musculoskeletal structures, which includes
muscles, tendons, and ligaments. The spring
mass model is used to analyze leg spring stiffness. The stiffness of the spring mass model
consists of two distinct kinds of stiffness: vertical stiffness, and overall stiffness. Vertical
stiffness refers to the redirection of downward
velocity of the body during limb-ground contact.
Logically, when dealing with a condition such as
the vertical jump, the vertical stiffness is synonymous with overall leg stiffness.
Stiffness and use of elastic energy by the PEC,
SEC, and tendons changes depending upon
activity of the musculature. During a passive
stretch, the stiffness of the PEC is 100 times
less than that of the SEC and the tendon. Furthermore, during relaxed movements, the
stiffness of the PEC is significantly less than
that of the SEC and tendon. During relaxed
movements, the tendons do not experience a
large deformation in structure, while the PEC
receives the majority of the deformation. When
examining active movement, the stiffness of the
muscle tissue and the PEC increases substantially. In fact, the stiffness of the PEC during
active movement greatly exceeds that of the
tendon and SEC. Because the stiffness of the
PEC exceeds the stiffness of the tendon and
SEC during active movement, the tendon and
the SEC is the location for appreciable deformation, while the PEC is not. This means that,
during passive stretch and relaxed movement,
the storage and utilization of elastic energy
resides in the PEC. But, during active movements, where muscular activity increases, the
storage and utilization of elastic energy occurs
at the tendon.
Those with greater musculotendinous stiffness
demonstrate greater strength in concentric and
isometric bench presses. Those with greater
knee joint stiffness demonstrate greater running
velocity. Those who have greater leg stiffness
demonstrate greater running economy. Those
who have greater ankle joint stiffness require
less ground contact time at all running speeds. Finally, those with greater leg stiffness require
less ground contact time on depth jumps.
Runners who have lower ground contact times
have less flexion at the knee and hip during
ground contact phases. The potentiation benefits of stretch-shortening activities depend
on the amount of time spent in the transition
between the yielding phase, which involves
absorption of elastic energy, and the overcoming phase, which involves utilization of elastic
energy. When there are delays between the
storage of energy and the attempted utilization
of energy, more energy will be lost in the form of
heat.
In A.V. Hill’s 3-component model, the initial
force development of a muscle is transmitted to
the SEC. In essence, the SEC demonstrates
slack during the resting condition, necessitating
the muscle to rid itself of slack in the SEC in order to enable movement of the skeletal system. The delay in force transmission from muscle
tissue to the actual movement of bones after
the removal of slack of the SEC is evidenced by
the electromechanical delay (EMD). EMD is the
span of time between the electrical excitability
of muscle tissue and the mechanical response
of the muscle. The time between yielding-overcoming coupling is much greater when a muscle is in an eccentric orientation compared to
a concentric orientation. This helps explain
why those who feature less hip and knee flexion during ground contact time have a lower
amount of ground contact time.
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Motor responses are triggered by the cell bodies of the alpha and gamma motor neurons
found in the ventral horns of the spinal cord. Alpha motor neurons innervate the extrafusal
fibers in skeletal muscle. Alpha motor neurons
provide the electrochemical impetus that causes muscular contraction under voluntary and
reflexive conditions. A linear relationship has
been identified between the number of alpha
motor neurons that fire for a particular muscle
and the resulting force production from that
muscle.
Gamma motor neurons carry the electrochemical signal to the intrafusal fibers within the belly
of a muscle. The structures found in the intrafusal fibers are referred to as muscle spindles. Muscle spindles are proprioceptive organs that
detect changes in the length of skeletal muscle. When a muscle is stretched with great velocity, the muscle spindles will recognize this and
send an afferent signal to the spinal cord. That afferent signal will reach the dorsal root of the
spinal cord. When the spinal cord receives the
afferent signal from the muscle spindle, a twotiered response occurs.
Interneurons are specialized cells in the spinal
cord that interface between afferent and efferent signals. Renshaw cells, which are a type of
interneuron, process afferent signals from muscle spindles and send excitatory impulses to
the alpha motor neurons of the agonist that was
stretched. Upon receiving afferent information
from muscle spindles, type Ia interneurons send
Fig 11.3 - Gamma and Alpha motor neurons
inhibitory impulses to alpha motor neurons of
antagonist muscles. To use an example, when
the muscle spindles in the gastrocnemius are
quickly stretched, the muscle spindles will send
an afferent impulse to the spinal cord. When
the interneurons in the spinal cord process
the afferent message, the Renshaw cells will
send an excitatory message to the alpha motor
neurons of the gastrocnemius, and the Type Ia
interneurons will send an inhibitory message to
the alpha motor neurons of the tibialis anterior. Decreased neural activity to antagonists results
in increased force production capabilities of
agonists.
Training the Triple Extension Pattern
Available Options
Available Planes: All
Available Stances: All
Available Loads: All
Available Velocities: High
Available Durations: Short and Moderate
Sagittal, Bilateral, High Load, High Velocity, Short Duration, Olympic Lifts
Mike Boyle refers to this high load, high
velocity, triple extension realm of fitness as
“heavy ballistics”, a name that makes me just
want to run through a brick wall. There have
been a lot of categorical thinkers in the world
of fitness and sports performance training, but
possibly none more so than Coach Boyle. One
Fig 11.4 - Interneuron
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thing that Boyle has always tried to get across
is that it’s great to be categorical in thinking, but
you still need to have a specific tool that you
can use/coach within each category. In this
very interesting realm of heavy ballistics, what
tools do you have to choose from? The list is
surprisingly short.
To qualify something as a ballistic exercise, it has to involve a projectile. The projectile
could be an implement, like a ball, or it could be
the body, being propelled off the ground. When
you are performing a ballistic exercise, there is
always a specific sequence of firing and inhibition between agonist and antagonist muscles.
Agonists are the muscles that act as the prime
movers for an action. The prime mover of an
action is the muscle that produces the most significant contribution towards creating a movement. Muscles that contribute to performing a
given movement in a more secondary role are
referred to as assistant movers. There is also
a special class of assistant movers known as
emergency muscles that contribute to movement, but these are only engaged for movements that generate maximal force. Antagonist
muscles are those muscles that act in direct
opposition to agonist muscles. The net force of
any movement is based on the trade off of forces that emanate from the action of the agonist
and the counteraction of the antagonist.
There are two distinct categories of
cooperative muscle action: cocontraction and
ballistic movement. Cocontraction refers to
movement where there is simultaneous and
continuous contraction of agonist and antagonist muscles. Movements that occur during cocontraction feature a net movement that results
from the forces of the agonist overpowering
those of the antagonist. Ballistic contractions
are short, high force muscular impulses that
feature passive limb movement which continues
as a result of momentum, after the contraction
itself has ended.
During the ballistic contraction of limbs, a triphasic or “ABC” pattern of muscular activity is in
effect. During the ABC pattern, an initial large
burst of agonist activity is followed by a shorter
breaking period of antagonist activity. The initial
burst of agonist activity provides the impulse
that propels the limb or body segment. The
antagonist breaking phase is utilized to slow
the velocity of the limb or body segment when it nears the end region of ROM. The purpose of
the breaking phase is to protect against musculoskeletal injuries. After the breaking phase of
the antagonist, a final clamping phase of agonist activity ensues, finishing the movement.
A distinction amongst ballistic exercises
hinges on whether or not the activity utilized
the stretch-shortening cycle. Recall that this
cycle involves the aforementioned reflexive
neurological physiology. If you are seeking to
improve physical output in tasks that use the
stretch-shortening cycle, then it must be involved in the training drills that you are using. If you only use ballistic drills that do not feature
the stretch-shortening cycle, your training will
lack specificity for improving ballistic performance that does use this cycle.
So what we are really after in this very
distinct category are ballistic exercises that feature a stretch-shortening cycle, and other ballistic exercises that do not feature a stretch-shortening cycle. The only exercise that everyone
can probably agree is a heavy ballistic that
features a stretch-shortening cycle is an Olympic lift. When it comes to heavy ballistics that
probably do not feature a stretch-shortening
cycle, some strongman training exercises are
great choices.
The Basics of Olympic Lifts
(Weightlifting)
The sport of weightlifting entails two lifts:
the snatch and the clean and jerk. Weightlifting
is a weight class sport. An individual wins his
or her weight class if he or she lifts more combined weight in the snatch and the clean and
jerk than the other competitors. Weightlifting
exercises have been shown to be amongst the
most forceful and powerful exercises that can
possibly be performed.
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According to the NSCA text The Essentials of Strength and Conditioning, weightlifting
exercises are ideal for the following physiological training adaptations: recruiting high threshold motor units that power all major joints of the
body, improving rate coding, causing training
adaptations in the fast twitch muscle fibers at all
major joints of the body, increasing bone mineral density at the spine, hip, and wrist (all the
critical areas for osteoporosis), improving intermuscular and intramuscular coordination, and
developing active range of motion, particularly
within joint angles considered to be within the
flexibility deficit.
Biomechanical Considerations of the Snatch
and the Clean
The following information is based on
Medvedev’s A System of Multi Year Training
in Weightlifting. The snatch and the clean are
almost the exact same exercise. The snatch
involves bringing the barbell from the ground to
overhead in one continuous motion, whereas
the clean involves bringing the bar from ground
to the front of the shoulders in one continuous
motion. There are, however, three major differences between these motions:
1.The grip for the snatch is wider than
the grip for the clean
2.The torso angle at the start of the lift is
more acute (farther from 90°) for the
snatch and more obtuse (closer to 90°)
for the clean
3.The catch is overhead in the snatch
and at the shoulders for the clean
These three differences aside, the
phases of these exercises are identical. The
snatch is a two-hand, two-foot barbell exercise. The individual must lift a barbell from a
static position on the ground to overhead, in
one fluid movement. Once the barbell leaves
the ground, you cannot stop it during any point
before you catch it overhead. The snatch can
be broken down into a start position, followed
by three distinct periods and six distinct phases.
The clean is part of the clean and jerk
exercise. The clean and jerk is a two-foot,
two-hand barbell exercise, that involves lifting
a barbell from a static position on the ground
in one motion to the shoulders, and then in
another motion to overhead. The clean refers
to the motion of lifting the barbell from the floor
to the shoulders. The jerk refers to the motion
of lifting the barbell from the shoulders to the
overhead catch position. Like the snatch, the
clean can be broken down into a start position,
followed by three periods and six phases.
Here is the breakdown of the start position for the snatch and the clean. The athlete
stands with feet at hip width (or slightly closer)
with a natural, symmetrical external rotation
turn of the toes to the side, relative to the center of the bar. The metatarsophalangeal (toe
knuckles) joints are situated precisely under the
bar. The shins are angled to the side, along
the same direction as the feet. The knees and
hips are flexed until the athlete can grab the
bar with the hands (the bar is on the ground,
at the height of a standard bumper plate). The
hand spacing for the snatch is roughly twice the
width of the athlete’s shoulders, or the width of
the shoulders plus the length of the arm held
straight out to the side. The hand spacing for
the clean is shoulder width. The grip used is a
“hook” grip (fingers wrapped around the thumb). The back is slightly arched in the lumbar spine. The head is held in the same plane as the torso.
The starting motion is called The Pull,
which is broken into two phases. Phase I is the
athlete’s interaction with the barbell, up to the
instant it is separated from the floor. Phase II is
the Preliminary Acceleration of the barbell.
Phase I begins the instant that force is applied
to the barbell, and ends the instant the barbell
is separated from the ground. (In the following sentences, “IBS” stands for “the instant of
barbell separation”). At the IBS, the arms are
straight, the shoulders are slightly in front of the
bar, and the athlete is flat-footed. The objective
of Phase I is to link the rigid torso of the athlete
to the barbell via straight arms. After IBS, the
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barbell should move off the ground in a vertical
direction, with a slight drift back towards the
legs.
Phase II lasts from IBS to the first maximum extension of the athlete’s knee joints. The instant
this phase is completed, the barbell should be
at the athlete’s knee level. The athlete’s posture in this position is as follows:
1.The shins are in a vertical position
2.The shoulder joints have shifted farther
forward of the vertical line of the bar
3.The arms are straight
4.The athlete’s feet are flat on the floor
The objective of Phase II is to move the barbell and the body of the athlete into the best
possible position to create tremendous force
production prior to the movements of the second period. The barbell has shifted 40-70 mm
towards the athlete from its original position on
the floor. The knee extensors have worked dynamically, while the muscles of the torso have
worked statically.
The Second Period, called The Explosion, is divided into two periods: Phase III, The
Amortization and Phase IV, The Final Acceleration. Phase III begins the moment the athlete’s knees begin to flex, following the ending
of Phase II at maximal knee extension. This
maximal knee extension created a stretch on
the hamstrings, which leads to a stretch-shortening cycle. Phase III ends when the knee
joints reach their position of largest flexion, as
the shoulder and elbow joints are in the same
vertical line as the bar and the feet are flat on
the floor. The objective of Phase III is to maintain the optimal interaction between the body
and the bar, and to continue the momentum of
the Pull phase.
Phase IV, The Final Acceleration, aka,
The Second Pull, aka, The Pull, begins from the
instant of the largest knee flexion and continues
up to the moment of the largest extension of
the knee, hip, and ankle joints (triple extension). At completion of this phase, the posture is as
follows:
1.The legs are completely straight and
the athlete is standing on the toes
2.The trapezius muscles are actively
trying to elevate the scapula (shrug)
3.The elbows are flexed
The objective of phase IV is to achieve maximum vertical barbell velocity, and get the
barbell to the greatest possible height, utilizing the power of the legs and torso. This is
accomplished by the instantaneous switching
from The Amortization phase to The final Acceleration. The Second Period of the snatch
and the clean is where the stretch-shortening
cycle takes place. In weightlifting, this feature is
sometimes also referred to as the “double knee
bend”, which is the element that’s really responsible for creating the triple extension element of
these movements.
The Third Period lasts from the maximum
extension of the joints of the lower extremities,
up to the instant the barbell reaches the maximum height for the lift. This period is broken
into two phases: Phase V, The Squat-Under
and Phase VI, The Supported Squat-Under. The objective of Phase V is to constantly interact with the bar: to push away from it, to switch
from The Explosion to The Squat-Under with
maximum speed, and to rearrange the legs
instantaneously. Phase VI is executed from the
maximum height of the lift, up to the instant the
barbell is fixed in the squat position. The objectives of Phase VI are:
1.To fix the apparatus in the supported
squat position
2.To utilize the maximum mobility in the
joints without deviating significantly from the
initial area of support. The recovery from the
squat position should proceed smoothly, without
pause, where posture is as follows:
The athlete’s torso angle should be
either vertical, or in line with the angle of the
shins
The arms should be straight above the
head with the snatch, or with the humerus parallel to the floor with the clean
The center vertical line of the bar should
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be directly over the middle of the foot. barbell vertically over the head.
Following the squat-under, the athlete stands
up with the bar. Once the athlete finishes the
support squat-under phase, and has received
the bar in a deep squat position, the athlete
then has to stand up with the bar. The act of
rising from the deep squat catch to a standing
to position is referred to as The Recovery.
The Third Period is also broken into two
phases: The Non-Supported Squat-Under
(Phase IV) and the Supported Squat-Under
(Phase V). The third period lasts about a half
second in total. Phase IV comprises approximately a quarter of a second of that, starting
with the maximum extension of the knees, and
ending when the barbell reaches its maximum
speed. The athlete rearranges the legs, either in the sagittal plane (split jerk) or in the
frontal plane (squat jerk, where the legs get
slightly wider). The objective of Phase IV is
to rearrange the legs with maximum speed,
and to correctly position the arms, torso and
legs. Phase V lasts from the instant the barbell
reaches its maximum height, up to the instant
it’s fixed in The Squat-Under position. Phase
V lasts an average of a quarter of a second,
and its objective is to create a rigid interaction
between the athlete and the barbell. From this
point, the athlete must recover from this position, and end by standing straight with the feet
next to each other. If the athlete has performed
a split jerk, the athlete steps backwards, with
the front foot first, then steps forward with the
back foot until the feet are even. After a squatjerk, during Recovery, the athlete stands from
the squat.
Biomechanical Considerations of the
Jerk
We are going to focus more on the jerk in
the vertical push section of this book, but we’re
going to touch on it in this weightlifting biomechanics section. The jerk involves moving the
barbell from the anterior shoulders to above
the head in one motion, and is divided into five
phases and three periods. The jerk is the final
part of the classic clean and jerk.
The First Period of the jerk has 1 phase,
the Half-Squat. The half-squat lasts from the
instant the knees begin to flex to the instant the
barbell reaches its maximum downward velocity. The objective of Phase I is to create a rigid
interaction between the links of the “athlete-barbell” complex, and to lower the barbell vertically
prior to driving it back up.
The Second Period is broken into two
phases: The Braking Phase (Phase II) and
The Final Acceleration (Phase III). The Second
Period usually lasts less than half a second. Phase II begins the instant the barbell reaches
its maximum downward velocity, and concludes
at maximum degree of flexion in the knee joints. The Braking Phase is over when the barbell
has been lowered a distance of 8-12% of the
athlete’s height, and decelerated to a speed
of 0. The objective of Phase II is to stop the
half-squat and set the stage for straightening
the knees as quickly as possible. The weight
should be supported by the middle of the athlete’s feet. Phase III lasts an average of 0.25
seconds, from the maximum flexion of the
knees to their maximum extension. The objective of the Thrust is to create maximum speed
of the leg and arm extensors, and to drive the
The Hang Start Position and Power
Catch Positions
Both the clean and the snatch can be
performed by starting in the hang position.
This means that the exercise does not start
from the floor. Instead, the exercise starts with
the athlete already holding the bar in his or her
hands above the ground. When in the hang,
the motion starts from either just above or just
below the patella.
Both the snatch and the clean can end
by catching the barbell in the “power” position. This means that the athlete does not catch the
bar in a deep squat, but, instead either catches it overhead, or by squatting under the bar
and catching it on the anterior shoulders, but
only into a “quarter-squat” position. Otherwise,
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these are no different. Fig 11.5 - Power catch position
Fig 11.6 - Hang position
letes who are not competitive weightlifters. My
advice is to end your progressions with hang
power cleans and hang power snatches with
those respective exercises.
The following list of progressions is fairly close
to the types of basic recommendations that
you’ll get from big groups like USA Weightlifting
(USAW), and the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA). I would definitely
recommend that all aspiring strength and conditioning coaches attend courses offered by
groups such as these, to learn the fundamentals of weightlifting and how to coach weightlifting movements. Here is my list of progressions
for teaching and training clean and snatch
based movements:
1. Teach catch position and hang position first
2. Hang to triple extension
3. Hang to shrug
4. Hang to high pull
5. Hang power catch
6. Hang to full catch
7. Hang below knee to power catch
8. Hang below knee to full catch
9. From ground to power catch
10. From ground to full catch
When working with athletes who are not
competitive weightlifters, it is highly likely that
you will spend the majority of your time using
hang start and power catch position variations
of the clean and snatch. You will eliminate the
technical elements involved with being able to
get the barbell from the ground to above the
patella (which gets them into the hang position),
and the technical elements of properly receiving
the bar in a deep squat catch position. Weightlifting movements are already highly technical,
and the learning curve is significant for athletes
to perform them with proficiency. These positional “shortcuts” allow for circumvention of
much of the teaching time and create a direct
route to the stretch-shortening cycle phase,
which is where a heavy ballistic stimulus actually gets provided. It is hard for me to conceive
of a situation where I would think it necessary to
perform full weightlifting movements with ath-
Coaching Points
I’ve found my greatest success in coaching basic weightlifting movements by first showing the athlete the positioning associated with
the beginning of the movement and the end of
the movement. Once they’ve seen these, the
cue is to “go from the beginning to the end”. Observing the athlete’s execution of this challenge gives me a glimpse into the athlete’s
natural attempt at tackling it. Assessing the
athlete’s approach, I take triage of errors, which
we can then focus on fixing.
Coaching is about problem solving. And, to be
a problem solver, you need to first be a problem
identifier. Here are the two broad problems
I’ve repeatedly encountered with execution of
weightlifting movements: Group 1, composed
of those who never get close to hip extension in
the explosion phase of the movement (whose
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members sometimes do a little bunny hop
knee flexion jump move), and Group 2, aka,
your reverse curl folks, whom I like to call my
“the leave the swing at the park” group. In the
explosion phase of the exercise, these guys will
swing the bar way out away from the body, then
loop it back towards the shoulders, and usually
catch it with a big crash on the collar bones. Some lifters make both of these errors, and
some make others during Olympic-style lifts, but
let’s just stick with our two groups for our purposes here.
I typically make Group 1 move slowly
when doing exercises 2 through 5 in the progression list, to help get their hips through on
the explosion. Having a PVC pipe handy for
these drills makes it easy to stop the athlete at
various points and have him or her find and feel
the static positions. These also tend to be the
same people who pull the bar early with their
hands and arms, so I’ll commonly make them
hold the PVC pipe in the crooks of their wrists
during these drills. So, for example, when
doing a hang to shrug, they’ll start by holding
the PVC pipe in the crooks of their flexed wrists,
in a solid hang start position. From there, they
will smoothly extend to an upright position,
while dragging the bar up their legs with straight
arms. They’ll continue to smoothly extend, until
they reach plantar flexion and find themselves
up on their toes. At this point, they will shrug
their shoulders with straight arms, while keeping
the bar against their bodies. When they have
reached this top position, I’ll have them pause
and hold it. I’ll tell them to take a mental picture
of how this feels, so they can find it again on
their next rep. On that next rep, I’ll have them
go through the same sequence, but with a little
more speed. I’ll continue this process of having
them going through the same sequence with
progressively more speed, until they are comfortable with how it feels, and I am comfortable
with how it looks.
From there, we will go on to the next progression, where I’ll re-employ the same approach. To start, we go through the movement slowly
and smoothly. Stop and feel the end point of
the drill. If everything felt and looked right on
the previous rep, add speed on the next, until we have a well-executed drill. Those who
don’t get their hips through are typically in a
rush: slow them down. They may not like going
slower, but higher quality training will be their
reward.
For the “leave the swing at the park”
group, to prevent them from looping the bar way
out in front of themselves, I put things in their
way. Typically, I’ll put my hand about 4 or 5
inches out in front of where their chest is going
to be when they reach full extension in their
explosion path. I’ll ask them not to let the bar
hit my hand, which fixes the unwanted swing
for a tremendous number of these offenders. And, the risk of actually getting smacked by the
barbell is low for the coach: it’s only happened
to me once out of thousands of trials. This approach also illustrates how we can implement a
very simple constraint to surmount a potentially
difficult coaching problem.
You’re going to see some bonus problem
groups as well. You’ll have those who like to
receive the barbell in a position where they just
split their legs out laterally rather than squat
under the bar to catch it. I call this group “The
Starfish”, and go back to constraints with them
as well. I put a couple of 2.5 pound plates
about 6 inches outside of both feet when they
are in the hang position, and I caution them not
to land on those plates… because they’ll break
their ankles. With this constraint in place, would
you believe that nobody has ever stepped on
the plates, squatting under and catching the
barbell with proper leg placement instead,
100% of the time.
The final group are the elbow down, kung-fu
grip clean catch folks. These people love to
catch the bar with closed fists. They want to
feel control over the bar at all times, and they
can’t fathom letting go. I simply keep them in
the catch position until they get their elbows up
and let the bar roll into their fingers. I don’t care
if we have to spend 5 minutes per rep doing
this. We’re either going to do this one thing
properly, or do nothing else all day. I take this
attitude into the way I coach this, and explicitly
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share it with the person I’m working with. Persistence and determination are often key ingredients to preventing subjects from reverting
back to bad, lazy habits.
Bilateral, Sagittal, High Load, High Velocity,
Short Duration, Strongman, How to Progress
Strongman movements that feature triple extension do not reach the same velocities as
weightlifting exercises, and they probably lack
a stretch-shortening cycle. That said, they
also do not feature the technical complexity of
weightlifting. If you have appropriate equipment
and a background in performing and coaching
strongman exercises, then you have very good
heavy ballistics training alternatives at your
disposal. The triple extension movements from
strongman that are available are from the clean
and jerk and press-based exercises, and the
loading movements.
When examining the progressions for
strongman triple extension movements presented here, what you can see is that they start
with the loading movements, and then move
on to the clean and jerk and press movements. The loading exercises feature a triple extension
without the need to catch/receive the object on
the shoulder(s). Keeping the catch out of the
exercise reduces the complexity of the drill.
As we progress, we add a catch, changing the
drill from a loading movement to a clean. From
there, we progress the drill, by adding a jerk to
the movement (which may be unnecessary for
athletes not competing in strongman). Here
is the list of progressions for bilateral stance,
sagittal plane, high load, high velocity, short
duration, strongman, triple extension exercises
(the sandbag comes first in the progressions
because it is more malleable and easier to pick
compared to the stone):
1. Sandbag from ground to box/over bar
2. Sandbag from ground to shoulder catch
3. Stone from ground to box/over bar
4. Stone from ground to shoulder
5. Axel power clean
6. Axel power clean to press/jerk
7. Log power clean
8. Log power clean to press/jerk
9. Circus dumbbell clean
10. Circus dumbbell clean to press/jerk
Coaching Points
Sandbag and stone loading/shouldering
exercises feature a similar sequence:
1.Pick
2.Hoist to thighs
3.Reposition for explosion
4.Explosion
5.Finish
On the pick, the athlete stands over the sandbag or the stone, straddling the object such
that the feet are at the object’s midpoint. From
there, the athlete bends over, and positions his
or her fingers under the implement. The athlete
should attempt to get his or her hands under the
implement as much as possible, which is a task
that makes it impossible to avoid rounding the
back. So, instead of the typical chest up, butt
back, shoulders back and down position, the
opposite is required here. The athlete needs to
get the chest on the object, and reach the arms
so as to hug it, as roundly as possible.
Getting the hands all the way under the object
is ideal, as is wrapping the body around it, to
assume its shape with one’s thorax and arm
shape. Roundness is the key shape for picking
strongman objects. The proper arm action is
reach and wrap. The proper body action is get
tight to the object and create as much contact
with your chest and abdomen as possible. To
pick a heavy stone or bag, you need to try to
become one with the stone or the bag. Like
in “Rock, Paper, Scissors” where paper beats
stone, the only way you’re going to dominate
stones is to cover them and wrap them up. Once the ideal athlete-implement interaction
has been achieved in the setup for the pick, the
athlete needs to actually lift it off the ground.
To pick strongman objects, one needs
to squeeze them, hard. Lifting in general is
about pressure, but there are different kinds of
pressure. Pressure can come from pushing
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on something until it budges, but it can also
come from squeezing it together. This second
method of creating pressure is what you need
to think of when it comes to strongman picks. The athlete needs to be a boa constrictor on the
implement, and try to squeeze the life out of it in
order to pick it.
To hoist the object up to the thighs, there is
very little to think about. Squeeze, lift, and be
aggressive. This is a lower level of technicality
than weightlifting in the First Period, and more
like working on a farm. The athlete has to get
down to the object, grab it, stay tight to it, and
get it off the ground. While hoisting, losing
body contact or squeeze is a no-no, as doing so
allows the implement to move, and possibly get
away. The athlete needs to keep the implement
as still as possible. Once the object has passed
the knees, to finish this phase of the exercise,
the athlete just needs to get it onto the thighs,
and squat down with it. If the implement is light,
one can stand it up, position it on your thighs,
and then squat down with it. If it’s very heavy,
such that it’s barely feasible to get it past the
knees, the athlete can drag/roll it up the thighs
until it’s in his or her lap.
After the object has been maneuvered into the
lap and the athlete has squatted down with it,
this marks the next phase of the exercise: repositioning for the explosion. While in the bottom
of the squat position, the athlete is going to
want to reposition the arms, to get them higher
up on the object. With stones, you typically try
to get your arms up over the top of the stone,
though this approach is more geared towards
taller athletes, while shorter ones will often
position their (shorter) arms lower. The primary
objective of this position is to position the object
against the chest and squeeze it into the chest
as much as possible. You do not want the
primary contact point of the object to be too low,
such as on the abdomen, but rather high up on
the sternum.
Once the athlete has properly positioned him
or herself, we’re ready to execute the explosion
phase of the movement. This is where the triple
extension part of the movement lives. This is
a natural, athletic movement. Bringing some
awareness to the sternum/chest is probably a
good idea, but, otherwise, do not over-coach
this. The common error with the explosion
phase is that people are going to try to use their
hands and arms excessively. Instead, the body
should drive the action. The hands and arms
should continue to try to squeeze the object. The lifter wants to be thinking about squeezing
the object backwards through the chest. Now,
he or she simply tries to raise the chest up as
high and as fast as possible, to explode the
object upwards.
The finish for these loading/shouldering movements is context-dependent. If the object is
being placed on a box or over a bar, the finish
needs to feature driving forward at the top. Again, the chest is the focus. To finish, the legs
and body should be used to drive the chest forward at the top, and drive the object over the lip
of the box or bar. Heavy loading exercises may
necessitate having to keep fighting to get the
object on top of, or over, the final destination. This means continuing to push forward primarily with the chest, as well as getting the hands
under the object to help push it forward.
In strongman shows, sometimes the box/bar
is very high, sitting at above the athlete’s head
height. When dealing with that kind of situation, pushing with the hands is key to finish the
loading. I would recommend avoiding extreme
heights with loading exercises for non-strongman athletes. The risk of hyperextension and
objects coming back on the athlete are too high
for very little, if any, extra reward.
With shouldering drills, the loading motion
simply continues, until the object has come to
a rest on top of the athlete’s chosen shoulder,
and the athlete’s hands are on top of the object. Shouldering finishes can provide true specificity
for wrestlers, as these movements mirror those
required to elevate one’s opponent as high as
one’s shoulders, in preparation for an explosive
takedown.
When it comes to the clean and press and jerk
exercises, the technique can be very differ-
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ent from classical weightlifting exercises. The
primary implements in strongman for clean
and press are the axel, the log, and the circus
dumbbell. Each of these implements has its
own unique features that requires different technical and tactical approaches.
Aside from a much thicker grip, an axel seems
very similar to a barbell at first glance. But,
there is another big difference between the
two, which is that the axle does not rotate. With barbells, the main part of the bar spins
independently from the sleeves. With premium
weightlifting bars, like those made by Eleiko, the
bar rotates with incredible speed and smoothness. To me, the lack of bar spin is the bigger
of the two differences between these two pieces
of equipment.
The lack of rotation of the axel makes receiving
the implement very different. It is much more
difficult to squat under and catch an axel that
does not rotate than a barbell that does. From
an invariant representation standpoint, if you
can properly clean a barbell, you’ll be able to
figure out how to clean an axel, and you’ll learn
the differences pretty quickly, as the basic mechanics are the same. The adjustments you’ll
have to make will be timing-related, grip-related,
and feel-related. The lack of rotation of the implement is going to feel like something grinding
compared to the smoothness of a barbell. The
fat grip is going to make the transition into the
explosion feel slower.
The log comes in as a higher progression compared to the axel, because the catch position
of the log features much more spinal hyperextension compared to the axel. While the mechanics of cleaning an axel are very similar to
cleaning a barbell, cleaning a log is a completely different experience than cleaning a barbell
or an axel, and one that bears more similarity to
loading a stone than to cleaning a barbell.
The pick position for a log is similar to the start
position of a deadlift. We’re after a fairly flat
back, with straight arms that reach down and
grab the handles of the log. The athlete then
deadlifts the log off the ground, and gets it to
hip height. Once at hip height, the log needs to
get pulled up the thighs, and into the lap.
Once the log is in the athlete’s lap, the athlete
squats down with it, and repositions the arms
and body. In the squat position, the athlete then
pushes the chest into the log, bends the elbows
and tries to get them up as high and back as
possible. In this position, the log gets pulled
into the chest with the hands and arms.
When exploding the log up, the athlete needs
to use the body to power the action, as he or
she continues to pull the log into the chest with
the hands and arms. Nearing the top of the
explosion, the elbows start to roll under the
log, as the log rolls up higher on the chest into
the neck. To properly explode the log up and
receive it at the top of the motion, the athlete
needs to extend every relevant body part, including the neck.
So, at the top of the motion, the athlete needs
to catch the log on the front of the shoulders,
against the top of the chest, and into the throat. The neck should be hyperextended, with the
athlete looking up and back. The elbows
should be up and in front of the body, in the
catch position. This is a challenging position
that can make many feel like they can’t breathe,
which can lead to lightheadedness. As such, I
would also definitely recommend staying away
from logs for heavy ballistic training for athletes
not involved in strongman or related sports.
The circus dumbbell is the third primary
strongman object that can be used for training
clean and jerk movements. Intended for cleaning up and catching on the shoulder, the circus
dumbbell movement requires a greater rotary
component. There are a couple of different
styles of both clean and jerk using a dumbell.
One of these styles of dumbbell clean is a bit
of a hybrid between a kettlebell clean and a
barbell clean. To clean a dumbbell, the athlete
will position it between the legs, but then stand
back from it, similar to the setup for a two-hand
kettlebell swing. The athlete will grab the handle of the dumbbell with both hands, lift it off the
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ground, and swing it back between the legs,
same as at the bottom of a kettlebell swing/
clean. From there, the athlete will explode the
dumbbell up to the top of the shoulder.
This is the part of the lift where its style begins to differentiate. Some will clean it with a
hip-dominant approach, similar to cleaning a
kettlebell. Others will actually bring the bell to
the thighs, and use the extension of the knees
to propel the dumbbell off the thighs and up to
the shoulder. The second approach is similar to
the explosion phase of loading drills. In this “off
the thighs” approach, when in the bottom of a
squat, the athlete positions the dumbbell vertically on the thighs, and keeps the arms bent
and in, tight to the body. From there, the athlete
creates a vertical explosion with the legs, which
propels the dumbbell upwards. Keeping the
arms bent and tight to the body shortens the
distance the dumbbell needs to travel up to the
shoulder.
During the explosion phase, there is a point at
which the athlete transitions from having both
hands to having just one on the dumbbell. This
takes place as the dumbbell is near the apex of
its upward flight from the explosion, which also
marks the switch from the explosion phase to
the catch phase. The catch is made with one
hand and features two styles.
With the catch of the dumbbell at the
top of the clean, there are two main styles. The
first style is referred to as “the boombox” style,
and necessitates catching the dumbbell on the
shoulder, with one end of it resting against the
side of the head, up against the ear. The other
is the “behind-the-ear” style, in which the elbow
stays pointed up and faces laterally, which gets
its name from its similarity to the position of the
arm of someone perching a boombox stereo on
the shoulder (which, believe it or not, is how we
listened to music on the go back in the 80s and
early 90s, before technology became increasingly more compact). Keeping the elbow high is the most important
part of the catch, and the most critical piece of
the setup for the boombox-style jerk and press. With the behind-the-ear style catch, the dumbbell will be angled so that the thumb side grip
end of the dumbbell is posterior to the pinky end
of the dumbbell. When using dumbbells with
squared-off ends, the boombox style catch can
work, but rounded-end dumbbells can render
the boombox style logistically unfeasible. The
behind-the-ear style is typically also the preferred dumbbell catch position for longer dumbbells. A much rarer style, the neutral grip position is
the third, and seldom used, dumbbell catch position. With the first two primary styles of catching, a high elbow position and ownership are
critical parts of the technique. When preparing
for the jerk after the catch, the elbow needs to
remain still. Most losing dumbbell jerks are victims of an unstill elbow. Meanwhile, those who
are able to focus on keeping the elbow high
and still during the dip and drive phases of the
jerk set themselves up for success. Again, the
invariant representation of the essence of a jerk
or press should take over, reminding us, with
slight adjustment of the elbow position, anyone
who can jerk a barbell can figure out how to jerk
a dumbbell as well.
Low Load, High Velocity, Short Duration
Now, we arrive at the section of this
chapter dedicated to jumping. With jumping, we
have all stances and planes available to train in. Our focus here is going to be placed on training
jumping from the perspective of maximal output
repetitions, so low-amplitude methods will not
be featured. From the perspective of tissue
preparation for high intensity stretch-shortening
cycle activities, building a volume foundation
with low-amplitude drills, like jump rope, ankle
hop, and pogo hop, is a great approach. Joel
Jamieson does an amazing job explaining
where to include low-amplitude stretch-shortening cycle drills into his training programs, and
Derek Hansen also utilizes ankle hops quite a
bit, for developing ground interaction skills for
running.
Sagittal, Bilateral, Low Load, High Velocity,
Short Duration
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There is going to be a common order
to the sequencing of drills for all of these low
load, high velocity triple extension activities
performed in different stances and planes. The
first thing you’re going to do is choose activities
that allow for learning of landing mechanics in
the easiest and best way possible. From there,
you will introduce more downward acceleration
of the body mass from gravity prior to landing. After that, you will progressively reduce
the ground contact time between landing and
takeoff on subsequent jumps. To put all this in
practice, first, when applicable, have the athlete
jump up and land on a box. After box jumps,
you will have the athlete jump up and over a
hurdle, and stick the landing on the ground (or
box) on the other side of that hurdle. Following
that, the athlete will jump up and over a hurdle,
and upon landing, perform a small bounce on
the ground prior to the subsequent jump. After
jumps with bounces, the athlete will perform
repeat jumps up and over a hurdle, with minimal
ground contact time between jumps. The next
progression would entail the athlete standing on
a box, stepping off, and sticking the landing on
the ground (depth drops). The last progression
would be depth jumps, where the athlete steps
off a box, hits the ground, and immediately
jumps.
The first drill in the sequence of sagittal
plane, bilateral stance, low load, high velocity, short duration, triple extension exercises is
the box jump. The biggest problem with box
jumps we currently have in the fitness space
is the faulty belief that the higher the box, the
better. This is an unnecessarily dangerous and
unproductive way to perform box jumps, which
completely defeats the purpose of why boxes
are used in the first place. The point of using
a box jump is to make the landing as easy as
possible. The box brings the landing ground up
higher so that there is less time for gravity to
accelerate the body down towards the actual
ground.
The challenge of landing centers on the amount
of gravitational acceleration the jumper can
handle while continuing to demonstrate proper
landing mechanics. The longer the duration of
the fall, the greater the challenge. With a box
jump, practically no time should be spent falling, because the feet meet the box at the apex
of the jump, before gravity can start pulling the
jumper back down. This entire concept fits in
perfectly with some of the Principles of Progression. Besides minimizing the difficulty of managing gravity, the box jump also allows for starting static before going dynamic in respect to the
acceleration of the body downward, all of which
maximizes the odds of an optimal landing. Landing correctly in jumping drills is not
as easy as it seems. When assessing landings
in my coaching, I look for axial skeleton alignment, fitting sagittal plane motor competency
standards, and arms down by the sides, parallel
to the plane of the thorax. The hips and knees
should be in slight flexion, and the focus should
be on preventing the heels from hitting the
ground. An athlete who can land like this positions him or herself for immediate execution of
a subsequent athletic movement. This position
is what coaches have long called “the athletic
position”. To avoid cueing excessive extension,
I am not aggressive with cueing “chest up, butt
back, shoulders back and down”, but I do steer
athletes towards the shape and placement of
the athletic/ready position.
The sequence for these jumping drills
is one that I’ve primarily derived from Mike
Boyle’s organization of jumping progressions. His approach is tried and true, logical, sequential, and one that I rely on in my own coaching. While my approach differs from his in a few
ways, the thought process behind it has been
heavily influenced by his. The following list is
the progression order for sagittal plane, bilateral
stance, low load, high velocity, short duration,
triple extension exercises:
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1. Box jumps
2. Jump over hurdle to progressively lower
boxes
3. Jump over hurdle to ground & stick
4. Jump over hurdle to bounce to second jump
5. Repeat jumps over hurdles
6. Depth drops
7. Depth jumps
Coaching Points
Proper landing mechanics should be
emphasized at the outset of jumping drills, especially when first embarking on them. Proper
landing position is the athletic position, which
features sagittal axial skeleton centering, along
with a modest level of hip flexion, knee flexion,
and plantar flexion. The plantar flexion aspect
is the one I want to emphasize here, which
means that, upon landing, the landing should
feature no contact between the athlete’s heels
and the ground. Coaches that have trained
under Mark Verstegen’s Athlete’s Performance
turned Exos system learn to cue athletes to
land “so that someone could slide a credit card
under your heels”. A worthy cue to borrow for
helping athletes think about landing during
jumping drills.
When thinking about all the physiology
associated with the stretch-shortening cycle, the
architecture of the muscle-tendon unit (MTU)
must be considered, being the primary variable we’re looking to manipulate. When forces
interact with tissues, as they do when someone
lands on the ground from a jump, the tissues
will deform. However, due to relative stiffness
differences between tissues, there will never be
equal degrees of deformation in all tissue types. Instead, whichever tissue demonstrates the
least mechanical stiffness will be the tissue that
deforms the most. Due to its dynamic nature,
muscle tissue is the primary tissue that determines the ratio of inter-tissue relative stiffness.
When not powerfully contracting, the muscle will
exist at a low level of mechanical stiffness, and
is easily deformable. When muscle is powerfully contracting, it changes to a high level of
mechanical stiffness, and it is very difficult to
deform. When you are walking slowly and your
foot hits the ground, the muscle is not contracting at a high level, so a great deal of muscular
deformation takes place. By contrast, when you
are sprinting maximally, the muscle is contracting at an extremely high level, allowing for much
less muscular deformation during ground contact. When the muscle is incredibly stiff and not
deforming much, tendons will be deforming a
great deal more. The tendons are the primary
elastic tissues of the body. Those of us who
demonstrate great bounce have the ability to
create great muscular stiffness, enabling great
tendinous deformation and elasticity.
When thinking about triple extension
stretch-shortening cycle activities, the big tendons that we want to deform are the Achilles
and the patella tendon. This is why we want
to land in knee flexion, with the heels off the
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ground. To passively crash onto the heels, one
needs no tremendous contractility of the gastrocnemius and soleus muscle. The absence of
high levels of calf-muscle recruitment results in
the absence of deformation in the Achilles. On
the contrary, preventing the heels from hitting
the ground upon landing highly recruits both the
calves and the quads. And, powerfully recruiting these muscles increases their stiffness,
making the stiffness of the muscles surpass that
of the tendons. And, once the big tendons are
the more elastic tissue, they deform, gathering
their elastic energy, and utilizing it to power the
subsequent jump.
Arm placement is the other major consideration for the landing position. The arms
should land in an extended position, so that
they are in line with the thorax, with the hands
down by the sides. Essentially, the arms should
be in the position that optimally supports immediate performance of the next jump. Arm
swing is often underestimated as a powerful
vehicle for propelling the body off the ground
and into higher jumps. If that sounds familiar,
give yourself a pat on the back for recalling
the running mechanics section of the locomotion, that underscored the importance of arm
swings in moving the body. I’ll often use the
long seated arm swing drill, covered there, to
illustrate how we can lift our whole body off the
ground with just arm swing. This usually provides enough conviction that powerfully moving
the arms through the jump zone can make a big
difference. But, until we find the right landing
positions for the arms after a single jump, great
arm swing for subsequent jumps is out of the
question. Med ball slams can be good drills for
demonstrating the requisite arm action at time
of landing, which is to get them down and back
quickly, primed for landing mechanics training.
When I coach bounces and repeat
jumps, I tend to be a little bit more aggressive
with the way I speak and cue, because I need
my subjects to be quick off the ground. My
recurring cues are: “Don’t let your heels hit”,
“Arms down”, and “Get up quick”. Step one
is: focus on the heels. Step two: get the arms
in the right spot. Step three is getting off the
ground quickly. As previously cautioned, do
not give any kind of internal cues to drive jump
height, but rather reinforce that the only thing to
think about is going up or forward.
In the progression list provided for this
set of drills, along with most of the other types
of jumping, you’ll see that final progressions
are depth drops and depth jumps. These are
the most advanced types of stretch-shortening
cycle exercises, and should only be used with
those who are highly athletic, and of advanced
training age. Depth drops refer to standing on
a box, stepping off, and simply landing on the
ground with proper form. Depth jumps involve
standing on a box, stepping off, and jumping off
the ground again, as quickly as possible after
landing impact.
There is no need to rush to these drills. If you
are making progress on jumping performance
with the earlier progression drills, continue to
do those until they stop yielding improvements. The other thing to be aware of with depth drills
is that heavier athletes will receive a much
stronger stimulus compared to lighter athletes. With this in mind, these types of exercises may
be ill-advised for athletes over 250 pounds, and,
if used, excessive volume should be avoided. In other words, be selective about including
these exercises, and do so only when working
with the appropriate athlete, who demonstrates
tremendous competency on all previous drills,
returns from which have begun to diminish,
necessitating extra stimulus for optimizing this
stretch-shortening quality. Sagittal, Front/Back, Single Leg Jumps, Low
Load, High Velocity
There are two types of front/back stance
jumps: single leg jumps and split squat jumps. For the single leg jumps, we will follow the
same progressions as those used for sagittal
plane bilateral stance jumps, the only difference
being that the boxes we jump on, the hurdles
we jump over, and the objects we drop off of will
be lower, since we’re training one leg at a time.
When comparing unilateral limb training
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and bilateral limb training, there are a few topics
to note. One is the bilateral deficit. If I were
doing dumbbell biceps curls with doing arms,
I might only be capable of five reps with forty
pound dumbbells. But, if I were to train one arm
at a time, I might find that I can do eight reps
with my right arm, and eight with my left with the
same forty pound dumbbell. This is generally
what we witness across the board, with any exercise that can be done one limb at a time. The
sum of weight I could do for 1RM with my left
arm, plus the weight I could do with my right is
always greater under unilaterally-focused conditions than the 1RM weight of the same exercise
done under bilateral conditions.
How are we to apply this bilateral deficit
reality to training? The initial thought is that we
do every exercise one limb at a time, which will
pack more punch in each individual rep. Producing more force in a given repetition means
recruiting more muscle fibers, specifically more
fast-twitch muscle fibers, driving greater adaptive changes to the tissues. And, more adaptive
changes means being bigger, stronger, faster,
and jumping higher. Though seemingly sound,
this theory has some logistical issues. First, every athlete (and coach) must realize that doing
every type of exercise on one foot instead of
two, or with one hand instead of two, necessitates training sessions that are twice as long as
they would be with simultaneous limb training. Secondly and importantly, in a lot of instances,
the unilateral version of the exercise puts the
athlete in a more unstable position than its bilateral variation. And, the more unstable one’s
position, the more energy is being diverted from
the prime movers and sent to the stabilizers
and accessory muscles, diverting power from
the motion actually being trained. The other factor to consider is that training experience inversely correlates to the
bilateral deficit. The legs of someone who can
squat six hundred pounds produce an obscene
amount of force, and that’s true whether we
measure this force one leg at a time or both
at the same time. Now, some would say that
doing more unilateral training could potentially widen the bilateral deficit, which would be
desirable, because sports are generally played
on one leg at a time. This is how we run, and
change direction, and do many other things. Bilateral strength is seen as superfluous by
this camp, because the majority of time, in the
majority of sports, we do not find ourselves in a
symmetrical, bilateral place.
Though this remains a subject of debate,
my stance on it is that classical training patterns
should be included in everyone’s training templates. I divide these training patterns into three
primary groups. Group one is breathing and
core. Group two is running, jumping, throwing,
and changing direction. Group three is lifting
for hips, knees, pushing, pulling, and explosion. Each of these groups dominates specific
competencies. Group one’s is sensorimotor,
control, and changing skeletal orientation and
range of motion capabilities. Group two’s is
speed, elasticity, and reactiveness. Group
three’s is force production and muscular development.
As long as you are moving the subject towards
the outcome associated with the group the
pattern falls into, then you are doing your job. Choose an activity that fits the ability level of the
individual you’re coaching, as well as one you
are proficient at coaching, and which makes
sense in the available training environment. The model presented here represents what I
consider an organization of drills, sequenced to
increase the probability that the exercises they
are training will be properly performed. Proper
exercise performance in turn maximizes the
trainees’ adaptations, while mitigating adverse
exercise side effects.
Don’t get too caught up in opinions, theories,
and ideas. Instead, always strive for movement competency, and base that competency
on the standards outlined here. Likewise, keep
in mind that the goal is never to progress to
the most advanced exercise(s) within any drill
category simply for the sake of doing those
drills. Advancing to the next exercise progression is only wise if the activity you were doing
has reached a significant plateau, and other
performance markers for the athlete have also
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reached a plateau. If numbers are moving in
the right direction, continue what you are doing. Be aware that numbers in one group moving
in a given direction may impact numbers in
a different group. If a major league baseball
pitcher’s horizontal pushing is substantially improved, but at the cost of decreases in shoulder
flexion, horizontal abduction, and external rotation, that is not ideal. Create profiles of acceptability, and ensure that you stay within them.
2. Single leg jump over hurdle to stick
Back to the subject at hand, one leg (or hand!)
versus two isn’t likely to make a significant
difference. Don’t be a slave to other people’s
opinions on training concepts, but, rather, see
what works in your setting. This book is meant
to provide you with the full playbook of available choices. Some choices may be perfect for
your setting, and others may be inapplicable. Regardless, have some standards and measurements that override opinions. Follow the
numbers and the results. 3. Single leg jump over hurdle to bounce to
jump over hurdle
4. Single leg jumps over sequential hurdles
5. Single leg depth drop
The single leg jumps featured here will progress
from box jumps, to hurdle hops, to drops off
of objects. It is a very similar sequence to the
bilateral stance, sagittal plane jumps. The following list is the sequence for front/back stance,
sagittal plane, single leg jumps, triple extension
activities:
1. Single leg box jump
6. Single leg depth jumps
Coaching Points
The reduced stability of single leg jumps
dramatically increases the difficulty of performing these drills, and their increased difficulty is
especially evident on the landing. The focus
should be placed on the landing for these drills,
particularly when getting started. When executed properly, landing in an athletic position
without the heel hitting the ground is incredibly
muscularly demanding. Focus on the landing in training is incredibly
beneficial for developing eccentric strength, and
eccentric rate of force development. Eccentric
force capabilities are typically underdeveloped
in most, and are associated with improvements
in performance markers.
In this model, we’re actually less concerned
with eccentric strength and eccentric rate of
force development, but rather, the ability to
maintain a concentric orientation of the muscles
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while performing a yielding action. This is not a
subtle difference. The maintenance of a concentric orientation during the yielding action is
the mechanism by which the athlete can optimize requisite movement. Those who maintain the concentric orientation during yielding
actions are those who will demonstrate greater
quantitative stiffness, and demonstrate greater
rates of force development overall, while those
who struggle with maintaining it will lack reactivity, and display lower performance on the
quantifiable markers that represent high levels
of athleticism. Put another way: tremendously explosive athletes are those who keep their
concentric orientation on triphasic movements
more so than athletes who lack pop. By keeping the heel from hitting the
ground on landings, we are creating the proper
triggers for driving desired training effects. This
cue will help athletes keep the calf muscles in
a concentric orientation, which can help them
absorb force rapidly, and expedite the amortization phase as well as the transition to an
overcoming action that’s needed to power the
subsequent jump. The big hole in the operation
is going to be the yielding phase, which is why
teaching and focusing on landing elements is
so important. Getting carried away with how
high the athlete can jump is unfortunately all
too common, and unfortunate because this isn’t
the stage of the movement that yields the most
important adaptations for this pattern.
If I had a nickel for each time I heard
that repeat jumps are easier than jumps with
the bounce in between, I’d have quite a few…
except that, repeat jumps are only easier when
done incorrectly. By the same token, folks likely
find the bounce jumps more difficult to do because their execution is harder to screw up, so
odds are they are doing these right, and feeling
their true muscular demand. In fitness development, before we can target maximal output,
I first need to confirm the subject can exercise
necessary control over his or her body, as well
as the exercise implements we’re using. If I put
the focus on output first, then the mechanics
will be suboptimal, and bad habits will be developed. To stick a landing, or to demonstrate
the small bounces in between hurdle hops, you
have to demonstrate control. In this particular instance, we need to first establish control
over the muscular orientation of the lower leg. Demonstrating control is difficult, but brings the
subject increasingly closer to proper drill execution. Those who’ve done this painstaking work
will not fall for the illusion that the bounce-between hops are more difficult than the repeat
jumps.
Sagittal, Front/Back, Split Stance Jumps,
Low Load, High Velocity
The first time I watched the video Freak
of Training I was enamored, and I recommend
it to anyone who enjoys incredible displays of
power and athleticism. This video featured the
drills used by Coach Jay Schroeder to develop
Adam Archuletta, who played safety in the NFL
for over a decade. Coach Schroeder started
working with Archuletta at a young age, guiding
his training to prepare him for college, the NFL
combine, and ultimately for playing in the NFL. The video features some really amazing plyometric drills, and Archuletta’s physical capabilities are practically beyond belief. What jumped
out at me (pun intended!) was how much they
drilled landing and jumping from the split-squat
position. There are some really unique drills in
there, such as low squat foot jumps that may
get you thinking about how you coach your
plyometric training.
The split squat position can be very
effective for plyometric training, and many of
the same options are available from this stance,
with the exception of box jumps. The distance
between the feet in the split stance landing may
be greater than the surface area of the top of
the box, and jumping forward a substantial distance is required to properly arrange the feet on
top of a box, all of which adds an unnecessary
layer of complexity. Instead, simply start with
jumping and landing on the ground.
With these jumps, you will see that there are
split squat jumps, and there are also split cycle
jumps. The split cycle jumps are a progression
over the split squat jumps. This list specifically
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differentiates between split squat and split cycle
jumps. You could make a reasonable argument
that you could perform exercise 6 as the second
level drill in a training program. I’ll leave it up
to you to determine whether you want to go all
the way through the split squat jumps before
introducing the split cycle jumps, or if you want
to do both versions of sticks before progressing
to both versions of bounces, and so on. The following list is the order of drills for sagittal plane,
front back, split stance jumps: 1. Split squat jump to stick
2. Split squat jump to bounce to jump
3. Repeat split squat jumps
4. Split squat depth drop
5. Split squat depth jump
6. Cycle split squat jump to stick
7. Cycle split squat jump to bounce to jump
8. Repeat cycle split squat jumps
9. Cycle split squat depth jump
Coaching Points
Keeping the front heel off the ground
is going to be a critical element of all of these
drills. The other big piece is keeping jumpers
from creeping their feet too close to each other
on subsequent jumps. Many will start off in a
decent split position, but after a jump or two,
“drift” into drills that look almost like bilateral
stance jumps. This is something to harp on
when starting with the first progression of sticking the landing. Make sure you are adamant
about maintaining distance between their feet,
and you will set the tone for keeping a good
level of separation in future, more demanding
drills.
One logistical factor that is often neglect-
ed is how to step off the box for the depth drops
and depth jump versions of these exercises. We do not want to step off straight ahead off
the box, as doing this may cause the back foot
to hit the box behind it, either while in the air or
once on the ground, both of which could cause
problems. Instead, have subjects step off the
box sideways.
The final coaching point to consider
is that we do not want these drills to become
a pure hip hinge/back extension version of
jumping. What we want is for them to mimic
the split-squat jump more than anything else. Some will perform these drills without changing
their knee and ankle angle whatsoever. They
will simply hinge at the hip, and angle the thorax
forward, then extend the hip and back to go up. While hip hinging and forward thorax angling
should take place, there should also absolutely
be a knee flexion and extension moment during
these drills.
Frontal, Bilateral, Low Load, High Velocity
With these jumps, the jumper will be
facing perpendicular to the direction he or she is
jumping towards. So, when performing a perpendicular-facing box jump, the jumper would
not be facing towards the box. Instead, the box
would be at the jumper’s side, and he or she
would jump up and onto it without changing the
orientation of where he or she is facing. There
is no midair rotation on these jumps, so the
jumper continues to face forward from beginning to end of the motion. In other words, the
jumper is always oriented sideways, relative to
the direction in which he or she is projecting him
or herself through in space, which makes this a
frontal plane drill.
Subjects should be very comfortable with box
jumps, hurdle jumps, and any other implement
being employed before doing these drills. The
added complexity of not facing towards the
implement one is jumping up onto or over
creates a significant increase in added difficulty
for these drills. The exact same sequencing of
progressions applies these drills as that used
for sagittal plane bilateral jumps. Here is the
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order of activities for frontal plane, bilateral
stance, low load, high velocity, triple extension
exercises:
1. Perpendicular facing box jump
ground, we want good arm swing to help drive
the body through space, and we want to be able
to demonstrate good control as well as a static
stick, before we worry about dynamic reactivity.
Perhaps out of fear of hitting the box with
a step-off approach, or in an effort to get more
height for their landing (or both), some athletes
will try to jump up and away from the box to get
to their landing on depth drops and jumps. As
mentioned, we want the athlete to step off the
box sideways rather than jump off the box, so
look out for this, and coach these folks to laterally step off the box.
2. Perpendicular facing hurdle jump to lower
box landing
Frontal, Front/Back, Single Leg Hops, Low
Load, High Velocity
3. Perpendicular facing hurdle jump to stick
4. Perpendicular facing hurdle jump to bounce
to jump over next hurdle
5. Perpendicular facing sequential hurdle jumps
6. Perpendicular facing depth drop
7. Perpendicular facing depth jump
These drills will all feature hops, performed while facing perpendicular to the object the athlete is jumping onto or over. Let’s
remember that a jump is defined here as an
exercise where the jumper both takes off and
lands on two feet. A bound, on the other hand,
is an exercise where the jumper takes off with
one foot, but lands on the other. Finally, a hop
is an exercise where the jumper takes off and
lands on the same foot, one foot at a time. All
of the drills in this section are hops, and all of
them are all single leg variants. Consequently, the athlete needs to take off for each hop in
the medial and lateral direction, and ensure the
same volume for each direction, for each foot.
Coaching Points
Many will first attempt these drills too
tentatively, likely anticipating a dropoff in height
comparable to sagittal plane jumps. To mitigate
this, introduce these drills with what you think
might be an excessively low box jump, to illustrate that there is not going to be much in the
way of dropoff on these types of jumps. This
typically lifts anxiety associated with attempting
them, allowing subjects to approach them full
steam ahead.
This drill requires all of the same types
of focus as other triple extension jumping drills. We want to prevent the heels from hitting the
The order of progressions for these drills
are the same as the single leg sagittal plane
hops. These hops will feature going up onto
a box, over a hurdle, and then following drops
from objects. Here is the list of frontal plane,
front/back stance, single leg hops, low load,
high velocity, triple extension exercises:
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1. Perpendicular facing single leg box hop
2. Perpendicular facing hop over hurdle to stick
is a hard thing to get people to do. Instead,
you’ll see subjects crashing down, letting their
heels hit, failing to use muscle to absorb force. As coaches, it’s our job to be vigilant, and get
our athletes to firm up any areas where they
may not be applying maximum effort, or may
be letting bad habits seep in. This is a realm of
drill where temptation towards laziness seems
particularly strong. Instill that the landing is
the most important part, and get subjects to
work hard to stick. Lastly, get them to respect
the bounce. Do all this, and you can go home
knowing you’ve truly trained this pattern.
Frontal, Lateral, Low Load, High Velocity
3. Perpendicular facing hop over hurdle to
bounce to hop over next hurdle
4. Perpendicular facing hop over sequential
hurdles
5. Perpendicular facing depth drop
6. Perpendicular facing depth hop
Coaching Points
The landings on these hops are incredibly unstable, so, to stick these, subjects have
to work very hard to prevent the heel from
hitting the ground. Because of this tremendous
amount of muscular effort involved, using these
as introductory drills for light triple extension
would be physiologically overwhelming. As with
the preceding drills in this pattern, emphasize
technical mastery before you maximize landing
difficulty.
Subjects will often try to avoid the
bounce in this progression. Instead, they will try
to go right to the repeat hops over the hurdles. If you see this, slow them down and get them
to bounce. The landing components of these
drills are where all the work lives. Really using
concentric orientation and yielding action work
This category of drills belongs to bounds. Bounds involve projecting yourself from one
foot, and landing on the other. In Mark Verstegen’s Athlete’s Performance model (now
Exos), he created a truly genius delineation
between different kinds of plyometric activities,
categorizing some as having vertically-focused
amplitude, and others as horizontally-focused
amplitude. A box jump is normally a drill with a
vertically-focused amplitude, and a long jump
is one with a horizontally-focused amplitude. I
encourage fellow coaches to adopt this added categorization, and be aware that you can
manipulate any plyometric drill to have a more
vertical or a more horizontal focus. Bounds are
an example of a movement that can change
dramatically depending on whether the trajectory of the propulsion has a vertical or horizontal
focus.
Few progressions reside in this category,
which is a realm of triple extension training that
typically does not feature a box. The reason
is that using a box to bound up onto often just
encourages the reaching of the up leg instead
of the desired propulsion from the down leg. The first few drills in this category are frequently
referred to as “Heidens”, after the great speed
skater, Eric Heiden. These are drills that he
used in his training for speed skating, and his
popularity created an ongoing association with
these lateral bounds. To take full advantage
of available training for this realm of fitness,
these drills should be done with both a verti-
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cal and horizontal amplitude. The final drill in
this category is referred to as “Russian stairs”. Resembling the first obstacle from Ninja Warrior, Russian stairs are slanted boards, between
which athletes bound back and forth. Here is
the list of progressions for frontal plane, lateral
stance, low load, high velocity, triple extension
exercises:
1. Lateral bound to stick
2. Lateral bound to bounce to lateral bound
3. Repeat lateral bounds
4. Russian stairs
Coaching Points
These drills involve a strong frontal
plane pelvis, supplemented by transverse plane
thorax contribution. In order to be able to create explosion on these drills, subjects need to
be able to lateralize their body weight over the
stance side foot as well as coil their thorax,
to assist in creating a hip shift. This yielding
windup preceding the overcoming explosion out
of the position is what makes these drills come
alive. These drills also bear a high resemblance to coming out of a break on a change of
direction drill.
These are best coached with high energy, because athletes need to perform them with
the same. They need to coil, and explode out
of their coil. Simply going through the motions
on these drills results in getting little back from
them. But, with some extra intent and effort,
their outcome is significantly improved.
Focusing on the inside edge of the foot
that’s being landing on and bounding from
is key here. Doing so enables the athlete to
maintain the femur in an optimal position, as
the pelvis lateralizes and rotates over the top of
that femur. If the weight gets too lateral on the
foot, the femur is lost in space, and the subject
usually demonstrates a center of mass that’s
too far laterally over its base of support. The
problem with this is that it renders one unable to
stick the landing. Instead, subjects who’ve fallen into this end up hopping around before they
can stick and perform the subsequent bounce. Finding and owning the big toe-side of the foot
is the major key to success on these drills.
The reason that the inside edge of the
foot is such a focal point is that, when we lateralize and coil, we are going into ER, flexion,
and abduction of the landing foot, while trying to
maintain a concentric orientation of the IR, extension, and adduction muscles. Holding the inside edge of the foot will set the stage for keeping this concentric orientation. In essence, the
inside edge of the foot is to frontal plane triple
extension what prevention of heel contact with
the ground is to sagittal plane triple extension. Inside edge is critical for change of direction as
well. We’ll talk more about this when we get to
that particular pattern, but, for now, suffice it to
say that those who can change direction laterally at a very high level do so through the inside
edge.
Transverse, Bilateral, Low Load, High
Velocity
I’m proud to say that, to my knowledge,
these transverse plane jumping drills are distinctly my own creation, which I’m excited to
share with anyone who can employ them in
their own professional or personal training
repertoire. The primary aim of these exercises
is to create rotation through the thorax. They
work to accomplish this rotation by bringing
both arms over to one side of the body in preparation for the jump (the counter-movement),
as opposed to having each arm swing down at
its own side of the body. The first drill in this
category is a trunk twist box jump. To create
trunk rotation to the left prior to jumping up, the
subject would perform the counter-movement of
bringing his or her right elbow to the outside of
their left knee.
Every jump in the transverse plane
sections will feature trunk rotation during
the counter-movement. The first grouping
of progressions involves a trunk twist on the
counter-movement only. The second group
of progressions features a trunk twist on the
counter-movement, and then a contralateral
trunk twist on the landing as well.
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The names for some of these drills can be a
mouthful, but you will see that each name
precisely describes the movement entailed
in that drill. For instance, the first drill in the
upcoming exercise list is called “trunk twist to
neutral landing box jump”. This means that the
counter-movement involves a trunk twist, but
the landing does not involve a trunk twist… one
simply lands as he or she would in a sagittal
plane bilateral box jump. If you scroll down to
number three, you’ll see that it is called “trunk
twist to neutral landing bounce to ipsilateral
trunk twist jump”. This one features thoracic rotation in the counter-movement prior to
the jump. The subject will land and get into a
bounce the same way we would with a bilateral
sagittal bounce landing. Prior to the next jump
out of the bounce, he or she will trunk twist to
the same side as we did on the first jump. Moving along to number seven, you’ll see that we’re
back to a box jump, but rather than landing like
one would in a bilateral sagittal box jump, the
subject is now landing in trunk rotation. In this
seventh drill, upon landing, the trunk is rotated
in the opposite direction of the counter-movement trunk rotation. The following list is the
order for transverse plane, bilateral stance, low
load, high velocity, triple extension exercises:
1. Trunk twist to neutral box jump landing
2. Trunk twist to neutral landing jump to stick
3. Trunk twist to neutral landing bounce to
ipsilateral trunk twist jump
4. Trunk twist to ipsilateral twist repeat jumps
5. Trunk twist depth drop (land in the twist)
6. Trunk twist depth jump to neutral landing
7. Trunk twist to contralateral twist landing box
jump
8. Trunk twist to contralateral jump to
contralateral stick
9. Trunk twist to contralateral bounce landing to
trunk twist jump
10. Repeat contralateral jumps
11. Trunk twist depth jump to contralateral landing
Coaching Points
These drills are found in the transverse
category, but they recruit a large amount of
frontal plane pelvis for proper execution. To
ensure subjects are keeping a solid base of a
pelvis and femur underneath a twisting trunk,
there are a couple of cues I leverage for these
jumps. To ensure that the pelvis and femur
are in an appropriate position, it is very important for the subject to maintain pressure down
through the inside edge of the foot on the side
of the hip shift. The hip shift will tend to lateralize the weight, and cause excess supination
of the foot, which can in turn help to create an
eccentric orientation of the yielding muscles. To
keep the weight on the inside edge of the foot
during the hip shift, the athlete must possess a
high level of strength and control, because the
momentum of the trunk twist and hip shift will
serve to peel the inside edge of the foot off the
ground, and blow the femur out laterally.
The other major cue I use during the
trunk twist is for subjects to bring the contra-
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lateral elbow over and outside the knee on the
side of the hip shift. The transverse thorax
action is not a slow, controlled or highly mindful
movement here. Instead, we’re looking for the
athlete to twist with high velocity and explosion,
which can be aided by some type of external
cue. I tend to focus on the relationship of the
elbow to the knee, by inviting subjects: “When
twisting left, try to bring your right elbow outside
your left knee”. I like this cue both for encouraging a powerful thoracic twist, and for keeping
the femur centered over the foot. If the athlete
is performing a drill where they need to land
with a contralateral twist, to get the benefits of
the landing for this drill, they’ll need to be encouraged to get their elbow over to the other
side with speed and authority.
These transverse plane jumping drills are
very similar to getting in and out of a cut with
change of direction work. One needs to post on
the inside of the foot that is one’s primary deceleration/re-acceleration foot. One needs to coil
and uncoil one’s torso over the foot that one is
posting on. To be successful, one needs to get
in and out of one’s break very quickly. Subjects
who think about these jumps as vertical oriented cuts are more likely to succeed at them.
Transverse, Front/Back, Low Load, High
Velocity, Short Duration:
The jumps featured in this group are all
performed from a split-squat start position. The
split squat position is much more difficult to
manage with a trunk twist and hip shift than it is
in the bilateral stance. Despite the difficulty of
these drills, these are truly dynamic exercises
that create an impressive explosion in athletes
who are competent at executing fundamental
biomechanics positions.
These drills are organized in a very similar way to previous groupings. We’ll be going
from jumps to sticks, to jumps with bounce landings, to repeat jumps, to depth-based activities. We’ll also be going from trunk twists only on the
counter-movement, to trunk twists on both the
counter-movement and the landing. The following is the list of progressions for transverse
plane, front/back, low load, high velocity, short
duration, triple extension exercises:
1. Trunk twist split squat jump to neutral stick
2. Trunk twist split squat jump to neutral landing
bounce to ipsilateral twist split squat jump
3. Repeat ipsilateral trunk twist split squat
jumps
4. Trunk twist split squat jump to contralateral
twist stick
5. Trunk twist split squat jump to neutral landing
bounce to contralateral split squat jump
6. Repeat contralateral trunk twist split squat
jump
7. Trunk twist split squat depth drop
8. Trunk twist split squat depth jump to
ipsilateral landing
9. Trunk twist split squat depth jump to
contralateral landing
Coaching Points
Many of the aforementioned concepts
also apply to these jumps. We want to prevent
the heel of the front foot from hitting the ground
when landing. We want to own the inside edge
of the foot, when trunk-twisting and hip-shifting over that foot. We want to try to bring the
right elbow to the outside of the left knee when
trunk-twisting and hip-shifting left (and vice ver-
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sa), to encourage maximal coiling.
If you see subjects who are unable to
control their femurs, steer them away from
these drills, which are characterized by high
torsion and twist. Appropriate handling of torsion is great for driving training adaptations and
improving force production capabilities, but poor
mechanics can be dangerous where torsion
is involved. If you’re unsure whether or not
your subject is up to the task, choose from the
plethora of simpler triple extension drills from
this chapter. And, when you do choose these
particular drills, make sure you are choosing
them only for those who would benefit from their
inclusion, and have the prerequisite capabilities
to properly execute them.
following is the list of transverse plane, lateral
stance, low load, high velocity, short duration,
triple extension exercises: 1. Lateral box jump over to stick
2. Repeat lateral box jump over
3. Lateral box jump over to stick w/med ball
Transverse, Lateral, Low Load, High
Velocity, Short Duration
Every exercise in this pattern will be
some form of lateral box jump-over. The athlete will have one foot up on a box, and will use
that foot to propel him or herself up and laterally, such that the other foot also lands on the
box. In these jumps, athletes will be jumping in
a perpendicular direction to the one they face. If one’s left foot is on the box, the right foot
would start on the floor. One would push down
through the left foot, to jump up and to the left,
over the box, and land with one’s right foot on
the box. One would then repeat the process,
by pushing down through the right foot to jump
up and to the right, so that the left foot lands on
the box and the right foot on the floor next to the
box, bringing him or her back to the drill’s starting position.
These drills offer only a few options for
their performance. We will begin by performing
lateral box jump-overs to stick, and then we will
progress by repeating lateral box jump-overs. We can advance the exercise further by adding
resistance, and medicine balls are our equipment of choice for these drills. For all drills in
this group, thoracic rotation is essential for creating optimal power and jump height. If the left
foot is on the box, the windup to create power
will be the thorax twisting to the right side. The
4. Repeat lateral box jump over w/med ball
Coaching Points
In my mind, these drills are simply vertically directed shuttle runs. When one’s right
foot is on the ground, he or she is making a
cut that is going to send him or her back to the
left, and vice versa. If one approaches it this
way, and uses the thorax to help create this
approach, he or she will demonstrate greater
explosiveness than would be possible when
thinking about it as jumping up and over.
This is a great drill for golfers, because
the lower body activity during a golf swing is
very similar to the process of making a cut. This is something that a brilliant physical therapist, Michael Kay, imparted upon me. Mike
currently operates out of Scottsdale, AZ, and
does a lot of work with professional golfers. He
pointed out that a backswing is getting into a
cut, and the downswing when going into the
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follow through is coming out of a cut. If you understand how to cut, you know what to do with
your lower body during a golf swing. When you
start to think of things this way, you start to see
that this statement is quite a ubiquitous one. Striking, throwing, and bounding actions are all
about creating quality cuts.
Cutting is always going to involve owning the inside edge of the outside foot, while
the pelvis goes into a hip shift over that foot,
and the thorax rotates in the same direction. This is the process of properly coiling your
center of mass over your stance foot, while
maintaining a concentric orientation of all the
yielding muscles. When it comes to movement
that will launch a projectile, this is the way it’s
done. One starts with a sagittal base, shifts to
create frontal plane centering, and once these
two prerequisites are met, coils the body in the
transverse plane. Whoever can create this kind
of position can also likely unleash hell.
Dominant Positions and Fitness Realms:
Dominant Plane: Sagittal
Dominant Stance: Bilateral
Dominant Load: Low
Dominant Velocity: High
Dominant Duration: Short
It would be easiest to claim that dominance for this realm is sport-specific, aka “it
depends”. Not one for ambiguity, I take the
stance that triple extension is best demonstrated and developed in the sagittal plane, with a
bilateral stance. This is the plane and position
in which we find ourselves when trying to create
a maximal vertical jump, or a heavy Olympic lift. When contemplating these dominance realms,
I’m always looking for the most natural go-to,
that would be employed by the majority when
tackling a given motor task. If you are trying to
jump as high or as far as you could without a
running start, you would choose a sagittal motion from a bilateral stance.
Triple extension will be a revealing pattern for how explosive someone can be. To
dramatically improve bench press strength or
distance run times, an athlete has to work hard,
and be gritty. While most people can dramatically improve their slow velocity strength and
aerobic performance, demonstrating great triple
extension capabilities likely necessitates genetic ownership of relevant gifts. These gifts
are also known as a high percentage of fasttwitch muscle fibers, and a skeleton shaped
in an optimal way for expressing this pattern. Someone who lacks these predispositions likely
also lacks the hardware for becoming highly
proficient at triple extension. By no means is
this to say that those of us on this list should
just give up, because the quest for self improvement will always yield us benefits, but leaving
out the role of the genetic component when
discussing this movement pattern is dishonest. As a coach, whether or not you’re training the
triple extension-gifted, you’ll want to do it within
a well-constructed overall program, and focus
on body composition, heeding the old track and
field saying: “Fat don’t fly”. Athletes looking to
maximize the ability to jump would do well to
get lean while maintaining strength.
12
Hip Dominant
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Hip Dominant
Chapter 12
All of the movement patterns we’ve covered so far—breathing, core exercises, locomotion, change of direction, throwing, and triple
extension—have been ones dominated by body
control and athleticism. Now, we come to the
hip-dominant pattern, aka, hinging, which is the
first pattern in this book that falls squarely in the
realm of lifting weights. We can visualize the
relationships between these patterns as a Venn
diagram, where some aspects of most or all
movements will overlap with each other, while
others will diverge from the rest, and stand
apart.
into a given direction.
Weight lifting is more so the latter, being
a unique athletic endeavor. While most types
of athletic performance benefit from athletes
staying relaxed and “fluid”, lifting weights requires athletes to learn how to “get tight”. Our
model encapsulated this tightness in the macro
movement category of compression. Weight
lifting is all about creating pressure, constricting,
squeezing, and, ultimately, about hydraulics and
pistons moving fluids into particular regions of
the body, to displace bones and body segments Mechanical Considerations of the
Hip-Dominant Pattern
To be a great lifter, one has to learn how
to clamp muscles down on blood vessels, to
turn one’s periphery into an exoskeleton that
won’t bend while attempting to move heavy
objects through space. And, arguably even
more challengingly, one has to learn how to
endure the sensation that one’s head may pop
off from all of that tightness. If I had to pick one
lift that’s capable of pushing the body to its peak
of compression and pressurization, I’d pick the
deadlift.
If you have ever coached in a personal training or sports performance setting, you
probably understand that getting someone to
sit his or her hips back into a hinge position is a
lot easier said than done. You may have used
teaching approaches like trying to get these
subjects to sit their butts back into a wall behind
them, or maybe you put a band around their
hips and pulled them backwards. You’ve probably thoroughly explained the difference between
the squatting down and hinging back movements. And, finally, you may have found yourself getting exasperated when seeing subjects
continue to round their backs like jumbo shrimp,
or dorsiflexing and knee-flexing ten miles to
get down to the bar, with zero hip involvement. “Come on, people!” you may have found yourself thinking. “How hard is it to just sit your hips
back?” When I think about the essence of a
hinge, I think that it’s about getting the pelvis to
translate backwards through space, to incline
the trunk forward, and bring the hands down,
towards the ground. After sitting back, the
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pelvis goes forward through space, to erect the
trunk to lift an object. The movement is not one
of folding the trunk forward via a lever at the acetabulum, which results in its performers resembling a lawn flamingo tipping forward and back. Instead, a true hinge is defined by the entire
pelvis moving backwards on the way down, and
forward on the way up. Hinging should be done
with a back that is relatively flat, as opposed to
one that’s significantly exaggerated into hyperextension, or features a significant amount of
flexion anywhere along it.
Hinging correctly paves the way for significant
development of the glute and hamstring hip
extensor muscles, as well as the development
of back muscles, as these counteract weight. A powerful movement which develops tissues
and stresses the body to the highest possible
degree, the hinge movement can also be a
scary one. This may explain why it’s so often
butchered by a large number of amateur weight
lifters.
In order to be able to hinge properly, one
needs to tip the pelvis before sitting back. So,
what’s the right way to tip the pelvis forward? Serge Gracovetsky is the author of the book
The Spinal Engine, in which he postulates that
it’s the spine (not the legs) that moves the pelvis. He began his hypothesis by examining the
movements of people without legs. He noticed
that if you filmed their movements and then
rewatched the video from hip-level and up, it
appeared very much as though these folks were upright and trying to go forward on their ischial
tuberosities, or, in other words, as though they
were walking on legs. This discovery led him to
collect data which supported his theory.
The central thesis of the Spinal Engine concepts is the idea that the spine is the catalyst
for all of our movements. The spine will drive
the pelvis, the shoulders, and so forth. So, if
hinging requires the pelvis to tip forward before
it can slide back and into the bottom position of
this exercise, it must be the spine that tips the
pelvis forward to initiate this motion. Posterior compression of the spine is the requisite action to accomplish this. The likely
answer to what causes the presentation of
anterior pelvic tilt in humans is that it is driven
by posterior compression of the spine at, and
above, the sacrum. In order for the pelvis to go
backwards in space, the sacrum is the key part
that needs a nutation moment imparted upon
it. This nutation moment can be brought about
by moving the sacrum itself, or by tipping the
entire pelvis forward, in an anterior tilt presentation. When the sacrum moves into nutation, it
creates an eccentric orientation of the posterior
pelvic floor, and a concentric orientation of the
anterior pelvic floor. The eccentric orientation
of the posterior pelvic floor allows for significant
ROM in the posterior direction. If the sacrum
cannot be anteriorly oriented, the ability to sit
the hips back will be impeded by a concentric
oriented posterior pelvic floor, and some form of
compensatory action must take place in order to
hinge.
Fig 12.1 - Sacrum and pelvis in anterior tilt
The compression and anterior orientation and nutation of the sacrum relies on exhalation. Those who will struggle with the hinge
will be those who tend to be biased towards
an inhalation presentation, whereas those who
should have strong hinging ability will be biased
towards exhalation (unless there is some compensatory action that alters this). Between the
deadlift and the squat, aka, the two big weightroom lower body patterns, we can say that the
deadlift is our exhale-dominant pattern, and the
squat is our inhale-dominant pattern. Getting
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into the proper positions and maintaining great
form in the deadlift is closely tied to matching
one’s body to all of the compression and exhalation strategy-based joint positions and bodily
actions. Here is the list of these mechanical
actions, associated with the exhalation strategy:
Exhale
Internal Rotation
Extension
Adduction
Dorsiflexion
Pronation
This list is incredibly useful, because it actually
contains all of the cues and passive constraints
needed for coaching the hinge. So, when a
subject isn’t translating the pelvis back properly,
I could potentially cue him or her to exhale while
sitting back, which should help. I could also
potentially put something under the subject’s
toes, to put them into greater dorsiflexion, which
should help. I could cue this same subject to
focus on crushing the big toe side of the foot
into the floor while they sit back, which should
help. I could put a yoga block between the
subject’s thighs, right above the knees, which
should help. I could put a towel under the
medial arch and tell this subject to crush it while
sitting back, which should help. Finally, we
could use a kettlebell, holding onto the horns,
which would put the subject’s arms into internal
rotation, which should also help.
I prefer the use of external devices to excessive verbal instructions for correctly positioning
my subjects’ bodies, because this helps them
learn how movement should feel. Once I see
them do something properly, I ask them if they
noticed any specific feeling, and, often, they
do. I then have them resume that position, and
really pay attention to the feeling, as a way of
teaching them to associate certain feelings with
positional checkpoints. This reliance on particular sensations at these particular checkpoints
during a motion creates a feedback loop for
verifying its proper execution.
I’d actually go so far as to say that, rather than
learning “positions”, we actually learn feelings. When executing the hinge, I want
my subjects to feel the weight
distribution through their feet, or
the tension in their hamstrings, at
the bottom of a hinge. I want them to feel the
difference between being a “pusher” and a “puller” on the ascent of a hinge. As internalized
guides go, my voice and cues can’t compete
with sensations a subject can actually feel. So,
when teaching movement competency, I want
my subjects thinking less, and feeling more. My voice will only make them think, but using
references and constraints will make them feel. Once subjects are proficient at using requisite
feelings as cues to move into the right positions,
we can talk strategy, optimization, and so forth. But, whatever the subject’s stage of competency, in my opinion, great coaches tend to talk
less, and not so great ones, more.
Training the Hip-Dominant Pattern
Available Options
Available Planes: All
Available Stances: All
Available Loads: All
Available Velocities: All
Available Durations: All
Sagittal, Bilateral, Low Load, High Velocity
Two-handed kettlebell swings, two-handed cleans, and two-handed snatches are the
exercises that fit into this category. As soon
as you go one-handed with kettlebell drills, a
transverse plane element gets automatically
added to them. Kettlebell swings, cleans, and
snatches have some bleedover with throwing
and triple extension-based activities, but they
are more hip-dominant than they are any other
category.
At age nineteen, I was coached in mixed martial
arts by a man named John Burke, who was also
like a father figure to me. John grew up in Foxborough, Massachusetts, not far from my hometown of Cape Cod, and had trained martial arts
for most of his life. John himself was trained by
a couple of guys named Frank and Dennis, who
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had fought in the Vietnam War, and had spent
a considerable amount of time in Asia after their
service. While there, these guys learned judo,
jiu jitsu, muay thai, and kung fu. They called
what they taught kung fu, but were in reality
teaching mixed martial arts before it had this
name. The school where John learned this
“kung fu” was very small, and the training that
took place there would quickly get branded too
barbaric for today’s children and adolescents. There were two other guys who trained alongside John at this school, Jeff and Tom Martone. Tom has since become a Florida police officer,
working in the riot control division, and Jeff, one
of the earliest pioneers of kettlebell training in
the United States.
And me, at nineteen, well, I was struggling. Uneducated, aimless, and plagued by
behavioral problems, I was going nowhere,
at least nowhere good. What I did have was
mixed martial arts. I had a coach who believed
in me. I had teammates who were great people. And, I got introduced to a great fitness
professional, the aforementioned Jeff Martone. On this particular week, John asked me to set
some extra time aside because his friend and
old training partner, Jeff, was going to be visiting. Jeff knew a lot about fitness and getting in
shape to be a great fighter. This sounded good
to me, because I loved to train, and wanted to
maximize my fitness. So I meet Jeff, and he has these bowling
balls with handles, and he’s saying that these
are his preferred training tools. I’d never seen
a kettlebell before in my life, but, lucky for me,
I’ve always been open-minded, willing to learn,
and ready to work hard. Jeff explained that the
kettlebell was a tool that was primarily used in
Russia, and that there were “swing” exercises
and “grind” exercises that I could learn. The
swing exercises would help with power coming
from the hips, and the grinds would develop
body control, grip strength, shoulder stability,
and rotation through the pelvis and thorax.
I watched Jeff do the kettlebell drills he
was going to teach me and the other fighters,
and it was like watching poetry in motion. The
man displayed strength and power, but doing
so with striking smoothness and economy of
movement. I was curious about his history with
this implement. Jeff shared that he had been to
Russia, where he participated in kettlebell competitions, and met Pavel Tsatsouline, whom Jeff
befriended, and eventually helped immigrate to
the US. Pavel had been associated with kettlebell training and developing fitness in military
personnel, and he was creating quite a movement within the fitness industry. Through Pavel,
Jeff rode the early wave of kettlebell training in
the US, and went on to do fitness development
for special operations soldiers in the US military.
So, as fate would have it, I was learning from a true master at an age when I was
too young and dumb to realize it. Don’t get
me wrong, I gave Jeff my undivided attention
and utmost respect, took constant notes, and
soaked up the experience like a sponge. It just
wouldn’t be till later that I would fully comprehend my good fortune.
Fast forward to me as a professor, teaching at
Brooklyn College, and Jeff teaching the Crossfit kettlebell instructor certification course at a
Crossfit gym nearby. At one point, he asked me
if I would be able to come over and help him
teach the course. Now older and wiser, I felt so
honored and appreciative of this golden opportunity, and Jeff didn’t let me down. An outstanding presenter, his weekend seminar was also
incredibly well organized. The instruction was
on point, and all attendees left much more proficient at their kettlebell lifts. Whenever I teach
seminars, I channel Jeff that weekend, specifically the way he made everyone feel good
about themselves while keeping them on task,
and offering constructive criticism.
The sequencing of drills that Jeff laid out for
learning swing and Olympic variation lifts is
very similar to what you would get in a course
taught by Strong First nowadays. The difference between the organization in Jeff’s material
and what you’ll see here is that I am categorizing these exercises by plane. The sagittal
plane-based drills are found in this grouping
of exercises. The drills here go from swing-
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based activities to cleans, to snatches. The
following list is the order of exercises for sagittal
plane, bilateral stance, low load, high velocity,
hip-dominant drills:
1. Two-hand Russian swing
2. Double KB Russian swing
3. Two-hand Power swing
4. Double KB Power swing
5. Double KB Clean
6. Double KB Snatch
Coaching Points
Simon Sinek’s book Start With The Why
was all the rage when it came out. Its primary message was that, if you want people to
do something, you need to explain why they
should. So, why should people do kettlebell
swings, cleans, or snatches? What particular
qualities do these exercises develop? When
people do kettlebell swings, cleans, and snatches, they aren’t typically trying to do a one rep
max. Instead, they typically do them for higher
reps, or for longer time periods, but don’t usually give every swing or snatch 100%. Instead,
people do a little pop to get the bell into the
proper position, which is an effort that requires
pacing to repeat over and over.
The kettlebell swing is almost like the
golf swing of resistance training exercises. It
needs to be infused with strength and power,
but also requires the athlete to be relaxed while
performing it. One needs to let the bell swing itself to some degree. In other words, one needs
to let the bell reach its proper position in the
back swing, before generating high propulsion
power just at the right moment during the upswing, and allowing the bell to reach its proper
position in the follow-through.
These swing motions aren’t used to build
a ton of muscle mass, or to reach the highest
level of neurological synchronization and rate
coding, or for maximal rate of force development training. Swings aren’t the best choice
for getting people to be able to jump higher, run
faster, or to get jacked. So why would anyone
do these types of exercises?
Swings develop power endurance. Though this phrase might sound like an oxymoron, it’s not, and many sports require it for successful performance. Boxing, for instance, is a
power endurance sport. The majority of punches that boxers throw are neither at full power,
nor at an “aerobic” level. This is because each
punch is a balancing act between exhibiting
power and conserving energy. Boxers need to
learn how to create the most amount of power
that they possibly can while staying relaxed.
Such punches are typically more accurate
and sustainable, while still dramatic enough to
knock out opponents.
Power endurance is more ubiquitous
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in sports than we may think. Though far less
glamorous than the highlights, a crucial part
of the game in most sports is wearing down
the opponent(s), which means knowing how to
stave off fatigue. Most popular sports to play
and watch are fast, but not maximal speed. And, though we’re not talking marathon running
levels, most require fatigue resistance. To put it
another way, the majority of sports involve brief
circa-max explosive efforts, followed by a recovery period, followed by more semi-explosive
efforts, which cycle repeats over the course of
sixty to ninety minutes of total game play.
Aerobic and phosphogenic physiological development is critical for most athletes,
which, once mastered, just leaves proficiency at
sport-specific movement tactics. The common
thread that connects most athletic endeavors
is that of learning how to be fluid while creating explosive actions, and learning restraint is
critical for preventing excessive fatigue by this
fluidity/explosiveness pattern. This restraint for
periodically explosiveness movements amidst
fluid ones is what kettlebell swing exercises are
designed to teach. Kettlebell swings reside in the no man’s land of
physiological concepts. Somewhat nebulous
and hard to categorize, they’re also tricky to
measure in an empirical setting. But, be that
as it may, anyone who’s participated in combat
sports, tennis or many others will tell you about
the near-maximally explosive efforts required
at every exchange, and the vital role of stamina
throughout the game. This stamina has to be
learned. A phrase I’m fond of using to describe
certain activities is “Two stones, no birds exercises’’. If my thinking was perfectly concrete,
I might apply this phrase to swings. But, in
reality, I believe that there is a lot of gray area in
the world of training, that’s hard to fully appraise
and appreciate. I believe that swing-type exercises populate the very cloudy, yet very real and
useful, territory of power endurance. I will not describe the entirety of a twohand kettlebell swing here, as any number of
videos can demonstrate the basics of the movement. Instead, I’ll talk about the big errors you
might see, and how I go about correcting them. Probably the biggest is when the bell comes
too close to the ground as it is swinging back
towards the swinger. Instead, the bell should
be high in between the legs on its downswing. When the bell swoops too low, it is almost always the result of the swinger not being patient
enough with the downswing. One has to learn
to wait until the bell is almost going to hit him or
her in the genitals before allowing the hips to
break and hinge backwards. By contrast, when
the swinger manages to keep the bell high in
between the legs, a short, crisp, quick backswing will result, along with what appears to be
a much more effortless upswing, powered by
the harnessing and release of elastic energy.
Akin to “different strokes for different
folks”, different cues may be most effective for
different athletes. You’re looking for great hip
hinge action where the pelvis travels backwards
in space, and the torso angles forward during
the action. Some subjects won’t get enough
hinge and inclination of the torso. I’ll offer this
group the simple external cue to touch their
fingers to their butt at the bottom of the swing,
which has “cured” the movement for many of
my subjects. The final major error is failing to create
sufficient drive on the way up. The first drill that
Jeff Martone uses to fix this problem is a box
squat jump. He’ll have subjects squat down on
a bench, focus on sitting their hips back, and
then jump off. He’ll instruct them that this kind
of impulse is what he’s looking for out of them in
the up part of the swing. Believe it or not, most
subjects can intuitively transfer the sensation of
this drill to their upswing drive. When subjects have a pretty good idea of how
to swing the bell properly, as well as the intent
to create explosion on the way up, I try to teach
them how to “optimize the up”. The trick is simple: patience. The impatient attempt to create
their hip explosion right from the back of the
swing, which is too early. Instead, one needs
to wait for the bell to swing forward on its own
for about three or four inches, and only then
start to create hip drive. The idea is to allow the
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passive energy of the bell to do as much as it
possibly can before the swinger has to use his
or her own active energy. By waiting for the bell
for the requisite amount of time, the swinger
also gets closer to the sweet spot for creating
maximal compression in our propulsion arc. Recall that, for many swinging actions, like that
of a golf club or a baseball bat, the midzone is
the strike zone. It’s no different for the kettlebell
swing.
These cues and recommendations apply to
all drills on this sagittal plane, bilateral stance
kettlebell swing, clean, and snatch activities list. That said, thus far, they’ve been provided with
only the Russian swing (exercise number one)
in mind. While the Russian swing comes up to
chest height, the American swing drives the bell
more forcefully, and the end of the up part of
the swing is overhead. I do not recommend this
drill because the risk is not worth the reward. If
more force is desired without resorting to American swings, Russian swings with a heavier
kettlebell are my recommendation.
The power swing is an adaptation of the Russian swing. Here, once the bell reaches the top
of its swing height, the swinger actively pulls it
down, creating more velocity on its downswing. This increased velocity necessitates demonstration of more yielding muscle activity, and
greater yielding rate of force development compared to the Russian swing. All aforementioned
technique-improvement recommendations also
apply to the power swing.
With both the double KB Russian swing and
the double KB power swing, the difference is in
what happens with the arms as compared to the
two-hand swinging of a single bell. Whenever
you have one kettlebell being held in one hand,
you have to follow the (literal) rule of thumb,
which says the thumb must point in whatever
direction the kettlebell is moving. If the kettlebell is going up, the thumb of the hand holding
the bell needs to be up. If the bell is going
down, the thumb needs to be aimed down. When this is done, the arms end up rotating
externally on the way up, and internally on the
way down. One of the primary reasons for the
rule of thumb is to help avoid injured elbows
on the way down. If the arms came down
externally rotated, and the elbow was to hit the
swinger’s leg, this could potentially hyperextend
the elbow, and leave the swinger with a broken
arm. Conversely, when internally rotated on the
downswing, the elbow of the arm that hit a leg
would simply go into flexion, sparing any broken
bones.
In addition to the rule of thumb for double
swings, another good rule is keeping the bells
close together, so much so that they might
touch. If the bells are far apart, the potential for
hitting the leg on the way down is increased, as
is losing control of the bell at some point during
the down or upswing. The bells are built with
durability to spare, designed to withstand occasional collisions with each other.
It is probably wise to learn the single-hand
kettlebell clean and snatch before the two-hand
variation. There are a few keys to optimizing
technique for all kettlebell clean variations. One
is that the fundamentals of the hip mechanics of
the swing carry over into the clean. The rule of
thumb pertains to this movement as well. The
positioning of the elbow is perhaps the biggest
piece of the clean technique puzzle. The elbow needs to stay tight to the body, to prevent
the long, loopy bell paths characteristic of a
clean where the elbow has drifted away. The
objective is to start the clean the same way as
a swing. Let the bell be high in between the
legs at the bottom of the downswing, creating
the propulsion impulse in the strike zone. After the propulsion impulse has been created,
the elbow needs to remain pinned against the
body. This will cause the bell to flex the elbow,
and bring it up to the body via a straight line
trajectory, where it will need to be caught. This
should happen at upper chest height, and the
hand catching the bell should receive it with the
thumb touching the junction of the sternum and
clavicle. In this position, the elbow will be bent,
and the base of the bell will be touching the
back of the wrist, the chest, and the biceps.
On the way down, the elbow should be pressed
against the body. The hand will turn to point the
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thumb down, which will rotate the arm, and the
bell will swing down and through the legs. As a
final point, the grip plays a big role in determining whether the bell is crashing into the swinger’s forearm and leaving the back of his or her
wrist black and blue. Gripping too tightly will
cause the bell to rotate slowly, and come down
crashing on the back of the wrist. To receive it
properly (and painlessly!), one can think of holding the bell with the same intensity required to
hold a bird: not so tightly as to crush it, but not
so loosely that it can fly away. This tip will definitely save the forearms an excessive beating.
The snatch is a swing where the hand pushes
up and away at a 45 degree angle at the top of
the swing, following through on the bell’s momentum. This creates a terminating arc, which
ends with the bell being caught overhead. The
motion is different from a classical Olympic lift,
but is initiated in the same way as the swing,
propelling the bell upwards. The snatch requires more power than the swing, because it
needs to reach a higher end point. Rather than
thinking about pulling the bell up with the hand,
as though starting a vertical lawn mower, the
movement is one of pushing up and forward at
the top of the swing, and then allowing the bell
to find its way back to the wrist. As with the
clean, we want to let the momentum of the bell
do the work, as well as conjure up the same
“holding a bird” grip imagery.
To reverse the pattern and lower the snatch, a
very specific arm action is required. The action
should be similar to that of a tractor trailer driver
pulling the horn of the truck. The athlete will
need to catch the bell at the top of the snatch,
with palm facing forward. To lower the bell, the
hand gets turned, placing the athlete in a neutral grip position, where the palm is facing in a
medial direction, and the thumb is facing posteriorly. From there, the movement is to bend the
elbow, and let the arm drop, allowing the elbow
to come in contact with the ribs. From this position, which is nearly identical to the clean catch,
the elbow needs to maintain contact with the
body, and the athlete needs to follow the rule of
thumb as the bell swings down and through the
legs, just like on the downswing of a kettlebell
swing. This is a graceful motion, where the bell
cascades down, like a waterfall.
Transverse, Bilateral, Low Load, High
Velocity
While many fundamental resistance
training patterns lack great choices for low load,
high velocity training, the kettlebell drills contained in the hip-dominant pattern fall squarely into this quantitative realm. As previously
contemplated, neither the most explosive, nor
the heaviest, nor optimal for the development of
aerobic capabilities, the swing is a gray area exercise, a pure middle ground. So, why choose
to train in the middle ground?
In the Charlie Francis model for training
sprinters, the idea was to either run really fast,
or really slow, but nowhere in between. The
middle is too intense for recovery, and it is too
slow to learn to run faster, went the thinking. Train your white, fast fibers to be as white and
fast as they can be, and your red, slow fibers
to be as red and slow as they can be, but
don’t cross wires. And I don’t disagree with
this philosophy… for sprinting, which is at one
extreme end of sports. Defined as “the competitive athletic sport of running distances of 400
meters or less” sprinting is characterized by a
single, relatively short burst of intense activity. By contrast, the demands for soccer, or mixed
martial arts and many others are more variable. The demands for mixed martial arts are more
variable, and a lot more... gray. I’m not here
to knock—or elevate—any particular sports,
or claim to have any definitive answers on the
kinds of training that will yield optimal development of every kind of athlete, let alone specific
individual. Depending on these variables, some
might prefer training at extreme ends of the
spectrum, while others may gravitate towards
training in the middle. Whatever the preferred
approach for any given case, as coaches, the
best we can do is keep an open mind, and never stop questioning, trying various (reasonable)
strategies, measuring, and isolating the ones
that work.
One handed swings, cleans, and snatches are
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the exercises available in this category. This
is a reasonable order for their progression, as
both movement complexity and the amount of
force necessary to get the bell to reach its peak
height increases in this order. Here is the list
of exercise progressions for transverse plane,
bilateral stance, low load, high velocity, hip
dominant exercises:
1. Single hand swing
2. Single hand power swing
3. Single hand clean
4. Single hand snatch
Coaching Points
With teaching the swing, clean and the
snatch, it is much easier to teach the single
hand variations before going to the two hand
version. This way, the athlete can focus on just
the one bell instead of both at the same time. There is also less load to contend with, which
by itself can greatly ease the learning process.
If you want to use the swing as a drill that
can transition to the snatch, the action of the
swing arm becomes important. At the top of the
swing, a well known move can be employed,
of drawing the bell back towards the body with
the hand and arm. “Drawing” is the operative
word to describe this motion of guiding the bell
back at the top of the swing, as it should feel
almost like opening a desk drawer, or using the
hand to draw back curtains so as to look out the
window. In the snatch, that drawing back action
takes place very quickly at the peak of the bell’s
flight phase, just before the athlete punches
through at the 45 degree angle to create the
catch.
Keeping the elbow tight to the body continues
to be the way to go with the clean. This will
keep the bell’s flight path close to the body, and
shortens the travel distance between the bottom
and top of its swing. The snatch descent will
feature the same kind of “truck driver pulling the
horn” start. The bell will fall, and the elbow will
come to the body. From there, the bell descends in the same manner as the clean. The
arm internally rotates, as the hand pronates to
get the thumb facing down, while the arm and
bell swing down and back between the legs. The bell should swing and stay up high at the
hips, to allow elastic return on the upstroke.
The final moving part for single hand swings,
cleans, and snatches are the feet. If the bell
is in the right hand, and is swinging down and
through the legs, a subtle left hip shift will result. As this occurs, we want to be careful not to lose
elastic energy, or create suboptimal, lateralized
femur positioning. To keep the femur centered
over the foot, if the bell is in the right hand, I’ll
typically coach a subject to plant on the inside
edge of the left foot. This will fight the lateralization of the left femur on the hip shift. By
staying centered, we will create a great position
for the yielding action recruitment of the left
adductors, hip extensors, and internal rotation
glute fibers. This rapid yielding activity will set
the stage for use of the stretch-shortening cycle
to power the upswing.
Sagittal, Bilateral, Moderate to High Load,
Low to Moderate Velocity
We have now reached the section where
we will talk about heavy hinge exercises. A lot
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of coaches get excited about fancy new biomechanics pieces like hip shifts and rotating
thoraxes. In this excitement, it’s possible to
lose sight of the value of the big, fundamental,
basic strength building movements. If you are a
fitness professional, don’t quit your day job, and
don’t forget that you need to load, impart stress,
and get your clients stronger.
Heavy hinging will stress every tissue in
your body, develop the big hip, thigh, and back
muscles significantly, and cause remodeling of
the skeleton to a high degree. The hinge is one
of the most powerful movements the human
body is capable of making, and when it is not
present in a resistance training program, that
program is severely lacking.
As old age nips at our heels, the best
way to escape its grasp is to maintain as much
muscle mass, bone density, and aerobic fitness
as possible, for as long as possible. While all
of the complex mechanisms behind these three
components of vitality may not be known, we do
know that the organism which possesses them
also possesses competency of movement, self
defense, and acquisition of sustenance for its
survival. Evolutionarily speaking, these are
good things for any organism to have. The critical areas for bone density are
the hip, the spine, and the wrist, which account
for the majority of fractures in elderly populations. The lower the bone density, the greater
the likelihood of a fall resulting in a fracture in
one or more of these places. Moreover, a hip
fracture in an elderly person spells frighteningly
low odds of survival. This debilitating injury creates a vicious cycle, causing immobility, which
leads to further inactivity, atrophy, loss of bone
mineral density, and reduced aerobic fitness. As harsh as it sounds, the rules of survival do
not bend for the elderly, the injured, or the troubled. They dictate that, in order to live, organisms need to continue to move. And to experience physical stress. And force their bodies to
respond, grow, be resilient, and remain viable. Those organisms that don’t play by these rules
lose at the game of life. Those who aren’t ready to lose or resign,
but wish to make themselves more rugged, to
increase bone mineral density, gain muscle
mass, and stress their cardiovascular system,
can look to the heavy hinge. A hinge will stress
the hip, spine, and wrist to a significant degree. The hinge will recruit massive swaths of muscle tissue, and force a coordinated, synergistic
firing of propulsion muscles along the backside
of your body to hoist weights off the ground. Those who wish to remain high-functioning for a
long time to come can turn to the deadlift.
The introduction of the hinge is all-important: I do not want to give my subjects the
wrong drill to start. I do not want to give them
too much weight too soon, and stress their
systems more than what they’re ready for. I
want to select a drill that allows them to effectively get into the right position, load their hips,
and move that load along the right trajectory
to foster adaptation without causing problems. The following list is the progressive scheme recommended for sagittal plane, bilateral stance,
moderate to high load, low to moderate velocity,
hip dominant exercises:
1. Load coming from behind (pull through)
2. Load positioned between feet towards heel
(kb)
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3. Load positioned surrounding person
(high handle trap bar)
4. Increase ROM (low handle trap bar…be
careful of bar sway)
5. Load positioned in front of person (barbell)
6. Increase ROM (snatch grip, deficit set up)
Coaching Points
When I think about the position of the
bottom of a deadlift, I imagine the position in
which gorillas spend most of their time. The
hips are back, the back is flat, and the arms are
hanging down towards the ground with the eyes
looking slightly forward. Great conventional
deadlifters look like gorilla silhouettes to me.
What’s a not-so-great deadlift? One
where the back is significantly rounded by the
effort of picking up the weight. Firstly, I don’t
care who you are, or what deadlift technique
you’re using: if the weight is heavy enough, it
can break you down. Secondly, an error in the
setup or the bar path can predisposes the lifter
for a serious problem.
Let’s switch gears here to talk about
the proper way to set up for a deadlift. (I’ll
skip sumo setups in this book, as I am not well
versed at them, and do not see a compelling
need to use them in the training of non-powerlifters.) The crucial element of the deadlift setup
is to get in position for sitting the hips very far
back, while keeping the sternum in a very neutral anterior/posterior orientation. The reason
to move the pelvis very far back is to maximize
the length of the muscular moment arm, aka,
the distance between the contracting muscular
tissue, and the implement that is being lifted
against gravity. In the deadlift, the primary muscles doing the lifting are the hamstrings and glutes, which basically means the hips. The implement is the barbell, and the barbell is going to
be positioned above the middle of the feet. The
leverage that the lifter has relative to the barbell
is the horizontal distance between the muscular moment arm of the hip, and the position of
the barbell on the floor. There are other joints
involved with hoisting the barbell off the ground,
such as the ankle and knee, so looking at the
deadlift from a purely reductionist standpoint of
how far back the hips are, relative to the barbell,
is admittedly overly simplistic and error prone. Nevertheless, the hip is the most important joint
for deadlifting, so adequately leveraging it is
critical for proper execution of this exercise.
What would prevent one’s hips from
sitting far enough back? Earlier in this chapter,
we covered that the ability to hinge is a pattern
that is dominated by the exhalation strategy and
its corresponding joint actions. As such, creating posterior compression that would drive the
sacrum into nutation is required for the pelvis
to be able to sit back. When you are coaching, you will likely encounter both athletes and
general population clients who are absolutely
clueless about being able to get their hips to sit
back in space. Use as many of the exhalation
biases as you can to help them hone this fundamental piece of the puzzle.
Assuming someone is able to nutate the
sacrum and sit the pelvis back in space, what
else might prevent this subject from optimizing
the deadlifting setup? The big one I see are
attempts to retract the shoulder blades, likely
stemming from the belief that “chest up, butt
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back, shoulders back and down” is a cure-all. Not so for the deadlift, the reason being that
assuming this position draws the hands further away from the ground, which will require
more knee-bend to get down to the bar. And,
the greater the knee-bend, the more the pelvis
moves forward in space, and working at cross
purposes of the aforementioned sit-back efforts.
So, when coaching the arms, I coach the
opposite of “retract the shoulder blades”, cuing
subjects instead to “reach for the bar”. Now,
the question is: how far? The answer? As far
as possible, short of affecting the position of the
sternum. Once this threshold is crossed, the
sternum will go into a down pump handle position, causing excessive (and potentially problematic) rounding of the back. I’m looking for
the sternum to remain in a neutral pump handle
position, in tandem with the longest downward
reach one can possibly muster with the arms.
I do not coach shoulder blades down,
or arms squeezing down into armpits, to engage the lats. I’m not worried about engaging
lats during the deadlift, because they’ll do so
automatically when picking up a heavy barbell. Crudely put, the role of many upper body
muscles during the deadlift is to prevent the bar
from ripping your arms off the body. To prevent this from happening, the brain and body
are going to engage all the right muscles of the
trunk, scapula, and humerus. In short, there’s
no need to specifically coach their recruitment,
which is inherent in this lift. In fact, deliberately trying to engage the lats by
squeezing the arms into the armpits will result
in the bilateral action of the lats lifting the chest
and sternum, and thereby reducing the length of
one’s reach. As with the pulled-back shoulders,
this reduced reach length will force more knee
flexion to lower the body towards the barbell. Instead of trying to squeeze the arms into the
armpits, I cue my subjects to push themselves
away from the bar without dropping the sternum. I want to see protraction of the scapula,
and retraction of the posterior rib cage. If the
sternum does not down-pump handle while this
happens, the skull and pelvic floor should stay
in alignment with each other, and a beautiful,
sagittal sensorimotor-competent deadlift should
commence.
The feet are the other key area I focus
on for the deadlift. I find that many lose good
contact with the medial side of the foot when
they go into a hinge position. As noted, the
deadlift represents the peak of exhalation/compressive activity. When things go wrong, it’s
often due to inhalation strategy compensations. At the feet, the main inhale-compensatory
action tends to be supination, particularly with
very strong lifters. The remedy is to continue to
find the inside edge of both feet while sitting the
hips back, and press the big toes down into the
ground. As for how hard to push down the big
toe, I have been telling subjects to imagine that
they are pressing down on the world’s tiniest
gas pedal, to accelerate at 15 miles per hour, in
a parking lot. This seems to work, and subjects
typically report feeling much more hamstring
(particularly medial hamstring) engagement
when implementing this cue. By this point, the
subject should feel more secure in the pocket of
the deadlift setup.
In regards to the actual lifting of the bar,
I find myself repeating that I’m looking for the
subject to be a pusher, not a puller. Instead of
pulling the bar off the ground using the upper
body, I want the subject to push the floor with
his or her feet. I come at it from this angle to
encourage building of internal pressure, which,
coupled with pushing into the ground, serves to
move enormous amounts of weight, more with
the hamstrings and glutes and less so with the
back.
The progressions that were put together
here for you are designed to help you help your
clients to get into the right positions for this setup. The pull-through makes it extremely easy
to sit the hips back in space. The challenge
here is maintaining thoracic position. As the
cable moves back into its starting position and
the subject goes deeper into the hinge, I’ll have
him or her push the cable towards the floor, to
create a reach. Simultaneously, we’ll monitor
the position of the subject’s sternum, making
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sure to avoid a down pump handle position
during the reach. The pull-through’s application
to the deadlift is that it teaches subjects how to
push themselves away from the bar with their
reach. It’s also my favorite drill for teaching the
hinge. It gives my subjects the feel of their hips
going backwards in space, and gives me an
opportunity to coach the upper extremity as the
focal point.
Next in progression, kettlebells allow
for abundant, low-risk practice for the deadlift. Even for those with horrendous form, for whom
you’re terrified at every moment of their hinging
efforts, the lower load of a kettlebell significantly
reduces risk compared to a heavy barbell. Let
subjects take their time with kettlebells here. They can get used to the movement, accumulate a lot of reps, get coaching, and minimize
the risk for early injuries in their deadlift training. If you can set the stage for the effective
execution of hinge exercises, and can generate
training adaptations and improve fitness with
this pattern, you will be doing a great service
to its users. As much of the world becomes
increasingly reliant on technology and falls prey
to a sedentary lifestyle, we drift further from our
wild, rugged ancestors, and their big, strong
backs, glutes, and hamstrings. And, while most
of us are grateful for our creature comforts,
worrying that a fall could kill us is unacceptable. Luckily, those willing to do some heavy lifting
can have the comforts without the worry. Sagittal, Front/Back, Moderate to High Load,
Low to Moderate Velocity
The single leg deadlift may be one of
the best exercises in existence. Or one of the
most over-hyped exercises in existence. Or the
most butchered exercise in existence. No other
exercise has the potential to simultaneously be
either a giant waste of time or the best use of
training time as the single leg deadlift.
Personally, I’ve never walked into a commercial gym and seen a good single leg deadlift. Almost always, it’s just someone reaching
for the ground, a dumbbell in one hand, while
the leg that is off the ground turns outwards beyond 90 degrees, with the pelvis completely lost
in space. Seemingly nobody stays square with
their hips and hinges backwards. At best, you
see human lawn flamingos, holding tiny dumbbells, and likely believing that they’re gaining
something from this movement.
In my perfect world, upon walking into a
gym, I’d see regular folks in success-oriented
setup positions, lifting reasonable loads driven
from the motion of the pelvis, which would be
traveling horizontally through space. The use of
constraints and references are critical elements
that are ubiquitous throughout this book, but
perhaps no realm of exercise exemplifies this
more than the single leg deadlift. To reduce the
degree to which someone’s position renders
him or her “lost in space”, we need to reduce
his or her spatial options, and provide very clear
guidelines for what to feel at different checkpoints of the movement.
What you’ll see in the list of progressions
for single leg deadlift variations is that different
implements are used at different levels of progression. What you’ll also see is that you’re going to start with the lifted foot on a wall, behind
the subject. We’ll reencounter the back foot
on a wall in the knee-dominant section, when
we get to split squats. That said, its application
to single leg deadlifts is likely the most useful
one this technique offers. Even though I have
options in this progression series that involve
no foot on the wall, I’m almost to the point in
my coaching career where I want to mandate
the back foot on a wall with single leg deadlifts,
every time. As soon as that foot hits the wall, the amount of muscle the subject feels working
goes through the roof, and the performance
of this exercise improves beyond belief. Of
course, you’ll be the judge, but I think you’ll find
the “rear foot supported by wall” variations to
be real game changers for single leg deadlifts. The following is the list of progressions for sagittal plane, front/back stance, moderate to high
load, low to moderate velocity, hip dominant
exercises:
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1. Single leg deadlift w/Pentagon bar w/rear foot
on wall
2. Single leg deadlift w/Pentagon bar
3. Single leg deadlift w/DBs w/rear foot on wall
4. Single leg deadlift w/DBs
5. Single leg deadlift w/Barbell w/rear foot on
wall
When lifting “in the open”, and with freedom vs locked-in implements, the lifter has to rely on
internal abilities to maintain good form and own
spatial positioning. Expending energy on these
areas means having less of it for the actual lift,
so using a slightly reduced weight is expected
as progressions advance. There are pros and
cons to this. From a motor learning perspective, the lifter will be challenged to a greater
degree, which may have some carryover to
playing sports in open space. Now, for a bodybuilder, whose predominant interest in the
exercise is to the end of adding muscle tissue
to his or her frame, removing constraints and/or
references, or changing level lengths, or letting
gravity do its worst may all be counterproductive, if attained at the cost of lifting less weight.
6. Single leg deadlift w/Barbell
Lifters need to stay square with the
shoulders and hips when performing single leg
deadlifts. As noted, putting the foot on a wall
will largely clean up this most common error. Once shoulders and hips stay square, the
next error that will present will be that of purely
flexing at the hip joint instead of displacing the
pelvis backwards, to create their hinge. To reuse my beloved analogy, this is where our lawn
flamingos come in, tipping forward and back
from their hip joint. These folks will feel hamstrings working, but they will not be maximizing
the execution of this pattern until they actually
sit their hips back. To accomplish this, you may
need to resort to as many exhalation joint biases as possible. Because it’s easier to squat on
a downhill, and hinge on an uphill, one of my
go-to strategies for helping those who struggle
with sitting their hips back is to elevate the toes
on a backwards positioned heel wedge. Coaching Points
The single leg deadlift with the Pentagon
bar and the rear foot on the wall is such a great
exercise that there may never be a need to go
beyond that drill for this realm of exercise choices. The Pentagon bar supports high load, while
providing an extremely grounding, solid framework. The user generally feels nothing but
the right tissues, which this setup works to an
unbelievably high degree. The remaining choices on this list are largely there as workarounds
for those who do not have access to a Pentagon bar, to which you can attach to a landmine
device. In the Pentagon setup, the bar keeps
your shoulders square, and having your foot on
the wall makes it much easier to keep your hips
square. Performing single leg deads with this
kind of positioning with significant load placed
on the skeleton yields tremendous benefits to
the owner of said skeleton.
Within the confines of this model, progressions are based on taking away constraints
and references over time, as well as changing
lever lengths, and increasing the difficulty of
one’s relationship with gravity. Switching from
the Pentagon bar to implements like dumbbells
and barbells as well as taking one’s foot off the
wall are some such progression step examples. Frontal, Front/Back, Moderate Load,
Moderate Velocity
This is really our first opportunity to talk
about lifting weights with a frontal plane emphasis. When coaching core exercises that involve
a hip shift and a frontal plane emphasis, I am
the sensorimotor police: I won’t let anyone get
away with anything that isn’t as close to optimal
as we can get it. Once we’ve transitioned to the
resistance training-dominant patterns, I back off
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on how crazy I need to be with optimizing every
little element of positioning, as positioning for
lifting weights just needs to be “good enough”.
So, what’s “good enough” positioning? In my mind, it shouldn’t be ugly or glaringly
problematic, and should certainly resemble
the drill I’m trying to accomplish. Another litmus test to think about is whether an educated
coach who happened to walk in the room would
be able to quickly identify the exercise my
subject is performing. But these may all take
a back seat to the most important measure of
success, which is the subject’s feedback about
the exercise. Did he or she feel the correct
tissues being worked, like the hamstrings, adductors, and glute med on a frontal plane single
leg deadlift? If so, and it looked okay from my
vantage point, we’re good to go.
There is bleedover between the patterns,
which I categorize and separate to make life
easier within this model. From a big picture
view, however, Very little is clear cut, completely
independent, wholly black or white without at
least some gray edges. In reality, the concepts
in this book are interconnected and definable
by spectrums and gradients. It is emphasis
and intent that can shine the floodlight on some
area of a gradient versus another. With lifting
weights, the intent is to move external load
within certain confines. With core exercises,
the intent is to assume a very specific body position, and prevent the body or body segments
from moving out of their desired positions. Both
core exercises and weight lifting exercises
require control, either of one’s body, or of external objects. Of course, one needs to be able
to control one’s body in order to make it move
external objects… so there is a bleedover between core and resistance training there. One
needs to be strong enough to be able to hold
one’s body in very specific shapes during core
exercises, but this strength is often best developed by moving external objects… so there’s
more bleedover there. Being a great coach
necessitates a clear, hierarchical organization of
priorities, and the ability to shift between them
by modifying drills and exercises depending on
the one that’s currently being addressed. All of the drills that are performed in this
realm of exercise will feature a hip shift into the
side on which the single leg deadlift is being
performed. This hip shift has to be significant
enough to recruit the adductor and glute med
on that side. The recruitment and sensation of
the adductor and glute med working during the
hinge is a must for any exercise to remain in
this category, versus veering into sagittal hinging. Here is the list of progressions for frontal
plane, front/back stance, moderate load, moderate velocity, hip dominant drills: 1. Retro step, stance foot elevated w/hip shift
A. Pull cable/band across body towards
stance foot
B. Anterior reach
C. Anterior load (cable works great)
D. Side handle load
2. Retro step, flat ground w/hip shift
Same progressions as 1A-D
3. Forward step, rear foot on wall
Same progressions as 1A-D
4. Forward step, rear foot unsupported
Same progressions as 1A-D
Coaching Points
You’ll notice that the progression list features drills performed in a retro step and those
performed in a forward step. You can do retro
step drills with the hip shift side foot elevated on
a box, and you can do them with the hip shift
side foot on the floor, at the same level as the
other foot. You can do the forward step drills
with the back foot on the wall behind you, or
you can do them with the back foot unsupported.
The elevated hip shift side foot on the
retro step drills provides that passive ascension
of the innominate bone on the hip shift side. The elevation of the innominate bone on the hip
shift side is a frontal plane motor competency. The back foot pushing into the wall on the forward step drills makes it easier to shift into the
front-side hip. These references and constraints
will make your job much easier when developing fitness in this highly challenging realm.
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The pattern you’ll notice in this list is that
there are four different implement styles for the
resistance, and that all four are used in every
circumstance. So, each “parent” progression
on the list has four “child” progressions nested
within it. I strongly encourage sticking to this
four-step process at each level.
We start off with a cable or band that is pulled
across the body towards the hip shift side. This
is a classic RNT method, which is part of the
Principles of Progression. Pulling an implement
across the body like this works wonders for centering the axial skeleton over the stance side
foot, and for increasing the hip shift. I highly
discourage starting with any other approach for
this, as leveraging RNT for this drill will make
everyone’s lives—or least these training sessions—easier. The next step is to layer in an anterior reach. I”ll often have my subjects turn their back to the
direction a cable or band is coming from. This
is actually another application of RNT. When
the subject hinges his or her back, he or she
pushes the weight forward, and that weight
doesn’t need to be heavy in order to be effective. Likewise, I’ll frequently smoothly transition
from the cross-body pull into the anterior reach,
especially for those who report their tensor
fascia latae firing up. Let me speak to why I’ve
listed the cross-body pull before the anterior
reach in this list. Firstly, unless the subject is
centered, it’s not a frontal plane drill. Secondly,
unless the subject is sitting his or her hips back,
it’s not a hinge. Both criteria need to be met
in order for the exercise to qualify as a frontal
plane hinge, but, in my experience, the frontal
plane part takes priority. In order for something
to go backwards, the hips, in this case, something else has to go forward, in this case, the
hands. Providing RNT to the forward-moving
object assists the backwards-moving object in
going in that direction.
The anterior load features the same hand and
arm movement as the anterior reach. The
difference between the two is that, with the
anterior reach, one is working against the resis-
tance on the hinge back, while working against
the resistance on the hinge up with the anterior
load. In the anterior load scenario, one is facing
the cable or band. The cable guides the hands
forward on the way down, necessitating the use
of the strength of one’s hips to return to an upright position, against the resistance on the way
up. The transition between the anterior reach
and the anterior load is usually a very smooth
one.
Side handles are a nice loading strategy for
those who’ve gained basic competence at these
drills. I’m fond of the “bus driver” cue for this
exercise, where I’ll tell subjects that they are the
bus driver, and the dumbbells are their steering
wheel, which I ask them to steer towards the
hip shift. Doing so assists in getting deeper into
the hip shift, better centering one’s weight over
the hip shift foot. I have them continue to steer
the wheel towards this side the entire time. I tell
them that I want them to be as heavy as they
possibly can be on the foot that is on the hip
shift side, and many come to see that “steering
the wheel” towards that side noticeably assists
with the desired outcome.
The last progression places the barbell in front
of the lifter, and many find that this drill is eased
by the Jefferson deadlift grip position. With this
setup, the bar goes between the legs, which is
especially useful for the forward step variation
of this drill (as the retro step variation leaves
no room for it). When coaching the Jefferson
grip position, the bus driver cue can be reused,
again prompting subjects to “steer the wheel”
towards the hip shift side. Arm length can
prevent some athletes from using a Jefferson
grip position, in which case a standard deadlift
grip will work. The reason that the Jefferson is
preferable is that it’s harder to “steer the wheel”
in a conventional deadlift grip position, where
the subject must shift the hips without the assistance of the load, as when it’s maneuvered in
that direction by the Jefferson position.
Frontal, Lateral, Moderate Load, Moderate
Velocity
This is our last domain within the hinge
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category. As is always the case, when we run
into the lateral stance with frontal plane movement, the difficulty spikes, so we want to ensure
that the concept of the hinge is well-ingrained
before using these drills. Candidates should be
restricted to only those who have demonstrated frontal plane competency elsewhere, and
will actually benefit from these particular drills
in their programming. For many athletes, like
those sprinters for instance, this realm of fitness
is by and large unnecessary. But, when working with rotational athletes, this might be a great
choice.
Ubiquitous throughout sports, the hip
shift is how we decelerate when we are going
into a cut or following through after throwing
a ball. The hip shift is how one goes into the
back swing of a golf shot, a baseball swing, or a
slap shot. In sports, you see the transitions between the different stances happening very fast
and fluidly. In training, we get to cherry pick the
“snapshot moments” of various sports movements, and focus on their very specific mechanics. These lateral stance, frontal plane hinges
develop strength in the tissues that are involved
with moments in such sports movements. Unfortunately, I don’t believe we in the fitness
industry have done a good job targeting the
specificity of the deceleration fibers that allow
us to get into cuts. We’ve danced around these
fibers, and approached training them with exercises like eccentric squats, and Hatfield split
squats. Even still, the hip shift remains elusive
to too many a gym-goer, and the lateral stance
is rarely featured. I believe that training the
hip hinge in the front plane could yield some
amazing results for the right athletes. Here is
the list of the exercise progressions for frontal
plane, lateral stance, moderate load, moderate
velocity, hip-dominant exercises:
1. Stance foot elevated w/hip shift
A. Pull band/cable across towards stance
foot side
B. Anterior reach
C. Anterior load
D. Landmine…eccentric towards stance
leg
side (perpendicular to body)
E. Side handle load
2. Stance foot flat
Same progressions as 1A-E
Coaching Points
We’ve got two primary variations of these
lateral stance hinges: hip shift side foot elevated, and hip shift side foot flat. The first provides
the passive elevation of the innominate on the
hip shift side, which assists with the motor competencies of the frontal plane. Both variations
use the same series of implement progressions.
The first is the cable/band being pulled
across the body, which leverages RNT to help
with centering and hip shifting. The second implement is the anterior reach, which helps with
the posterior displacement of the pelvis on the
hinge. The third, the anterior load, provides resistance on the up part of the hinge movement. The last implement is a side handle, usually
performed with dumbbells.
The fourth implement, the landmine, is
an implement not featured in the front/back
stance variations. This is a perfect implement
to use here, with the lateral stance exercises. Placing a barbell in a landmine arcs the
barbell up and away as it’s being pushed up,
and brings it down and towards the lifter on its
downswing. As the coach, you can take advantage of this arcing motion, to assist subjects
with getting into their hip shifts for lateral stance
drills using the landmine.
Set up the direction of the barbell so that,
on its downswing inside the landmine, the barbell is coming to the outside of the hip shift-side
leg. Just think about it from the point of view of
someone running a shuttle sprint, and needing
to stop on the line. The landmine should be
arcing down towards the line. The hip shift-side
foot would be the foot that hits the line. On the
way up, the sprinter would be coming out of
the cut, and trying to accelerate in the opposite
direction. Basically a loaded cross-over dribble, this is a beautiful drill for those who have to
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Owning the inside of the foot is absolutely crucial for these drills. As one increasingly
hip shifts and lateralizes body weight over the
hip shift side foot, the tendency is to lose this
foot to the lateral side. The work is in staying
planted through the big toe side. To increase
the hip shift, one can also direct the knee of the
non-hip shift-side leg in the direction of the hip
shift. To do so, it helps to visualize turning that
knee towards the space in the middle of one’s
stance. While this is happening, the idea is to
evert the calcaneus on the non-hip shift side
foot, so as to assist with lateralizing the pelvis
towards the hip shift side. Warning: doing these
drills correctly may result in the sensation that
one’s butt is going to be ripped off upon moving
into the hinge: Dominant Positions and Fitness Realms:
Dominant Plane: Sagittal
Dominant Stance: Bilateral
Dominant Load: Moderate to Heavy
Dominant Velocity: Slow to moderate
Dominant Duration: Short to Moderate
This is a pattern still ruled by the meatheads,
and one where getting “cute” doesn’t pay. The
primary benefits of mastering the hinge are
changes in strength, muscle mass, bone density, and ability of the body to deal with stress. Once a subject has developed these components to an acceptable level, and his or her
specific sport goals demand the strengthening
of both tissues and movement competencies in
the frontal plane, the dominance of this pattern
may shift. As discussed, of course, the relative
number of such athletes is probably very low,
though they are out there. If you possess these
tools alongside all the others in your coaching
arsenal, you have that many more to choose
from on a client-by-client basis. 13
Knee Dominant
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Knee-Dominant
Chapter 13
What is the squat? Is it a movement pattern (or
just the position a toddler gets into when about
to poop his or her diaper)? Here’s are some
other multiple choice musings about it: • Is it a test of strength?
• Or the most effective way to build muscle
mass in the lower body?
• Or one of the surest ways to test one’s will and
fortitude?
• Or is it an exercise that’s brutalized by half
repper wannabe commercial gym goers? • Or one you can’t load unless you score a 2 on
a made up movement test?
• Or one that has to be done with a barbell on
your back?
• Does it open up the hips?
• Will it hurt the knees?
• Is it bad for the back?
• Should it only ever be done with the toes
pointing straight ahead, or can (or should?)
they be turned out?
• Should one be able to do it with at least two
times one’s body weight before doing
plyometric training?
• Is it best to train it by squatting to a box?
• Is there some magic to applying an overhead
variation to it?
• If one can’t get all the way down, are the
ankles the limiting factor?
• Does it require a twenty minute mobility
preparation to perform?
• Should the toes never go over the knees when
performing it?
• Is it a contentious exercise in the fitness
community, prone to trigger strong emotions
when a professional’s preferred execution of it
is challenged?
While, as you may have guessed, I
agree with some of these characteristics but not
others, within the scope of this work, let’s think
of the squat as the bilateral stance, knee-dominant movement pattern featured here. I’ll
cover what I’m looking for in the squat, and
how I coach it, but I am not a powerlifting or
weightlifting coach. As a personal trainer and
a strength and conditioning coach, I tend to
use the squat to help grow lower body muscle
mass, and improve force production into the
ground from a performance perspective. From
a movement quality perspective, I tend to use
the squat to help teach people mechanical
competency of the feet, ankle, knees, hips, thorax, shoulders, neck, and skull. I aim to coach
my clients to make their squat as “squatty” as
possible, to adequately differentiate it from their
hinge. Frustratingly, many will tend to squat
when they are hinging, and hinge when they are
squatting.
Mechanical Considerations of the
Knee Dominant Pattern
As a sweeping, broadly generalizing
statement, we are going to say that the squat
is our primary inhalation lower body movement,
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and the deadlift is our primary exhalation lower body movement. Before we work from this
broad assumption, let’s review some reasons
why the above statement is too absolute and
concrete. With these fresh in our minds, we’ll
circle back and defend the usefulness of this
statement.
skeletons, but have resorted to an inhale compensation in the lower body. These folks are
often strongly ER-ed at the femur, and feature supinated feet. For them, the sumo deadlift
is the simple choice, maximizing their skeletal
anatomy, and using it to lift enormous amounts
of weight.
Firstly, you will never be fully inhaled or
exhaled. Both strategies of resisting gravity,
and moving around on this planet to interact
with the environment are both happening simultaneously to some degree. Each of us will be
biased towards one as being more dominant
than the other. Let’s think of the concept as
operating on a gradient as opposed to a light
switch being on, or off. Secondly, going through
a deadlift or a squat requires traveling through
some parts of the range of motion dominated by
the exhale strategy, and others dominated by
the inhale.
For full range of motion squatting, one
needs to possess skeletal inhalation-based
capabilities. At the bottom of a true, full-depth
squat, the two femurs will be flexed beyond 120
degrees, while the trunk remains relatively vertical. Hence, the inability to create appropriate
expansion will prevent the squatter from getting
down into this position.
My biggest sporting bias is being partial to
those involving swinging bats and clubs and
striking round objects. I tend to understand
most movements as having a “backswing” part,
a “strike zone” part, and a “follow-through” part. The backswing and the follow-through are the
expansion-dominant zones, and are dominated by yielding actions. The strike zone is the
peak of compression, where the exhalation and
overcoming action rules. I understand other
movements by analyzing them in terms of the
locations of their backswings, follow-throughs,
and strike zones. Applying this analysis to
the squat, the backswing is the bottom of the
squat, the strike zone is the midzone, and the
follow-through is the top. The deadlift doesn’t
have much of a back swing. The bottom of the
deadlift is still in the strike zone, and the top is
the follow-through.
One doesn’t need to possess full skeletal
inhalation-based capabilities for full range-ofmotion deadlifting. A highly “compressed” individual can still possess the movement potential
to execute the movement at a high level. Many
super strong individuals have exhaled axial
At the top of the squat, the lifter’s femurs
are as highly extended as they will be at any
point in the motion. On the descent, the femurs
will begin to flex. Between starting position and
up to 60 degrees of flexion, the lifter will be in
a zone that is biased towards inhalation. As
flexing increases between the starting position
and approach towards 60 degrees, the inhale/
exhale gradient gets shifter more towards exhalation, but the bias is still in favor of the inhale at
this point.
Beyond 60 degrees of flexion, however, the
scale gets tipped in favor of the exhale as the
dominant strategy. Going from 60 to 90 degrees of flexion serves to increasingly empower
the exhalation strategy and weaken inhalation. At 90 degrees, the exhalation strategy reaches
its peak. Flexing beyonding 90 towards 120,
weakens the exhalation strategy, returning favor
to the inhale, though exhalation still remains the dominant strategy here.
Surpassing 120 degrees of flexion puts us
back into inhalation-dominant territory. Traveling through the range of 120-150 degrees to
achieve absolute full range of motion of femoral flexion, the inhalation strategy grows, and
reaches its peak at the end of this range of
motion. Reversing the squat to come back up
is simply a matter of repeating this same sequence in reverse.
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Before explaining what is expanding in
the inhalation zones and what is compressing
in the exhalation zones to enable these movements, I want to briefly illustrate this concept. In
one extreme population, you typically see very
strong, but very tight people. These are individuals who are strongly compressed, and cannot
create adequate expansion, and hence cannot
physically reach full depth on the squat. On a
table, we’re talking about 90 to 100 degrees of
hip flexion. When they get to the bottom of their
squat, they run into a brick wall.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have another extreme population, which is very weak,
but incredibly flexible, demonstrating seemingly unlimited range of motion via table tests. Ask them to squat (either just body weight or
lightly loaded), and they will often descend at
warp speed, and crash into the bottom, then
frequently hinge their way up from the bottom
of the squat. Ask them to go slow and control
their squat, they begin their descent just fine,
but when they reach the strike zone, they start
to shake like Bambi on ice, and then, all of a
sudden, they just collapse and fall to the bottom
of the squat. They can comfortably hang out
there, but cannot push themselves back up,
with control and a vertical thorax, in a true overcoming squat presentation. Each of these populations is lacking something. Now we have to
explain what you need at each zone to be able
to properly sequence and demonstrate as close
to the archetype of the squat as we can get.
Your organism deals with external forces all the time, the prime example of which is
gravity. Your organism also deals with internal
forces all the time, the prime example of which
is pressure. Internal pressure comes primarily
from the movement of fluid inside of our bodies, but air within the thoracic cavity is also a
major player. The overwhelming majority of
what constitutes your mass is water. When
discussing pressure, the other variable that
must always be included is volume. Movement
is the result of forces acting on matter. Matter
assumes shapes that allow different movement
outcomes to take place when forces act on
them. Spheres can roll. Tops can spin. Blocks
can slide.
Evolution has come up
with brilliant strategies to take
advantage of how to sequester matter in one
direction and wall it off from going in another
direction. At the most basic level, this is accomplished by the cell. As we may recall from
biology class, the wall around the cell is called
a membrane, which is a selectively permeable
structure, allowing some things in and keeping
others out. Cells typically maintain an ion gradient, created by a high ion concentration, either
inside or outside the cell. At critical moments,
they allow for a reversal of the concentration
gradient. When this ionic reversal happens,
there is a state change, and either an action, or
a shut off of action takes place. Nature seems
to favor state change as a movement strategy. Flood to drought, ebb to flow, wax to wane…
expand to compress. When you can alternate
between these states, a level of balance occurs,
and things carry on. When one state edges out
its opposite, harmony gives way to stagnation.
Examining things at a slightly larger, say
organ-sized level, we continue to see some
similar movement strategies. The heart has
a systole and a diastole phase. Systole is
when the heart empties, and diastole is when
the heart fills. You could say that systole is
the exhale phase of the heart, and diastole, its
inhale phase. You could say that systole is the
compression phase of the heart, and diastole, its expansion phase. What exactly allows
appropriate filling and emptying to take place at
the level of the heart? The answer is, a highly
functional inter-ventricular septum. The septum
provides a wall, and the chambers provide a
cavity that can fill and empty. And, a well-functioning cavity (such as the intracellular space)
requires a wall (septum or membrane) that is
structurally sound.
PRI’s creator, Ron Hruska was the
source from which I learned about this relationship between chambers and septums. I’ve
heard Ron speak many times, and on many of
those occasions, I’ve walked out, awe-struck,
by some bit of profundity that rocked me to the
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core. And none has shaken me more over the
years than this one.
position and create the requisite shape places
specific movement outcomes out of reach. For a ventricle to expand, the chambers
need to demonstrate compliance, and the septums need to demonstrate stiffness. My nostrils have the ability to flare because my nasal
septum is tough. Cells may take in nutrients
and swell if the cellular membrane is sound. Problems arise when the stiffness of the septum is lost. Typically, the first sign of trouble is
when the ventricle begins to fail to fully empty
itself. This paves the way for an over-expanded
chamber, which can result in heart disease. As
soon as this happens, we have to seek stiffness
elsewhere. We search more and more distally for stiffness in our quest for control. With a
heart, this may be a vessel, and with a whole
body, this may be superficial muscles.
A squat is an upright pelvis that moves through
space like an elevator, and oscillates between
expansion at the top, compression in the middle, and expansion at the bottom. When the
pelvis cannot oscillate between those states
during a squat, then some form of compensatory movement will take place somewhere in the
system to try to make up for this.
Biological systems are the perfect representation of fractal geometry. Everything
in biology is based on a smaller, simpler rule. Complexity emerges with modernity and addons to the older, simple rule… yet, the foundational rule continues to hold. Finding the oldest,
most simple rule is always the challenge. Once
we’ve found the most basic, simplest representation of a phenomenon, we can seamlessly
extrapolate it to its more complex, dynamic and
modern expressions.
A thorax is a cell. It has a membrane of a ribcage, a sternum, and scapulae, and a chamber
of lungs. A pelvis is a cell. It has a membrane
of a sacrum, innominates, and a pubis, and fluid
and organ-filled cavity for a chamber. A skull is
a cell. It has a membrane of cranial bones, and
the brain for a chamber.
The ability to maintain the integrity of a membrane/septum, as well as allow for the oscillation of a chamber, is the most basic level of
biological movement. My goal, both in this book
and outside of it, is to present things this way,
and show that, when a structure representing
a chamber and septum relationship is correctly positioned and shaped, it will drive certain,
highly specific movement outcomes. Put more
gravely, the inability to assume the requisite
Osteopathic textbooks classify bone
movements and positions via inhale actions
and exhale actions. Cranio-sacral therapy is
based on this same classification system, of
matching respiratory actions with joint actions. These relationships are great outcroppings of
the simplest of movement rules, that of chambers expanding and compressing, depending
on the movement of matter occupying a given
volume of space, and moving down its gradient
into space. Our unceasing combat with gravity
is armed by manipulating internal pressures via
either expanding or compressing, to allow us
to move on this planet of ours. The expansion
and compression strategies are both present at
all times, and acting somewhere on a gradient
relative to one another. Where you expand and
where you compress results in the configuration of your bones relative to one another. The
configuration of your bones determines your
overall body shape, and that shape determines
the movement options available to you for the
accomplishment of any given task.
The osteopathic representation of the
spine and pelvis features stereotypical positions
of inhale and exhale. An inhaled pelvis features
posterior expansion at the coccyx (counter-nutation), posterior compression in the mid-sacrum (nutation), which drives pressure forward
into the pubis and expands the anterior pelvis,
and posterior expansion at the superior sacrum
(counter-nutation). An inhaled pelvis features
nutation of the innominate, which expands
the space between ilium and sacrum. This is
the generally open shape of the pelvis, which
allows it to expand as the diaphragm flattens
during its inhalation phase, and pushes fluids
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and organs inferiorly. I liken the diaphragm to
the atrium of the heart, and the pelvis to the
ventricle. The atrium creates a downward force
to push fluid into the ventricle during its inhale
(diastole), so as to fill the ventricle. The diaphragm creates a downward force to push fluid
into its receiving chamber (the lumbo-abdominal-pelvic-femoral cavity) during its diastole
(inhalation), so as to fill the pelvis.
The inlet of the pelvis at its superior border is
open during the inhale to permit matter to move
down into its space and occupy its volume. This causes the pelvic floor to descend, and
assume an eccentric orientation to accept the
fluid and organs. The movement of the squat
can be analogized to lifting and lowering a
bowl of water up and down, without tipping the
bowl forward, back, or side to side, all of which
would cause the water to spill. The spilling of
this metaphorical water is an indication that true
expansion was not achieved, and some form
of compensation took place instead. Squatting deeper and deeper without compensation
results in filling the bowl with more water. With
more water in the bowl, the bowl becomes more
stable.
Just as with our bowl of water, which
would be filled from bottom to top, we can think
of the beginning of the descent of the squat, between starting position and 60 degrees of flexion, as the first splashes that will fill the bottom
of the bowl. The filling of the bottom of the bowl
is the expansion of the coccyx, which is associated with an expanded pelvic floor.
As the squatter descends past 60 degrees and
approaches 120, he or she needs to be able to
demonstrate compression. The compression
that is taking place is based on the stiffness
of the mid-sacral space, which is the peak of
the kyphotic curve of the sacrum. We could
say that it is already expanded, and working
to prevent further expansion. This region acts
as a wall that drives pressure forward, done
by providing a nutation moment. The pressure
going forward creates an anterior expansion at
the pubic symphysis. This anterior expansion
at the pubic symphysis is analogous to creat-
ing a pump handle up action at the sternum in
the midzone of lifting the arms overhead. If the
sacrum is behaving with nutation, then, relative
to this, the innominate will be counter-nutating. If the innominate is counter-nutating, it is
going through internal rotation. And, when an
internal rotation action is taking place, then we
would consider the midzone of the squat to be
a compression-dominated area. The dominant
movement that takes place in the midzone is
the counter-nutation of the innominate. This is
analogous to the upward rotation of the scapula
being the dominant movement within the midzone of lifting the arms overhead.
The squatter is creating tension in the midzone
of the squat to prevent his or her pelvic floor
from falling out from under him or her. While
still descending, those who are properly owning this portion of the squat could stop and go
right back if they wanted. This is the zone of
true ownership, requiring maintenance of one’s
shape, and resistance of being forced into some
human version of a lava lamp. The midzone is
the site of pressurizing the canister, and seeing
what it can take.
When we get past the midzone, we once again
need to expand. This will take place as we
go beyond 120 degrees of hip flexion. Now,
the expansion will take place at the top of the
sacrum, which counter-nutates. If the sacrum
resumes counter-nutating, that means that the
innominate is nutating. If the innominate is
nutating, then an external rotation-based activity
is taking place, which is associated with expansion.
The most common form of problem
with the squat is excessive posterior compression. Whether this compression was at the
upper back or lower back, if excess posterior
compression took place somewhere, the result
will be that the pelvis, as a unit, was pushed
forward and goes into anterior tilt. When the
pelvis goes into an anterior tilt, creating a concentric orientation at the anterior pelvic floor,
its owner is prevented from reaching full depth
in the squat. In other words, our metaphorical
bowl was titled forward and spilled out of the
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front, thwarting that sought-after elevator motion. When the water goes out the front, this
signals the presence of a concentric anterior
pelvic floor, which is actually the prerequisite for
a hinge. As you may have seen coming, this
is how folks end up with the aforementioned
hingey squat. Given that shape change leads
to movement change, the upright, open position
of the pelvis needs to be maintained in order
to create an eccentric pelvic floor, which is the
prerequisite for the desired “squatty squat”. The tricky part about all this is that keeping the
pelvis in the right position implies having to do
the same for the thorax.
“Chest up, butt back, shoulders back
and down” used to be the go-to cues for basically every exercise ever performed in the
weightroom . In large part, these cues came
from a combo of fear of causing a protrusion of
the nucleus pulposus out the back side of the
intervertebral disc, and a fear of injuring knees
by having them go over toes. If we close the
back, thereby creating posterior compression,
the disc contents can’t leak out the back. The
trouble is, creating posterior compression drives
the entire structure of the pelvis into anterior tilt. And, as you’ll recall from our earlier discussion,
in anterior tilt, the pelvic “bowl” will spill out the
front, preventing the full expansion/inhale position of the bones. The squatter will also have to
compress harder through the posterior thorax
to remain upright, and this compression will
necessitate compression elsewhere to remain
upright, particularly if we are adding load to the
system.
When the pelvis tilts forward due to posterior
thoracic compression, it presents a great position from which to hinge. It makes sense to sit
the hips back from this place, and that is what
we have figured out how to do. But, let’s realize
that, when the pelvis as a whole tilts forward,
this orients the femurs into internal rotation,
which is a no-go for pulling off a squat. If one is
going to remain upright while squatting, one has
to create a significant inhalation/expansion/ER/
abduction/supination/plantar flexion-based compensation through the femurs, ankle, and feet. An exhaled thorax, on top of an exhaled pelvis,
with compensatory inhaled femurs, ankles, and
feet is the modern, accepted squat position.
So, fear of hurting discs and knees leads to
compressing the back, which in turn leads to
compression of the pelvis. This form paints the
squatter into a corner, that of having to spread
the floor, screw the floor out, and push the
knees out laterally while sitting the butt back. In my opinion, this domino effect is backwards
thinking, that layers compensation on top of
compensation, all catalyzed by a misplaced
fear.
A powerlifter who needs to maximize every
available compressive strategy to move the
greatest amount of weight should hinge his or
her squat. But all the non-powerlifters out there
should probably make their squats as squatty
as they can. To do this, they must appropriately
position their thoraxes and pelvises in accordance with the inhalation strategy. They’ll have
to avoid the posterior compression of the thorax
that drives the pelvis into anterior tilt, and let
their knees go over their toes. They’ll have to
move their hips through space like an elevator rather than a lawn mower. If we as fitness
coaches can teach these movements, then I
have faith that we can make squatting squatty
again.
Training the Knee Dominant Pattern
Available Options
Available Planes: Sagittal and Frontal
Available Stances: All
Available Loads: All
Available Velocities: All
Available Durations: All
Sagittal, Bilateral, Moderate to High Load,
Low to Moderate Velocity
We start off with perhaps the most universal training big rock, the squat. I hope for
this section to be highly useful for personal
trainers, strength and conditioning coaches, and
rehabilitation professionals alike. First, let me
assure you that I am not trying to change your
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“what” here. If anything, I’m going to be trying
to change your “why” and “how”. This is something I have heard Bill Hartman say many times,
and this statement increasingly resonates with
me the more I think about it. Most fitness professionals include some form of squat exercise
in their training. The differences arise in how
we coach it, and why we included it in the first
place. I want my fellow professionals to think
of this drill as something that trains the entire
propulsive arc, and can allow us to pinpoint
and focus on whatever zone is most difficult for
a certain person/population. Within the confines of this “why”, the squat could still be used
to develop hypertrophy and strength… which
should now be thought of as existing under
the umbrella of the propulsion arc. As for how
I want folks to squat, that will be based on the
propulsion arc as well, and it will also provide
a sequential list of the best place to start for a
squat exercise, and how to progress the squat
appropriately.
I want squatty squats. I want thoracic
expansion and pelvic expansion. I want full
ROM. I want a stacked axial skeleton. I also
want the ability to capture the pelvic floor and
raise it during the concentric activity in the strike
zone of the propulsion arc. I want to help tight
people reach the bottom and expand there. I
want to help loose people create a concentric pelvic floor, own the strike zone, and raise
themselves out of the strike zone under total
control. One has to compress somewhere in
the squat. The most important place is the
pelvic floor, during the up portion of the squat
in the strike zone region of the range of motion. Those who cannot compress the pelvic floor
during the up portion of the squat will compress
the back, and hinge their squats. I want the
elevator-looking squat, because it increases the
probability that it will be the pelvic floor, not the
back, that expands and compresses. Shape
determines direction of movement. This is why I
want what I want.
I want to give folks a map to performing
outstanding squats right out of the gate. Once
someone has it, I want to see him or her continue to perform squats that look almost identical
to one another from there on out. Once good
form is achieved, the only variations from this
point are increases in load, as well increased
difficulty of handling the load, based on where
it’s placed on the body. One of the easiest
things you can do to help people perform vertical, squatty squats is to provide them with
a heel wedge to stand on. That is an option
for every single one of these exercises listed
below. The following list is the series of progressions for sagittal plane, bilateral stance,
moderate to high load, low to moderate velocity,
knee-dominant exercises:
1. Reaching squat (hands, or plate reaching)
2. Anterior load on heel wedge (e.g., goblet)
3. Zercher position
4. Front Squat (possibly skip w/wrist pain and
limitations)
5. Hands holding rack w/Safety bar on back
(Hatfield squat)
6. Safety Squat (Transformer bar preferably…
long handles)
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7. High bar Back Squat
8. Low bar Back Squat
9. Overhead Squat
Coaching Points
In the pursuit of getting full ROM proper squats, what you say is important. I start
subjects off with a stance that is comfortable
for them, which is usually somewhere around
hip to shoulder width. The toes are pointed
forward, but a slight out turn won’t kill anyone. From there, I tell them to get tall while feeling
the weight in their heels. Now, I want them to
exhale all of their air, without losing any height
or shifting their weight. The anterior ribs should
compress down, back, and in, but the sternum
should remain pointing straight ahead. Follow-
ing a complete exhale, I want my subjects to
perform a nasal inhale, with the tongue on the
roof of the mouth. Do not let the anterior ribs fly
up, forward, and out on the inhale. They should
feel the inhale create an up pump handle sternum and expansion through the back. Now,
they are ready to start to descend.
On the descent, the body and skull
should be as motionless as a statue. We’re
going for a “straight down” descent of the body
and hips, as the knees reach forward over the
toes. As the knees go forward, the ankle increases in dorsiflexion, which brings pronation
along with it. So, while the knees go forward,
the squatter needs to fight to feel the big toe
and the whole inside edge of the foot right back
to the heel. When I look at the relationship
between the foot, the ankle, the tibia, the knee,
and the femur, I want it to look like a hammer
hitting a nail straight into a block of wood. The
femur is the hammer. The tibia and ankle is
the nail. The foot is the wood, which should
be level. The tibia and ankle should be going
straight down into the foot. The thigh should be
lined up and striking straight down into the tibia. With such a relationship, we send the optimal,
vertically-directed line of force into the ground. We reduce torsion and torque, which would
lead to undesirable varus or valgus side effects.
The subject should continue reaching the knees
forward, and finding more and more of the
inside edge of the foot, to maintain this relationship of the legs, ankle, and foot during the
descent, right up to about 120 degrees. As the
subject increases depth beyond that point, he
or she now has to bring the knees back towards
the body, as the glutes are brought towards the
heels. Those who can maintain a vertical body
and stacked axial skeleton with the glutes bordering on the heels have descended into a full
ROM squat.
On the ascent, the tendency for many
is to compress their back and hinge their way
up. While this is a strategy that can move a lot
of weight, we’ll leave our hinging movement
for deadlifting. I want to see the body come
straight up out of the bottom of the squat like
it’s in an elevator shaft. To do this, the squat-
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ter needs to be a pusher, and not a puller. He
or she can think about keeping the middle of
the top of the skull aimed at the ceiling, and
pushing the feet straight down into the ground. When someone is just learning the squat, force
them to go slow. Most will try to go fast and
seek the path of least resistance, aka back
compression and hinging. If we can steer
subjects away from this path, the motor competencies of the sagittal plane will be in place,
and they will feel their abs on, as well as the
pelvic floor being captured by the glute max in
a concentric manner. As I’ve advised before, it
helps to minimize the number of things to give
a subject to think about when cueing. The big
ones for the squat are pushing steadily through
the entire foot, and keeping the middle of the
skull moving straight towards the ceiling, both of
which generally work very well.
I highly advise using tempo with new
clients. Make them go slow, and make them
have to listen to the tempo to prevent them from
talking and interrupting the training process. After all, quiet subjects are that much more likely
to actually hear your coaching. If people are
going slow, you can have them feel and notice
things. Failing to control speed makes our jobs
as coaches a lot harder. If you are dealing with wide infrasternal
angle/compressed people, I advise putting the
focus of the squat on the bottom. Have them
spend time at the bottom, breathe there, and
work their way into the true end of the range
of motion. If you are working with narrow infrasternal angle/expanded people, I advise putting the focus of the squat on the middle. Have
them spend time in the middle, not collapse or
compress their back, and get them to breathe in
this spot. When compressed people hit a good
inhale at the bottom, they experience expansion
of the skeleton. When expanded people push
all of their air out in the middle, they usually
shake like crazy, but begin to understand how
to use their muscles to support their body, and
leverage compression.
Sagittal, Front/Back, Retro Step, Low,
Moderate, and High Load, Low to Moderate
Velocity
There will be two types of front/back
stance knee-dominant exercise categories.
One will be a retro step group, and the other
will be a forward step group. The retro step for
knee-dominant is the essence of the single leg
squat. The forward step group for knee dominant is the essence of the split squat and lunge.
Single leg squatting is extremely hard. The social media world of fitness has no shortage of ugly single leg squats. People perform
pistols on beaches, in parks, in gyms with
kettlebells, and perhaps even in meadows with
hopes of being Insta-famous, riding on their
lackluster sensorimotor incompetent, single leg
efforts. If you can do any kind of a true, squatty squat variation of a single leg squat, you
demonstrate impressive, quantitative fitness at
a high level, as well as supreme sensorimotor
control. The aim here is to lay out how to go
about this elite exercise, and provide a reasonable starting point, and subsequent path, to
benefiting from single leg squat work.
With the single leg squat exercises provided here, we will follow a very specific sequence of positioning load, to first make it easy
to achieve desirable sensorimotor outcomes,
and then make it more difficult for subjects to
own their bodies so as to maintain those sensorimotor competency. We will do this by first
having subjects reach their hands forward. Then, we will have them hold weight in an anterior loaded position. Following this, we will have
them move their hands to their hips. Then, we
will have them hold weight in a side-loaded
position. From there, we can simply add load
to their entire system by putting a weight vest
on them, and having them repeat the process
of progressing the positions of the hands and
arms. The following list is the sequence of progressions for sagittal plane, front back stance,
moderate load, moderate velocity, knee-dominant exercises: Page
227
1. Single leg squat to box w/anterior reach
hands on hips
8. Single leg squat to box w/weight vest and
side handle load
9. Single leg squat off box (follow same
implement order as 1-8)
Coaching Points
2. Single leg squat to box w/anterior load (e.g.,
goblet, Zercher)
3. Single leg squat to box w/hands on hips
4. Single leg squat to box w/side handle load
5. Single leg squat to box w/weight vest and
anterior reach
6. Single leg squat to box w/weight vest and
anterior load (e.g., goblet, Zercher)
7. Single leg squat to box w/weight vest and
There isn’t much difference between the
way I coach single leg sagittal squats and how
I coach bilateral squats. One of those small differences is the setup. When we get to the frontal plane single leg squats, having the off leg out
in front of the stance leg will become a more important feature, though we still want to feature it
here to some degree. Start by having subjects
stand tall in a bilateral squat stance, and simply
sliding the non-stance side foot slowly forward
along the ground. Allow the weight to shift more
and more into the stance side foot. The nonstance side foot may only travel an inch or two
forward relative to the stance side foot. One
only needs it to shift forward to the point where
they feel like about 70 to 80% of their weight is
on the stance-side foot. Now, you want them
to try to pick their non-stance side foot off the
ground. Have them think about increasingly
loading their stance-side foot, while increasingly
unloading their non-stance side foot. Maybe
their non-stance side foot leaves the ground,
and maybe it doesn’t. Either way, they’ll feel
how this attempt puts almost all of your weight
on your stance-side foot. Now, your subjects
are ready to start the actual squat movement.
The squatter is going to want to reach
the stance-side knee forward to begin the
descent. This will require the squatter to display dorsiflexion. Allow pronation of the foot to
accompany this dorsiflexion. This will involve
finding and feeling more and more of the inside
edge of the foot and big toe on the stance-side
foot on the descent. Just as we did with single-leg squat, we are looking for the hammerto-nail-to-wood relationship of femur, to tibia,
to ankle and foot here too. Most people will
be able to maintain control as they descend to
about the midway strike zone. While the goal is
to reach full ROM, that is an incredibly difficult
thing to do. That said, I’ll always take one de-
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gree of ROM that is correct over an enormous
excursion that isn’t. Start subjects off by having them single-leg squat to a box or a bench, and put the
box as high as it needs to be for them to do the
drill properly. Then, progressively decrease the
height of the box to challenge them. Before
progressing from anterior reach to anterior load,
employing these box/bench drills is best for
most.
For any given subject, you as the coach
will determine whether to continue to increase
ROM, or challenge them with loading position
and heavier load. When you see ROM increases start to stagnate, I would recommend
shifting the focus to loading strategy. When you
see load start to stagnate, I would recommend
shifting the focus back to working on increasing
ROM.
As I’ve expressed, getting bilateral
squats with full ROM without posterior compression and hinging compensation is very difficult. Getting someone to do all of this on one foot is
almost impossible. More advanced subjects will
likely reach the strike zone and come back up
with good form. Given the difficulty of this realm
of exercise, that is a perfectly acceptable, highly
beneficial goal to help your clients reach.
Sagittal, Front/Back, Propulsive Step,
Moderate to High Load, low to moderate
Velocity
This realm of exercise also falls prey to
incorrect progression perhaps more than any
other. For instance, doing walking lunges on
day one isn’t uncommon, but is quite problematic, as the resulting soreness will prevent maximizing subsequent gains. Even if you are the
greatest biomechanics coach in the world who
manages to use the greatest cueing and teaching methodology ever, I maintain that walking
lunges on the first day of someone’s training in
this realm is a poor choice.
While research on delayed onset muscle
soreness is inconclusive around mechanisms,
it is pretty clear that eccentric stress is the big
soreness driver. A walking lunge, or even just a
forward lunge, is an exercise with an incredible
eccentric demand. The entire body weight—
and then some, with the loaded variety—is accelerated forward, where it needs to be caught
and supported by one leg, and then lowered,
with control, into a position of deep knee flexion. Considering the mechanics of this exercise,
the lunger has to decelerate and stop a lot of
momentum using only one leg. As such, all
else being equal, it carries much more eccentric
stress than a properly loaded bilateral squat. Don’t get me wrong: I’d love to get everyone to the point where they can do forward
and walking lunges properly, and receive an
appropriate training response to the exercise. Indeed, getting to either of those exercises is
the goal of this pattern. I’m simply asserting
that, to achieve this goal responsibly, we need
to start at the appropriate place, and gradually,
sequentially progress from there.
When you look at the progressions list provided
in this section, you’ll notice some trends. First,
you’ll see that we provide a wall behind the
back foot with stationary split squats. Propped
against the back wall, the foot receives a sagittal reference that seems to help people stay in a
“squattier split squat” promoting position, dramatically increasing muscular recruitment.
Second, you’ll see that we start people with an
anterior reach, before an anterior load, before a
side carry load, and so on. The position of the
reaching and the loading is done in a way that
makes it as easy as possible to keep one’s center of mass back. At the outset, I’m looking to
make it easy to keep the center of mass back,
and then progressively challenge subjects with
positions that make it increasingly challenging
to keep the center of mass back. When first introducing a movement, I want to solidify a lot of
technically beautiful reps, to drive the invariant
representation of that movement. This will ensure that the subject continues to recreate the
movement correctly when executing its more
challenging variations.
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Third, you’ll see that we go from front foot elevated split squats, to split squats, to rear foot
elevated split squats, to moving lunges. With
the split squats, when you do front foot elevated, that is the least amount of weight on the
front foot. Split squats with neither foot elevated
is more weight on the front foot compared to
front foot elevated split squats. Finally, rear foot
elevated split squats are the most amount of
weight on the front foot for all split squat versions. Lunges require more eccentric forces on
the front foot; however, backwards lunges are
significantly less compared to forward lunges. Here is the list of progressions for sagittal
plane, front/back stance, forward step, moderate to high load, low to moderate velocity, knee
dominant exercises.
1. Front Foot Elevated Split Squat w/back heel on wall
A. Anterior Reach
B. Anterior Load (e.g., goblet)
A. Side carry load
2. Front Foot Elevated Split Squat
A. Anterior Reach
B. Anterior load (e.g., goblet)
C. Side carry load
D. Front rack
E. Back shoulder load
1. Safety squat bar & hand
support on rack
2. Safety squat bar, High Bar
position, Low Bar Position
D. Overhead Position
3. Split Squat w/back heel on wall (follow same implement progressions as 1A-D)
4. Split Squat (follow same implement
progressions as 2A-D)
5. Rear Foot Elevated Split Squat (follow same
implement progressions as 2A-D)
6. Backwards lunge (follow same implement
progressions as 2A-D)
7. Forwards lunge (follow same implement
progressions as 2A-D)
Coaching Points
I want my split-squatters and lungers
to resemble English butlers trying not to spill
a tray. I want to see a very vertical body with
shoulders and hips square, with lots of bending
at the knees and ankles during split squat and
lunge performance.
The biggest error is excessive posterior
compression during split squats and lunges. Most people incline their thorax way forward,
and hinge their way out of the bottom. I want to
see the shoulders being stacked right over the
hips, and staying that way during these drills. If
you manage to do this, the reps will not be fast. They will, however, be incredibly muscular.
I’ll discuss technique and tactics as they
apply to split squats, but the same ideas also
apply to the moving lunges. In your set up, the
hips and shoulders should be square. The hip
on the front foot side will often end up in front of
the other hip. When you witness this rotation,
draw the front hip back until it is even with the
other hip. Once people are square, cue them to
get tall. When viewing someone from the side,
you want to see the shoulders stacked over
the hips. Even in the setup, many will have the
shoulders in front of the hips.
When subjects begin descending into the
split squat, you want them to remain upright and
tall through the thorax, while they level-change,
and get lower as they bendthe ankle and knee. I want to see the path of the knee demonstrate
a propulsion arc during the exercise. As the
subject descends from the top to the strike
zone, I want to see the knee travel forward. For the knee to travel forward, the ankle and
foot are increasing dorsiflexion and pronation. As the descent continues past the strike zone,
you should see a reduction in dorsiflexion. As
subjects approach the bottom of the split squat,
I will cue them to pull their butts to their heel
and their knees to their chests. Throughout the
entire split squat, I want to see the hammer-tonail-to-wood alignment of the thigh, shin, ankle,
and foot. Make sure subjects stay square in the
hips while they descend into their split squat,
which is when the front hip will often rotate way
forward.
The concentric phase of these exercises
is the most difficult. Those who stay upright and
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manage to get their front knees to go forward
while bringing their butts towards their heels
achieve the desired pelvic position, underneath
the thorax. This position affords great opportunity for creating an overcoming muscular action
on an eccentrically oriented pelvic floor. Most
will regrettably forego this strategy in favor of
compressing their backs and hinging up. Preventing your subjects from falling into these
compensatory movements is likely the biggest
challenge you’ll face with this exercise. On the
up, I do not want to see the hips or thorax move
backwards, but, rather, I want to see the axial
skeleton move straight up like an elevator. The
fact that doing so will probably prevent full ROM
on the up is fine by me. So long as the subject
manages to keep hips forward and skeleton
stacked on the up, he or she should experience
the movement becoming increasingly muscular
the higher he or she goes. When you put all the
pieces together for the concentric portion of this
exercise, it is hard to believe how demanding
and effective it is.
The rear foot-elevated split squat will
feature more forward trunk lean compared to
the other variations of these drills. My personal preference is a very vertical positioned split
squat, so I tend not to use the RFE variation
very often. In your coaching, you will determine
how much leeway you’re willing to accept. Frontal, Front/Back, Retro Step, Low to Moderate Load, Low to Moderate Velocity
This realm of exercise involves frontal
plane, single leg squats. These drills provide
a tremendously high yielding action stimulus to
the adductors and glute medius. These exercises require a hip shift, as well as centering one’s
weight over the stance-side foot prior to going
through a single leg squat motion.
In my coaching, I strive to distinguish
core exercises from the non-core ones. As
previously shared, when coaching a core exercise, I am the sensorimotor police. If any
positional error is visible, I get to it, so that, with
time, it gets locked in as perfectly as possible. When it’s not a core exercise, I subscribe to
the “good enough” policy. Here, the drill has
to generally look right, and the athlete has to
be reporting back to me that they feel the right
tissues. If “good enough”, then we continue to
do it.
The list of drills that we have for frontal
plane, single leg squats is pretty simple. We
have the ability to perform single leg squats with
the stance foot elevated, and we have the ability to perform single leg squats with no elevation
of the stance foot. Each domain facilitates different ways of loading the exercise. The loading options start with those that offer the easiest
approach for competent execution of the movement, and move towards more challenging and
higher-loaded variations.
Our loading options start with a band/cable pulled across the body towards the stanceside foot. This is a great use of RNT, and really
helps people center and hip-shift on the stance
side. Once someone gets the feel for being
centered and hip-shifted while performing a single leg squat, he or she generally understands
the concept, greenlighting more challenging
forms of loading for the drill. Note that option E
is bolded. With that option, I use the Keiser Air
Squat machine, which we have at Hype Gym (in
NYC), out of which I operate. With that piece of
equipment, I am able to load this exercise fairly
substantially, while keeping it easy for subjects
to stay centered. And to think that some claim
that machines are somehow less functional! The following is the list of progressions for frontal plane, front/back stance, retro step, low to
moderate load, low to moderate velocity, knee
dominant exercises: 1. Single leg squat to box w/back foot elevated
w/hip shift
A. Pull band or cable across body
towards stance foot
B. Anterior reach
C. Anterior load
D. Side handle load
E. Keiser air squat load
2. Single leg squat to box w/hip shift
(Front foot stays on the ground)
Same progressions as 1A through 1E
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Coaching Points
I cannot overstate the value of exercise
1A here. This drill is one of the best illustrations of this exercise concept, as well as uses
of constraints and RNT that I have found. The
retro step up onto the elevation (2-3 inches
is perfect), passively starts subjects off with a
hip shift and the see-saw pelvis. From there,
the action of pulling the band across the body
and the utilization of RNT centers folks. Once
centering and a hip shift are combined with sagittal competence, the appropriate muscles fire. Once the appropriate muscles are engaged,
they need to stay engaged the subject performs
a squatting motion.
Not to sound like a broken record, but I do not
care how far people squat in the beginning. I
will take one centimeter of competent squatting
over large excursion trash. Rushing will frequently occur, in the hopes of getting the exercise over with. Telltale rushing signs are extending and compressing the back, coming out
of the hip shift, or losing centering. You’ll know
something went wrong if the subject finishes the
set fast, acts like it was no big deal, and thinks
the drill was a waste of time. People get out of
these drills what they put into them. Not surprisingly, those who invest little attention, effort,
and awareness, get little back, while those who
stay engaged, remain locked into the positions,
and try hard, get quite a lot.
When you are 1A, you can modify the
drill for compressed people and expanded people fairly easily. Both populations can benefit
from a heel wedge under the stance-side foot. Have your compressed people grab the band/
cable with a supinated grip, and your expanded people, with a pronated grip. Overall, the
knee-dominant pattern is biased more towards
expansion, so looking for opportunities to bias
exercises with ER concepts will increase the
probability of favorable outcomes.
When doing these drills, folks will ofen let
their head follow their hips and bodies. Make
sure you have people dissociate their necks
from their bodies. The easiest way to do this
is to have someone continue to look straight
ahead while rotating the body.
Frontal, Front/Back, Forward Step, Low to
Moderate Load, Low to Moderate Velocity
This category of exercise involves frontal plane split squats and lunges. These drills
highly remind me of a pitcher’s late cocking-torelease-point phase of the throw. At this stage
of the throw, pitchers get into the position of
being in a front/back stance, with the pelvis facing home plate, the front knee in flexion, while
hip-shifting towards the front leg, and allowing separation between the pelvis and thorax. Immediately following, the pitcher rotates the
thorax towards the front leg side, and the arm
explodes through the throwing motion before
entering the follow-through.
The idea of separation of the pelvis and
thorax is a big deal in the baseball world, the
golf world, and the hockey world. The pelvis
rotates towards the front side leg first, and there
is a delay before the thorax follows it. The great
ones show this dissociation and separation, versus moving like a block, all parts simultaneously
traveling together.
These split squat and lunge drills are
very helpful for trying to put this concept into a
resistance training exercise. The first thing we’ll
do is make sure that the subject can actually
create a hip shift, and in doing so, allow the
thorax to move with the pelvis. As we progress,
we’ll practice shifting the pelvis independently
from the thorax, to achieve the aforementioned
separation.
In the progressions for frontal plane
split squats and lunges, we see a very similar
sequence as we followed for the sagittal plane
drills. We will start with split squats. The split
squats will go front foot elevated, to flat ground,
to rear foot elevated, gradually distributing a
greater percentage of weight towards the front
leg. We will also go with band/cable across
the body, to anterior reach, to anterior load, to
side handle load, to a specialized machine that
allows significant loading to be incorporated. Page
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Once we get to anterior reach, we can now
involve separation between the pelvis and thorax. The following list is the sequence of progressions for frontal plane, front/back stance,
low to moderate load, low to moderate velocity,
knee-dominant exercises:
1. Front foot elevated split squat w/hip shift and
rear foot on wall
A. Pull band/cable across body towards
stance foot
B. Anterior reach
C. Anterior load
D. Side handle load
E. Keiser air squat
2. Front foot elevated split squat w/hip shift
Same progressions as 1A-E
3. Split squat w/hip shift and rear foot on wall
Same progressions as 1A-E
4. Split squat w/hip shift
Same progressions as 1A-E
5. Rear foot elevated split squat w/hip shift
Same progressions as 1A-E
6. Backwards lunge w/hip shift
Same progressions as 1A-D
7. Forwards lunge w/hip shift
Same progressions as 1A-D
Coaching Points
We’re looking for people to be able to
do squatty split squats while they get into and
maintain a hip shift with these drills. These are
very challenging exercises with a lot of moving
parts. To refrain from overwhelming our subjects, we need to give them no more than just a
couple things to think about at a time. The obvious choices are the front foot and the opposite
side hip.
I would not try to do these drills until
people have demonstrated the ability to perform
the sagittal split squats at a high level. Once
those are nailed, these can be peppered into
the equation.
In the setup, I want subjects tall through
the axial skeleton, skull stacked on the thorax,
stacked on the pelvis. From there, I want to
see a strong hip shift, during which the focus
is the stance-side foot. Subjects need to plant
and keep their weight down on the inside edge
of that foot. The more they hip shift, the more
they need to stamp the inside edge of the foot
down into the ground, to maintain the hammerto-nail-to-wood relationship of the thigh, shin,
ankle, and foot. To drive the hip shift, I have
people focus on the opposite side hip, specifically at the anterior superior iliac spine (ASIS). We’re trying to rotate the ASIS across the body
as much as possible. For a squat-based exercise, I do not want to see subjects losing height
or hinging their trunks forward in the process of
creating their hip shifts.
If you are working with people who are
struggling to prevent a hinge from taking place,
you can always put a heel wedge under the
front foot. Building in plantar flexion should bias
them towards an expansion strategy.
If people are not reporting back that they
are feeling an incredible amount of adductor
and glute during this exercise, then they are not
doing it right, and may not be ready for this exercise. For those who are ready and executing
it correctly, the amount of muscular recruitment
that you feel should be practically overwhelming. With those who aren’t, go back to sagittal
exercises for fitness, and see if they can learn
the frontal plane through core exercises.
Frontal, Lateral, Low to Moderate Load, Low
to Moderate Velocity
Like the little boy who saw dead people
in The Sixth Sense, for years, I’ve seen “lousily,
lateral squatting and lunging people”. I’ve seen
people do big excursions of range of motion
with zero foundation. I’ve seen people hinge
these things like they’re a kitchen door. I think
I could count on one hand the times I’ve seen
one of these movements being well-executed. These drills tend to lend themselves to showing off, and what typically gets shown off is the
distance between the legs, and/or the ability to
nearly or actually touch one’s butt to one’s heel
at the bottom. While these exercises can be a critical
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part of someone’s training, and can certainly
be impressively executed, they’re best left for
true masters of sensorimotor competence. I
wouldn’t try to rush anyone into these drills, nor
would I include them in someone’s programming unless the ability to execute them were
critically important.
I could see these drills being very important for golfers, baseball players, tennis players,
hockey players, and other athletes who need to
hit objects with sticks, clubs, and other implements. These drills will challenge your ability
to lateralize your pelvis and center your weight
over the stance side foot in the most demanding
of conditions. If you can hip shift and center in
this stance while creating a lateral squat/lunge
motion, you are an absolute movement monster, and your ability to use your axial skeleton
to create explosion on striking and throwing
motions is high level.
There are not too many variations for this
realm of exercise. We have lateral squats and
lateral lunges. You can do the lateral squats
with the stance side foot elevated, or with it on
level ground. Within each variation, there are
loading options. The options start with a band/
cable pulled across the body towards the hip
shift side, progress to an anterior reach, then an
anterior load, and end with side handle loading.
The following list is the sequence of progressions for frontal plane, lateral stance, low to
moderate load, low to moderate velocity, knee
dominant exercises:
1. Lateral squat w/stance foot elevated w/hip
shift
A. Pull cable across body towards stance
foot
B. Lateral squat w/stance foot elevated
w/hip shift, anterior reach
C. Lateral squat w/stance foot elevated
w/hip shift, anterior load
D. Lateral squat w/stance foot elevated
w/hip shift, side handle load
2. Lateral squat w/o stance foot elevated w/hip
shift
Follow progressions of 1A-D
3. Lateral lunge w/landing/stance foot elevated w/hip shift
Follow progressions of 1A-D
Coaching Points
You need to take some time to figure
out the right stance width for these exercises. Folks usually can’t go as wide as you might
initially think, the reason being that a too-wide
stance makes it very difficult to lateralize your
pelvis, and fully center it over your stance side
foot. If one manages to actually lateralize the
pelvis over the stance side foot in the setup, the
amount of resulting stretch in the non-stance
side adductor is amazing. Most people think
they need to put themselves into some kind of
enormous split position to feel a big adductor
stretch, but, truly lateralizing the pelvis away
from the other side results in a powerful adductor stretch when using a narrower stance. That
feeling of a stretch in the non-stance side adductor is a great indicator that someone is doing
this exercise properly.
When I am coaching people in this drill,
I try to get them hip-shifted during the setup for
this exercise, and then maintain that hip shift
throughout its execution. Most everybody tries
to come out of their hip shift at the top of the
squat, and it’s the coach’s job to disallow this. Maintaining the hip shift typically spells not locking out at the top of the motion, and this is fine. Just keep people in the midzone of this drill,
and cheer them on as their glute med shakes,
their adductor feels like it’s going to explode,
and their quad gets a massive pump.
The lateral stance is more challenging
than the other stances simply because it maximizes the difficulty of lateralizing the pelvis. Other than this, there is nothing special about
how you train the frontal plane elements. You
can reuse the hip shift cues presented for prior
planes, and do everything you possibly can to
lateralize and keep subjects centered over the
stance side foot: Page
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Dominant Positions and Fitness Realms
Dominant Plane: Sagittal
Dominant Stance: Bilateral
Dominant Load: Moderate to Heavy
Dominant Velocity: Moderate to Slow
Dominant Duration: Short to Moderate
The bilateral squat is still king of lower body
training. Nothing will drive a greater hypertrophy and strength stimulus more than the
squat. Nothing will tax your metabolic system
more than a hard set of squats. I believe that
learning sensorimotor competence and training
movements is critical for athletes. At the time
of this writing, zero peer reviewed studies exist
where subjects were placed in a hip shift with
centering and observed. I don’t think there’s a
single researcher in the world that even knows
how to do this. There are zero studies that have
really picked apart the differences in a squatty squat and a hingey squat, and I don’t know
if there are any researchers in the world that
know how to coach the difference properly. So,
the applicability of some concepts being presented in this book may only be revealed with
time. That said, there is a ton of evidence that
squatting leads to changes in human morphology and physical output. As someone who
enjoys betting and playing odds, if I am going
to have to train someone, and I have to cause
change, I am definitely going to be using a bilateral squat to accomplish this change, because
I know it is going to work. The squat will challenge the person’s movement system, muscular
system, and metabolic system.
I believe in always being willing to question
everything, even the central tenets of one’s own
philosophy. If tomorrow, someone presented
me clear evidence that my core beliefs are
wrong, I would humbly accept the truth, and
seek to find a new and better way. The squat
is the truth. You do not need to be married to
a barbell back squat, but you probably need to
find a way to put that movement in the training
of every individual who walks through your door.
Even in “soft” modern society, bone density,
muscle mass, and strength are vital things,
directly correlated to injury risk, fall risk, and
death risk. Each of us owes ourselves the
maintenance of lower body motion capabilities,
muscle mass, and preservation of bone density
through the thigh, hip, and spine as long into
our lifespans as possible. It’s up to each of us
to ensure that ours is a body that affords us
quality years of life as we get older. The longer
someone can perform a full range proper squat,
the longer that person ensures health and vitality for his or her present and future self.
14
Horizontal Push
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Horizontal Push
Chapter 14
Everybody wants to skip leg day, but nobody wants to skip upper body day. Where upper body is concerned, chest and biceps reign
supreme. If you are going to get a sick chest
pump, you are going to need to crush bench.
For many men, being able to bench 135 is a
right of passage for not being a shameful creature. Being able to bench 225 is one’s official
ticket to being respectable. Anyone who pushes three plates is a beast. Four plates or higher
is reserved for mystical beings. And, sorry;
boasting about what you benched back in high
school doesn’t count.
The bench press is the most American of all
exercises. Though its carryover to other areas
of fitness is likely very limited, its promise of
bragging rights is seemingly limitless. In some
circles, when you out-bench another man,
you own him for life in all ways, regardless of
whether he is richer than you, smarter than you,
tougher than you, or has a hotter wife than you.
Mechanical Considerations of the Horizontal
Push Pattern
I find the bilateral horizontal push (bench
press) to be one of the best ways to teach
people how to lift weights properly. As I’ve
asserted, lifting weights is different from a lot of
other athletic endeavors. With most sports, the
trick is staying relaxed while moving quickly and
freely. To lift weights, you need to learn how to
create pressure, stay tight, squeeze, and prevent motion in most parts of your body. Easier
said than done: just observe many a beginner’s
“wet noodle” movements in the weightroom. Conveniently, most people feel pretty safe on
the bench press, making it a great place to
teach tactical lessons that can apply to most
other exercises. The bench press is a great
exercise to teach these lessons, because it
positions you right in the peak of compression
for the upper body. Your arms are right at 90
degrees of shoulder flexion, and the bench provides an additional posterior wall from which to
build pressure.
Getting very strong in the weightroom boils
down to learning how to generate and maintain
the highest possible internal pressures one
can achieve. This feeling scares a lot of people. To create pressure, one must pull air into
the system, and then compress around that air
canister. An exhalation strategy with concentric
muscular activity is what compresses. If you
squeeze everywhere, no movement happens. If you create a pressurized canister, and then
squeeze more on one side than the other, you
will move in the other direction.
If you are going to squat, you need to
learn how to create pressure at the pelvic floor,
and direct force vertically. If you are going to
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deadlift, you need to learn how to create posterior compression to drive the hips forward. If you are going to bench press, you need to
create upper back compression, to drive the
sternum and arms forward. So, what’s the optimal way to create maximal compression in the
upper back to drive a pressure wave forward
into the anterior chest wall and arms?
We’ve previously envisioned the process
of filling a glass of water, bottom to top. This is
exactly how the lungs fill up with air, from the
bottom of the lung to the top. The lowest part of
the lungs is a small triangular space in the back,
inside the lowest posterior ribs. This is the inferior dorsal-rostrum space, and the air located
in this region will expand the back posteriorly. From there, air continues to enter the system in
a vertical direction. At the mid-back, at the level
of the peak of kyphosis of the thoracic spine, we
need posterior compression. This area of the
spine is already kyphotic and expanded, and
does not need to expand further. Instead, the
goal is to maintain shape, and build a pressure
wall from the space. This pressure wall directs
air anteriorly. If we do a good job of driving air
anteriorly, we will up pump handle the sternum
with an inhale. Finally, as air continues to enter
the system in a filling, vertical direction, we will
create posterior expansion in the upper dorsal-rostrum space.
This filling of air at the level of the thorax
is analogous to the filling of the pelvic space
with visceral fluid and material for being able
to flex the femurs. The start of flexion up to 60
degrees is an expansion-based zone, and the
main structure that’s moving is the femur. 60 to
120 degrees of flexion is a compression-based
zone, and the main structure moving is the innominate. 120 degrees to the top of appendicular flexion is an expansion-based zone, and the
main structure moving is the femur. The coccyx
expands posteriorly at the pelvis. The midsacral space expands at the pelvis. The top of
the sacrum expands posteriorly at the pelvis.
At the level of the thorax, the same rules ap-
ply. The start of flexion to 60 degrees is an
inhale-based place, where the main moving
structure is the humerus. Between 60 and 120
degrees of humeral flexion, the exhalation strategy dominates, and the main moving structure
is the scapula, going through upward rotation. Between 120 and 180 degrees of flexion, the
inhalation concept is the primary approach, and
the main moving structure is the humerus.
The primary zone that we want to focus
on when it comes to horizontal pushing is the
60 to 120 degrees of flexion area, because
this is where the bench press lives. This region
lands the bench press squarely in the middle of
the exhale/compression strategy. To see how
to maximize compression, we can simply look
at the methodology of powerlifting.
Powerlifters set themselves up for bench
press with their sternum pushed as high towards the sky as it can possibly go. From a
tactical approach to bench pressing, powerlifters always talk about creating as much tension
as possible in the upper back. They also talk
about taking a big breath before the rep, and
then holding it while you press. Powerlifters will
squeeze the bar as hard as they can with their
hands, and try to pull the bar apart.
So, what’s the thinking behind these
strategies? When the arms are going through
flexion between 60 and 120 degrees, the main
moving structure is the scapula, going through
upward rotation. This upward rotation of the
scapula is analogous to the movement of counter-nutation of the innominate, at the level of the
pelvis. When the pelvis counter-nutates, the
sacrum has a related nutation moment. At the
level of the thorax, the scapula is upwardly rotating (counter-nutating), and relative to this, the
thoracic spine has a nutation (lordosis) moment. Please note that I’m not necessarily talking
about enormous ranges of motion. Zero degrees of motion at the sacrum or thoracic spine
would still feature a nutation moment. What’s
causing this nutation moment of the mid-thoracic spine? The middle traps and rhomboids
are the perfectly positioned muscles to create
posterior compression at this level. Why are
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powerlifters always trying to pull the bar apart? Because it feeds into this nutation moment
by facilitating these same muscles. Why are
powerlifters always looking for lats? Because
the lats will drive the entire thorax forward, and
bring the sternum towards the ceiling in the
bench press.
With the powerlifting setup, we see
posterior compression brought to its extreme
end points. By compressing the entire back
from sacrum to cervical spine, one creates the
biggest arch one possibly can. One compresses harder by bilateral lat engagement, which
posteriorly tilts the entire thorax as a unit. One
maximally engages the mid traps and rhomboids to push the sternum forward. One simply
turns the back side of one’s body into a pressure cooker, and builds an arch.
All of that being the case, non-powerlifters do not need to bring posterior compression
to this extreme. What the rest of us should be
looking for is lower dorsal-rostrum expansion
and sternum pump handle up pressure in our
setup. This puts someone in a place that is
supportive and stable, from which one can feel
strong without going to extremes.
With the powerlifting extreme set up,
there is very poor lower dorsal filling. The arch
drives the sacrum into nutation, preventing any
appreciable lower posterior expansion. When
we do not get a great inhale low, we fail to set
the stage for maximizing air into all the zones
of the lungs above. We will not be maximizing
air in the mid-back zone, which pushes into the
mid-thoracic spine, and back into the ribs under
the scapula. As previously described in this
book, this will create an RNT experience for the
scapula (which stabilizes it), and sets the stage
for healthy, productive humeral motions. The
big arch style of the bench press leverages the
inhale motion to a maximal degree at the infra-sternal ribs. Closing off the entire back, and
posteriorly tilting the thorax while in the peak
of compression (from a humeral movement arc
perspective), will leave the bucket handle up
action as the only spot for an inhalation bony
movement. The reason powerlifters make sure
to get a belly breath as their
inhale prior to benching is that is
probably a good indicator that the
entire back is completely closed.
For non-powerlifters, positioning oneself
for productive humeral motions is the key to
training horizontal pushing. Outside of one rep
max bench pressing, those seeking to maximize the hypertrophy response from pushing
will need to accumulate the greatest possible
amount of pressing volume to do so. Volume
accumulation can expose a lot of problems. When you get near your upper tolerance of
volume, you can start breaking down. Is your
breakdown caused primarily by a lack of sleep,
improper nutrition, life stress, or is it mechanical
expression of an exercise? The best approach
for deducing one’s primary rate limiting factor
is by compiling a list of all that are in play, and
then identifying secondary ones by process of
elimination.
For non-powerlifters, aiming the sternum
forward and allowing its motion to guide the bar
is a good start. Keeping the sternum in that
position while exhaling will work to close the
bucket handle of the infra-sternal ribs, which
is what we want. Then, continuing to keep the
infra-sternal bucket handle closed on the inhale
should result in feeling air pushing the sternum
in the direction one wants the bar to go, while
the scapulae and shoulders remain locked in
and ready to press away.
Within the horizontal push pattern, transverse plane exercises will also be available. These will be done with unilateral and alternating pressing activity. The major mechanical
requirement for initial drills is the ability to keep
the sternum incredibly still while the arms move
implements through the zone. To do this, one
has to recruit a tremendous amount of oblique
tissue to compress and stabilize the anterior
thorax, as well as rotate the rib cage through
space, independently of the sternum. We’ll see
an increase in internal rotation, depression, and
retraction of the anterior ribs at the ribcage, on
the side of the arm reaching up/forward, and
an increase in external rotation, elevation, and
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protraction on the side of the arm coming down/
backwards. These actions can only be executed effectively whilst maintaining anterior compression, with simultaneous oblique action on
both sides.
Training the Horizontal Push Pattern
Available Options
•Available Planes: All
•Available Stances: All
•Available Loads: All
•Available Velocities: All
•Available Durations: All
Sagittal, Bilateral, Moderate to Heavy Load,
Low to Moderate Velocity
One of the great debates around horizontal pushing is whether those who cannot do
any pushups should bench press. To me, this
isn’t much of a debate, as it seems fairly obvious that the clear answer here is: “Of course
you can have someone who cannot do pushups
perform the bench press!” The subject would
need to build some upper body strength and hypertrophy pushing tissues via the bench press
as well as build the requisite axial skeleton control via core exercises, in tandem with improving
body composition through diet. Those who are
lean, strong, and possess awareness of their
axial skeletons will either already be able to do
proper pushups, or will just need a bit of practice before they can.
This pushup/bench press question is
one that seems to harken back to one of the
central problems in the world of fitness, that is,
emotional attachment to exercises in place of
viewing them as means to an end. If you are a
weightlifter, then the snatch, and clean and jerk
are the ends. If you are a powerlifter, then the
squat, bench press, and deadlift are the ends. With the exception of some strength sports,
where the end goal is to increase numbers for
a very specific exercise as much as possible,
specific exercises are means, not ends. The
pushup is in no way a prerequisite for the bench
press. The open versus closed chain concept
is meaningless here. What is meaningful is
identifying our subject’s goal, and asking ourselves whether the selected movement pattern
can effectively drive him or her towards that
goal. If the answer is yes, then keep the movement pattern in. If the answer is no, take the
movement pattern out.
Once a movement pattern has been
identified as important, the next challenge is to
pick the best exercise from that movement pattern. To do that, we need to determine which
exercise creates the biggest stimulus with the
fewest side effects. By side effects, we mean
secondary consequences that result from performing a specific exercise, such as fatigue, inflammation and joint pain, among many others.
I think Mike Israetel does an amazing job of explaining the stimulus to fatigue ratio. Fatigue is
such an interesting concept. Is it purely subjective, or objective and quantifiable? Is it simply
the number of adenosine molecules bound to
receptors in the brain? Sleep research might
suggest that, as well as research on caffeine as
an ergogenic aid. From the perspective of the
weightroom, how can we create some type of
working definition of fatigue? The handiest is
that fatigue is the state in which our quantitative
output at a specific task diminishes. If someone
can’t do as much on set 4 as he or she did on
set 1, that person is likely fatigued. If someone
can’t do as much on Thursday as he or she did
on Tuesday, then that person is likely fatigued.
Numbers can be used to guide us
through the ambiguity of subjective experience. The way we do this is by clearly identifying
goals, and clearly regulating training protocols. Put more controls in your programming so that
you are truly comparing apples to apples. Standardize reps. If the subject is going to pause at
the bottom of his or her reps, have him or her
pause for exactly the same amount of time on
rep eight as on rep one. Make sure the range
of motion is exactly the same on every rep of
every set. Encourage keeping emotions as level as possible. Time rest periods. Really figure
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out what works and what doesn’t.
that is the hypothesis of this model.
Figure out what exercises create the
greatest stimulus. Figure out which exercises seem to create the greatest fatigue. Doing
seated dumbbell overhead press right before
doing bench press, bench press numbers suffer. Maybe some other combination of sequenced
exercises would be better.
If we are creating skeletal shape change
that widens us side to side and narrows us front
to back, this is not the right shape for rotation. Wheels and spheres rotate well, but rectangles and boxes rotate poorly. If you are going
to throw effectively, you need to be more of a
sphere through your thorax, and less of a box.
The other piece is that you need to see
if certain goals conflict with other goals. Say
one of someone’s goals is to throw a baseball
95 miles per hour for the next twenty years, and
the other is to get as jacked as possible in the
upper body. Why might these be conflicting
goals?
This does not mean that pitchers and
quarterbacks should never do pushups or
bench press. This simply means that they
should not take these movements to the extremes of adaptations. Getting stronger and
reasonably developing the entire body is fine. Trying to win the Olympia while trying to get a
MLB contract as a starter pitcher might be a
problem. We need numbers to help guide us
here. Continue to measure the range of motion of joints. Continue to measure velocity,
and examine throwing mechanics. Continue to
develop total body strength and power in the
weightroom. When you see conflicts start to
emerge, it may be time to rethink what’s being
done in the weightroom. You’re simply looking
for indicators that can help establish numerical
cutoffs. Our species is an adaptable organism, hence going too far down some undesired
training road can often be reverted with some
backtracking. Listen to the canary in the coal
mine, and get out before it’s too late. Once out
of danger, we can recoup and regroup. The
cream always rises to the top. When we fall
short of our goals, let’s not blame too many
pushups. We just weren’t good enough. Those
who are good enough will have their major
league career, but engaging in harmful training
may cut it five times as short. This would bring us back to our discussion on shape change in the axial skeleton. As
previously discussed, horizontal pushing is all
about compression, and the primary compression site is posterior compression in the middle
of the thoracic spine at its peak of kyphosis. The upward rotation/counter-nutation of the
scapulae that flex the humerus in the 60 to 120
degree range is the primary location for the
muscular action that creates this compressive
force. We upwardly rotate my shoulder blades
to create the right length/tension relationship for
the rhomboids and mid-traps to create a compression wall in the mid-back. This mid-back
tension creates a concentrically oriented wall on
the back that we use to push off from.
Meanwhile, on the front of the body, we
are using the pectorals and anterior delts as
the prime movers to push things horizontally. These muscles move the humerus, but they
also create a tension wall on the front side
of the body. What we end up with is a wall
squeezing backwards from the front, and a wall
squeezing forward from the back. These two
walls squish everything in the middle, causing a
widening of the entire body. The thorax increases its width from a medial to lateral perspective,
and decreases its depth from an anterior to posterior perspective. If you do this long enough
and hard enough, you will drive adaptation, and
you will create skeletal shape change. At least
Exercise selection and being in the right mechanical position to succeed ride hand in hand. The better your understanding of what you’re
looking for from your subjects mechanically
speaking, the easier it will be to determine how
you should arrange them, what kind of equipment to use, and how you should configure that
equipment. For horizontal pushing, we have a
few easy positioning tricks at our disposal. Two
of the really big ones are putting blocks under
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the subject’s feet to elevate him or her up off
the ground, and using different implements, like
a Swiss bar or dumbbells in place of a standard
barbell.
I also highly recommend learning how to
do table tests to measure joint range of motion,
which should yield actionable next steps for
the subject’s training. You should measure hip
extension, and determine how close the subject
is to being able to get into full extension, which,
in my experience, is very rare, as most people I
see fall somewhere between 20 to 30 degrees
shy of hip extension. When I put someone on
a bench, and ask them to press, I always take
a look at the amount of hip extension they are
demonstrating in that position. When on the
bench, I’ll often see that subjects appear to be
in full hip extension, if not hyperextension. Yet,
from prior assessments, I know that the same
subject does not possess full hip extension, so
how could this be? The high level of posterior
compression in this position drives the entire
pelvis into anterior tilt, which is responsible
for the full hip extension. To get a better hip
extension read, I’ll place boxes under the subject’s feet until I see his or her hips positioned
to where I know the femur can actually extend. Doing this liberates the subject from resorting to
creating posterior compression that tilts the pelvis. If you are going to err with this approach,
err by stacking too many boxes, which will bring
the femurs into more flexion. There is nothing
that can go wrong with a little too much flexion,
which can in fact help to get the axial skeleton
into a good position.
By doing table tests on their arms and
legs, we can determine whether people lack
full movement and respiratory variability. If you
discover that someone is lacking movement
variability, you want to see which type of skeletal archetype they are biased towards, inhaled
(narrow ISA), or exhaled (wide ISA). Once I
have this bias established, I have the ability
to alter exercise setup to assist subjects by
placing them in positions that will increase the
probability of attaining sensorimotor competent
results, and decreasing likelihood of pain during
the exercise. Assuming that there are no fur-
ther thoracic compensations with hands and
arms, wide people will do well with implements
that feed them into supination and ER, whereas
narrows will do well with pronation and IR. The
Swiss bar or dumbbells are a great tool for providing supination and ER, and the barbell is the
tool of choice for pronation and IR.
There aren’t too many choices for horizontal push in the following list, and you may
notice that pushups have been excluded. Though they qualify as a horizontal push exercise, I find them problematic for a few reasons. For one thing, once an exercise is selected,
I’m fairly obsessed with ensuring that quantitative progress is being achieved for it. With
pushups, it is a little harder to ensure this. Yes,
you could add load to the person in the form of
vests, or chains, or some other type of implement, but what a lot of people don’t consider is
the person’s own body weight. Did you weigh
them right before their set (as body weight can
fluctuate quite a bit over the course of a day as
a function of hydration status, etc)? This may
seem a bit excessive, but I’ve seen how much
2.5 pound plates make a difference on a barbell. A small change in body weight changes
the load of the exercise, and the thing I do not
like about it is that I will probably not be aware
of it. It may look like the person is improving,
getting stronger, and the training plan is going
as desired, while, in reality, the person is just
three pounds lighter than the last time we did
this exercise, making it easier and affording him
or her more reps. The barbell never goes on a
diet. Dumbbells never have to worry about hydration status. I know what those things weigh,
and I know that if you are doing more reps with
the same weight, or more weight for the same
reps, you have improved in this pattern. With
that, the following is the sequence of progressions for the sagittal plane, bilateral stance,
moderate to heavy load, low to moderate velocity, horizontal push pattern: Page
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1. Seated on a machine (less fight against
gravity w/neck)
2. Supine dumbbells w/ground elevated for
pelvis
3. Supine dumbbells
4. Supine bar w/ground elevated for pelvis
5. Supine bar
Coaching Points
I coach the bench press by coaching
core exercises. Instructing subjects to keep
the pelvis under themselves, and own the
position of the sternum while their arms are
moving leads to pressing really well. When I
see terrible horizontal push exercises, I see
the same thing over and over: lower posterior
compression that creates a big anterior tilt in the
pelvis, and/or a moving sternum. It’s common
to witness a sternum down pump handle when
subjects are headed towards lockout, and sternum up pump handle when the weight is at the
bottom of the press. What these folks are doing
is basically using rectus abdominis to press
weight away from them.
With the horizontal press, I want stillness
through the axial skeleton, a setup that facilitates a sensorimotor experience of expansion
in the lower dorsal-rostrum, and an up pump
handle to the sternum on an inhale. All that
remains is to keep the body still like a statue as
the arms go through the zone of the drill. This
takes a lot of core control.
Here again, I highly recommend the use
of tempo with beginners. This will slow them
down and keep them quiet. As previously
observed, when it is quiet, and things are going
slow, you have the opportunity to coach. The
reduced speed will magnify any mechanical
errors that require correcting.
I suggest keeping your eye on those
new to the bench press, because this seemingly simple exercise can spell trouble. For
one thing, it’s prone to getting loaded way too
high. For another, subjects will position themselves in some inexplicable ways. Some will
place their bodies too far under the bar on the
bench, press the bar straight into the rack, fail,
and then find themselves unable to get the
bar around the hooks. Some will try to unrack
from positions that are either way too low or
too high. In these cases, they will either airmail
the bar and go over the rack when trying to rerack, or they will be under on one side, getting
themselves in big trouble. The internet is full of
bench press fails, depicting people getting stuck
under barbells in astounding ways.
To keep the folks we coach from ending up as one of these fails, we can offer them
some simple guidelines for the bench press. Number one: set them up so that their eyeballs
are under the barbell when it is sitting in the
rack. This is a strong position from which to unrack the bar, and ensures the bar isn’t pushed
back into the rack on their reps. Two: ensure
subjects, especially beginners to this exercise,
always have a spotter. The bench press is
actually a fairly dangerous exercise compared
to others. If unable to get a given deadlift or
squat rep, one can always bail, simply allowing the bar to fall to the ground. In the bench
press, you are under the bar, and not getting
the rep means that bar is coming down on you. When working without a spotter, a good strategy is to omit putting clips on the bar. If there
are no clips, the lifter can let the weights fall off
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one side before falling off the other as the bar
spins sideways off of him or her. This move is
scary, especially at first, but beats being pinned
under a bar. If clips are on the bar, it can be
rolled down, towards the waist. This is a painful
experience with heavy weights, but it is better
than rolling the bar up and having it end up on
the neck, where it can be truly lethal. Once the
bar makes its way to the waist, one sit up with
it, then stand up with it, and finally set it down.
Particularly with males, coaching the bench
press is the process of coaching egos, and risk
management. Don’t use open grips. Don’t let
people go without spotters. Don’t encourage
always going to failure. Don’t let people use too
much weight and half rep on every set. Enforce
proper form. Enforce a quantitative plan. Ensure safety.
Transverse, Bilateral, Moderate Load,
Moderate Velocity
Pushing or pulling with one arm at a time in
a horizontal direction sets us up to move our
trunks in the transverse plane. When we are
doing transverse plane core thorax exercises,
the big focus is on ownership of the axial skeleton, and being able to control the axis of the
sternum. There is certainly a degree of carryover of axial skeleton control with transverse
plane pushing, but the primary focus here is on
moving external load.
The exercises that were chosen for this
section were all alternating press exercises,
where both hands are loaded for pushing, and
both arms are moving at the same time. There
are no exercises in here where only one hand is
loaded, and the other hand is not. The reasons
that I do not list those exercises is that they
would reduce the amount of load one could use,
and tend to be really difficult to execute properly, even more so than the alternating exercises featured in this section. Taking one side of
loading away increases the challenge to keep
the axial skeleton in a proper position by a tremendous order of magnitude. In order to develop some pushing fitness and avoid redundancy
with thoracic core exercises, let’s make it easier
to keep the axial skeleton in a proper position
in this area of fitness. Let’s divide and conquer. When it is time to do core exercises, do core
exercises. When it is time to drive fitness in
other patterns, provide the right environment
to put the axial skeleton in a proper position to
drive quantitative greater output with less conscious thought on the subject’s part.
The drills available in this category progressively challenge the athlete relative to gravity. The
seated position is the position that’s most likely
to prevent resorting to compensatory movements when horizontally pushing. So many
people try to kick in their neck when pressing
in this direction, likely because, most of the
time, we operate in a supine position, directly
opposed to the line of gravity. The other benefit
of the seated position is that it gives the coach
a handy vantage point to coach from. Once the seated drills are done properly, then we
can move people to supine, and from there, to
standing. Use of the standing position really
comes down to preference. Utilizing it means
using lighter load in the absence of passive
stabilizers, like benches. As the coach, you’ve
got to make the determination as to whether or
not the person you are working with requires
developing this type of strength on their feet. The following list is the sequence of drills for
transverse plane, bilateral stance, moderate to
high load, low to moderate velocity, horizontal
pushing:
1. Seated alternating press
A. Cables
2. Supine alternating press
A. Cables
B. Dumbbells
3. Standing alternating press
A. Cables
Coaching Points
To do these drills properly, one needs to be
able to own the pelvis in the sagittal plane. The
most common mechanical error here is the
creation of a lot of lower posterior compression,
which will drive the whole pelvis into an anterior
tilt. When in a significant anterior tilt, it’s very
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challenging for them to do these drills properly.
When subjects demonstrate sagittal
plane competence, the likelihood that they will
recruit desired muscles to accomplish a given
task is higher. When sagittal competence is not
demonstrated, I have no idea what tissues are
going to be recruited for the same task. What
we’re after during these drills is a pelvis that is
very still and in place, while the ribcage turns
back and forth above it. When this takes place,
we’re sure to be recruiting the obliques to a high
degree, along with all the major pressing muscles, like the pecs and triceps.
To place the pelvis in the right position,
I typically end up elevating the subject’s feet,
even on the seated exercises, where I will typically also position the feet farther forward. Elevating the feet increases the flex in the femur,
and typically brings the entire pelvis into more
of a posterior rotation position under the thorax. When I put the feet further forward, this will
increase plantar flexion at the ankle, which will
allow for more expansion through the system,
and assist with keeping the sacrum in counter
nutation.
Once we’ve employed passive constraints to put the subject into a position that
makes it easier for them to be successful, now,
we can coach. To bring the pelvis into a competent position, I will cue him or her to either
bring the back pockets towards the backs of
the knees, or bring the belt buckle towards the
belly button. Both cues strive to accomplish
the same goal of putting the pelvis under the
thorax. Now, I will focus on the sternum. I will
have the subject push the implements away,
creating a reach that stops short of sagittal
competence breaking down. From there, I have
him or her bring one implement back towards
the body, while maintaining the height of the
other one. I want subjects to make these movements as fast as possible, without moving their
sternum excessively in the transverse plane.
A sternum that’s rotating back and forth like a
weather vane in the transverse plane is a sure
sign that this exercise is being performed im-
properly. Recall that, to make better movers
and better athletes, dissociation and separation
of structures is the objective. When the sternum moves in these drills, I think of human refrigerators, incapable of moving with any fluidity.
This realm of exercise is about as close
as it gets to the gray area of core exercises
versus other patterns. One has no chance in
this realm unless he or she can execute core
exercises at a high level, and his or her position is pretty locked in. Yet, I still want to use
these drills to develop fitness. And we can do
that, but only for subjects who have definitely
mastered core exercises. These drills won’t
quantitatively challenge the system as much as
a bilateral sagittal press, and they won’t qualitatively challenge the system as much as a really
well selected (and well executed) core exercises. Moreover, you’ll get a whole lot of nothing
from these if you roll them out to the wrong
person. On the other hand, for those who are
both strong and demonstrate core competency,
these drills can be very valuable.
Sagittal, Front/Back, Moderate Load, Moderate Velocity
This is an area of training that involves
drills in the standing position. The devices
available include cables, sleds, and the Jammer. Many football players are no strangers to
this type of training. The athlete will stand in a
front/back staggered stance, and push one of
several implements, mimicking the movements
required to push human opponents on the field.
Those of us involved in training science have almost certainly heard this gem somewhere along
the way: “We don’t bench press, because I’ve
never seen a football player block someone
while laying down on their back”. When you
first hear this, you might find it witty and truthful. But, by the time you’ve heard it a few dozen
times, you’re likely thinking more critically about
the carryover—or lack thereof—between weight
room exercises and corresponding sports
movements.
Way back when I used to only read
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the big staple sports training science books, I
used to love reading about the classification of
sports-specific versus general-specific versus
general exercises. In the descriptions adopted
from the classical Russian texts, you see that
sport-specific exercises involve playing the
sport itself, or doing drills that mimic those exact
sport movements. If you are a baseball player,
this would mean playing a game of baseball
in practice, or doing things like fielding ground
balls “fungoed” by the coach. General-specific
training involves performing exercises that use
force vectors similar to those used in the sport,
and operate in the same energy system as the
sport itself. If you are a baseball player, this
could be something like a cable chop, where
the implement moves at very high velocity. General training involves performing exercises
that are not at the same force vectors as the
sport movements, and do not necessarily operate in the same energy system parameters as
those characteristic of the sport. For a baseball
player, any basic weight room lift qualifies.
When you understand the specific to
general classification system, you realize that
almost everything in the weightroom is general,
maybe a handful of things are general-specific,
and nothing is specific. For the most part, the
sport coaches handle the specific training, while
the weightroom professionals handle the general training, often leaving the general-specific
training out in no man’s land.
In my work, isolating the essence of a thing
helps. Once I do that, I can decide whether that
essence is something that needs to be part of a
particular subject’s training. If so, my next task
is to present the subject with the medium that
captures that essence to the greatest degree
possible. Then, we observe the effect of that
essence on that person, and evaluate the outcome. If that outcome is desired, we can continue along that same path, or we can modify
or even discard the approach if the results are
incongruent with the goals. In training anyone,
my aim is to discover the most impactful approaches in respect to that subject’s goals, and
steer them away from those approaches that
will not significantly further them. The thirteen patterns that I present in
this book are thirteen different essences. All of
them don’t need to be part of every subject’s
training. The stances are different essences. All
of them don’t need to be part of every subject’s
training. The planes are different essences. All
of them don’t need to be part of every subject’s
training. The combinations of the stances and
planes and patterns create different essences,
and all of these combinations do not need to be
part of everyone’s training.
For a very small number of humans on
this planet, the drills in this realm of fitness
probably represent general-specific training,
and a training essence that makes sense to include in their repertoire. For everyone that isn’t
an interior football player, these drills probably
don’t make any sense to include… no matter
how cool-looking they may be. Here is the
sequence of drills for sagittal plane, front/back
stance, light to moderate load, moderate to high
velocity, horizontal pushing:
1. Retro Step
A. Cables
B. Jammer
C. Sled push aways
2. Forward Step w/Rear foot on wall
A. Cables
B. Jammer
C. Sled push aways
3. Forward Step
See Progressions for 2
Coaching Points
To do these drills properly, maintenance
of sagittal thoracic competence is key: we
want to prevent these from turning into sternum pump exercises. This happens when
someone’s arms are flexed way back, causing the sternum to orient upwards, and, when
pushing the object, to orient downwards. This
movement primarily ends up training the rectus
abdominis, with a little bit of arms thrown in. To
fully engage the arms, the sternum should be
aimed at a point that is level with the orientation
of the body, and fixed while the subject gen-
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erates force that transmits from the ground up
and finishes through the arms. For most athletes, who will not include
these types of drills as a primary training
means, these drills can be useful from the perspective of active recovery, particularly if done
with the sled. The sled provides an overcoming-only means of training. There is no lowering
phase with the sled. You step up to it, push it
away, walk towards it, and repeat the process
over and over again. Overcoming-only training
allows one to avoid soreness while still getting
some work in. Moreover, those engaging in active recovery don’t need to demonstrate perfect
sensorimotor competence, but shouldn’t allow it
to slip too much. It bears mentioning that recovery work shouldn’t be particularly cognitively
demanding, as that in itself creates fatigue,
thereby (ironically) potentially impeding recovery! To really nail these drills, we want to find
a position in which the subject stands tall and
has sagittal centering. From there, one needs
to exhale without losing height and centering. The ribs should move down, back, and in, while
the sternum retains its orientation. The subject
should maintain the exhale position while inhaling to a 360 degree expansion without the ribs
flaring up, forward, and out. From there, push. When subjects struggle with this, I’ll often shift
attention to their feet, and pay attention to how
much of their front foot is on the ground, and
how much weight is on each foot. I’ll have them
try to maintain this level of foot contact while
they breathe. This helps many realize that
they’re losing parts of their front foot contact,
and that their center of mass shifts and changes
the distribution of load between their feet quite
a bit during their breath cycle. If someone can
then maintain a solid base of support, this often
creates a better thoracic experience, facilitating
success in this drill.
Frontal, Front/Back, Moderate Load,
Moderate Velocity
This is an area of training that only a few
types of athletes will really benefit from. This
type of pushing doesn’t create a significant
amount of force. As a result, this realm is not
one that will add much muscle mass or increase
strength. What it will do is offer the opportunity
to get into a very specific position, and learn
how to create an upper body push from that
position. As the coach, you can determine the
applicability of these drills on a client by client
basis.
Given that this is a frontal plane horizontal pulling drill, the subject will be in a hip
shift, and will push with both hands at the same
time. Notably, if the subject were to be pushing
with one hand, or in an alternating fashion, the
drill would immediately morph into a transverse
plane drill, because of the associated movement of the thorax. So, to perform all of these
drills, the subject will be standing with one foot
staggered in front of the other, and be in a hip
shift. There is a retro step version of the drills
as well as a forward step version.
With these drills, there are only two types
of implements that are available: cables, and
the Jammer. The Jammer is a machine that is
commonly found in football weight rooms. It
functions as a device that creates a standing
bench press type action. The arms swing forward and slightly up. Its intent is to mimic the
blocking movements of offensive linemen. The
sled is not an option here, because it would be
logistically aggravating to reposition oneself into
a hip shift prior to every push. Both cables and
the Jammer allow the subject to stay in the hip
shift and get reps. The following sequence is
the list of progressions for frontal plane, front/
back stance, moderate load, moderate velocity,
horizontal pushing:
1. Retro Step w/hip shift bilateral press
***Focus on maintenance of sagittal thorax
A. Cables
B. Jammer
2. Forward Step w/hip shift bilateral press
***Focus on maintenance of sagittal thorax
A. Back foot on wall cables
B. Back foot on wall Jammer
C. Cables
D. Jammer
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Coaching Points
Having gotten into a proper hip shift and
engaged the appropriate frontal plane pelvic
muscles, the great challenge of doing these
drills will be to maintain the thorax. It’s all too
easy to lose position and compensate through
the thorax when pushing weight forward in
these positions. The temptation during the
forward pushing motion is to create posterior
compression, either somewhere up high or
down low. On the contrary, we need to maintain
posterior expansion during these drills, at the
sites of the lower thorax, at the junction of the
thoracic spine and the lumbar spine, as well as
the upper thorax, at the junction of the thoracic
and cervical spine. Compression at either of
these zones signifies a mechanical breakdown
of the drill. The million dollar question for these
movements is: can the subject keep his or her
back, well back? When the answer is no, or
insufficiently so, common compensations will
include allowing the bucket handle ribs to blow
open in the front, shoot the head forward, or
putting one’s weight into the outside edges of
the feet, while pointing them out at 45 degree
angles?
In keeping with our running theme, before taking on drills from this category, subjects
need to have truly mastered the sensorimotor
competency pieces of corresponding core exercises. From there, the ability to maintain the
proper position is key. Once this is being done
reliably, now, the subject can begin to create
some pushing force. This should look like loaded tai chi.
For every pattern that is trained with
load, every rep should look exactly the same,
resulting in sets that also look the same as the
prior one. Every rep should display the same
range of motion. If you are going to use tempo,
it should be the same tempo on every rep. If
one is ensuring uniformity of reps on all aforementioned dimensions, then quantitative progress amounts to real progress. If, on the other
hand, uniformity of movement from rep to rep is
not being enforced, progress blockers like half
repping or shifting form or tempo are bound to
creep in. It seems to me that many change up
the look or pace of an exercise in an attempt to
demonstrate that they are improving at it. Ironically, when these transgressions occur, they totally obscure any quantifiable improvements, as
they prevent “apples to apples” assessments. The positions required for these drills
immediately demonstrate whether or not the
subject will demonstrate weightroom integrity,
aka, use proper even in the face of discomfort. Those with this kind of integrity will hold the
line, and execute the set to the letter of the law. Besides quantifiable improvement, those who
remain committed to doing things right are, over
time, rewarded with increased mental toughness, and an acquired taste for a good challenge. After all, challenges are opportunities to
display unwavering grit, and further grow. For those who are less committed to
proper execution and quantifiable results, these
drills may serve as an avenue for greater commitment to these. One reason is that they feature neither intimidating load nor intensity. They
also present little challenge in the way of staying present, or having to think much about the
movements. Those who are averse to pushing
themselves past a certain point of discomfort
will want to bail, but as the coach, you may be
able to cheerlead some over this hump. And, if
you fail to make such subjects a little more comfortable with discomfort, these exercises will
have provided a safe approach for vetting this.
These drills cannot be rushed, as powering through them will cause an immediate
loss of position, and therefore a loss of the drill. Drills that demand prevention of unwanted posterior compression are easily ruined by a fast
pace or lack of presence. These drills aren’t for
those who are in a hurry, and for those whose
heads are in the clouds. This is a solid realm of training to include
in the programming of athletes who require
great body control, and do not need to be particularly strong or muscular. I could see this
being good for tennis players, basketball point
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guards, and other finesse athletes. These
types of athletes are also likely to be more
psychologically receptive to these types of drills
over traditional heavy lifting.
Transverse, Front/Back, Moderate Load,
Moderate Velocity
In these drills, subjects will perform alternating pressing movements from an upright position. These are great horizontal pushing drills
for athletes whose sports demand significant
amounts of trunk rotation. The big fear around
upper body strength training for athletes like
baseball players, quarterbacks or tennis players is that resulting muscle growth in the upper
body will restrict their motion capabilities. Given
our prior discussions on compression and axial
skeleton shape change, some of these fears
may be supported. At the same time, as we
have also seen, many strength training adaptations facilitate not just improved sport performance but improved and extended quality of
life, so avoiding resistance training altogether is
likely not the answer either.
Every adaptation implies one or more tradeoffs. The body has limited resources, and it will
allocate them to the areas it perceives as most
threatened. Some adaptations take longer than
others to take place. When an organism is
presented with a significant loading challenge,
it will initially respond by making changes at
the level of synapses. The nervous system is
a lightning-quick communication network, and
highly malleable at the synaptic level. If the
same organism is presented with a loading
challenge over the course of several months,
its tissue will undergo remodeling, resulting in
visible muscle mass increases. If the stimulus
continues over time, significant changes in bone
mineral density and the thickness of bones will
result. Adaptations go deeper and deeper, and
find their way into every type of cell. Bringing it
back full circle, generally, the more extreme the
adaptation, the greater the tradeoffs it requires. In this author’s opinion, strengthening one’s
muscles is almost always a good idea. One
way we can serve our subjects as their coach-
es is by identifying underdeveloped tissue
and helping them strengthen it. Subjects and
coaches alike can absolutely also take this
objective too far. Providing diet and training
coaching to a female figure skater that results
in twenty five pounds of muscle gain may be
detrimental to her career. So, can we have our
cake and eat it too? Can we help strengthen
athletes that need to rotate and have big excursions of movement, and stop short of robbing
them of the motion capabilities required by their
sport(s)? At the time of this writing, I can’t definitively
answer this question, which may always be
one where the most accurate answer is one
of our go-to copouts, like “sometimes” or
“it depends”. That said, I do believe that our
best chance at accomplishing this will hinge
on thoughtful exercise selection, as well as
thoughtful instruction on when and where subjects should compress and expand during exercises. A bench press performed by a powerlifter
features compression pretty much everywhere. Someone who does this type of movement
enough will learn to be compressed all the time,
and to “bench press” even when not bench
pressing. If one is going to properly execute
the pressing movements in this realm of fitness,
some parts will compress while others expand. Incidentally, this is exactly what needs to happen when one’s body turns and twists.
In this realm of exercise, cables are
our only pressing tool option. Within the front/
back stance, we have the ability to go with a
retro step and a forward step. These drills also
allow for tuning the amount of hip shift to be
displayed. The greater the hip shift, the greater
the demand on the pelvis in the frontal plane,
and, usually, the lesser one’s ability to produce
pressing force. The following list is the sequence of progressions for front/back stance,
transverse plane, moderate load, moderate
velocity, horizontal pushing: 1. Retro Step Alternating Press
A. Cables
2. Forward Step Alternating Press
A. Rear foot on wall cables
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B. Cables
Coaching Points
To benefit from these drills, one has to
maintain the pelvis in the sagittal plane, as the
pelvis serves as the solid base from which the
thorax moves. If there is excessive posterior
compression that drives the entire pelvis into
anterior tilt, the subject will be out of position for
rotating the ribcage with the obliques, and regulating proper expansion and compression of the
thorax.
Those who can keep the pelvis under the
body will feel a large amount of oblique activity
and involvement in the movement. I want to
see subjects owning their sternums in space,
and reach their pressing arms as far forward
as possible while the eccentric side hand goes
as far back as possible, without affecting the
orientation of the sternum. What we don’t want
to see are sternums that are turning back and
forth like weather vanes, dragging the whole
body along for the ride.
From a frontal plane pelvis perspective,
I’m looking for a “squared up” pelvis. I do not
need to drive a significant hip shift here. Le’s
keep in mind that putting subjects into a big
hip shift makes it really hard for them to move
any kind of weight in this drill. On the flip side,
we also want to avoid an “anti-hip shift”, which
is common to see with beginners. We want
subjects right in the middle, giving them a solid
muscular base to operating from.
Frontal, Lateral, Moderate Load, Moderate
Velocity
Horizontal pushing from a lateral stance is the
available movement to train. Whether or not this
needs to be trained is a different story altogether, and is for you as the coach to determine
in regards to any given subject. Admittedly, I
have never trained myself or anyone else in this
pattern.
Getting into the lateral stance automatically puts
one’s pelvis and lower extremity in the frontal
plane. If sagittal sensorimotor competency is
observed and a hip shift is initiated, subjects will
experience a powerful yielding recruitment of
their adductors and glute meds on the stanceside leg. Maintain this position, and press on
top of it, results in properly performing exercises
from this category.
The only options in this category are those of
getting into a lateral stance and pressing two
cables at the same time, or pressing the Jammer from this position. The following list is the
sequence of progressions for frontal plane, lateral stance, horizontal pushing, moderate load,
moderate velocity exercises: 1. Lateral stance, bilateral press
A. Cables
B. Jammer
Coaching Points
When pressing with two hands, owning the thorax in the sagittal plane is the key
to success. This will mean that one is able to
keep the back... back. The sternum needs to
be aimed at the horizon, while exhaling the ribs
down, back, and in. From there, the ribs need
to be held in place during the inhale. When this
occurs, the thorax will expand in a 360 degree
manner, as opposed to the anterior ribs simply
flaring forward, up and out.
Once the thorax is being managed from
a sagittal perspective, now we can worry about
lateralizing properly with the lateral stance. Proper lateralization is based on frontal centering. Lateralizing the pelvis far enough is likely
the hardest part of keeping the thorax and skull
stacked over the top of the pelvis. Doing so re-
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quires effort, as does maintaining this position.
Proper positioning for this drill should
prevent one from executing the movement too
fast. One has to go slow, to ensure that centering is not lost, and prevent posterior compression. This is another drill that will look like
loaded tai chi if done properly.
Transverse, Lateral, Moderate Load,
Moderate Velocity
This is the most difficult set of drills to
properly execute in the horizontal push category. This is a realm of fitness that exists and
is possible to train, but programming exercises
from this pattern, stance, and plane is rare. Since we are in the lateral stance, these
drills will feature a frontal plane pelvis. These
drills will also feature alternating pressing, simultaneously making them transverse thoracic
drills. Having both of these extremely challenging sensorimotor elements present at the same
time renders these drills difficult to perform, and
also creates constraints that will limit load as
compared to other pressing exercises.
As you can see, I’ve listed only one
choice of dril for the transverse plane, lateral
stance, moderate load, moderate velocity, horizontal pushing category of exercises:
1. Lateral stance standing w/hip shift,
alternating cable press
Coaching Points
Whenever we have alternating pushing
involving a transverse thorax, the cornerstone
for such drills is ownership of the pelvis in the
sagittal plane. If there is posterior compression that drives the pelvis into anterior tilt, then
sagittal sensorimotor competence is lost, and
competent rotation above it is prevented.
Ownership of the pelvis in the sagittal
plane is a prerequisite for worrying about lateralizing, and creating frontal plane centering, to
attain the proper lateral stance. This will require
competence of frontal plane musculature, as
well as awareness of where the pelvis, thorax,
and skull are relative to each other. Perhaps
the greatest challenge of proper frontal plane
centering with a lateral stance is the ability to
lateralize the pelvis far enough. To accomplish
proper positioning for frontal plane centering in
this stance requires strong yielding recruitment
of the adductor and glute med on the stanceside leg.
Once in the proper position for alternating pressing, one has to make sure the sternum is being controlled in the transverse plane. Recall that we want to prevent the sternum from
orienting back and forth like a weather vane. If
one can do this while simultaneously achieving
a large range of motion with both arms, he or
she will experience high levels of recruitment
and activity of the obliques, as they compress
and expand the sides of the ribcage, which is
rotating in the transverse plane.
Dominant Positions and Fitness Realms
•Dominant Stance: Bilateral
•Dominant Plane: Sagittal
•Dominant Load: Moderate to Heavy
•Dominant Velocity: Moderate to Slow
I will forever be a meathead. I will forever love
to bench press. I will forever hedge my bets,
and go with drills that I know are causing a
change, even if those are first order consequence changes.
I always remind fitness professionals who learn
advanced biomechanics principles to not forget
where their bread is buttered, and to not quit
their day jobs. What I mean by this is that our
job is to create changes in our clients’ fitness. We need to get people stronger, improve their
body composition and/or aerobic performance. In short, to help clients meet their fitness goals,
make sure you’re quantifiably changing something.
Every now and then, you will have clients for
whom improving certain numbers isn’t the goal,
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but this is rare. If you are being evaluated
on your performance, chances are, you need
to move some numbers, and they should be
numbers people understand. If you go too far
down into the weeds, you may find yourself out
of a job. Operating in the realm of conventional practices and assessments is safer, and
typically still yields a fair bit of merit. Going too
unconventional in the world of diet has been
known to lead to cultish, not to mention non-evidence based convictions. The same is true
with exercise. Those who fall prey to ideas like
that the bench press is harmful are likeliest to
find themselves in a basement, swinging Indian
clubs with a bunch of weirdos with mustaches.
15
Horizontal Pull
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Horizontal Pull
Chapter 15
The notion that there has to be a certain
ratio of pushing to pulling for shoulder health
is one of those fitness industry myths lacking
in evidence, right up there with the one about
never allowing one’s knees go over one’s toes
when squatting. While most of us love a neat,
one-dimensional story, these simplistic explanations are often erroneous. When dealing
with a complex subject like chronic pain, it pays
to remember that it’s often a result of multiple,
conflated causes.
The subject of pain returns us to our preliminary
discussion about how life on Earth has adopted the strategy of variability, which reduces
the likelihood of complete annihilation from a
catastrophic event. Variability offers contingency plans, escape routes, and optionality, and
having options reduces the perception of threat. This is as true of all life on Earth in aggregate,
as it is of the individual organisms that comprise
it. As life has evolved over time, it has
grown increasingly more complex. Every step
of evolutionary breakthrough that yields success has involved new systems that display
increasing variability. The example from the beginning of the book dealt with energy systems,
where we looked at how the most modern (and
hence most complex) oxidative system has
more enzymatic steps than its predecessors. Likewise, it also features more variability than
earlier systems, given its ability to burn carbs,
fats, and proteins, as opposed to just some of
these macronutrients, like the earlier systems. Recall the tradeoff we discussed as well, noting that the first systems to be overwhelmed by
stress are always the most modern, and how,
when those modern systems are overwhelmed,
organisms fall back on older, but in some ways
“sturdier” systems. The older systems are
able to operate under times of stress, but can
utilize fewer options to get their jobs done, as
compared to the newer systems. Lastly, recall
that, if the older systems are always working,
this is a sign that the organism perceives an
ever-present threat. This concept, called Jacksonian Dissolution, can be present at the level
of the movement system as well. Let’s take a
look at how we can apply it here. When our system is placed under high
levels of stress, like a 1 rep max lift, the organism will attempt to reduce movement options. During a 1 rep max, the lifter will brace
and create compression in a lot of areas so
that you don’t side bend or rotate. Short of the
extremes of a 1 rep max lift, there are a million
micro-stressors we might experience, which will
reduce the options of our movement systems. The most common micro-stressor would be a
reduction in the size of the airway, resulting in
increased difficulty in ventilation.
Humans take somewhere around 23,000
breaths per day. That’s a lot of reps, and our
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organisms will organize itself so as to make
those repetitions as energy-efficient as possible. There are some fairly stereotypical ways
that humans will maneuver themselves for
maximal respiratory economy. A very common
compensatory approach is to create upper
posterior compression. This upper posterior
compression can occur at the level of the cervical spine. A great way to visualize it is to think
about how we’re taught to open the airway in
a CPR course. We tilt the dummy’s head back
and project the chin upwards. When doing this
move, we use our hands to create upper posterior compression and drive the mechanical
response that repositions the neck and head. Many go through life like CPR dummies,
creating posterior compression to drive their
heads forward, in order to open their airway. They do this because this is the most energy-efficient position. People who present with “Military Neck”, and have flat backs may believe that
they are standing tall and proud, or simply practicing “good posture”. More often than not, the
underlying reason for such posture is the use of
a posterior compression through the mid-back,
to overcome where their airway management
compensation placed them relative to gravity.
When we see these layered posterior
compression strategies, we’re probably going to
see people who have reduced their movement
options. These are people who have experienced the presence of a stressor and responded in a way that demonstrates Jacksonian Dissolution mechanics. Our older ancestors, who
were closer to chimps, had flatter spines and a
center of mass that sat farther forward. These
creatures had less cervical rotation and side
bending capabilities. As we rely more on locomotion tactics associated with being a quadruped, we’ll likely lose some of the freedom of the
modern human shoulder girdle.
When a system loses movement options and modern adaptations, some part of it
recognizes this and interprets this reduction in
options and contingency plans as a potential
threat. Pain is the canary in the proverbial coal
mine that often alerts us to the presence of a
threat. In this scenario, pain signals the need
to reduce activity, which the system identifies as
the stressor that is causing the pain. Reducing
activity will typically lead to reduced movement
options, which the system will eventually recognize as “new normal”, and hence no longer
threatening. Some people condition themselves to expect pain as the “normal” outcome
of certain movements. This prediction can
become wired into the system. The person believes pain will be associated with a certain type
of movement, and so it is. This type of prediction leading to outcome is a neurological phenomenon, and is the place where biomechanics
yields to neurology. For some people, operating with low movement
options is fine. They can continue to develop
fitness within these tight constraints, as is often
the case for athletes like powerlifters and bodybuilders. But, even for these folks, if movement
options are reduced further at some point in
the future, problems can resurface as the cycle
repeats.
Other types of athletes need to have large
movement options to be able to compete at a
high level in their respective sports. Loss of
movement options is detrimental to such athletes, and everything possible should be done
to restore them. Restoring movement options
is the realm of the first few patterns we covered:
breathing and core exercises. Finding proper
positioning with core exercises and utilizing the
specific breathing techniques is the approach of
choice within this model.
To circle back to the beginning of this chapter,
we will not be taking a “balancing” approach
with pushing and pulling exercises. Those
practitioners who successfully treat shoulder
pain patients by having them do more rows or
band pull-aparts would likely credit these recoveries with strengthening some weak, elongated muscle. For our purposes, it serves to
dig a little deeper and ask why that muscle was
weak and elongated in the first place. More
often than not, this will be because the skeleton
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organized itself the most energy-efficient way
possible, within the context of the primary, daily
homeostatic challenges faced by this body’s
owner. More pulling could have been just what
the doctor ordered, perhaps because this individual could not compress in certain places, and
the rowing provided the stimulus that restored
his or her compression capability. Regaining
the ability to compress in a place that required
it was interpreted by the system as an increase
in movement options, and hence a new, less
threatening state of existence.
There are a lot of pieces to the human puzzle. I’ll never claim to understand all of them,
or their nuanced, interdependent movement
relationships to one another. The claim I am
comfortable making is that the individual organism shares much of the same construct as the
essence of all life. All living things feature alarm
systems, always on the lookout for threatening
elements. These systems always seek a multitude of escape routes. When those escape
plans are reduced in number, the system can
still function, but in a less fluid manner. When
options are lost, the system will also interpret
this as danger, which can be experienced as
pain. If we can restore options, the system
should interpret this as being ushered towards
safety, into a less threatening state. My rhetorical aim here is to open minds to the possibility
that balancing the ratio of pushing and pulling
isn’t necessarily the end-all-be-all for reducing
the likelihood of shoulder pain (or any other
kind, for that matter). Instead, a balanced ratio
of pushing and pulling is one of many possible
potential methods to employ to this end. Assessing the symptoms and compensations in
front of us within a comprehensive model allows
us to think more broadly, and choose from a
much larger toolkit to fix any given issue.
Anatomical Considerations
Horizontal pulling will train more of the
mid-scapular muscles, whereas, vertical pulling
will train the lats more preferentially. The rhomboids and mid-traps are the big mid-scapular
muscles that will receive the majority of the
training stimulus from horizontal pulling. The
difference between what I will
present to you in this book and
every other model that I have
seen is that I will also be presenting to you horizontal pulling variations that will
focus on driving internal rotation of the humerus, and other horizontal pulling variations that
will focus on external rotation of the humerus.
The value of face pulls has been preached to
me for years, accompanied by vague exercise
descriptions that were going to magically “set
the shoulder blade properly”, or optimize bench
press performance. While some prescribed
these exercises for external rotation, others
recommended the same ones for internal rotation. In this model, I hope that I can get away
from vague exercise descriptions, as well as
vague naming conventions. Instead, I’d like for
us to call each drill exactly what it is, removing
any ambiguity about its intent, or the anatomical
rules of its execution.
Let’s review our appendicular propulsion arc, and note that it features three primary
zones. We have zones one and three, which
are inhalation/expansion position zones, and we
have zone two, which is an exhalation/compression position zone. With the focus on the arms,
zone one would be the region of shoulder flexion between zero and 60 degrees. Zone two
will be the region between 60 and 120 degrees,
and zone three will be the region between 120
and 180 degrees. Since we are talking about
horizontal pulling, zone three is not in play. What we are left with, then, are rows, where the
humerus is primarily traveling through zone one
and zone two regions.
If we are performing rows where the
humerus is primarily in zone one, then the main
focuses will be external rotation of the humerus, and supination of the hand. If we are performing rows where the humerus is primarily
in zone two, then the primary focuses will be
internal rotation of the humerus, and pronation
of the hand. In other words, the simplest way
to determine the focus for each type of row is to
take note of the position of the hand relative to
the body. If you are rowing something towards
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you, and the hand is roughly at the level of
chest height, then your rows should have a bias
towards zone two. If you are rowing, and your
hand is roughly at the level of your hip, then
your rows should have a bias towards zone
one.
One flaw of the “the balanced ratio of
pushing to pulling for shoulder health” hypothesis stems from the fact that well-coordinated
rows are hard to come by. With zone one rows,
the humerus will often start to IR like crazy,
causing the arm to flare away from the body. During zone two rows, the elbows will often
drop, and hands will flop out to the pinky side. When these side effects occur, we can infer that
the lifter is just pulling weight through space,
rather than managing the relative position of
the humerus to the scapula. Accurately implementing the drills that follow can result in many
healthy shoulders, despite ratios of pushing and
pulling. First thing’s first: let’s do one thing right. From there, in the spirit of quantifiable results,
all we need do is count how many times we can
do that one thing right, over and over and again.
If one rows with zero technique, he or
she will still attain some mid-scapular muscular
hypertrophy. If one rows with the appropriate
joint action bias for the respective zones he or
she is rowing in, that person will also develop some critical internal and external rotation
muscles. Rows in zone two, featuring internal rotation, will result in the development of
subscapularis, one of the most neglected and
underdeveloped muscles in the upper extremity. If the rower can get into a position where
underlying sagittal sensorimotor competence
is present through the axial skeleton, and row
through zone two with great IR and pronation,
subscapularis will be strongly recruited, and the
rower will be occurring fitness while also likely
building a shoulder pain buffer. If one can row
through zone one with sagittal sensorimotor
competence and quality external rotation and
supination, one will effectively recruit and train
supraspinatus, infraspinatus, teres minor, and
the posterior fibers of the deltoid.
The most common breakdown in technical per-
formance for rowing is initiated by the excessive
movement of the thorax towards the rowing implement. As such, I am constantly telling people to move the implement towards them rather
than moving themselves towards it. The ability
to follow this instruction signifies axial skeleton
control, and prevents unwanted, excessive posterior compression.
I generally see two types of problematic
posterior compression demonstrated during
rowing. One is low, near the sacrum, and the
other is high, near the occiput. The low posterior compression will typically be catalyzed by the
rower’s chest moving far forward, towards the
implement that he or she is rowing. Alternatively, high compression is identifiable by shoulders
that suddenly shrug up, tip forward, and demonstrate what looks like a painful impingement
position. Excessive low compression is generally associated with an inability to control the
pelvis in the sagittal plane. High compression,
on the other hand, is typically more complicated
to root-cause, as several causes are often to
blame, versus a single one.
When I encounter either compression type, I
generally keep all rowing in the zone one sweep
of the propulsion arc, and I make sure I coach
core pelvis exercises at a high level. Once rowers become competent at owning their bodies
and rowing through zone one consistently well, I
will open zone two rows to them.
If I have cleared zone one rows, but now see
problematic upper compression during zone
two rows, this likely suggests a thoracic or a
cervical-cranial problem. My first attack would
be to examine the thoracic elements that could
impact this action. To be able to row in zone
two, the rower must possess humeral IR. If the
sternum cannot get into an up pump handle
position, the humerus will not be able to IR.
When dealing with a thoracic limitation caused
by an inability to get the sternum into an up
pump handle position, my first thought is that
we are probably dealing with a rectus abdominis dominance issue. My intervention would
then be to have the rower aim his or her ster-
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num towards the horizon, in the position within
which he or she is rowing. From there, I will
have the rower attempt to pull the pelvis under
his or her body, into a sagittal sensorimotor
competent position. The test is whether or not
the subject can continue to keep his or her sternum in the same spot while doing this with his
or her pelvis. Those who fail it do so by dragging their sternums towards their belly buttons,
telling me that the prime mover which created
this action was rectus abdominis. My coaching
will work this type of subject towards inhibiting
rectus abdominis and learning to recruit the
obliques, to own the thorax. This would be accomplished via proper execution of core thorax
exercises.
If I’ve cleared the pelvis and the thorax for a
subject, but continue to see upper compression and an ugly shoulder position during zone
two rows, then I will look for potential problems
north of the collarbones, which is outside the
scope of this book. Suffice it to say that those
types of problems can lie anywhere in the areas
of expertise of a physical therapist, a dentist,
podiatrist, or optometrist. For those of us who
neither have access to such a team of medical
professionals nor clients who are able to fund
such treatment, my real-world advice is just to
stay with zone one rows, coach them well, and
progressively increase training load.
Training the Horizontal Pull Pattern
Available Options:
Available Planes: All
Available Stances: All
Available Loads: All
Available Velocities: All
Available Durations: All
Sagittal, Bilateral, Zone 1, Moderate Load,
Moderate Velocity, Moderate Duration
This is the easiest place to start with
horizontal pull training. Like many fitness professionals, I am always looking for opportunities
to find fitness upsides with minimal potential
downsides, to get the benefits of exercise while
reducing its cons. Can I have the hypertrophy,
increased force production, and increased local
and system-wide resiliency that occurs in response to effective resistance training, while
simultaneously avoiding excess inflammation,
joint pain, delayed onset muscle soreness, and
loss in range of motion and fluidity of movement? While there are no free lunches, my goal
is to find the least expensive, highest quality
lunch that I can eat as many times as possible.
Zone 1 in the propulsion arc is the easiest place to move our arms through space. If I
provide a supinated or neutral grip implement to
pull for these drills, I will bias the drill in a way
that should make it even easier to execute with
maximal benefit and reduced risk. If I can reduce the difficulty of managing gravity in earlier
drills, and progressively increase that challenge
in subsequent drills, we’ll be adhering to the Big
10 Principles of Progression. For rowing exercises, the easiest way to reduce the difficulty of
managing gravity is to use benches and machines that provide chest support.
When the body is performing a resistance training exercise in “free space”, it has
to stabilize itself. To do so, it will use whatever
muscles it needs to use so as to provide an anti-gravity impetus. The more muscles it uses for
anti-gravity, the fewer muscles it has available
to act as prime movers. This topic always leads
to very interesting discussion, which I will briefly
introduce below.
The Functional Training movement is
solidly rooted in the idea that training needs to
be very similar to what happens in the sports
the subject plays, or other physical life challenges he or she faces. A popular argument
from this camp is that there are no benches on
the basketball court, so we should never do
bench press. Basketball players need a horizontal push force to throw chest passes, but
they never do it lying down, so we should only
train pushing standing up. Not surprisingly,
examining muscular engagement during standing pushing actions reveals the engagement of
a much higher percentage of stabilizer muscles. This school of thought interprets that to mean
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that these tissues need to be engaged in most
of the gym training done by the subject in question. A satisfying simple approach? Sure. An
evidence-based approach? Unlikely. A more complex, skeptic’s explanation is that
the movement capabilities of humans is based
first on the shape of a person’s skeleton and
muscles, and secondly on the conscious and
unconscious neurological processes involved
in movement strategy and behavior. Introducing someone to resistance training provides an
impetus for changing the shape of his or her
muscles and skeleton, and simultaneously altering the amount of force he or she can produce. Changing the shape of the muscles and the
skeleton may change their owner’s movement
capabilities, often reducing the total number
of movement options. Based on this thought
process, the first goal is to increase force production capabilities without reducing movement
options.
To do that, many factors are required. One of those variables is the mechanics and
technique of the exercise being performed. If
the exercise is a sagittal plane drill, and sagittal
plane sensorimotor competency remains present while the motion is being executed, then I
believe that we will retain movement options to
a greater degree as compared to training with a
lack of sensorimotor competency.
As such, the primary objective is to provide a
training drill that allows the easiest opportunity
for the person to hold onto their planar competency while executing a movement. The Big 10
Principles of Progression were designed to help
identify such drills. The support provided reduces the difficulty of managing gravity to hold onto
competencies, as well as provide awareness
of the body’s position in space. Both can be
extremely valuable tools for competent exercise
execution. Correctly performing any kind of exercise for
any motor pattern paves the way for formulating a competent invariant representation of that
movement in the subject’s brain. Now, any time
the subject recognizes that he or she is execut-
ing a certain kind of drill, a competent mechanical blueprint for such movements is at his or
her disposal. I always tell people, do one thing
right. If you can do that, we have a springboard, from which to do many other things right
going forward. As the complexity and load of drills for a
specific motor pattern increases, while support
decreases, the drills continue to look right and
feel right. Everything that the subject has done
from the beginning of his or her training has
been “by the book”, and movements that initially
deviated from the norm have been retried and
corrected until they were by the book as well. They have developed habits and strategies that
are appropriate for the plane they are moving
in, and for the motor pattern they are executing. We have as close to an objective evaluation
system as we can get for training provided with
the sensorimotor competencies, so we can determine whether or not a specific drill is appropriate for a specific individual. My belief is that
such an approach to training will provide a sufficient training stimulus for desirable resistance
training adaptations with the smallest amount of
negative side effects.
The motto of the American College of
Sports Medicine (ACSM) is “Exercise is medicine”, with which I agree. Modern medicine
is largely a pharmaceuticals-driven endeavor,
wherein available medications are divided up
into categories based on their chemical makeup. Based on one’s diagnosis, a fitting medication is administered. The dosage begins
with the lowest amount expected to create an
effect, and gradually has to be increased as the
body develops a tolerance to the medication’s
chemical makeup. While intelligently prescribed
drugs can create desirable effects in target tissues, they often also feature undesired side effects, which can impact non-target tissues. As
pharmacy sciences advance, so do the drugs. As drugs become smarter, they tend to become
more targeted, and have less and less effect on
non-target tissues.
My belief is that performing exercises that feature sensorimotor competencies as their foun-
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dational element is the equivalent of thinking
about this from a medical viewpoint. These are
smarter exercises, which allow us to hit target
muscles and avoid hitting the non-target joints. In my work, I’m looking to change the muscles,
and I’m looking to prevent the joints from incurring inflammation, motion loss, and pain.
It is also my belief that athletes should
keep doing what they’re doing on the court,
field, ice, etc: practice their sports well, form
the movements of their sports as best they can. And, at the same time, they should keep doing
what they’re doing in the weight room, performing the movements of the weight room properly
as well. When one tries to cross the streams,
little benefit stands to be gained. Train in a
holistic manner. Provide subjects with all the
motor patterns, planes, stances, loading types,
velocities, and durations that are appropriate for
them, then intelligently increase their training
volume over time. Have them do their training
with sensorimotor competency, from day one to
the end of their training days. I believe this is a
much surer roadmap to greatness than any approach that throws people into low stimulus, low
support, trash movements (done on overpriced
suspension cables, for instance).
This category of exercise progresses
subjects from seated rows with a chest support,
to prone rows with a chest support, to seated
rows with no chest support, to standing rows
with no axial loading, to standing rows with axial
loading. To ensure subjects feed into the joint
actions associated with zone 1 of the propulsion arc, these rows will be done with a neutral
or supinated handle. The following is the sequence of drills for zone 1, sagittal plane, bilateral stance, moderate load, moderate velocity,
moderate duration, horizontal pulling exercises:
1. Seated chest supported machine row
2. Prone chest supported machine row
3. Seated cable row
4. 2 Hand sled pull (w/attachment)
5. Bent over row
Coaching Points
There are three big hitter points that I try
to get across for these types of rows. The first
is, row the implement towards the body, as op-
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posed to bringing the body or head towards it. The second is that I want my subjects to think
about supinating their hands more and more as
they row the implement further and further. The
third is that I want the elbows to stay tight to the
body during the row.
I constantly see folks getting the implement to touch their bodies by projecting their
bodies forward, rather than by pulling the implement as far back towards them as possible. I also see skulls moving forward in space as
people try to pull the weight back towards them. When I watch the body to assess whether it’s
projecting forward, I keep my eyes on the thoracic spine and the thoraco-lumbar junction. If
I see those regions lunging or leaning forward,
I’m not super happy. When I look to see whether or not the head is moving forward, I keep
my eyes on the suboccipital space. As noted,
seeing the body go forward in space suggests
that I am witnessing someone who cannot
retain lower dorsal-rostral expansion. If I am
seeing the suboccipital space go forward, this
suggests that I am witnessing someone who
cannot retain upper dorsal-rostral expansion. With excess compression at either of these two
places, I am creating a less smart exercise,
aka targeted, than it could be. Even with this
“less smart” exercise, we are still developing
the muscles of the mid-scapula, but we are
also needlessly stressing the muscles of the
cervical spine, cervico-thoracic junction, and
thoracolumbar junction. Even if the side effects
to these untargeted regions are minor, we’re still
better off minimizing them, so we can channel
all efforts to the targeted tissues.
If I could have my own perfect rowing
machine, it would probably look like a big vice,
where one wall would go up the rower’s back,
as the other wall would constrain them in front. The distance between these two walls would
close until the person was perfectly lined up for
sagittal sensorimotor competency, and provide
the necessary constraint to keep the thorax
and head still, while the arms moved through
space. With such a device, the only tissues that
could be trained would be the scapular muscles and the humeral extension muscles, while
all non-targeted tissues would be suppressed
from the movement. In such a setup, people
could really focus on what was happening at
the arms. I would want to see the elbows go as
far back as they possibly can. I would want to
see the elbows stay as tight to the body as they
possibly can. I would want to see the hand supinate while they were pulling their arms back.
In lieu of such a human vice, the next
best thing to it is a chest support. For sagittal
plane rowing, I almost always tend to use chest
supported rows. This helps keep subjects in
the right position, so we can really load up the
exercise, and thereby drive fitness in this pattern. I tend not to use bent over rows, because
they provide a high level of axial loading and
stress, of which the athletes I train get plenty
from squatting, deadlifting, and Olympic lifts. Without a chest support piece of equipment, horizontal pull training potential and exercise
variation possibilities are both greatly reduced. If you do not have a chest support device or a
cable row, then all you’re left with for this realm
is sled pulls or bent over rows.
Using a sled for pulling is less optimal for
driving horizontal pulling fitness. Though the
sled is a higher progression in this model because there is less reference, fewer constraints,
and increased gravity management difficulty,
that doesn’t necessarily make it a super choice. The logistics of pulling a sled and having to
move with it make it cumbersome for doing consecutive repetitions in a timely manner, and the
device itself will not directly stress the horizontal
pulling muscles as much as a more traditional
row.
Unfortunately, maybe in part due to the
Functional Training craze, many gyms don’t
seem to believe that investing in a rowing device/machine is a good idea. My coaching
advice is that you are greatly lacking in your facility if you do not have rowing-specific devices. As a “divide and conquer” thinker, my conviction
is that, when it’s time to row, the best thing we
can do is choose a drill that lets someone row
very effectively. I am not looking to build my
subjects’ ability to hold an isometric RDL while
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rowing. I am not looking to improve their single
leg stance stabilizers while rowing. I want them
to row, and the rest can (and should) be done
independently of this exercise. Sagittal, Bilateral, Zone 2, Moderate Load,
Moderate Velocity, Moderate Duration
The exercise sequence for this category
will be the same as that presented for zone 1
drills, the difference here being the positioning
and the intent of the drills. As one rows the
implement back towards him or her, the hands
and the elbows will stay high, at the level of the
chest/shoulders. The focus will be on creating
internal rotation of the humerus, and pronation
of the hand.
Doing these drills properly should result in some
of the most remarkable mid-scapular muscle
contraction. These drills have the ability to provide the highest level of mid-back compression
we can possibly create. While I’m a huge fan of
these types of rows, when they are done wrong,
at best they are a waste of time, and, at worst,
could set the stage for anterior-superior shoulder impingement-related pain.
Make sure subjects can do zone 1 rows
first, and use table tests to verify that they possess a normal amount of humeral internal rotation before going to these zone 2 rows. Once
these prerequisites are in place, it is important
to follow the outlined sequence for implementing these sagittal plane, bilateral stance, zone
2, moderate load, moderate velocity, moderate
duration horizontal pull drills:
1. Seated chest supported machine row
2. Prone chest supported machine row
3. Seated cable row
4. 2 Hand sled pull (w/attachment)
5. Bent over row
Coaching Points
I’ve tried to coach these exercises in a
personal training setting many times, and found
them to be some of the more difficult exercises for subjects to understand. Every now and
then, I get a client with some level of movement
proficiency, who immediately understands and
loves them. I recognize that the lack of success here is mine, not my clients’. I’m failing to
follow my own rules.
Those who are unable to demonstrate sagittal
plane sensorimotor competency have about
a zero percent chance of doing these drills
properly. Getting personal training clients with
low levels of athleticism and self-awareness to
acquire sagittal competency is an enormous,
sometimes insurmountable challenge. Getting
such clients to keep their sagittal competence
while rowing and maintaining pronation and IR
is practically a divine act.
To sound like a broken record: if you are
going to do these drills right, you cannot rush
through them. This requires self-monitoring
throughout their execution, and, specifically,
simultaneous awareness of the hands and your
elbows. Someone who has put in the time to
become unconsciously competent in the sagittal
plane will possess this subconscious awareness, which will quietly aid them during these
drills. Someone who is properly prepared for
these rows and looking to maximize their effectiveness will benefit from certain cues that
I find very helpful. At the same time, giving
these same cues to a subject who lacks sagittal
competency will not help, but likely only leave
the subject feeling that the exercise is a waste
of his or her time. I try to start everyone on some kind of
chest-supported machine, where the implement that they are rowing is traveling on a fixed
track. I’ll have them use a double overhand
grip in a position where their hands are chest/
shoulder height. As they row the implement
back towards themselves, I’ll have them focus
on pulling down into the handle with the index
finger palm side knuckle, and the webbing between the index finger and the thumb. They will
use this pull of the hand to keep their elbows
up. It is a similar motion of the hand and arm to
the one employed when swimming with a crawlstyle stroke.
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The row itself should only come back to
about a 90-degree position, where the elbows
reach the level of the body. When subjects try
to bring the arms back farther than this, something breaks down somewhere. Usually, either
the body loses sagittal competence, or the
humerus begins rotating externally. For this
drill, my constant mantra is “ less is more”. Stay
in the pocket, and don’t worry about how far you
can go. When people adopt this approach, they
usually start to really feel the target muscles
much more, due to an increase in the desired
effect, and a reduction in undesired side effects.
Transverse, Bilateral, Moderate Load, Moderate Velocity, Moderate Duration
This realm of horizontal pulling might
be the purest expression of the pattern. This is
how you would try to start a lawnmower, or drag
something towards you if it were tied to a rope. The origins of some exercises in other realms
may be head-scratchers, but in this one, it is
pretty easy to see the similarities between these
and many common movements.
Drills in this category are primarily designed
to develop the strength of the pulling muscles
that would participate in actions where the
thorax is turning. In charting my progression
roadmap, I turn to the Big Ten Principles of
Progression. I want to start static, and within a
Zone of Competent ROM, before I worry about
doing anything big, dynamic, and with lots of
range. Based on this, our starting drills would
be alternating, unilateral, horizontal pulling
activities, where the subject resists moving the
sternum turning back and forth like that weathervane during the execution of the drill. With
this approach in the initial drills, I am looking to
create some dissociation between the ribs and
the sternum, and to create mirror asymmetry
between the two sides of the ribcage. Eventually, we would progress to drills that feature a
dynamic sternum.
The drills in this realm of training will follow a
sequence where we will first support the chest
in a seated position and then provide an unsup-
ported seated exercise. Next, we will perform a
chest-supported prone exercise, followed by an
unsupported prone exercise. The chest support
is very helpful for teaching how to prevent the
sternum from turning back and forth. If subjects
can learn this concept, and then demonstrate
it in an unsupported context, then they are in
possession of the prerequisites for advancing to
drills with a dynamic sternum. The following list
presents the progressive sequence for transverse plane, bilateral stance, moderate load,
moderate velocity, moderate duration horizontal
pulling exercises: 1. Seated chest supported alternating row
A. Machine (Keiser biaxial row)
B. Cables
2. Seated alternating row
A. Cables
3. Chest supported prone row
A. Cables
B. Dumbbells
4. Hand supported row on bench
Dumbbell
5. Bent over alternating row
A. Dumbbells
Coaching Points
The biggest challenges you’re going to
face in this realm will be enforcement of sagittal competency, as well as ensuring a static
sternum on drills where it should not turn. Once
someone masters these aspects, the rest
should be pretty smooth sailing. Word to the
wise: there’s quite a bit of coaching to do before
most folks can hold a sagittal plane with their
axial skeleton as a transverse plane force is
driven through their appendicular skeletons.
When I think about getting the thorax to
spin up top, the big key that jumps to mind is
keeping the pelvis in check, and keeping it still. The thorax is only rotating if other parts aren’t
following it as it turns back and forth. If the
pelvis simply follows the thorax, then nothing is
actually rotating, but, rather the whole body is
orienting to the left, and orienting to the right. Logically speaking, if something is going to be
changing position, something else needs to re-
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main fixed, to serve as a frame of reference for
the moving part. Consequently, possessing a
sagittally competent pelvis is foundational to the
proper execution of these drills.
head going for a ride with the body. We want
to dissociate the movements of the thorax from
the neck rather than locked up, resulting in “lego-like” movements. To help people gain a sagittally competent pelvis, I’ll often move their feet in specific
ways. My most common approach is to elevate the feet and move them forward while the
subject is seated. To accomplish this, I’ll usually put boxes under the feet, and then move
those boxes away from the subject. When you
do this, you’ll typically see the pelvis passively
move into more posterior tilt, and get positioned
more optimally under the thorax. Now, I’ll have
the subject imagine digging back with their
heels and reaching their knees forward. This
will give them some hamstrings, and it will set
them up to be able to expand their lower dorsal-rostral lungs. Once they’re properly positioned, they can begin performing the rowing
motion.
The hand-supported-on-bench dumbbell
row is a classic exercise that can be turned
into an absolute monster with the sensorimotor
competencies presented here. Performing a
really solid reach with the hand that stays on
the bench can truly maximize associated sagittal plane elements. We want to reach just up
to the point where the sternum does not down
pump handle. Going into a down pump handle
means needing to leverage rectus abdominis,
and that is not a muscle that will assist in the
transverse plane. Those able to keep a great
sternum position with a big reach on the bench,
and prevent the sternum from rotating on the
initial dumbbell row variations, will feel this
exercise lighting them up like a Christmas tree. I’ll often introduce this drill with tempo, and find
that many nail the concept and get stronger in
it, allowing us to successfully move forward.
I always enforce simultaneously moving
both hands with these rows. As one hand is
coming back, the other hand is going forward. When this occurs, subjects commonly report
that they experience significantly more muscular involvement compared to having one hand
stay straight out in front while the other hand
rows. Since maintenance of a static sternum is
a big focus with these drills, encouraging subjects to take their time with the row helps with
this. I highly recommend using a tempo at this
point. No matter how much we might tell folks
to go slower, speeding up seems to be a natural tendency with most repetitive tasks. When
the metronome comes out, and the seconds
are audibly clicking, the rower begins to receive
feedback on how fast he or she is going. When
rowers slow way down, it’s much easier to bring
their attention to their sternums.
Once at the point of a dynamic sternum,
the subject should be a highly competent mover. Now, they can stop overthinking the movement, and really attack the exercise. The one
thing to remain aware of is the position of the
head and neck. You want everyone to keep
their eyes forward, and you do not want the
As with all the horizontal rowing drills,
you should also keep in mind that you can feature the ER dominant, zone 1 rows, as well as
the IR-dominant, zone 2 rows. To take advantage of each zone, simply choose the appropriate handle for the implement, and position the
hand and elbow appropriately.
Since these drills are transverse plane
in nature, we are looking for mirror asymmetry
with the two sides of the ribcage. The side of
the ribcage of the hand that is rowing back is
the externally rotating side, and the side with
the hand going forward is the internally rotating
side. If you want to promote the ER concept for
that side of the body, you can magnify that by
supinating that hand and externally rotating that
humerus. Simultaneously, you can magnify the
IR side of the ribcage by pronating the reaching hand, and internally rotating that humerus. Adding in this element of the hands and arms
twisting in space can really take these drills to
the next level.
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Sagittal, Front/Back, Moderate Load,
Moderate Velocity, Moderate Duration
All of the drills done in this realm are performed from a standing position. You will either
be following a retro step concept or a forward
step concept. The retro step concept is easier, and would thus lead in the list or progressions. From the perspective of what is going on
with the lower body, the retro step concept fits
more in the realm akin to that of the single leg
squat, while the forward step concept is more
analogous to a split squat or a lunge. Perhaps
another way to think about this would be from
the perspective of how much weight is on each
foot. With the retro step, most of the weight is
distributed to the back foot. With a front foot-elevated split squat, weight is distributed fairly
evenly between both feet. With a level split
squat, more weight rests on the front foot. With
a rear foot-elevated split squat, the front foot is
also bearing most of the weight. The order of
progressions would go from most of the weight
on the back foot, and increase in difficulty to
where most of the weight is on the front foot. Since these drills are sagittal plane, we
will be rowing in the same direction, simultaneously with both hands. Being sagittal plane
horizontal row drills, the primary target tissues
are the mid-scapular muscles and the humeral
extenders. This also means that we can use
either zone 1 rowing variations or zone 2 rowing
variations.
When I think about this realm of fitness, I
wonder how many people really need to utilize
it. While these movements can certainly be
trained, I’m not sure how important they are. Perhaps there are some athletes that would
benefit from owning these positions while rowing, but they are likely a small group. When it
comes to sagittal rowing, I prefer to put folks in
a stable position and let them focus on pulling
with competence and driving pulling fitness. The following is the sequence of progressions
for sagittal plane, front/back stance, moderate
load, moderate velocity, moderate duration horizontal pulling:
1. Retro Step
A. Cables
B. 2 Hand Sled Pull (w/attachment)
2. Forward Step w/Rear foot on wall
A. Cables
B. 2 Hand Sled Pull (w/attachment)
3. Forward Step
A. Cables
B. 2 Hand Sled Pull (w/attachment)
Coaching Points
These standing horizontal pulling exercises are a major core challenge, so doing them
requires being highly competent with sagittal
control of one’s thorax and pelvis. Also, keep
in mind that these drills are more likely to challenge core control than they do pulling strength.
I would not be too much of a stickler on
perfection in either zone 1 or zone 2 with the
humeral mechanics. As the coach, you’re going
to have your hands full in terms of the subject’s
ability to maintain axial skeleton position, that
actual pulling competency will be the icing on
the cake.
My best coaching advice is that this
realm of fitness is likely more trouble to use
than its worth. As impressive as these drills
might look on Instagram, their chances of actually creating favorable adaptations are somewhere between slim and none. If it’s adaptations you’re after, I recommend keeping your
sagittal horizontal pulling squarely in the bilateral stance category. Frontal, Front/Back, Moderate Load,
Moderate Velocity, Moderate Duration
To reiterate, I don’t personally find a justification
for ever including these drills. If I want to develop frontal plane muscles of the pelvis, I am
going to do this with core exercises, and frontal
plane knee dominant and hip dominant exercises. If I want to develop rowing muscles, I will
row with a bilateral stance sagittal plane variation. I advise you to divide and conquer rather
than jamming two perfectly good concepts into
one concept that becomes a no man’s land drill.
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All of that said, I have included them
here for those who understand these concepts
but find them more useful than I do. I also have
these exercises demonstrated in the Coach’s
Guide to Optimizing Movement exercise database. In the spirit of open-mindedness, I
want to allow for the possibility that there is a
great benefit to these drills, and they are highly functional… and that I may not have all the
answers. For those of you who want to try them
out, here is the sequence of drills for frontal
plane, front/back stance, moderate load, moderate velocity, moderate duration horizontal pulling exercises: 1. Retro Step w/hip shift bilateral row
A. Cables
B. 2 Hand Sled Pull (w/attachment)
2. Forward Step w/hip shift bilateral row
A. Back foot on wall cables
B. Cables
C. 2 Hand Sled Pull (w/attachment)
Coaching Points
There is a lot to monitor here. One
needs to be able to get into a staggered stance
(either a retro step or forward step), center over
a stance foot, hip shift into the stance foot side,
and then maintain all that while rowing with
competence. To help center and hip shift, I’ll
cue subjects to “load the stance side foot more
and more as you unload the non-stance side
foot more and more”. This is the same cue we
used when we were talking about heel taps
in the core pelvis section of this book. More
than any other cue, the objective of making the
stance-side foot as heavy as possible and the
other foot as light as possible will do a better job
of centering and hip-shifting people.
I am not a huge fan of upper body resistance exercise with sleds. I have included
sleds in these sections simply because they are
technically options, though I must reiterate that
I find them extremely limited compared to other
implements for rowing. For one thing, sleds
only provide an overcoming stimulus. For another, because their resistance is largely based
on a friction coefficient, you need the same sled
on the same surface all the time to know if you
are making progress. The sled also requires
you to move and set your body up prior to every
single repetition. If you disagree with these
criticisms, that’s fine. We in the fitness industry
spend a good amount of time arguing with each
other over preferences, while we agree on the
main points. The best we can hope for is to
gain an appreciation for each other’s reasoning, and peacefully agree or disagree, without forming factions and tribes that harbor animosity
towards one another. Transverse, Front/Back, Moderate Load,
Moderate Velocity, Moderate Duration
As you may have noticed, this horizontal pulling chapter is an interesting one, in that
it’s largely composed of realms that I don’t find
particularly applicable. I really like transverse
plane horizontal pulling, and actually think that’s
the best way to train the pattern. I also really
like front/back stance activities. I just don’t like
them combined, the same way I like peanut
butter and mackerel only separately. For my money, all upper body pushing
and pulling should generally be done in a bilateral stance. If you are going to be able to
create an appropriate force to drive a training
stimulus, you need to have the lower body and
pelvis in the most stable possible state, in order
to provide a foundation for the upper body to
work from. As soon as the base of support is
reduced and the difficulty of keeping the body
stable is thereby increased, the ability of the
upper body to create force is significantly impaired.
If you believe that this is a critical area of fitness
for you or for those that you work with, below is
my personal sequence for how I would develop
this realm of fitness. All of these drills have to
be done from a standing place, and you have
the retro step and forward step options available to you. With the forward step, you can
support the back foot on a wall, or keep it free
in space. The following list is the sequence of
progressions for transverse plane, front/back
stance, moderate load, moderate velocity, mod-
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erate duration horizontal pulling:
1. Retro Step Alternating Row
A. Cables
B. Sled drag
2. Forward Step Alternating Row
A. Rear foot on wall cables
B. Cables
C. Sled drag
3. Forward Step w/hip shift, Alternating Row
A. Rear foot on wall cables
B. Cables
C. Sled drag
Coaching Points
If you are going to develop the transverse plane of the thorax with these pulling variations, you need to secure the pelvis effectively
in the sagittal plane. The sagittal plane-competent pelvis will allow for the rotating thorax to be
able to dissociate from it during these drills. If
the pelvis lacks sagittal competency, then it will
simply turn with the thorax, and the body will be
orienting left and right, as opposed to having
segments break up, facilitating true rotation at
the ribcage, which we are attempting to target.
As noted, we want to first teach subjects to
keep the sternum still, and only once that’s
mastered should we move on to demonstrating
a dynamic sternum. This follows the same explanation as was provided earlier in the bilateral
stance, transverse horizontal pulling section of
this chapter. We are seeking dissociation as
our primary goal so that we do not just promote
wild turning that lacks fluidity of motion.
Frontal and Transverse, Lateral, Moderate
Load, Moderate Velocity, Moderate Duration
This final realm of horizontal pulling is
the ultimate example of something that exists
but doesn’t seem worth bothering with. These
drills place subjects in the most difficult stance
for frontal plane competencies, and on top of
that, you have to execute either sagittal plane or
transverse plane rowing. In aggregate, that is
really hard to do.
Impressive exercises aren’t necessarily synonymous with being worthwhile for advancing
fitness. Instagram is packed with fitness professionals posting evidence of the former, but
largely devoid of the latter, aka, capacity for
driving training adaptations. We are bombed
with videos of people jumping on insanely high
boxes, and squatting on unstable surfaces. We
see people punching people in the stomach
while they’re doing hanging leg raises. We see
people playing catch with barbells. We see all
kinds of “hard to do stupid human tricks”. We
marvel at them, maybe because the majority
of us can’t do them. The problem with these
displays is that they promote beliefs that these
activities are worthwhile pursuits for gaining
fitness.
I wrote something up years ago saying
that I thought handstands were a poor training
choice for people looking to improve their overhead barbell pressing strength, and creating
postural changes. Handstands are less specific
for the task of overhead pressing than actually
pressing barbells overhead, and they are really
difficult positions in which to find sensorimotor
competencies. If your goal is to improve at
handstands, then handstands are a great drill. If your goal is to improve at anything other than
handstands, then handstands themselves aren’t
an optimal choice. To me, the stance I took
on this particular subject seemed reasonable,
moderate, and logical to me then, just as it does
today. I was amazed at the backlash that came
at me for this particular statement. What I was
particularly struck by was the emotional attachment that my attackers apparently felt towards
handstands. Apparently, handstand workshops and
seminars are a very common and popular thing
in the fitness and yoga worlds. Attendees will
invest their time, money, and persistent efforts
to learn how to do handstands. I suppose this
kind of investment often fosters an emotional
attachment. As a species, we also possess
a bias that if something is difficult to master, it
must be important and worthwhile. Unfortunately, this is a logical fallacy.
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It took me a long time and an incredible
amount of effort to conceptualize and articulate
the model described in this book. The knowledge of what really underpins the frontal and
transverse planes from a mechanical standpoint
was information that I struggled to find, understand, and master from a coaching standpoint. In many ways, I want that information to be
important all the time and in all ways. In reality, what I continue to learn over time is that if I
am able to step away from my biases, listen to
people with dissenting opinions from mine, analyze a topic from all possible sides, and then try
to objectively look at the facts, I may see that,
what I used to think was gospel is actually full
of holes. I have to be okay with accepting the
truth, no matter how much it hurts to admit that I
didn’t always have or preach it. In this author’s
opinion, this realm of fitness, involving a lateral
stance and pulling layered on top of it, is something that would be incredibly impressive to
demonstrate, but ultimately not very worthwhile
for driving adaptations in the body.
optimal starting position is half the battle of executing them.
If you do want to go down this road, the
following list reflects my recommendations for
how to progress in this area of fitness. There
is one drill for being in a lateral stance with a
sagittal-plane horizontal pull, and there is one
drill for being in a lateral stance with a transverse-plane horizontal pull. The following is the
sequence for progressing frontal and transverse
plane, lateral stance, moderate load, moderate
velocity, moderate duration horizontal pulling: Dominant Position and Fitness Realms:
1. Lateral stance standing w/hip shift, bilateral
row
A. Cables
B. 2 Hand sled pull (w/attachment)
2. Lateral stance standing w/hip shift,
alternating row (transverse)
A. Cables
B. Sled Drag
Coaching Points
To maximize the hip shift in the lateral
stance, I recommend the aforementioned strategy of maximally loading the stance-side foot,
while unloading the other foot. Assuming the
Your best chance to get into a proper hip shift
is while rowing back with the hand on the same
side as the stance-side foot. Use that time to
truly maximize the hip shift. Now, the challenge
is to stay in the hip shift while rowing back with
the non-stance side hand. And that’s one heck
of a challenge.
Again, the primary training challenge with
such an endeavor is essentially a core exercise, which means the strength of the rowing
muscles isn’t the rate-limiting factor for these
drills. Rather, core control and ability to maintain proper position is the rate limiter with everything in this realm. My advice is simple: do core
exercises to challenge the core, and do pulling
exercises to challenge the pulling muscles of
the body. Labeling this type of exercise core
exercise for simplicity’s sake and calling it a day
seems appropriate to me. Dominant Stance: Bilateral
Dominant Plane: Transverse
Dominant Load: Moderate
Dominant Velocity: Moderate
This may be the only point in this book where
I didn’t go “full meathead” in one of the resistance training patterns. Maybe I have succumbed to the peer pressure coming from the
Functional Fitness people in our industry, or
wanted to be different? Na, I don’t think so. When I think about contact sports and combat
sports, where pulling and manipulating an opponent is a major factor in the play, this strikes me
as the essence of this pattern for our species. Wrestlers or judo or jiu-jitsu fighters are always
trying to get their opponents off balance, to be
able to take them down and score points. To
accomplish this, maneuvers involving simultaneous pushing on one side and pulling on
the other are typically employed. These quick,
rotational attack moves are a critical component
of takedown moves in sports with the objective
of bringing down one’s opponent to the ground.
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The other place we see this kind of thing is in
activities aimed at dragging objects towards us,
the way firefighters do with hoses or strongmen
do during dragging events. These powerful
rotational efforts are our species’ most forceful
attempts at dragging something towards us. In
the change of direction chapter, we looked at
how the lateral stance is always chosen when
running a change of direction course as speed. If you had to pull something towards you with
maximal force and speed, you would always
use an approach where you would twist your
body back and forth and go hand over hand. This is the reason this method receives the tip
of the hat for dominant style in this pattern.
16
Vertical Push
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Vertical Push
Chapter 16
I competed in the sport of Strongman in
the 175 pound weight class, and I was pretty
good. I competed in two U.S. National Championship events, finishing top 10 both times, and
I competed at two Arnold Sports Festival World
Championship contests, finishing top ten once. In all of these competitions,I would typically be
dead last or close to it in the overhead press
event, requiring me to excel at all the other
events to give myself any kind of chance.
It was always the lockout I struggled with. I just
couldn’t get my arms straight overhead. Even
when they were pressed to the maximal degree
overhead, my elbows always looked bent. With
any kind of body weight demonstration involving
getting my arms overhead, they would sufficiently approach the full 180 degrees of shoulder flexion, and my elbows would stubbornly
flex whenever I tried to get up there.
Of course, the simple story police came out
with their recommendations. Everyone and their
mother would say that I needed to stretch more. Being fairly, I took this hypothesis to the ex-
treme. I typically performed somewhere around
15 hours of yoga per week, and when I was at
home, I would lay on the ground and trap my
arms to the ground with weights in an overhead
position. If I want to win at something, I will do
everything in my power to do so. If I need to
stretch more to get my arms into the position required to get better at overhead pressing, then I
will stretch until my lats fall off.
I believe a “movement” practice is valuable for
most of us. I did a lot of focused breathing, and
feeling my body in positions. I learned a lot
from a sensory experience standpoint. Everything has been part of the journey that has put
me where I am. But, if you can believe it, none
of it did anything to improve my overhead position for lifting. I also tried just doing more overhead pressing. I figured simply spending more time doing that
activity would strengthen all the right muscles. I would try to really extend the lockout portion
of the lift to work the tissues specifically at that
point. I always did extra reps and extra sessions focused purely on technique for the weakest of my weak points.
I found that every time I tried to spend more
time practicing overhead drills, or increasing
overhead volume, I inevitably experienced
increased pain. The typical sites for it were
the supero-medial border of my right scapula,
my left SI, my left coraco-clavicular junction, or
tension headaches in my right temple. I have
a decent pain tolerance, so I’d simply push
through most of it. The problem was that, when
pain increased substantially, it decreased my
motion and strength capabilities as a result, and
such decreases aren’t associated with positive
training outcomes.
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The thing I found really fascinating was that I
could watch my pressing prowess get worse as
the angle of the press went up. I had a decent
bench press. I had an average incline press. I
had a tragically bad overhead press. And no
explanation for this ever really made sense,
until I heard Bill Hartman explain his propulsion
arc. That was the biggest light bulb moment I
have had in years and years, and this light bulb
keeps on lighting up as I witness it play out over
and over again.
In that model, the only way I’m going to be able
to finish getting my arms up through the zone
3, at between 120 and 180 degrees of flexion,
is to create sufficient expansion in the upper
dorsal-rostral area. If that expansion happens,
then the spine can be in the right position to
predispose the ribcage for the right position
to nudge the scapula into the right position to
finally place the humerus in the right position to
appropriately get overhead.
When I see pictures or videos of myself, I can
very clearly see the upper posterior compression that is always present. It kind of looks like
there is an invisible person behind me pushing
my suboccipital region forward in space, as if
my head always wants to be out in front of my
body. It sort of looks like my pelvis, where if
I am wearing a belt, the buckle is about four
or five inches lower than the back of the belt.
That belt buckle situation is one created by a
large amount of lower posterior compression
that drives my superior sacrum way forward in
space.
My body knows how to get wide. My body
knows how to create compression. Everything
about me fits with what defines compression. I’m good at compression. So, when all you
can do is compress, and you meet the expansion-centric vertical pushing pattern, you have
run face first into your personal kryptonite.
Anatomical Considerations
To get overhead, you need to be able
to get into zone 3 of the propulsion arc for the
upper extremity. To review, zone 1 is the region
where we expand posteriorly into the lower
dorsal-rostrum, and zone 2 is where we expand
anteriorly and create a pump handle up position
of the sternum. Zone 3 is where we expand
posteriorly, at the level of the upper dorsal
rostral space. When I am expanding anteriorly
during zone 2, I am maintaining zone 1. When
I am expanding posteriorly during zone 3, I am
maintaining zones 1 and 2. To get the arms to
go fully overhead, I have to maximally fill the
canister of the thorax with air. The only way to
fill the whole canister is to begin at the bottom,
and progressively fill it to the top, just like filling
a glass with water.
If I am filling the thorax with air, I am
filling the pelvis with fluid. They will always work
together. I have a pump in the thorax called the
diaphragm. I have a pump in the pelvis called
a pelvic floor. They move in the same direction
at the same time. On an inhale, the air is coming into the thorax. The air is able to come in,
because the thoracic diaphragm is descending
and flattening out from its starting domed position. As the thoracic diaphragm descends, it
pushes the viscera and abdominal fluid downward. As the viscera and abdominal fluid pushes downward, it occupies increasingly more
of the pelvic space. In order to allow for this
matter to take up a greater amount of residence
inside this space, the pelvic bones and pelvic
floor have to move. The pelvic bones are only
moving just a few degrees, but that is all that
is needed. The superior innominate will flex,
abduct, and externally rotate during the inhale
(aka, nutate), and the sacrum will counter-nutate on the inhale. The pelvic floor will descend.
Just as the thorax fills with air, the pelvis
has to fill with fluid from the bottom to the top. Fluid gets pushed down into the pelvis during
the inhale, and pushes the pelvic floor down
into an eccentric orientation. Full expansion at
the lowest part of the pelvis necessitates expansion at the coccyx. This is the equivalent of
lower dorsal-rostral expansion at the thorax. As
the pelvis continues to fill, anterior expansion at
the pubic symphysis follows. This is the equiv-
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alent of pump handle up at the sternum. As
the pelvis gets fuller, we expect to see posterior expansion at the upper sacrum. This is the
equivalent of upper dorsal-rostral expansion at
the thorax.
If I can get the upper sacrum to expand
posteriorly, it sets the right relationship between
the superior sacrum and the facets of L5, so as
to allow the lumbar curve to express a true, relative lordotic curve of 30 degrees. If I can get
upper dorsal-rostral expansion, this creates the
right relationship between T1 and C7, so as to
allow the cervical curve to express a true relative lordotic curve of 30 degrees. Those two 30
degree curves are the axial skeleton markers
for an optimal sagittal plane.
This is one theme towards which this whole
book has been building. Darwin recognized
that going upright on two legs was the adaptation that catalyzed all subsequent changes
which produced modern humans. When we
look at the big skeletal differences between
humans and chimps, one of the most striking
ones is that chimps lack the lumbar and cervical lordotic curves displayed by humans. As
a result of this, chimps cannot go upright and
move with the fluidity that humans can. Chimps
cannot expand the lower and upper posterior
pelvis, or the lower and upper posterior thorax
when they are in a bipedal position. As a result,
chimps are pitched forward, and have to rely on
a quadruped strategy. Chimps would struggle
tremendously trying to do a fully upright overhead press.
So if, like me, you or some of your training subjects can’t go fully overhead, now you
have a prehistoric glimpse as to why. The next
question becomes what to do about it. The
answer to that is to try to unlock associated
motions, and the place to go for that is back
to breathing strategies and core exercises. Wide infrasternal angle individuals need to use
high pressure exhales, with a smaller mouth
opening. Narrow infrasternal angle individuals
need to use low pressure exhales, with a larger
mouth opening.
For wide folks, start with drills in
zone 1. Feature supination of the
hands and external rotation of
the arms. You might be amazed
at how effective zone 1 drills are for improving
overhead motion. For those who are wide and
have mastered zone 1, now go to zone 3. In
zone 3, again, feature supination of the hands
and external rotation of the arms. If someone
can master zone 3 drills positionally, and with
proper breathing strategies, his or her overhead
motion should improve dramatically.
For narrow folks, start in zone 2, as they
naturally will have more success in expansion-based regions. That said, there are also
plenty of narrow individuals walking around with
compressed upper dorsal-rostral regions. In
fact, this upper posterior compression is going
to be something that you’ll see relentlessly,
once you know to look for it. So, if you have
narrows who do not achieve full shoulder flexion
even after zone 2 core exercises are mastered,
move them to zone 3 drills, and that should do
the trick.
Note that it doesn’t pay to press one’s way out
of poor motion. A more successful strategy
is to master the motion first, and then work
on strengthening overhead pressing strength
with appropriate drills. In his book, Movement,
Gray Cook analogizes the proper approach to
retraining patterns to opening a window and
then moving through it. This is an analogy that I
really love. Think of not being able to get overhead with your arms as a closed window. Step
one would be to open the window. Any method
that opens the window is great. But, simply
opening the window is not enough. Now that
you have opened it, you have to go through the
window, and you have to do something on the
other side. If you do not, that window will simply reclose again in future.
When working with a closed shoulder flexion
window, overhead pressing could be the tool to
open it… but probably not the best tool. The
mechanism of getting the arm overhead is
what was presented in the propulsion arc model here. According to this model, the highest
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probability window openers for this situation
are well-executed core exercises, with skeleton
type-specific breathing strategies. Once we
open the window, we now need to go through it,
by doing drills that develop strength and fitness
in the overhead position.
The catch with doing drills on the other
side of this window is that, if you do inappropriate drills beyond the competency level of the
individual you are working with, he or she will
be immediately blown back through the window, which may slam shut, bringing you back
to square one. As such, it’s critical to know the
appropriate starting place on the other side of
the window. That is where the sensorimotor
competencies come into play. If one can hold
onto those competencies while doing overhead
pressing, he or she will increase the likelihood
that the window will stay open, as well as pave
the way for the activities that can take place on
the other side.
Doing enough activities on the other side of the
window will create a new dominant response
strategy. Going forward, this will simply be how
one does things. This is the basis of neuroplasticity and learning overall: enough reps of the
right kind will cement the technique used for
all reps. Eventually, this window will be open
by default, and closing it will in fact be difficult. Some may not need to do any core drills, because they’ve successfully removed the motion
constraint they were facing. For others, the
window may not stay open by default, or not
widely enough to go through it at will, so as to
play on the other side. Once through it, these
folks may be doing all the right things to keep
it open, but, for some reason, it keeps on closing on them. This illustrates the importance of
measuring. If someone is routinely limited in
overhead capabilities, it may be worth quickly
putting him or her on a table and seeing what
that person’s flexion, extension, IR, ER, abduction, and adduction look like. If limitations are
uncovered, find some drills that quickly remove
them, so the subject can progress to training
the pattern with full movement expression.
If one is training overhead pushing
patterns, there are all kinds of great tissues
to develop. Beyond the deltoids and triceps,
the two most obvious muscle groups that are
associated with vertical pushing, however, we
have all the scapular muscles implicated in
upward rotation, that would also be subject to
adaptation. Muscles like the serratus anterior,
low trap, and mid-scapular muscles are heavily
recruited during overhead pressing activities. These are all great tissues to train and develop, though I take a cautious approach when it
comes to overhead pressing for most people.
Athletes like weightlifters, crossfitters, and
strongman athletes are required to go overhead
with weight by their sports, and will therefore
benefit from going deep into some of the progressions for this pattern. For everyone else, I
deem this pattern is purely elective.
Risk versus reward analysis can help us answer
whether any given individual can benefit from
this pattern. The reward from going overhead
with weight is getting more overall development
of the upper body muscles, possibly creating
a more resilient shoulder complex, and getting
more training variation, and possibly greater
adaptations.
What are some of the risks? This pattern requires a lot of biomechanical prerequisites
to execute correctly, potentially necessitating
excessive training of the body parts involved
therein, at the opportunity cost of training others. In her textbooks, Shirley Sahrmann notes
that a mechanical driver of what could result in
pain is excessive secondary motions of a joint. Every joint has its primary physiological motion,
but most joints have secondary and tertiary motions. For instance, the lumbar spine primarily
moves through flexion and extension, but can
also rotate and side bend. When it is frequently and excessively rotating, that tends to ride
along with greater pain associations. When
most folks overhead press, they typically employ countless compensations. Their heads are
contorting, their neck will twist and turn, their
ribs flare, their low backs arch, their pelvises tip,
and their feet spin out. Most overhead presses
end up resembling standing back-bend bench
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presses more than they do actual vertical push
maneuvers.
The sensorimotor competencies exist so that
we reduce the risk of detrimental side effects of
exercise. Recall that this “smart drug” approach
to exercise technique increases the probability
of training the primary physiological motion of a
joint, honing in on the appropriate target tissues, and reducing the secondary physiological
motion of joints that we don’t want to be affected. If one moves shoulder flexion into a place
where one has full range, and can demonstrate
adequate core control from a sagittal competency perspective, he or she will do just fine including vertical pressing into an intelligent program
design. Chances are, however, that the people
you work with will rarely demonstrate these underlying capabilities to you. And, if they do not,
my advice is to hedge your bets, and limit how
deep you go into the progressions for these
drills.
Training the Vertical Push Pattern
Available Options:
Available Planes: Sagittal and Frontal
Available Stances: Bilateral and Front/
Back
Available Loads: All
Available Velocities: All
Available Durations: All
Sagittal, Bilateral, Non-Ballistic, Moderate to
High Load, Low to Moderate Velocity, Short
to Moderate Duration
There are two groups of sagittal plane,
bilateral stance vertical push exercises:
non-ballistic or ballistic variations. The non-ballistic exercises are your classical press exercises, and the ballistic exercises are the Olympic
lifting variations. This section will cover the
non-ballistic presses. Overhead pressing is one
of the most classical tests of strength that we
have as a species. The Press used to be a part
of Olympic weightlifting, and a lot of strongman
competitors still use more of a press variation
rather than a jerk for their overhead lifts with
bars, logs, and other implements.
I almost always include something from
this realm of pressing in my subject’s programs, regardless of their fitness goals or sport
of choice. Many will only ever be prescribed
number one and/or two in the progression list. Number one is an incline dumbbell press, which
some may argue isn’t truly a vertical pushing
exercise. I would counter with the fact that, if
we measured most people on a table, it is as
close to vertical as the shoulder motion capabilities of most allow. The incline dumbbell press
offers the benefits and adaptations that would
live in the vertical pushing pattern (as distinct
from those that would be offered by an incline
press in the horizontal pushing pattern), and
sidesteps unwanted side effects.
If I move beyond incline variations for a specific person, it is usually because of one of the
following reasons. Reason one is when I’m
working with an athlete that competes in sports
involving overhead lifts. Reason two is because
I am working with someone who has high-level aesthetic goals. Developing one’s deltoids
and upper traps to the highest possible levels
requires the programming of vertical pushing. Other athletes and general/health-driven personal training clients stay in the incline press
world. The following list is the sequence of sagittal plane, bilateral stance, non-ballistic, moderate to high load, low to moderate velocity, short
to moderate duration vertical push exercises:
1. Incline DB
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2. Incline Barbell
3. Long seated Barbell overhead (unless the
subject is very weak, then switch 3 and 4)
4. Long seated DB overhead
5. Seated Barbell overhead
6. Seated DB overhead
7. Standing Barbell overhead
8. Standing DB overhead
Coaching Points
My coaching for vertical pushing is less
a To Do list and more a To Not Do list. I do not
want to see the head shoot too far forward of
the body. I do not want to see the front of the
thorax fly up and forward. I do not want to see
a huge arch in the lower back. I do not want to
see the pelvis tip way forward.
I really like seated variations of overhead
pressing with a backrest. For instance, I’ll do a
lot of stuff in the long seated position (seated on
the ground with legs straight out in front of you)
with the person’s back up against a box. The
box provides a reference for where the thorax
is in space. I want the sacrum pushed right
up against the box, and the middle and upper
back against the box. If subjects can hold those
points of contact, then I feel really good about
their motor competency in the sagittal plane
during this exercise.
By now, you won’t be surprised to hear that I
would always choose a backrest over throwing
subjects into exercises where their thoraxes are
free in space. Because the backrest provides a
really critical reference, it helps subjects control
their bodies in space, which is of greater initial
interest to me than the amount of weight they
can move through space.
When doing more standard seated overhead
presses, I’ll also frequently elevate my subjects’
feet with boxes, which passively brings the
pelvis in further under the body. This ensures a
strong starting position for the exercise, which
subjects then need to maintain while actually doing the exercise. If we’re not starting off
in the right position, the odds of achieving it
mid-exercise are slim to none.
The sticking point on vertical presses is
about halfway up, somewhere around the ears
or top of the head. Once this point is hurdled,
we’re typically good to go for the finish. At this
halfway point, it’s important to be particularly
cognizant of mechanical breakdowns. If you
see things starting to fall apart in that zone of
the movement, my advice is not to fight through
too many of those reps. While there is some
upside to getting them in, there is also a downside.
In training, we’re better off accumulating
a greater number of sets that retain mechanical
proficiency but stop short of technical breakdown than accumulating a smaller number
of sets where we go to and beyond technical
breakdown to carry the set to failure. The long
game of consistency and adherence is the surest road towards long term success. Hot shots
who sell out on every set are a flash in the pan.
Long term training success is about burying the ego, which, incidentally, is probably the
biggest contributor to training-based injuries. Cutting a set short of failure requires a tempering of one’s ego. Strict adherence to a motion,
initially facilitated with use of low loads, requires the same. As does resisting the urge to
progress load, or reps, or sets on an exercise,
knowing that there’s more work to do towards
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fully competent exercise execution. If we can
tune down ego-driven emotions like competitiveness, jealousy, pride and vanity, we’re likely
to increase our likelihood of long term success. Make strict rules for movement execution. Do
not deviate from those rules while you are training - either yourself or others. Be honest with
yourself. If you trust the process of doing things
right, you’ll be amazed at how far you can go.
Sagittal, Bilateral, Ballistic, Moderate to High
Load, High Velocity, Short to Moderate
Duration
This realm of exercise involves some of
the overhead lifts associated with the sport of
weightlifting. The list of progressions will look
somewhat similar to something you might find
in a USA Weightlifting (USAW) manual, but
there are some significant differences. The
biggest difference between some of the traditional models, and what you’ll see here, is that
progressions 1 and 3 both involve a device that
will not go straight overhead. Instead, these
progressions feature pressing something more
at the angle to an incline press.
The Pentagon bar refers to placing
“The Pentagon” attachment onto a barbell that
is placed inside a Landmine unit. This setup
allows a barbell to be swinging through the air
at an arc that enables pressing at an angle that
is not purely vertical. For those who lack the
shoulder flexion ROM, and cannot go completely overhead, using The Pentagon attachment
is a great modification. The Pentagon attachment has swiveling handles that allow the grip
to change between neutral and overhand in a
smooth rotating manner. This device is especially versatile and valuable for teaching these
overhead positions, and training in a ballistic
fashion.
Pressing the Keiser Air Squat machine
provides a similar angle as the Pentagon bar. The Air Squat machine moves on an arc, and
can be easily adapted for pressing instead of
squatting, by placing the hands under the pads
normally intended to go on top of the shoulders,
and pressing instead of squatting the machine. For many populations, doing these ballistic
overhead drills on either the Pentagon bar or
the Air Squat can be a major joint saver compared to doing similar movements via a purely
vertical vector.
Whenever I’m teaching any kind of Olympic drill, I’ll start by teaching either the beginning
or the ending part of the lift. Likewise, in these
bilateral stance ballistic variations, we’ll start
by looking at the beginning of the lift, then fast
forward to the end of the lift, and, finally, we’ll
circle back to the middle.
The push press is the first variation introduced. It demands that the lifter dip, drive, and finish
the press in a catch position, standing fully
straight. There is no squat-under phase for a
catch with the push press. After the push press,
the focus shifts to how to execute the end of the
lift. In teaching the catch and recovery, it’s very
common to start with an overhead squat. This
is the most static arm action one can demonstrate, and it gets subjects used to the demands
of squatting in the overhead catch position. Following competency in the overhead squat,
the lifter moves on to jerk recoveries, where the
bar is positioned in a rack at a height that would
be about the height of a power catch. The
athlete mimics pushing him or herself under
the bar, as they would during an actual power
jerk. Next, the athlete gets into a great power
position with overhead lockout catch, and then
stands the bar up, finishing the jerk recovery
move. With the jerk balance, the athlete appropriately positions him or herself at the start, with
the bar in a front rack position. From there, he
or she quickly descends under the barbell, and
gets into a squat-under catch position as fast as
possible. With the jerk balance, there is no dip
and drive phase. The focus of the jerk balance
is on how quickly one can get under the bar and
into an appropriate catch position. All of these
drills have a bias towards preparing the lifter for
the second half of the exercise.
The Pentagon bar and Keiser Air Squat variations aside, the other drills are fairly standard
overhead weightlifting progressions. The drills
go from overhead lockout with a static arm po-
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sition, to drills involving rapidly squatting under
the bar, and catching the bar with no preceding
drive phase, to drills involving a dip and drive
phase prior to squatting under the bar (progressively deeper) and catching in a locked-out,
overhead position. The following list is the sequence of sagittal plane, bilateral stance, ballistic, moderate to high load, high velocity, short to
moderate duration vertical push exercises:
1. Push press w/Pentagon bar or Keiser Air
Squat
2. Push press
3. Overhead Pentagon bar or Keiser Air Squat
squat
4. Overhead squat
5. Power jerk recoveries
6. Squat jerk recoveries
7. Behind the neck jerk balance
8. Jerk balance
9. Power jerk
10. Squat jerk
Coaching Points
Many of the important elements regarding the science and practice of these ballistic
overhead lifts was covered in the triple extension chapter of this book. Rather than reiterate
those here, I’d like to cover a few basic, very
important elements required for proficiency with
power jerks and squat jerks.
As mentioned, the major phases of the
power jerk and the squat jerk are the dip, drive,
squat-under, catch, and recovery. The lift begins at the front rack position. In the front rack,
athletes should have the barbell in their hands,
but the primary weight of the barbell should be
on the front of the shoulders. To accomplish
this, athletes should allow the elbows to come
up in front of them, similar to where they would
be positioned in a front squat, but slightly lower,
to provide for a better angle for the overhead
drive. A nice tall position of the body in the setup is what we’re after.
Once the athlete is set up and ready to initiate
the movement, the first action is to dip down. To do this dip movement, the athlete flexes at
the hips, knees, and ankles, while keeping the
thorax highly vertically oriented. Keeping the
weight centered over the midfoot rather than
through the heels can be very helpful for maintaining a very upright body. The dip is not a
large motion of maybe 5 or 6 inches, as opposed to dropping into a half-squat. The main
features of the dip are that it should be very
fast, and that the body should be rigidly held
in a tall position throughout its duration. The
ability to maintain a concentric orientation of the
pelvic floor and other relevant muscles during
this yielding action is the key to being able to
execute the technical elements of this phase.
The drive begins the moment the dip ends. This phase entails exploding vertically with the
greatest possible thrust. To create this vertical
thrust, the athlete creates triple extension with
the lower extremity at the ankle, knee, and hip. The ability to quickly stop the dip, and redirect
the body and external load in the opposite direction is the key component of the drive phase. When athletes can quickly decelerate, then stop
the dip and reverse the action, they are able to
capture and use elastic energy to help power
this action. The combined force coming from
elastic and contractile protein tension can create substantial propulsion, significantly more so
than just contractile protein alone. As such, the
speed of capture and release of elasticity is the
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key to a great drive phase. As you’ll remember,
this concept of the amortization phase within
the viscoelastic model of the stretch-shortening cycle was covered extensively in the triple
extension chapter of this book. As we also
established, in order to be able to create this
quick deceleration and reversal, the athlete
needs to be able to hold a concentric orientation
of the pelvic floor and relevant muscles during
the yielding phase. When implicated muscles
maintain a concentric orientation, the transition
from yielding to overcoming can be very rapid,
which allows for said utilization of elastic energy.
With the drive phase, the athlete is essentially
trying to jump as high as possible with a barbell
on his or her shoulders. The drive phase continues up until the point where the barbell has
been launched overhead, with maximal vertical
propulsion. At a certain point in the barbell’s
flight, the athlete switches from the drive to the
squat under phase of the lift. Here, the athlete
has to shift from driving the barbell upwards to
squatting down under it.
Before the barbell is caught overhead, the athlete’s feet should first be on the ground. When
catching something heavy, it certainly helps to
have one’s feet firmly on the ground, which provides a foundation without which the chances of
cleanly catching the bar are very slim.
When watching an athlete catch a jerk overhead, you want to see the barbell directly over
the midfoot. The ankles, knees, and hips will be
flexed to the point where the athlete catches the
barbell in a quarter-squat position in a power
jerk, or in a full squat position in a squat jerk. We want a tall axial skeleton in the catch position. In an ideal catch, the nose, sternum, and
pubic symphysis should all be aimed forward
at the horizon in concert. We do not want an
exaggerated amount of anterior pelvic tilt in the
catch, or an excessive amount of the sternum
being aimed up. All three bones being level is
the optimal arrangement.
The athlete has to be able to create an incredible amount of tension through the lower ex-
tremity, pelvis, and thorax to be able to catch
a heavy barbell in a power or squat jerk. The
goal is to stop the barbell in its tracks as quickly
as possible, preventing the barbell from driving
the athlete down into a lower squat once it’s
caught. I often see the barbell being allowed to
push subjects into a deeper squat. Ideally, the
squat position in which one has received the
bar shouldn’t “deepen” once it is caught. I want
my subjects turning into statues in that position
before they squat back up.
In the catch position, the arms should continue
to drive up. The most common cue I’ll give is
“punch the ceiling”. I want to see the athlete
doing everything in their power to drive the
hands up.
Once the athlete has caught and stabilized the
bar in either the power position or the full squat
catch, he or she needs to stand the bar back
up. This act, also called the recovery, involves
concentrically squatting the bar to the top position, and coming to rest standing. The athlete
should remain tight throughout the axial skeleton, as he or she pushes through the feet, and
rises to complete the movement.
These ballistic overhead lifts are incredibly
explosive drills with very high power outputs in
laboratory testing. These types of lifts cause
high rates of force development, utilize a
stretch-shortening cycle, recruit high threshold
motor units, improve synchronization of neuromuscular firing, and require large degrees
of coordination, timing, and stabilization. And
yet, despite their possession of all of these
attributes, they may not be worth using for the
majority of the athletes you work with. If I am
working with athletes who do not overhead-lift in
their sport, I would probably only use the exercises involving the Pentagon bar and the Keiser
Air Squat. With those two options, I likely receive all the adaptive benefits, but reduce some
of the risk of having to go into a position of full
shoulder flexion when receiving the load.
I spent a significant amount of time learning
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279
Consequently, I have a strong emotional connection with these exercises, which I have
worked to master and utilize in my own training,
believing they would unlock tremendous athletic
potential. Stepping back now and viewing them
more objectively, I ultimately see them as additional tools in our fitness and strength development tool box. While they do provide this heavy
ballistic training stimulus that is hard to find in
other exercises, when we can step outside of
our biases, we realize this is not necessarily the
“end all, be all” for training. Sagittal, Front/Back, Ballistic, Moderate to
High Load, High Velocity, Short to Moderate
Duration
This realm of exercise involves execution
of split jerks. In the previous section, once we
got past the Pentagon bar and the Keiser Air
Squat drills, we were left with a fairly standard
Olympic lifting progression list for teaching power and squat jerks. We had overhead squats,
jerk recoveries, jerk balances, and jerks themselves.
When putting together a list of progressions for split jerks, there is a difference between the structure of these drills and their bilateral stance versions. With split jerks, there is
no way to do a push-press variation with a front/
back stance. Based on this, we do not start
with the beginning of the exercise. Instead, we
start with the end first. In this model, you would
be teaching the bilateral stance variation first. Since this variation shares its starting position
with the split jerk, that phase of instruction is
actually already done for you.
To teach the end parts of the lift, this
model starts with overhead split squat exercises. Although, admittedly, I have not been to a
USAW course since 2006, this is not something
I have ever seen in a USAW manual. Nevertheless, starting with an overhead split squat
makes sense to me, as it mimics the approach
that would be used with a squat jerk progression list, and also fits into the concept of starting
static with the upper extremity. From there,
the same sequencing of progressions applies
to these as to the bilateral stance variations. We move from the split squat to the recovery,
from the recovery to the balance, and from the
balance to the jerk. The following list is the
sequence of exercises for sagittal plane, front/
back stance, ballistic, moderate to high load,
high velocity, short to moderate duration overhead push exercises:
1. Overhead Pentagon bar split squat
2. Overhead split squat
3. Pentagon bar split jerk balance
4. Pentagon bar split jerk
5. Split jerk recoveries
6. Behind the neck split jerk balance
7. Split jerk balance
8. Split jerk
Coaching Points
I think most novices, or folks not involved
in weightlifting assume that the most important
part of jerks is the amount of overhead pressing
strength. In reality, it has much more to do with
how quickly one can dive under a bar, and how
willing he or she is to catch it in a fully lockedout position. To be a good weightlifter, one has
to be both fearless and fast. These lifts are
almost like a gymnastics event, where the athlete is moving around an apparatus that is also
moving.
Of course, strength plays a major role
in how much weight some is ultimately capable of lifting, but weightlifting is a twitchy sport. The athletes need to learn how to move him
or herself from position to position at daunting
speeds. The direction for which speed is particularly important is down. How quickly a lifter
is able to move under the barbell into the catch
largely determines his or her proficiency at
these lifts. This type of movement capability is
another demonstration of high velocity yielding,
while maintaining a concentric orientation of the
relevant musculature. Relatedly, one of the most important concepts
you can reinforce is the proper positioning of
their feet, and getting the feet into that arrangement as quickly as possible. The front foot
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needs to drive forward hard and fast. I have
heard great coaches tell athletes that, for the
split jerk, they need to imagine that there is a
very short doorway about six inches in front
of them, and that they need to put their body
inside the doorframe, and get their head under the door frame as quickly as possible. This
helps the athlete understand how to get down,
and how to drive forward quickly.
Getting the feet to the ground quickly is
of paramount importance. The feet should hit
the ground before the bar is caught in a lockout. As noted, if the feet aren’t making solid contact
with the ground, we’re missing a foundation
to work from. Once the feet have reached the
ground, and the athlete is ready to receive the
bar in a proper catch position, then the focus
turns to creating tension. Athletes need to
create incredible muscular tension throughout
the lower extremity, pelvis, abdomen, and upper
thorax to properly receive the barbell.
As they receive the barbell, athletes should be
actively trying to punch the hands through the
ceiling, and then walk the feet in towards the
middle, where they end the lift with both feet
next to each other. To properly walk the feet to
the end point, the athlete should take four total
steps, starting with a half step back with the
front foot. This is followed by another half step,
forward, with the back foot, and then a second
half step back with the front foot. Finally, he or
she takes a half step forward with the back foot. This should position them in a finish position,
with both feet next to each other, and the barbell held strongly overhead.
Frontal, Bilateral, Moderate Load, Moderate
Velocity, Moderate Duration
This realm of exercise will feature alternating, unilateral overhead presses. Alternating unilateral vertical push and pull provide a
thoracic frontal plane stimulus, and alternating
unilateral horizontal push and pull provide a thoracic transverse plane stimulus. These frontal
plane vertical push drills will train the deltoids
and triceps, but, in addition to that, they will also
heavily recruit frontal plane abdominal tissues,
namely the transversus abdominis (TA).
When seeing someone perform frontal
plane vertical push, you should see the thorax
close on the side with the down arm, and open
on the side of the up arm. The closing of the
thorax refers to seeing an approximation of the
armpit with the ASIS. Many think of the TA as
the vacuum muscle, or the muscle that draws
the belly button in towards the spine. While it
may not be intuitive to think about one side of it
acting at a time, I’m actually looking to bias the
TA towards a concentric orientation on one side,
and an eccentric orientation on the other. Feeling this muscle getting recruited is a big deal
for proper execution of this frontal plane upper
body training.
We will see that the exercise progression in
this category will increase in difficulty so as
to manage gravity relative to the position of
the body, as well as to manage the implement
relative to gravity. The first exercises are incline
dumbbell presses. In the first exercise, “with
off-hand reciprocating” means that there is only
one hand holding a dumbbell. The other hand
is unloaded, and going through the motion. In
number two, it simply says “alternating press”,
meaning that both hands are holding weights,
and simultaneously moving in opposing directions. Following the incline dumbbell, we move
to drills with landmine units. The incline dumbbell and the landmine both allow people who do
not possess full shoulder flexion to still be able
to train in this movement zone. The landmine
simply removes references and constraints
associated with having the bench against one’s
body during the incline press. After the landmine drills, we move to pure vertical pushing
drills that become progressively more difficult
from the perspective of managing gravity and
providing reference. The following list is the sequence of progressions for frontal plane, bilateral stance, moderate load, moderate velocity,
moderate duration vertical push exercises:
1. Incline dumbbell press with off-hand
reciprocating
2. Incline dumbbell alternating press
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3. Tall kneeling landmine press with off-hand
reciprocating
4. Standing landmine press with off-hand
reciprocating
5. Double landmine alternating press
6. Long seated alternating DB overhead press
7. Seated alternating DB overhead press
8. Standing alternating DB press
Coaching Points
The sternum is your focal point for
coaching with these drills. You want to see your
subjects controlling their sternums, preventing
them from moving back and forth like a metronome. Those who can get a full reach with the
hand going up, and bring the other arm all the
way down while keeping their sternums under
control, are going to be lit up by these drills.
Assuming the presence of adequate sag-
ittal sensorimotor competency and an immobile
sternum, now, you can coach the arms. Most
people will quickly understand that a big reach
with the pressing arm is important for full muscular recruitment, but it’s more difficult to appreciate the yielding arm. When coaching the
yielding arm, I usually focus on the elbow, and
have subjects think about putting it into where
the front pocket of their pants would be.
Coaching the yielding arm at the elbow is
something I got from Chad Beckman in Nebraska. Chad is a strength and conditioning coach
I met in Lincoln, Nebraska, who has a wealth
of biomechanics knowledge, coming from PRI. Chad is one of the earliest evangelists of Ron
Hruska’s biomechanical teachings to the world
of fitness. I’ve seen Chad do amazing things
for thoracic-related table measures by coaching
great alternating upper body strength training
on various machines. When he gets someone
to really close the side of his or her thorax on
the yielding arm side of the drill by burying that
elbow down and into the body, that’s when you
see the subject’s eyes grow to the size of saucers, as the muscles go crazy.
The last piece is to get both arms moving at the same time. Do not keep one arm still
while the other arm moves. When you get both
moving at the same time, that is where the true
challenge of controlling the sternum comes in.
These are advanced drills. If you try to
give these to subjects who have not developed
positional awareness and sensorimotor control,
the impact of the drill will not be much of anything. For those who’ve reached an appropriate
level of development, however, these drills will
provide a profound stimulus.
Frontal, Front/Back, Moderate Load,
Moderate Velocity, Moderate Duration
This is a realm that involves unilateral
alternating pressing from a front/back staggered
stance. When I think about some of these
realms of fitness, I begin by thinking of the
primary objective we’re attempting to accomplish with any of them. In this particular case, it
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would be to improve the strength and muscular
development of vertical pushing muscles, and
frontal plane thoracic muscles. To accomplish
this objective, I could do presses from any
available stance. That said, rather than picking
one randomly, it’s wiser to ask ourselves which
stance most lends itself to hitting these targets,
as well as which allows us to load and develop
those tissues. For both objectives, the bilateral
stance is my choice. Following this affirmation,
I would establish whether there are any instances in which we would want to use a different
stance for this pattern and plane. That is indeed the case for certain athletes, whose sport
requires them to assume an alternate stance,
making it beneficial for them to be stronger
therein. If someone does not fit into that particular demographic, then I would probably forego
these drills in his or her training.
This is a realm of trainable movements
that I can picture getting popular among
coaches who are drawn to hard-to-do, impressive-looking drills. Unfortunately, neither quality
constitutes a particularly good reason for including an activity in someone’s program. Subjects’
goal(s) should dictate our exercise selections as
their coaches. It’s our job to select only those
activities that support movement towards these
goals, and discard everything else.
Overhead pressing muscles and frontal
plane thoracic muscle strength and hypertrophy
are useful realms for overall movement and
muscular development, be that for aesthetic or
athletic aims. A wrestler who needs incredible
frontal plane thoracic strength in a shot position
may benefit tremendously from these drills. A
bowler may also benefit tremendously from
these drills. Most other people can just stick to
the bilateral stance drills here, and get all of the
benefits they need. Remember, when in doubt,
divide and conquer. The following list is the
sequence of frontal plane, front/back stance,
moderate load, moderate velocity, moderate
duration vertical push exercises: 1. Half-kneeling landmine press w/off hand
reciprocating
2. Split-squat landmine press w/off hand
reciprocating
3. Half-kneeling double landmine alternating
press
4. Split-squat alternating double landmine press
5. Half-kneeling alternating DB press
6. Split-squat alternating DB press
Coaching Points
Putting a wall behind the back foot is
enormously helpful for these exercises. As reiterated, this will provide more sagittal reference,
and will typically cause the subject to use more
muscle to hold him or herself in the position. For a lot of people, this one adjustment can dramatically improve performance in these drills.
Positioning the back foot on the wall and providing more reference will also create more
“ground” to push against, and having ground to
push against is a big deal with resistance training. If one didn’t have a bench for doing bench
press, but instead had to do some crazy knee
flexion bend and try to hold the body in that
position, he or she wouldn’t be able to push any
weight around. Without a backrest during the
leg one wouldn’t be able to move much weight
at all. Both the bench and the backrest are
“ground” of sorts.
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The thing about ground is that it provides
its own resistance, which is perhaps the purest
form of reference. Anything that is physically
pushing someone is, by definition, providing
some form of resistance. The more that something pushes into us, the more we can feel it. “Ground” is an immovable surface that comes
into contact with whatever parts of one’s body
are against it. The more parts of one’s body
that are against “ground”, the more reference
he or she has, and also the more resistance
there is pushing against him or her. In order
for a human to create a forceful action that
results in displacement of his or her body, and
any added load theron, in a given direction, an
equal and opposing force needs to be coming
from the opposite direction. The ground provides what could be thought of as an unlimited
source of opposing force. The opposing force
of the ground allows us to move in the opposite direction of it. Without the ground, one
might as well be trying to lift weights in outer
space. Providing subjects with the opportunity
to produce the highest possible forces they can
means providing them with ample ground. By
contrast, “groundless” exercises that gain many
likes on Instagram are a clown show that should
be avoided at all costs.
Dominant Position and Fitness Realms:
Dominant Stance: Bilateral
Dominant Plane: Sagittal
Dominant Load: Heavy
Dominant Velocity: Fast
The heavy ballistic overhead action is what I believe to be the purest, highest expression of this
pattern. Be that as it may, the percentage of
folks who can really handle it is questionable. If
you want to be a coach, and, like me, like to see
how far you can personally push the envelope,
this pattern may well be for you. If you’re intent
on taking heavy ballistic overhead lifting really
far, you’ll likely find yourself in frequent pain,
like me, throughout the process. But, if you
can figure out how to fix yourself, design programs that mitigate pain points, and work your
technique to where it is practically impeccable,
you may just learn enough to be a true master. That being said, how many of the subjects you
coach and personally train are going to want
to themselves master this pattern through your
teachings? Probably slim to none.
For training others, I advise staying on the shallow end of these progressions. To go deeper
into this realm, subjects have to be gifted from
a movement perspective, extremely attentive
and coachable, and willing and able to manage
their lifestyle, nutrition, and recovery elements
at a high level. In other words, they’re going to
be pretty rare. Play it safe with everyone else
within this pattern. Many didn’t win the genetic
lottery in terms of how well their bones line up,
and many more place exercise technique very
low on their list of priorities. A lot of people
won’t get much in return from heavy ballistic
overhead, but could potentially suffer problems
resulting from excessive volume in this pattern. So, recapping, I believe heavy ballistic overhead exercises are great… but only for those
who need them, and for those who are ready
for them. I also believe that smart people
hedge their bets, and that this pattern is one
where I would go that route, probably more
than any other. In other words, there’s nothing
wrong with keeping someone on a dumbbell incline press for the entirety of their vertical push
training life.
17
Vertical Pull
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Vertical Pull
Chapter 17
You have shoulder pain? Some say the
solution is more lats. Your deadlift technique is
off? “More lats”, they chant. Your posture looks
poor—you guessed it: more lat work is the answer. You want to increase your bench press:
more lats. You want to save more money for
your child’s tuition: more lats. (You want to find
eternal salvation? More lats!)
I don’t personally do a lot of lat-focused
cueing. I don’t tell people to squeeze oranges in their armpits when they deadlift, nor do I
instruct them to engage their lats for postural
cues. I’m generally not targeting the lats in any
activities other than those that feature vertical
pulling.
So, why do some relentlessly seek them out
and deem them incredibly important, while
others, like myself, don’t get very excited about
them, and generally avoid calling on them in
most exercises?
The answer may stem from the fact that
many divide the body into chains of muscles. Ida Rolf created Rolfing, and her system was
largely based on the idea that the body is divided into subsets of muscular lines with common
fascial chambers containing and directing them. Thomas Myers is the most famous disciple of
Ida Rolf, and his book, Anatomy Trains, promoted this idea of groups of muscles working as a
team (oriented in the same direction and encased inside fascial slings), to promote specific
multi-joint movements. Anatomy Trains created
a tremendous stir in the fitness and rehabilitation industries, and soon, slings, chains, and
trains, as they pertain to fascia-covered networks of muscles were all the rage.
The Postural Restoration Institute (PRI),
also considers muscle chains a bedrock of their
philosophy. PRI uses the term “polyarticular
chains of muscles” to explain the integration
of the muscular system into human movement
schematics. The most well-known of the PRI
polyarticular chains is the “Anterior Interior
Chain” (AIC). The AIC is made up of the diaphragm, which begins at the anterior rib cage,
and then swings up and back in a dome shape,
until it reaches its posterior attachment on the
thoracic and lumbar spine. At the lumbar spine,
the diaphragm interdigitates with the psoas
in a tightly locked formation. The psoas runs
anterior and laterally to the ilium from its posterior attachments on the lower thoracic and
lumbar vertebrae. The psoas runs into the
iliacus on the deep side of the ilium bone, and
forms a very strong connection. The merger
between these two muscles is so strong, that it
is oftentimes regarded as a single muscle: the
iliopsoas. The iliopsoas has an attachment on
the thigh, as it inserts into the lesser trochanter
of the femur. The psoas and iliacus also have
a merger with the tensor fascia latae (TFL) on
the superior border of the ilium. The TFL runs
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posterior, and merges with the anterior superior
fibers of the glute max, to become the superior
origin of the iliotibial (IT) band. The IT band
then runs inferior down the lateral thigh, until it
reaches Gerdy’s tubercle on the anterior tibia
on the superficial tibial plateau.
Since it begins with the diaphragm, the AIC is
a breathing chain. It’s also a walking chain, as
it involves muscles that attach to and rotate the
lumbar spine, attach to and rotate the innominate, attach to and rotate the femur, and attach
to and rotate the tibia. This relationship sheds
light on Ron Hruska’s famous assertion that
“breathing is walking, and walking is breathing”.
For polyarticular chain-based practitioners, the thought process is that if there is
a pain syndrome, or a limitation in movement
anywhere in the joints affected by a specific
chain of muscles, you could theoretically work
at any level of that chain in order to alleviate
the pain or movement limitation. An example is
the use of a breathing intervention for someone
presenting with knee pain.
Within the PRI thought process, the diaphragm on the left side is underpowered compared to the diaphragm on the right side. The
left diaphragm has fewer leaflets and muscle
attachments relative to the right side. The right
diaphragm sits on top of the liver, and has a
strong fascial attachment to it. This connection to the liver provides ground for the right
diaphragm, from which to perform mechanical
work. The left diaphragm is typically not in a
domed position when examined on X-rays,
and therefore in a greater state of inhalation as
compared to the right diaphragm. This inhaled
position of the diaphragm reflects the concentric
orientation of the muscle. Since the diaphragm
is behaving from a concentric state, this primes
the entire chain to also work from a concentric
orientation. If we were to examine the downstream concentric activity of the psoas, iliacus,
and TFL, we would see that it is a group of
muscles that rotates the lumbar spine to the
right, flexes, abducts, and externally rotates the
left ilium relative to the pubis, pushing us from
left leg to right leg. In other words, the left AIC
is the chain that walks the left side of our lower
body forward.
The goal within PRI would be to have
equal activity between the left AIC and right
AIC. To accomplish this, we need to inhibit the
activity of the left AIC, facilitate the left-sided
oppositional muscles to the chain, and simultaneously facilitate the muscles of the right AIC. If we can reach this goal, we will see a normalized range of motion on the left and right on a
table, indicating equal alternating movement
being displayed by both sides of the body.
One of the main differences between PRI
and this model is that this model ignores chains
of muscles. This model only focuses on the
states of expansion and compression. When
you want to rotate your body right, you compress the left side of the thorax. When you see
this left sided compression, you’ll see pronation of the hand and foot and IR of the arm and
leg on that side, and extension and adduction
resulting from those two motions. Simultaneously, you will expand the right side of the body. You will see the hand and foot supinate on that
side of the body, and you’ll see the arm and
leg on that side ER, with flexion and abduction
riding along. This is something that is easy to
observe in a right-handed golfer’s backswing. Compressing the left side results in loading up
into the right side during the backswing, which
actions are reversed as the golfer strikes down
into the ball and goes into the follow-through.
Prior to my exposure to Myers’ Anatomy
Trains, PRI and their chains, or DNS and their
chains, or any other rehabilitation-based group
with chain or sling-based thoughts, I first heard
about chains of muscles from Louie Simmons. Simmons was explaining the importance of
the posterior chain for strength athletes, which
sentiment is echoed throughout the world of
strength and conditioning. Most everyone who
has reached an advanced level of training/competing in a strength sport or spent time in the
sports performance coaching world would have
heard about the importance of developing the
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posterior chain. When you hear strength and performance people talk about the posterior chain,
you’ll hear them talk about how the hamstrings
and glutes are critical for creating drive in heavy
lifts, and how they’re the drivers of sprinting
speed. When you hear people talking about upper back and lat development, you’ll hear talk of
improved posture, as well as building a powerful shelf for strength movements and armor for
contact sports. You’ll hear that the mirror/beach
muscles are for “show” but the posterior chain
is for “go”, or “If you’re going to haul ass, you
better train ass”. There is reverence for these
posterior muscles in strength and sports performance circles. So, what is the basis for this love of the
posterior muscles of the body? I believe it
comes from the fact that, when we compress
these muscles, they make us go forward or
up. Compressing the left back side muscles
will drive the left side forward. When the left
side goes forward, this will turn one to the right,
and vice versa. Compressing both sides at the
same time results in both sides going forward. This is what in PRI circles is called “becoming extended” and is associated with red flags
for pain and movement limitations within that
school of learning.
Is bilateral posterior compression “bad”? If so, why, to the alarm of PRI-minded physical
therapists, are great powerlifters and powerlifting coaches constantly seeking and trying to
maximize it? When you think about muscles that can
create posterior compression, what do you
think of? PRI has their Posterior Exterior Chain
(PEC) group of muscles, which are simply the
superficial muscles of the back. The big hitters
for superficial back muscles are spinal erectors,
posterior intercostals, rhomboids, traps, and
of course lats. When behaving in a concentric
manner, these muscles create a compressive
force that drives the back forward. In PRI, the
PEC pattern is considered a bilateral, largely
symmetrical pattern, where both sides of the
back are overactive, and someone displays a state of being
extended, as well as an inability
to expand the posterior ribs with
an inhalation.
So is it bad to see a “PEC” walk through
your door? Having gotten a good glimpse into
Ron Hruska’s thinking and observed a good
amount of human movement over the years, I
would think that Ron would probably think that
being able to adopt a PEC presentation is a
useful strategy for accomplishing certain tasks,
but becomes problematic when it is adopted
for all tasks, and cannot be deviated from. As
such, a PEC is only problematic when its owner
is unable to move in and out of it at will. If you are going to long jump forward as
far as you possibly can, you need to compress
your back. If you are a gymnast who is going
to do a back walk-over, you are going to have
to compress your back. If you are a powerlifter
who is trying to break the world record in bench
press, you are going to have to compress your
back. These are all concentric orientation of
posterior muscles, driving forward strategies.
Ideally, in other areas of their lives, these same
athletes retain access to an eccentrically-oriented expansion strategy.
Depending on your common physical activities
and fitness goals, you really only need “enough”
of each strategy. If you are a linear sprinter,
you do not need much in the way of a posterior
muscle-expansion strategy. If you are an interior NFL lineman, you do not need much in the
way of a posterior muscle-expansion strategy. If you are a powerlifter, you do not need much
in the way of a posterior muscle-expansion
strategy. If you are a bodybuilder, you do not
need much in the way of a posterior muscle-expansion strategy. If you are a professional
soccer midfielder, you’re going to need a high
amount of posterior muscle-expansion strategy. If you are a bantamweight UFC fighter, you
are going to need a high amount of posterior
muscle-expansion strategy. If you need high
variance in the positions you have to assume
in your sport, if you need to level change a lot,
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decelerate and change direction or bend and
turn often, you’re going to need a high degree
of posterior muscle-expansion strategy.
Circling back to the lats, bilateral activity
of the lats is going to lead to some of the highest possible levels of a posterior compression
attainable. If there is constantly a high level of
bilateral lat activity, you’re going to really struggle to create a posterior expansion. If you participate in a low variance positional sport, and
you constantly have a high degree of posterior
muscle compression, you’re probably going to
be okay, as long as you don’t try to do much
outside of your sport activities. If the body
builder trains bodybuilding appropriately, he or
she can lose an enormous amount of posterior
expansion and probably be fine. However, if
having lost significant amounts of posterior expansion, that bodybuilder decides that he or she
now wants to be a high level Ultimate Frisbee
athlete, he may struggle tremendously, and will
continue to fail and get hurt if he cannot drop
his compression strategies and pick up more
expansion strategies. If you have personal
training clients who want to get huge pecs and
lats, while being able to play a ton of tennis at a
high level, one of those goals will have to give. Severely posteriorly-compressed thorax powerlifters trying to hit golf balls are going to show you an ugly backswing and follow
through, because those positions require posterior thoracic expansion. Then again, how often
do powerlifters need to hit golf balls? Once
someone has a clear goal, we as coaches can
help by elucidating the requisite amounts of
compression and expansion required by the
chosen activity. If the need for expansion is low
but compression high, programming can ease
off expansion to optimize for a compression
monster. If both expansion and compression
needs are high, as would be the case for many
martial arts, then we don’t want to sacrifice too
much expansion in favor of compression, with
the understanding that genetic potential for
pure compressive force will be traded off for
sport-specific well-roundedness. So, are lats “good”? Like every mus-
cle, they’re just a tool we have evolved for the
accomplishment of certain survival tasks. Burrowing, reproducing, stalking, chasing, evading,
nest building, defecating, biting, swallowing,
rearing, pouncing, feigning, rolling, and detecting the presence of others are but a mere tiny
list of common tasks across species. These
tasks keep some living things from becoming
lunch for others, and help the former acquire
lunch of their own. The evolutionary history of
every animal is a track record of anatomical
problem solving, geared towards performance
optimization of such tasks. For each of these
tasks there are stereotypical species-specific
muscles that power their execution. Whether
they are chains, trains, planes, slings, fascial
leotards, compartments, families, or any other
working group that are linked together is beside
the point. I think the strategy is the point. To
accomplish one strategy, perhaps an animal
has to compress the left side and expand the
right. To accomplish another strategy, perhaps
the animal has to compress the front side and
expand the back. To accomplish yet a third,
perhaps the animal has to compress the back
while simultaneously expanding the front. To
accomplish yet another, perhaps it has to compress all sides, all at once.
We human animals no longer live in the
wild, and hence our list of survival-oriented
tasks has dwindled massively. A powerlifter
compresses everywhere. A pitcher compresses the glove side of the body, and expands the
throwing hand-side during the cocking action
of the windup. A sprinter compresses the back
side of the body to go forward. A cornerback
compresses the anterior side of the body to
back pedal. What do your clients do, or want
to do? Do they understand what strategies are
essential for succeeding in those activities? Have some of them lost those strategies, and
can you help them regain them? Do you, as the
coach, have a plan? My hope is that this book
has helped you formulate a good number of
these answers.
Anatomical Considerations
A vertical pull requires extension, adduction,
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and internal rotation of the humerus. These
three movements are the anatomical actions
that the latissimus dorsi creates on the humerus. The latissimus muscle is a broad, flat
muscle that proximally attaches on the spinous
processes of the vertebrae between T5 and L5,
the thoracolumbar fascia, the iliac crest, the bottom 3 posterior ribs, and the inferior angle of the
scapula. The distal attachment of the latissimus
is the intertubercular groove of the humerus. The lats act as rotators and side benders of the
thorax when behaving in a unilateral manner,
and they extend the lumbar and thoracic spine
when behaving bilaterally.
When performing vertical pulling motions, the elbow is flexing while the shoulder
is extending. Large elbow flexors, like biceps
brachii and brachioradialis, will be recruited for
that part of the motion. There should be some
level of balance between the flexion, ER, and
supination drive of biceps, and the extension
and IR drive of the lats during vertical pulling
activities. Exercises like a pull-over are common in body building groups for purely targeting
the lats. The pull-over takes the elbow flexion
component out of the action, and allows for a
purer extension, adduction, and IR action at the
shoulder.
The action taking place at the scapula
during vertical pulling is going to be downward
rotation. A vertical pull starts with the humerus
flexed, which positions the scapula in upward
rotation. From that place, while the humerus is
extending, the scapula will be going through a
downward rotation moment.
The motions of the scapula can quickly get
confusing. The primary motions of the scapula
are generally considered upward and downward
rotation. During upward rotation, the inferior
angle of the scapula moves superiorly and laterally, but researchers on scapular mechanics
report that ER will occur in tandem with this upward rotation. The definition of ER of the scapula is that the medial border moves towards the
body. When thinking about pathomechanics of
the scapula as it pertains to upward rotation,
the primary failure is known as “winging” of the
scapula. Winging is when the medial border of
the scapula flares away from the body, visibly
opening up the shoulder blade to create a winglike appearance. The other big motion that is
oftentimes not present during upward rotation
of the scapula is that the scapula fails to sufficiently posteriorly tilt. The serratus anterior is
considered the primary muscle that prevents
winging, and the lower trap is the primary muscle that would prevent loss of posterior tilt.
The way I want you to think about these
motions of ER and posterior tilt of the scapula
(as they are referred to in the literature on the
scapula) is that they are actually compressive
motions. These motions compress the scapula
into the body. Upward rotation is the primary
point of scapular compression. In the classical
literature on the motions of the shoulder, we
hear about the 2:1 ratio of humeral to scapular
motion that should take place during overhead
reaching activities, where the humerus should
have double the total motion compared to the
scapula. When this ratio is lost, the condition
becomes referred to as scapular dyskinesis. The classical explanation on what disrupts
proper scapular/humeral rhythm in overhead
reaching is inhibition and weakness of the low
trap and serratus anterior. The way that I want
you to think about this error is as an inability
to posteriorly compress the scapula during the
exhale-based motion of the scapula.
The scapula and the innominate will
move in similar ways during flexion of the appendicular bone associated with them. In the
mid-zone of flexion, both bones will “counter-nutate” or “upwardly rotate” depending on one’s
naming preference. Whatever you call it, this is
in fact the compressive motion of these bones. Their compression allows for the arm or the leg
to be supported when the distal part of the limb
is the farthest away from the center of mass of
the body. During the propulsive arc of motion,
when the limb is at 90 degrees of flexion, this is
when the elbow or the knee is the farthest away
from the center of the axial skeleton. At the
bottom of the arc of appendicular motion, the
elbow is in line with the trunk. At the top of the
arc of appendicular motion, the elbow is in line
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with the head. In the mid-zone, the elbow is well
out in front of the body, where the compression
of the scapula is required, in order to support
this distant placement of the arm.
If an arm or a leg is going to go forward,
something on the back side of the body needs
to compress, and the ideal choices are either
the scapula or the innominate. Barring adequate compression of either one, compensation
will occur, in the form of compression of some
other body part(s). At the level of the thorax,
this is most likely to be the posterior ribs or the
thoracic spine.
In a blue sky arm flexion scenario, the
thoracic spine can maintain its shape, and hold
onto its kyphosis. If the thoracic spine can
maintain its shape, the shape of the ribcage will
also be nicely maintained. The posterior ribs
will remain rounded and expanded posteriorly. If one can hold onto this thoracic shape while
raising an arm overhead, then the scapula will
compress, and maintain approximation with the
ribcage —particularly medially and inferiorly—
during upward rotation. You can think of the
serratus and the lower trap as the suction cup
of the shoulder blade, where the suction force
is just another word for compression. When everything is great, they maintain a suction force
on the scapula during upward rotation. If the
suction force of the serratus or the lower trap is
ineffective, it will transfer inward, and the spine
and posterior ribs will be sucked forward.
The actions taking place at the lower extremity during hip flexion are not very different. During this mid-zone, peak compression part of
the motion, one needs a posterior compressive
force to be able to hold the femur in place while
very far away from the centerline of the body. If one cannot hold the innominate in a good
position during its counter-nutation, then excess
posterior compression will need to be created
elsewhere. Most commonly, this would be at
the lower dorsal-rostral zone. When the lower
dorsal-rostral zone is compressed, it drives the
entire pelvis forward, as a unit, into anterior tilt. Recall that this is the motion associated with the
undesirable “hingey squat”.
When we start talking about downward
rotation of a scapula, the likes of which occurs
during a vertical pulling exercise, I can’t help
but analogize this motion to the “up” phase of
the squat for the upper body. The up phase
of a squat involves hip extension, and the up
phase of a pull-up involves shoulder extension. Sure you can talk about open chain versus
closed chain, but I prefer to focus on the big
picture components. I start to wonder if heavily
loaded leg marches would be the equivalent of
overhead pressing for the lower body. I start to
wonder if dips and pull-ups are more similar to
each other than dips are to bench press. I start
to wonder if pushing and pulling balance really
matters for the upper body, and if it does matter
for the upper body, does it necessarily have to
matter for the lower body too?
Levator scapulae, rhomboid major and minor,
pectoralis major and minor, and latissimus
dorsi are all muscles that are considered to be
downward rotators of the scapula. That is a lot
of muscles, some of them located in unintuitive
places. When I see this list of muscles, I think
about vertical pulling motions causing downward rotation of the scapula, which is, in turn,
the expansion zone of the scapula. Likewise,
I think about how, to expand the scapula, one
has to compress the thorax. To adequately
compress the thorax for scapular downward
rotation, one needs to compress it three-dimensionally. To expand in one area, you must
compress in another. Expansion of the scapula
requires total compression of the thorax. To
me, the scapular downward rotation muscles
are really three-dimensional thoracic compression muscles which allow the scapula to downwardly rotate as the arms create their pulling
action. Based on this line of thinking, when
people can’t do pull-ups, it’s not because they
are weak in the shoulder blades. Rather, it’s
due to an inability to adequately compress their
thoraxes.
I have watched a lot of people do a lot of
reps of lat pull-downs over the years. I’ve seen
good looking lat pull-downs, and I’ve seen really
ugly lat pull-downs, and wondered what made
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the latter ugly. I think I can answer that now,
and the culprit is one of two causes. The first is
that the puller tends to down pump-handle their
sternum via action of rectus abdominis, choosing to use a muscle that pulls down the sternum
and thorax instead of their arms. The other
thing I see a lot is that the puller is unable to
create appropriate levels of downward rotation
of their scapula. They pull the implement down,
but their shoulders stay up by their ears.
These two symptoms will tend to ride
together. If one cannot compress the thorax adequately, he or she will fail to create an environment for the scapula to expand. If one cannot
expand the scapula, then the clavicle and acromion will remain elevated. An inability to compress the thorax, which prevents the scapula
from properly expanding, causes one to resort
to a secondary method of creating a downward
drive. This method is “crunching”, or pulling the
sternum inferiorly with rectus abdominis. As we’ll cover in the “Coaching Points”
sections of this chapter, the sternum is a big
deal when it comes to vertical pulling technique. To maintain the sternum in a position
that’s aimed straight out at the horizon, I have
my subjects use a weight that’s light enough
to ensure this sternum position throughout the
course of each rep. Once we have the sternum position down, I’ll have subjects attempt to
pull their shoulders away from their ears, in a
manner that facilitates downward rotation of the
scapula. What we’re accomplishing with this is
the creation of the appropriate level of thoracic
compression to allow for the arms and scapulae
to reach the correct endpoint position for vertical pulling exercises.
Training the Vertical Pull Pattern
Available Options:
Available Planes: Sagittal and Frontal
Available Stances: Bilateral
Available Loads: All
Available Velocities: All
Available Durations: All
Moderate to High Load, Low to Moderate
Velocity, Short to Moderate Duration
For drills in this category, we’ve basically got
lat pull-downs and pull-ups/chin-ups to choose
from. I’m always amazed at gyms without a lat
pull-down. In such an environment, pull-ups are
the only drill left for training vertical pulling. Yes
we can put bands under people’s feet for an
assisted pull-up, but this turns it into an exercise
that changes weight throughout the ROM.
One could make the case that pull-overs
could be a drill in this category, except that, in
writing this book, I’ve spent a lot of time isolating “macro” training patterns, for inclusion in
favor of the “micro” ones. Single joint, “isolation”, work is something that I would put into the
umbrella of “micro”. As such, pull-overs should
either live in the realm of core thorax, or be excluded on the basis of being “micro”. This is not
to say that they are an unworthwhile exercise
whatsoever, but simply that they fall somewhat
outside the scope of this model. The same is
true for many other activities, like biceps curls
or calf raises, to name a few. Fine exercises? Yes. Macro training patterns? No. And don’t get me wrong: I love coaching
micro patterns, which can be nested in the models of this book. You can have tremendous success giving wide infrasternal angle, compressed
individuals better shoulder range of motion with
well executed biceps curls, or improving hip
range of motion and increasing squat depth on
compressed people by training well-executed
calf raises. At a certain point however, I need to
draw that line in the sand.
Let’s take a few moments and switch
gears to our fourteenth macro pattern: the
human mind. The ultimate pattern recognizing
machine, which is ultimately most susceptible to
becoming patterned. The mind is also, thankfully, quite trainable. I am a huge David Goggins
fan, in large part because of the uniqueness
and profundity of these contemplations on Mind. There is a reason that I have waited until
this section of this chapter to bring up the mind
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Goggins. That reason incidentally, Goggins
holds the world record for most pull-ups performed in a 24 hour period. A self-made man
and one known for pushing through discomfort
in his quest for a greater purpose. If I interpret
Goggins properly, for him, that purpose is learning what he is capable of enduring and experiencing, and truly discovering himself through
his experiences. For someone like him, the discomfort is inherent in the journey, the suffering
and struggling is what reveals his truest inner
self. He can hear all the collective voices that
exist within him. He can find parts of himself
that are stronger than he ever imagined. He
can unpeel the onion to layers and levels that
seem impossible to fathom. Once you think you
have reached the ultimate in depth, you discover that you’ve been wading in the shallows at
the edge of another Mariana’s Trench, where, if
you dare to plunge into the abyss, a whole new
collection of funhouse mirror versions of yourself are waiting to greet you with a Cheshire Cat
grin.
Some of the greatest things in life are often
those that appear simple on the surface, only
to reveal vast depths upon inspection. Vertical pulling is one such realm. Can you do the
same thing over and over, and find novelty in
that experience at different points in time? This
is what Goggins embodies and reminds us. If
you’re running, step number 10 is probably very
different from step number 375,512, and so on. It is just another stride, but the experience of
it is completely different. The eighteenth pull
up is vastly differently than the eighteenth hour
of pull-ups in a twenty-four hour max rep challenge.
So many in the world of modern exercise seem
to enjoy breadth, wanting to try new things all
the time, always seeking novelty over mastery. It’s not breadth, but depth that mastery requires. Mastery comes from finding a significant challenge and, slowly, painstakingly working to be
able to surmount it, and do that invariantly well. The work of mastery is a deliberate practice. You must be focused, present, and ready to
struggle. Mastery requires chipping away at
the same thing, day after day, week after week,
month after month, year after year. Mastery
requires grit. Mastery requires sacrifice of
comfort in the present in favor of the pursuit of
something more rewarding in the future.
There are not a lot of options for the sagittal
plane, bilateral stance, moderate to high load,
low to moderate velocity vertical pulling. Be
that as it may, I’m not going to get into the
differences in the list below between grip selection and chin-ups vs pull-ups. As we’ll discuss in Coaching Points, if there is a grip that’s
problematic, avoid it, and go with one that feels
better and works better. Though few, there are
quality choices for this pattern, sequential progressions for which follow:
1. Lat pull-downs
2. Pull-ups
3. Weighted pull-ups
Coaching Points
This area of resistance training is one
where form greatly outweighs load in terms
of effectiveness. If the goal is to improve the
strength and muscular development of the
vertical pulling muscles of the body, it’s likely to
be much better served by being incredibly strict
about form than rocking one’s body back and
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forth and trying to rip the implement down, or
oneself up over the bar. There are no kipping
pull-ups in this list, because I do not want to see
some kind of kipping lat pull-down for developing strength in this pattern.
I want to see a body that stays still. I
want to see arms that go through full range of
motion. I want to see control at the end points
of the motion, and I want people to really feel
their muscles work while they are doing these
drills. I want to see sets with reps that are
uniform as opposed to sets where the last two
reps look nothing like the first two. As for all
patterns, I want to be able to compare apples
to apples with this pattern, so progress can be
accurately ascertained.
As aforementioned, in my mind, vertical
pulling is synonymous with compressing the
thorax and expanding the scapula. When this
occurs, we see downward rotation of the scapula, depression of the clavicle, and “pulling the
shoulders away from the ears” at the bottom of
the rep. While performing vertical pulling, we
are extending and internally rotating the gleno-humeral joint, while flexing the elbow. That
said, expansion at the elbow and the scapula
notwithstanding, we should be careful to not
classify vertical pulling as an expansion-dominated activity. In reality, the challenge here
is compression, maximal compression of the
thorax to be exact, which in turn enables expansion at the scapula and elbow.
Thinking of these drills as highly compressive activities results in cueing them accordingly. Exhale on the way down. Focus
on the index finger palm side knuckle and the
webbing between the index finger and the
thumb as the point where you drive into the
implement that you are pulling. Work hard to
try to squeeze the elbows all the way down to
the hip. Keep great alignment of your elbows
straight under your hands. If you are doing lat
pull-downs with feet on the ground, anchor into
the ground through the medial side of the foot. Lastly, squeeze at the end of the concentric part
of the motion. Compression is squeezing, and
that’s the strategy to channel to successfully
complete this motion.
From a technical execution standpoint,
the final, and the most important piece here is
control over sternum position in space. For the
starting position, I want to see sternums aimed
at the horizon relative to the body’s position. Once the exercise is underway, I do not want
to see this sternum orientation changing. If the
sternum becomes oriented in an upward direction, this tells us the ribcage is tilting posteriorly,
and posterior compression is over-dominating
lateral and anterior compression on the thorax. If the sternum goes into a down pump handle,
we know that rectus abdominis was compensatorily recruited for vertical pulling.
When either of these two sternum misbehaviors occurs, I will decrease the load of the
exercise, have subjects slow down repetition
tempo, and make sure they are owning the
position of their sternums throughout a full ROM
rep. Given appropriate load, most subjects will
get the hang of proper execution fairly quickly. Reducing load is actually the hardest part for
some ego-fueled subjects, who view doing so
as a kind of defeat. But, if you can move them
beyond this, progressing with sternal control will
quickly yield appreciable benefits.
In coaching, there’s often a thin line between allowing subjects to get away with errors
for numerical success, and backing them off
of the numbers to provide them with technical
form correction. Many coaches will repeatedly
find themselves waxing and waning between
the two sides of this line. Sometimes, a square
focus on quality wins out, while quantity may
gain priority at others. What we want to be
careful of is impressive quantity disguising
unimpressive quality. Most of our time within
this training pendulum should favor quality over
quantity, such that the mean consistently moves
in a positive direction. This pattern in particular
necessitates this best practice.
Many trainers and coaches I’ve encountered seem to revear pull-ups, but dismiss lat
pull-downs. I prefer the lat pull-down myself,
because it’s a more standardized motion, and
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one that more accurately demonstrates the
actual strength of the vertical pulling muscles as
compared to the pull-up.
There is a strong relationship between
body composition and pull-up abilities. The
higher a person’s fat-to-muscle ratio, likely the
worse their pull-up performance. As we’ve also
discussed, the inverse relationship between
load and rep count cannot be understated. Adding or removing a little as two and a half
pound plates to/from the bar can easily make or
break one or more reps. Speaking of weight, in
an earnest attempt to accurately track progress
over time, weighing oneself prior to each pull-up
training is critical, as subjects can lose weight
not only between but within training sessions,
by way of sweat. And a few pounds of difference in body weight can mean the difference
in one to two reps, making it all the more important to rule out body weight as the cause for
pull-up rep increases or decreases.
By contrast, the lat pull-down stack always
stays the same, so doing more reps with the
same weight demonstrates progress in this
activity. In other words, lat pull-downs remove
guesswork. While a new ability to do pull-ups
for someone who previously didn’t have this
ability at all is a marker of progress, quantifying
this progress is the issue. If this subject’s goal
was to lose body mass and fat, then it may be
a marker of that particular form of progress, as
opposed to measurable hypertrophy or strength
gains in his or her lats. With pull-ups, there’s no
great way to know. The other area where I see there being
good discussion in the realm of pull-ups versus lat pull-downs is in the logistics for when
someone gets very strong in the vertical pulling
pattern. This is an area in which I have some
personal experience. At a body weight of 185
pounds, I performed 37 consecutive repetitions
of dead hang overhand pull-ups. I also was
able to perform three repetitions of pull-ups with
180 pounds of additional weight added to my
body, in the form of four 45 pound plates dangling from the chain of a dip belt around my
waist. As I remember it, the worst part about
performing the exercise was not the vertical
pulling component, but the discomfort of having all those plates hanging between my legs,
banging into my knees, and the way the belt
dug into my hips and thighs. With pull-ups versus lat pull-downs, I see
the progression going as follows. If someone
is too weak to do pull-ups, then you should
go with the lat pull-down. Ideally, both vertical
pulling strength and body composition improves
simultaneously. If this occurs, there’s a good
chance you’ll have “unlocked” the pull-up as a
training realm for that subject. Now, you can
progress his or her pull-ups with more reps and
more added load. After enough progress, the
pull-up capabilities of some can start to bump
up against logistics issues, rendering the exercise too cumbersome. Lat pull-downs to the
rescue once again. For someone like me, it’s
much easier to simply do sets with 300 plus
pounds on the lat pull-down than to hang more
than 100 pounds of extra load off my body to do
pull-ups for sets of 6 to 12.
The use of overhand grip versus neutral
grip versus supinated grip is an effective way to
customize these drills for different subjects. I
do not believe in variation of exercise for variation’s sake. I do, however, strongly believe in
biasing an activity so that someone has a greater likelihood of obtaining the training adaptation
benefits without incurring as many deleterious
side effects. The primary muscle group in vertical pulling is the latissimus dorsi, which are the
most highly compressive tissues in the upper
body. Their actions on the humerus demonstrate this from a joint movement perspective,
as they drive humeral extension, IR, and adduction. All the motions necessitated by vertical
pulling exercises. To help promote these humeral actions, I will cue a moment of pronation
with the hands. Though, as I will elaborate, this
does not mean that I start everyone in a pronated place with an overhand pull-up set up.
If someone is a strongly compressed
individual, I will likely bias his or her starting
position towards more supination, with either
a neutral grip or a supinated grip to start. This
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individual is still extending, internally rotating,
adducting, and pronating with the humerus and
hands, but thanks to these grip choices, will
now be starting from a slightly more expanded place. When a compressed person tries to
compress further, but has very little “compression room” left, this can present exercise blockers. To give him or her an opportunity to employ a compression strategy in order to continue
to develop strength and muscle growth, I swing
the pendulum towards expansion on the setup.
One of the best ways to train this pattern
is with rotating handles, which allow for biasing of the drill in very different ways at different
points in the motion. Now, we can ER and
supinate at the top of the motion, IR and pronate as you come to the mid zone, and then go
back to more ER and supination at the absolute
bottom. Your coaching preferences and any
given client’s objectives will guide your choice
of exercise “flavor” for any given drill. My hope
is that you reach a point where you can paint
fluidly within this model, and quickly make the
most conducive decisions and adjustments on a
case-by-case basis.
for those whose primary goals are competing in
an iron sport or changing their aesthetic.
Progression number two is the drill that
involves the proper constraints and references to maximize load, and force production for
these exercises. If strength and muscular development of these frontal plane, vertical pulling
tissues is the subject’s goal for an individual,
drill number two is a great place to end his or
her progressions. If, on the other hand, you
are working with someone like a tennis player, who needs to develop their biomechanical
ownership in situations with fewer references
and constraints, then it may be wise to move
on to drills three and four, provided the subject
is demonstrating training competency. The
following list is the sequence of progression for
frontal plane, bilateral stance, moderate load,
moderate velocity, moderate duration vertical
pull exercises:
1. Long seated alternating cable pull-downs
2. Seated alternating cable pull-downs
Frontal, Bilateral, Moderate Load, Moderate
Velocity, Moderate Duration
We’ve arrived at the final realm of exercise patterns to be covered in this book. The
frontal plane for the thorax is available to train,
as a vertically directed realm of upper body
exercise. These drills will feature unilateral, alternating vertical pulling activity with both arms
moving simultaneously. These drills will add
the extra challenge of controlling the sternum
from a frontal plane perspective, as well as the
sagittal challenge inherent in the sagittal version
of vertical pulling.
There aren’t many variations for these
drills beyond the four options presented below. That said, you may decide not to progress past
the second one. Remember that this model is
aimed at preparing users for open space environments, such as athletes competing on a
court, rink, or field, rather than a model aimed at
maximizing strength and muscular development
3. Short seated alternating cable pull-downs
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4. Tall kneeling alternating cable pull-downs
are primarily targeting the thorax, so the sternum is of utmost concern here, but all positions
of singular anatomical pieces are relative to
other anatomical pieces. Look for stillness and
synchrony between all three “S” bones while
displaying great alternating appendicular and rib
cage activity, and you will be optimizing these
drills.
Dominant Position and Fitness Realms:
Coaching Points
The biggest factor that you are looking
for people to demonstrate here is control over
the sternum. You want to see the sternum
aimed at the horizon in a level manner in the
start of the drill, and maintained in this position
throughout the exercise. If the sternum tilts up
and back, this needs to be corrected. If the
sternum goes into a down pump handle position, same. If the sternum ticks back and forth
in the frontal plane like a metronome, same. The sternum needs to remain still in space, as
the ribcage closes on the overcoming arm side
and opens on the yielding arm side. If we can own the sternum, now the goal
is to maximize range of motion of the arms and
ribcage. The elbow of the overcoming arm
should migrate as close to the hip as possible. The hand of the yielding arm side should
reach as high as possible, straight towards the
ceiling. For those who have sagittal competency, sternal control, and feature full range of
motion, these drills can be devastating, given
their ability to feature rhythmic compression on
the overcoming arm side and expansion on the
yielding arm side in a really beautiful manner.
If people can own the sternum, and they
are displaying great range of motion in the drills,
you can look in some other areas. One of the
things that you should keep in mind is that you
want great integration of the three central “S”
bones: the sternum, sacrum, and sphenoid. When looking at people from the front, you want
to see these bones remain lined up with each
other. These alternating vertical pull exercises
Dominant Stance: Bilateral
Dominant Plane: Sagittal
Dominant Load: Moderate
Dominant Velocity: Moderate
As generally recommended across training
patterns, stick with the basics when it comes to
vertical pulling as well. Another one to live by
is “divide and conquer”. The patterns divide up
into three main realms. You’ve got the control
group, featuring breathing, core pelvis, and core
thorax. You’ve got the athleticism realm, featuring locomotion, change of direction, throwing, and triple extension. Finally, you have the
resistance training realm, featuring knee dominant, hip dominant, horizontal push, horizontal
pull, vertical push, and vertical pull. Generally
speaking, with breathing and core drills we want
demonstration of ownership over various body
positions. With the athletic drills, we want to
develop fluidity, elasticity, speed, power, coordination, precision, timing, and grace. When it is
time to lift weights, we’re after the development
of neuromuscular strength and tissue hypertrophy. Pick the best tools for each pattern, and
don’t settle for an approach just because it can
kind of get the job done. With enough finagling,
you might be able to unclog a toilet with a hammer, but recognize that a plunger is a better tool
for that particular job. 18
What do I do With This on Monday?
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What do I do With
This on Monday?
Chapter 18
If you have attended or taught a great
deal of seminars, you’ll start to recognize attendee archetypes. Most are attending because they are passionate professionals, who
truly care about improving their professional
and personal development. These people are
attentive, respectful, do their best to identify
what they know, what they do not know, and
make sure to put in the work following the seminar to truly synthesize this new information and
incorporate it into their practice.
And then, there are those whose attendance is far more mysterious. Maybe they’re
there because they heard their friends were
going. Maybe they’re looking for social media
bragging rights, hoping documentation of their
attendance will be seen as proof that they’re
“that serious” about fitness. And then, there are
those who seem to attend just so that they can
ask their own highly nuanced, agenda-driven
questions. Whether they can’t help but try to
show off in front of a crowd or what, whatever
their motives, these attendees will attempt to
hijack the room, sometimes leaving insufficient
time for the instructor to cover all of the relevant, pertinent information.
There’s also another group of attendees, whom I’ve come to call the “What Do I
Do With This Information on Monday?” group. The question implies that they did not come
away with sufficiently clear guidance on how
to apply the presented material directly to the
people they work with. Granted, if the stated
value proposition of the seminar was a focus
on “applied approaches”, on which it failed to
deliver, resulting gripes are certainly legitimate. More often than not, academic seminars make
no such promises of delving into specific applications. Instead, what typically happens is
that a speaker clearly identifies the focal topic,
provides definitions of pertinent terms and presents subject matter background information, as
well as critically examined current approaches
and practices. He or she may also itemize
evidence-based claims and distinguish them
from those that aren’t, provide parameters of
acceptable working ranges, and, finally present
current limitations on the body of knowledge
and practices in the field. As is to be expected,
such a thorough presentation may well require
two full presentation days. And, sure enough,
somewhere towards the end of Day Two, an
attendee, and usually one who demonstrated
poor focus for the vast majority of both days,
raises his or her hand to ask the “Monday morning” question.
Admittedly, I used to get much more
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upset about the Monday morning question,
viewing its inquirers as those who wanted to be
spoon fed information, and to put in as little as
possible but get back instantaneous rewards. I
viewed these folks as users, harboring parasitic
attitudes. And sure, there’s still a part of me
that views them this way, as weak, coddled. There’s definitely a part of me hoping they won’t
come up to speak with me one on one. One the most valuable types of educational experiences is one that helps you
understand why a subject should matter to
you. And, personally connecting you with
the subject matter is the responsibility of the
speaker. Likewise, it is on the speaker to help
bridge the gap between new information being
presented, and the existing domain knowledge
attendees are expected to bring. It is then on
the speaker to clearly and accurately cover the
stated curriculum. Some of the material will be
unfamiliar to only some attendees, but other
material should be novel to all. There may be
methods, practices, and theory that’s extremely
advanced, nuanced, and challenging to understand. If you’re going into an educational event
with a good understanding of the subject matter, and are presented with new, intellectually
challenging information, you may find yourself
unsure of how to make sense of it, and feel the
desire to sit down with the new material and
parse through it, and even reevaluate your prior
understandings. This type of reflective process
indicates both that the educational event was of
high quality, and that you, as an attendee aren’t
afraid of doing some intellectual lifting. By contrast, if you attended an event
featuring familiar material, that didn’t challenge
any of your previous notions, though you may
have enjoyed being in full agreement with the
presenter and gained some slight benefit from
the review, on balance, such an event likely
wasn’t the best use of your time. Do you want
to get better, or do you want someone to confirm all your previous beliefs? Do you want to
hear that you know it all, and there is nothing
left to learn, or do you want a dose of reality? You don’t know it all. Nobody does. In order to
continue to grow, professionally and intellectually, we need to be exposed to experts in different disciplines, many of whom are smarter and
more experienced than we are. And, if you do
put yourself in these situations, rather than ask
those people exactly what they can do for you,
I recommend asking different questions. Ask
for advice on how to improve in the presenter’s
area of expertise. Better yet, first, spend some
time with the material you were presented. Review it, follow some leads to supplementary
materials, synthesize all of it, and, if applicable,
put it in practice. Then, after you’ve been working with this concept for some time, if you can
meet up with the original presenter, now, you’re
equipped to have a well-informed, meaningful
dialogue on the subject. Nothing worth knowing is easy to learn. If something is difficult to understand, ultimately,
the only way to learn it is to spend one on one
time with it. You are going to need to put in
repetitions to understand challenging concepts. You’ll have to read on the topic from different authors, to experience the same material,
explained in different ways. You’ll have to write
down what you think you’ve read. You’ll have
to train to explain this information to somebody
else. Read it, write it, and then try to teach
it. Do this process over and over, and you will
eventually start to really understand something.
As you gain experience, your eye will sharpen for identifying these concepts in the world
around you. With time, you will start to connect
more interrelated concepts into a holistic model. You may discard that which is least useful, or
too low-level to be applicable. And you will fall
in love with the process of improving yourself at
your craft.
So, if you’ve ever asked this question at
a seminar before, the next time you’re tempted to reask it, I would suggest, instead, asking
yourself where you think you should start on
Monday. What follows is my answer to this
question, as it pertains to the material covered
in this book. Page
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Where Would I Start?
Whenever I have a challenge in front of
me, I begin strategizing my approach by asking myself questions, as I often find thoughtful
questions more useful than specific answers. Questions, which signify curiosity, are a great
place to start. A curious mindset enables us
to do something different and new. As such,
getting good at adopting a curious mindset is a
valuable skill. Here are the primary questions
that I asked myself regarding this material:
1. Can you look at your programs?
• Can you rename all the exercises in
your programs according to this
nomenclature?
2. Are you missing a movement pattern in
someone’s program?
• Do you need to plug it in?
3. Are you missing a stance in someone’s
program?
• Do you need to plug it in?
4. Are you missing a plane in someone’s
program?
• Do you know how to coach it?
5. Are you missing a quantitative domain in
someone’s program?
• Do you need to plug it in?
If you go through the process of thoroughly
answering all these questions, you will be in a
great starting shape. If you coach enough different people with different goals, you will probably see that every pattern will make its way
into a program somewhere. Eventually, you
will probably find every stance and plane somewhere in there. You will identify great variety in
the quantitative realms available to coach. And,
hopefully, you will seize ample opportunity to
use much of the information in this book within
your coaching.
This is where your journey begins. The real
journey is gaining experience, which comes
through a combination of failures and successes, and both afford us opportunities for growth. Do not be afraid of failure, and do not be consumed by your success. Both will ebb and flow,
again and again. Both teach us lessons, and
bring tools with which to create
our own sets of principles. Once
you start crafting yours, you will
refine them, and, with time and
practice, move towards becoming their master-level practitioner. As we discussed, there
are no shortcuts towards mastery, and nobody
but you can propel you towards it. Those who
hope to skip over that legwork are highly unlikely to become masters of their craft.
Designing Programs for Different
Populations
Below, I’ve outlined a straightforward
seven-step process for how to use this model
to create training programs for different populations. Earlier in this chapter, we started by
inspecting previous programs you have written. Did you include all of the patterns, stances,
planes, and quantitative domains that are available to train? Were there some glaring holes in
certain people’s programs? Upon inspection,
did you identify room for refinement of some of
your programming? If any of the above is true,
here’s where I would recommend to start: 1. Identify who you are working with
• Athlete
• General population
• Special population
2. Map out necessary movement patterns
3. Map out the necessary planes
4. Map out necessary stances
5. Map out necessary loading
6. Map out necessary velocities
7. Map out necessary durations
As we will clearly see when we examine two
different programs for two drastically different
athletes in a bit, the broad term “athlete” is absolutely too broad for our purposes. There are,
however, some programming commonalities
across all athletes that significantly differ from
both general and special population programming. Inside the realm of motor patterns, there
are three different primary groups. There are
the control patterns, comprised of breathing and
core exercises. There are the athletic patterns,
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featuring locomotion, change of direction, triple
extension, and throwing. Finally, there are the
resistance training patterns, that include knee
dominant, hip dominant, horizontal pushing,
horizontal pulling, vertical pushing, and vertical
pulling. When working with athletes, the athletic patterns will definitely be included, and will
oftentimes be a focal point of the training system. The other patterns will be included in the
development of athletes, and athletes will have
the broadest sweep of patterns included in their
program of our three groups of training populations.
General population trainees are healthy adults. That excludes children or adolescents, as well
as geriatric individuals. General population
trainees should also have no medical contraindications, including any kind of severe joint pain
problem, disease, or disability. These individuals would be people seeking general fitness
development, aesthetically-driven changes, or
maintenance of health as they approach advanced age. While general population clients
may receive something from all patterns, there
will be less focus on the athletic patterns and
the control patterns. Instead, more focus will be
placed on the resistance training patterns. In
addition to resistance training, the locomotion
pattern would be used, but typically at lower
velocities as compared to athletes. Locomotion for the general population would tend to
be shifted towards moderate and long duration
activities, whereas athletes would receive more
high velocity, low duration locomotion. Maintenance/acquisition of muscle mass, along with
maintenance/improvements in aerobic fitness
are the primary fitness focal points for general population health, wellness, and mortality/
morbidity prevention. Focusing on the control
patterns and the athletic patterns for general
population clients is likely to provide low-yield
stimuli for the parameters that are most important to their needs.
Special population trainees include children, the
elderly, pregnant women, the obese, individuals with metabolic, psychological, and immune
diseases, and individuals with severe joint pain
from injuries or syndromes. These individuals
require special training and coaching considerations. Oftentimes, risk mitigation is of primary
concern when working with these populations,
particularly in the early phases of their training.
Special population trainees need fitness in their
lives, but care and caution must be exercised
to avoid set-backs, complications, or adverse
events in their exercise experiences. Each special population demographic requires specialized examination, and a customized approach
for their specific needs. The patterns that will be
the focal point for special population trainees
will tend to be the same as those used for general population individuals, again promoting the
extension of useful, high functioning years of life
through the upkeep and development of adequate levels of muscle mass/force production,
and aerobic fitness. When muscle mass and
aerobic fitness falls off below a certain threshold, both the subject’s functionality and his or
her ability to ward off lethal diseases and conditions is significantly impacted. Different foci
may arise for specific special populations. For
instance, individuals with asthma may benefit
greatly from including a focus on the breathing
pattern in their training. When in doubt with
special populations, shift them towards lower
load, lower velocity, and longer duration quantitative realms, to mitigate exercise-related risks. A mindset of continuing to progress fitness
should be kept by exercise professionals working with special population individuals, though
the progression pace should be less aggressive
than general population and certainly athlete
trainees.
In this seven step process of population-specific
programming, the key word throughout is “necessary”. This word is closely linked to perhaps
the most important term within the program
design domain, aka “Needs Analysis”. Your aim
as an exercise professional is to provide people
with fitness stimulation that targets development
of the parameters on which they most heavily
rely in their lives. This is an area of discussion
that I find really fascinating, in part due to its
controversial nature.
What do general population and special population people “need”? If you examine the majority
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of research and funding in this area, you see
that there is good evidence for a link between
fitness and body composition and likelihood
of death. The greatest predictor of all-cause
mortality is the aerobic fitness of an individual,
measured as VO2. When people are below the
cutoff for low aerobic fitness, their risk of dying
in a five year window doubles compared to their
above-the-cutoff peers. Consequently, the most
important thing to do to stave off someone’s demise is to help keep his or her VO2 at a healthy
level. That’s well and good, but there’s a problem with the cardio-centric exercise mindset
as the primary means to the end of extended
quantity and quality of life. This is because, as
a result of the aging process, people lose appreciable levels of muscle mass. When muscle
mass falls below a certain threshold, humans
no longer possess the propulsive thrust to move
their bodies through space with enough force
and velocity to create the need for a cardiac
response. When seeking to optimize human lifespan, the
first priority is to maintain the demand side of
the system, and the second is to maintain the
supply side. To satisfy the first priority, the
human in question must reach and maintain a
threshold level of muscle mass/force production. This level of muscle mass will ensure that
the human can move his or her limbs and center of mass through space with requisite intensity for stimulating the cardiorespiratory system to
kick into gear and provide the body with blood
to oxygenate working tissues, and remove
waste products from local working environments. The cardiorespiratory system only responds to demand, and the working tissues are
what creates it. Second, you have to train the
cardiorespiratory system so that it can continue
to supply blood to the periphery and perform
appropriate levels of gas exchange to support
homeostasis and exercise perturbations to the
system. When the heart is trained, it maintains
a higher maximal heart rate as people age
compared to an untrained heart, and the stroke
volume of a trained heart is significantly greater
than an untrained heart.
Moreover, exercising in a progressive manner
results in an increased sense of purpose and
efficacy. The physical state of the body will impact the chemical and overall physiological status of the brain. Your brain will interpret these
signals by sensing a state of confidence and
clarity. In such a state, you will continue to look,
feel, and perform better than your age-matched
controls in a population comparison. In order to effectively use this book for this
kind of needs analysis for training athletes, you
would want to watch the sport in question so
as to familiarize yourself with the major movements used therein. Next, you would categorize the sport movements within the confines of
our model. It’s often helpful to actually count
the movements that the athlete makes during
game play, and then tally them up to identify
the most commonly used. What are the most
dominant motor patterns? What are the dominant loads, velocities, and movement durations
the athlete encounters? What kinds of anthropometric characteristics does the athlete need
to display? Once you identify all those things,
you have a pretty clear idea of what you need
to include in this athlete’s training plan to help
him or her succeed in that sport. Just as important, you might also come away with a very
good idea about what not to include in his or her
training plan, which would be anything that hinders or unnecessarily stresses the athlete while
doing little to improve him or her in that specific
sport.
Creating Programs
First, you select the appropriate exercise domains. Doing this implies selecting the
pattern, stance, and plane from the qualitative
side, and the load, velocity, and duration from
the quantitative side. Once you have arrived at
all the relevant exercise domains for an individual, now you have to select the appropriate
exercise for that subject. How do you select
the optimal exercises for someone? Exercise
selection should follow the Big Ten Principles
of Progression. If you are just starting to work
with a person, you would select the movement
patterns that you are going to train. From there,
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you would go to the sagittal plane, bilateral
stance options for that pattern, and you would
start them with exercise number one from the
list of drills provided to you in this book. In very
rare instances, there is no sagittal plane, bilateral stance option for a pattern (ex: locomotion),
in which case, you would skip to the sagittal
front/back stance.
Exercise number one in the sagittal
plane, bilateral stance category for a given
motor pattern should be the easiest drill to
execute with sensorimotor competency. Once
the subject has demonstrated that they can
consistently execute the pattern in that drill with
sensorimotor competency, you can move them
to exercise number two. When the subject
becomes proficient at bilateral stance, sagittal
drills with that pattern, you can introduce him or
her to front/back stance activities. When you
introduce someone to front/back stance variations, start with the sagittal plane options when
available, and start with exercise number one in
that list of drills. Once proficient at front/back,
sagittal drills for a pattern, you can move folks
to frontal plane drills done in a bilateral stance
when available. Once they attain proficiency
with bilateral stance, frontal plane drills, you can
progress to front/back, frontal plane drills, and
from there to lateral stance, frontal plane drills. You repeat this process through to transverse
plane options, following the same stance order
for each plane. All you’re doing is following the
Principles of Progression. Sometimes it just
helps to have someone point out the obvious
at these stages. The order of the exercises in
each pattern in this book has been written in
the sequence that you would use to unveil each
pattern, should you choose to include that pattern in the subject’s training life.
What about things like sets, reps, rest
periods, training frequency, etc.? Those are
topics that are outside the scope of this book. There are many textbooks that cover these
particular topics, as well as other aspects of
the physiological development side of program
design. I would highly recommend reading
the work of Mike Israetel for becoming a better
thinker as it pertains to program design. While
his programming focus is primarily on hypertrophy, his theoretical concepts, such as the
Minimum Effective Volume to Maximum Recoverable Volume continuum, and the Stimulus to
Fatigue Ratio, are probably universal concepts
that should be applied to all realms of fitness
development.
If you understand the physiological fitness
quality that you are looking for, then you can
determine the quantitative parameters of how
to train the relevant patterns. Once you’ve done
this, you would start the subject on his or her
training journey by providing him or her with the
Minimum Effective Volume to improve fitness
in this specific area. You would then progress
him or her by adding slightly more volume in
a sequential manner, until the subject reaches
their Maximum Recoverable Volume. Once
you have found these two book ends of training
volume, you would take the person through progressively more intense training blocks, where
you would begin at the Minimum side and move
them towards the Maximal side over the course
of each block. The manipulation of sets, reps,
rest periods, and training frequency are the variables that you would tune for each go-around.
Sample Programs
As a preamble to this section, I want to
simply say that this is not a book on program
design, a couple of which I have written previously. Rather than attempt to do justice to this
particular topic, the intent here is to present a
skeleton version of an off-season program for a
front 7, college football player, and an off-season program for a male professional tennis
player. These two athletes are very different
specimens, with very different needs. As such,
the contrasts in their programs should be fairly
clear.
The activity types each athlete should
perform during his respective training sessions
will be itemized within each respective program,
below. Each activity will first be described from
a qualitative perspective, by listing the pattern,
stance, and plane. Following that, an abbreviation will be given for the quantitative elements. Page
304
Loading will be abbreviated as either HL, ML, or
LL (High Load, Moderate Load, or Low Load). Velocity will be abbreviated as either HV, MV,
or LV (High Velocity, Moderate Velocity, or Low
Velocity). Duration will be abbreviated as either LD, MD, or SD (Long Duration, Moderate
Duration, or Short Duration). Note, however,
that specific exercises are unspecified, leaving
the coach the freedom to tailor selections to
the sensorimotor competency proficiency of the
specific athlete.
College Football Front Seven Player
• Needs:
Hypertrophy, Strength, Power
• Dominant patterns
Locomotion, COD, Triple Extension, Hip
Dom, Knee Dom, Pushing, Pulling
Doesn’t mean these are the only things
that get trained
• Dominant plane
Sagittal
Doesn’t mean we don’t do the other
planes
• Dominant stance
Bilateral and Front/Back
Doesn’t mean we don’t do lateral stance
Off-season Program, 4 days per week
• One day will have more of an emphasis on
upper body hypertrophy
• One day will have more of an emphasis on
lower body hypertrophy
• One day will have more of an emphasis on low
velocity strength
• One day will have more of an emphasis on
high velocity strength
Day 1: High Velocity Strength
I. Warm-Up
A1. Thorax Core, Sagittal, Bilateral, LL,
LV, MD, 2 x 40 seconds
A2. Pelvis Core, Sagittal, Bilateral, LL,
LV, MD, 2 x 40 seconds
II. Jumping and Throwing
A1. Triple Extension, Sagittal, Bilateral,
LL, HV, SD, 2 x 10
A2. Throwing, Sagittal Linear, Bilateral,
LL, HV, SD, 2 x 10
B1. Triple Extension, Sagittal, Front/
Back, LL, HV, SD, 2 x 10
B2. Throwing, Sagittal Linear, Front/
Back, LL, HV, SD, 2 x 10
III. Speed and Agility
A. Locomotion, Triplanar, Front/Back, LL,
HV, SD, 5 x 10 @ 10 yards
B. COD, Sagittal, Front/Back, LL, HV,
SD, 5 x 10 @ 10 yards w/1 COD
IV. Heavy Ballistics
A. Triple Extension, Sagittal, Bilateral, HL
(Olympic lift), HV, SD, 3 x 5 @ 75%
B. Triple Extension, Sagittal, Bilateral, HL
(Strongman), HV, SD, 3 x 5 @ heavy
V. Loaded Carries
A. Locomotion, Sagittal, Front/Back, ML,
MV, MD, 5 x 60 feet
VI. Conditioning Intervals
A. Locomotion, Sagittal, Front/Back, LL,
MV, MD, 5 x 15:45 @ 70%
Day 2: Low Velocity Strength
I. Warm-up
A1. Thorax Core, Sagittal, Front/Back,
LL, LV, MD, 2 x 40 seconds
A2. Pelvis Core, Frontal, Front/Back, LL,
LV, MD, 2 x 40 seconds
II. Jumping and Throwing
A1. Triple Extension, Sagittal, Bilateral,
LL, LV, SD, 2 x 8
A2. Throwing, Sagittal Linear, Bilateral,
LL, LV, SD, 2 x 8
III. Main Lift, Part 1
A1. Knee Dominant, Sagittal, Bilateral,
HL, LV, SD, 3 x 5 @ 82%
A2. Horizontal Push, Sagittal, Bilateral,
HL, LV, SD, 3 x 5 @ 82%
IV. Intermission/Active Recovery
A1. Locomotion, Sagittal, Front/Back, LL,
MV, MD, 3 x 15:45 @60%
A2. Throwing, Frontal, Front/Back, LL,
LV, MD, 2 x 5 each side
V. Main Lift, Part 2
B1. Hip Dominant, Sagittal, Bilateral, HL,
LV, SD, 3 x 5 @ 82%
B2. Vertical Push, Sagittal, Bilateral, HL,
LV, SD, 3 x 5 @ 82%
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VI. Cool Down/Active Recovery
A. Locomotion, Triplanar, Front/Back, LL,
MV, MD, 3 x 15:45 @ 60%
Day 3: Upper Body Hypertrophy
I. Warm-Up
A1. Thorax Core, Frontal, Bilateral, LL,
LV, MD, 2 x 40 sec
A2. Pelvis Core, Sagittal, Bilateral, LL,
LV, MD, 2 x 40 sec
II. Speed and Agility
A. Locomotion, Triplanar, Front/Back, LL,
HV, SD, 5 x 10 yds
B. COD, Frontal, Lateral, LL, HV, SD, 5 x
10 yds w/1 COD
III. Main Lift
A1. Horizontal Push, Sagittal, Bilateral,
ML, MV-SV, MD, 3 x 10 @ 8 to 10
RPE
A2. Vertical Pull, Sagittal, Bilateral, ML,
MV-SV, MD, 3 x 10 @ 8 to 10 RPE
B1. Vertical Push, Sagittal, Bilateral, ML,
MV-SV, MD, 3 x 10 @ 8 to 10 RPE
B2. Horizontal Pull, Sagittal, Bilateral,
ML, MV-SV, MD, 3 x 10 @ 8 to 10
RPE
IV. Accessory Work
A1. Biceps curls, 3 x 10
A2. Triceps push-down, 3 x 10
A3. Shoulder lateral raises, 3 x 10
Day 4: Lower Body Hypertrophy
I. Warm-Up
A1. Thorax Core, Sagittal, Bilateral, LL,
LV, MD, 2 x 40 sec
A2. Pelvis Core, Sagittal, Bilateral, LL,
LV, MD, 2 x 40 sec
II. Jumping and Throwing
A1. Triple Extension, Sagittal, Front/
Back, 2 x 8
A2. Throwing, Sagittal, Front/Back, 2 x 8
III. Main Lift, Part 1
A1. Knee Dom, Sagittal, Bilateral, ML,
MV-SV, MD, 3 x 10 @ 8-10 RPE
A2. Hip Dom, Sagittal, Front/Back, ML,
SV, MD, 3 x 10 each leg @ 4-6 RPE
IV. Intermission/Active Recovery
A1. Locomotion, Sagittal, Front/Back, 3 x
15:45 @ 60%
A2. Throwing, Frontal, Front/Back, 3 x 5
each side
V. Main Lift, Part 2
B1. Hip Dom, Sagittal, Bilateral, ML, MV SV, MD, 3 x 10 @ 8-10 RPE
B2. Knee Dom, Frontal, Front/Back, ML,
SV, MD, 3 x 10 each leg @ 4-6 RPE
Professional Male Tennis Player
• Needs:
High velocity transverse and frontal
strength
Maintain repeat sprint ability fitness
• Dominant patterns
Locomotion, COD, Throwing, Core
Thorax, Core Pelvis, Knee Dom, Hip
Dom
• Dominant planes
Frontal (pelvis), Transverse (thorax)
• Dominant stances
Lateral, Front/Back
Off-season Program, 3 Days per Week
• One day per week that focuses on
physiology…maintenance of strength,
hypertrophy, and power, along with ESD
• One day per week high velocity triplanar
strength focused
• One day per week low velocity triplanar
sensorimotor focused
• Athlete practices sport 5 days/week
Day 1: Maintenance of Strength, Power, Hypertrophy, and Energy System Development
I. Warm-Up
A1. Core Thorax, Sagittal, Bilateral, LL,
LV, MD, 2 x 60 sec
A2. Core Pelvis, Sagittal, Bilateral, LL,
LV, MD, 2 x 60 sec
II. Jumping and Throwing
A1. Triple Extension, Sagittal, Bilateral,
LL, HV, SD, 2 x 10
A2. Throwing, Frontal, Front/Back, LL,
HV, SD, 2 x 10
III. Speed and Agility
A. Locomotion, Triplanar, Front/Back, LL,
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306
HV, SD, 5 x 10
B. COD, Sagittal, Front/Back, LL, HV,
SD, 5 x 10 w/1 COD
IV. Heavy Ballistics
A. Triple Extension, Sagittal, Bilateral, HL
(strongman), HV, SD, 2 x 5
V. Main Lift
A1. Hip Dom, Sagittal, Front/Back, ML,
MV-SV, MD, 2 x 10, @ 8-10 RPE
A2. Horizontal Push, Sagittal, Bilateral,
ML, MV-SV, MD, 2 x 10, @ 8-10 RPE
B1. Knee Dom, Sagittal, Bilateral, ML,
MV-SV, MD, 2 x 10, @ 8-10 RPE
B2. Vertical Pull, Sagittal, Bilateral, ML,
MV-SV, MD, 2 x 10, @ 8-10 RPE
VI. Interval ESD
A. Locomotion, Triplanar, Front/Back, LL,
MV, MD, 15:45 x 5
B. Locomotion, Frontal, Front/Back, LL,
MV, MD, 15:45 x 5
Day 2: High Velocity Tri-Planar Strength
I. Warm-up
A1. Core Thorax, Sagittal, Bilateral, LL,
LV, MD, 2 x 60 sec
A2. Core Pelvis, Sagittal, Bilateral, LL,
LV, MD, 2 x 60 sec
B1. Knee Dom, Frontal, Front/Back, LL,
LV, MD, 2 x 10 each side
B2. Horizontal Push, Transverse,
Bilateral, LL, LV, MD, 2 x 10 each
hand
II. Jumping and Throwing
A1. Triple Extension, Frontal, Lateral, LL,
HV, SD, 3 x 10 each leg
A2. Throwing, Frontal, Front/Back, LL,
HV, SD, 3 x 10 each side
B1. Triple Extension, Transverse,
Bilateral, LL, HV, SD, 3 x 10
B2. Throwing, Frontal, Lateral, LL, HV,
SD, 3 x 10 each side
III. Speed and Agility
A. Locomotion, Triplanar, Front/Back, LL,
HV, SD, 5 x 10 yds
B. COD, Frontal, Bilateral, LL, HV, SD,
3 x 10 yds w/1 COD, 3 x 20 yds w/2
COD
C. COD, Transv, Lateral, LL, HV, SD, 3 x
10 yds w/1 COD, 3 x 20 yds w/2COD
IV. Intervals
A. Locomotion, Frontal, Front/Back, LL,
MV, MD, 15:45 x 5 @ 70%
B. COD, Frontal, Lateral (Slideboard),
LL, MV, MD, 30:30 x 5 @ 70%
Day 3: Sensorimotor Dominant
I. Warm-up
A1. Core Thorax, Sagittal, Bilateral, 2 x
60 sec
A2. Core Pelvis, Sagittal, Bilateral, 2 x 60
sec
B1. Core Thorax, Transverse, Bilateral, 2
x 60 sec
B2., Core Pelvis, Frontal, Front/Back, 2 x
60 sec
II. Loaded Movements
A1. Knee Dom, Frontal, Front/Back, ML,
SV, MD, 3 x 10 each side
A2. Vertical Pull, Frontal, Bilateral, ML,
SV, MD, 3 x 10 each side
A3. Throwing, Frontal, Front/Back, ML,
SV, MD, 3 x 5 each side
A4. Throwing, Frontal, Front/Back, LL,
HV, SD, 3 x 10 each side
B1. Hip Dom, Frontal, Lateral, ML, SV,
MD, 3 x 10 each side
B2. Horizontal Push, Transverse,
Bilateral, ML, SV, MD, 3 x 10 each
side
B3. Throwing, Frontal, Lateral, ML, SV,
MD, 3 x 5 each side
B4. Throwing, Frontal, Lateral, LL, HV,
SD, 3 x 10 each side
19
Conclusions
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Conclusions
Chapter 19
There are no absolutes. There is no black and
white. Everything is gradients of shades of
gray. That is the ultimate limitation of this model. I have spent a good part of my life learning
and practicing this theory, and then ultimately
writing it down in this book. And yet, my strong
conviction of its value notwithstanding, I know
the backbone of the model is fundamentally
ambiguous.
In reality, the lines seriously blur between
the motor patterns this model neatly separates
into thirteen distinct categories. The stances
all exist on a continuum, and if there is a plane,
the only one that would really exist would be
transverse. Movement is this expression of
expansion and compression, which coexist and
happen in tandem at all times, with one or the
other only slightly dominating a given region at
a given time, causing pressure to shift in a given direction. A 79% 1RM repetition is not magically a different kind of repetition compared to
an 81% 1RM repetition. The run that took you
1:55 doesn’t really live in a different category of
exercise from the one that took 2:03.
But, for all of its inexactness, this model is how
I make working decisions about the exercises
I select, and how I coach these exercises. I
fall back on the Principles of Progression to
help me select the optimal exercises which will
enable the user to get the desired adaptations
while limiting undesirable side effects.
For all of its inexactness, I wanted to
share my coaching approach in a systematic, reusable way. When I’m working directly
with a receptive subject with talent for motor
control, amazing things happen in those sessions. Range of motion changes dramatically. Jumping and sprinting changes dramatically. Strength changes dramatically. But not
all coaching is created equal. Teaching is my
calling, and I plan to answer that call until the
end of my days. But teaching, too, has its limitations. Probably the biggest of these is each
student’s subjective interpretation of the subject
matter. A surprising number of students hear a
distorted version of the intended message, and
a select group typically catches the intended
meaning the teacher threw out. Of those students, an even smaller group is able to critically
examine the message, and then make it their
own. Finally, the most uncommon of students
go above and beyond the message and create a new and improved message to teach the
world. As someone who hedges his bets, I don’t
count on encountering only the most dedicated,
driven students. Like any teacher, all I can do
is teach my lessons in an accessible manner
as possible. Thus increasing the likelihood of
my message being interpreted correctly by the
greatest number of people. I want those people to understand, synthesize, practice and vet
what is correct and incorrect about my material. Page
309
And, yes, I want it to be ripped to pieces by
brilliant minds, so only the best of it stands the
test of time.
This book was pieced together from
discoveries that preceded me. I’ve simply tried
to organize them into a model that makes my,
and hopefully your, working life easier. My
explanations of how I think these concepts work
are my subjective interpretations of the teachings of others. I offer this book to you, as my
interpretation of truth about trainable, human
movement. My hope is that the truth herein resonates with you, the reader, and renders itself
useful to you. In fact, one measure of success for this
book is that, with time, the model outlined herein becomes less “mine”, and more the property
of the fitness community.
I already have plans for the second
edition, on which I hope to collaborate with as
many specialized experts as possible. In that
edition, rather than write the chapter on horizontal pushing, I’d want one of the top horizontal pushing experts in the world to write that
chapter, and for the person that knows the most
about the squat to contribute to the knee dominant section, and so on. Not unlike life itself, in
order to survive, I want this model to evolve, to
mutate, to adapt. I do not believe in ultimate answers
so much as in better questions. I believe in
incomplete operating systems that serve as
launchpads for eager workers. I believe in
loving one’s work passionately and consumingly, but welcoming criticism just as passionately
and sincerely. Here, I offer you my sweat, my
thoughts, my soul on paper. And, as much as
I want you to find it truthful and helpful to you
and those you coach, if you stumble on ideas
lacking accuracy or usefulness, I hope you initiate a dialogue to raise these concerns. I love
this field, including the study of human expressions. As with any great love, you must offer it
in totality, and hold on for a ride of unbelievable
highs and insufferable lows. Here’s to giving of
ourselves freely, owning what we put out into
the world, accepting what comes back from
our offerings, always being willing to adapt and
change, and never ceasing to strive for excellence along the way.