Category — Corrective Exercise

Sports Rehab Expert Porcast #3 is up and contains a great interview with Physical Therapist Phil Plisky.  Joe Heiler talks about some SFMA specifics and Charlie Weingroff gives us some great information regaring the cervical spine and core function.  Wrapping up the podcast, I speak a little bit about the importance of the skin and some basic skin assessments and treatment options available in your manual therapy sessions.

ENJOY!

Patrick
patrick@optimumsportsperformance.com

I just wanted to let everyone know that Strength Coach Mike Robertson featured a guest blog article written by me this week regarding the Deep Fron Line and what it means to our training programs.

The deep front line is a concept taken from Thomas Myers’ Anatomy Trains text and I basically jotted down a few ideas about this line and how it pertains to what we do in the weight room.

Hope you ENJOY IT!

Patrick
patrick@optimumsportsperformance.com

Today, Physical Therapist and Strength Coach, Charlie Weingroff had a great post in his BLOG about a discussion he, Carson Boddicker, and I had regarding program design. 

Check it out HERE.

The discussion started with me questioning the need to add extra mobility work into the actual training session since it should have been addressed properly in the warm up.  My idea was that we often throw so much at a client in the way of exercise intervention, that it may be better to just have them work on getting really really good at a few things.

Basically, Charlie’s reply was, “it doesn’t matter”, as long as people are moving well, and that may mean that not everyone needs to be doing extra mobility work.  I can respect that answer and it falls right in line with my overall philosophy on training:

1. Move Well – Improve your overall movement and be able to own basic/fundamental patterns.
2. Train Correctly - Use proper lifting technique and establish a program that allows for appropriate progression in exercise difficulty, volume, intensity, and frequency.
3. Get Fit - This can mean different things to different people.  To some it may mean losing body fat, while to others it may mean improving their vertical jump and sports performance. Honestly, whatever get fit means to you, it doesn’t really matter if you can’t grasp the previous two points, as you wont be able to get there without good movement and a sound training program.

Charlie went on to give some program design examples, and the thing that is most important to me is where he places the word need in the training program.  This “need” is based on the individual and will depend on what you have determined – based on your assessment - that the individuals weakest link is.

In my opinion, this is the most important part of Charlie’s post, as it plays to the importance of individuality in a training program.  One size does not fit all, and understanding your clients abilities are important.  Many develop their training programs in a general way that has every client performing the same mobility drill (be it hip mobility, t-spine mobility, ankle mobility, etc).  I have done this same thing before in the past as well and the most important thing I learned is that, when I did it this way…I missed people!  People may all have the same general needs – hip mobility issues, t-spine mobility issues, etc – but the reason those areas are problems may be different for each person.  Having our assessment govern the clients need is a better way, in my opinion, to get that client moving as best they can.   After all, you have to move well first!

This leads nicely into a blog that I should have posted next week titled, “Why Even Bother Assessing?”

Patrick
patrick@optimumsportsperformance.com

Two days ago I posted some of the pearls of wisdom that Gray Cook laid on us at the FMS Course this past weekend in Phoenix.  Below are some of the other notes I jotted down in my notebook during the two day seminar.

Gray’s Pearls Part 2:

- If you have an issue with your active straight leg raise or shoulder mobility, you don’t have the right to go anywhere else in a corrective strategy.  Don’t worry about your squat, clean up active straight leg raise and shoulder mobility FIRST!

- If you leave out one of the seven tests because of your own bias, your data will be flawed and you wont get the same result.  There are seven tests for a reason.  They are all important!

- After you clean up your active straight leg raise and shoulder mobility, shoot for cleaning up rotary stability, as this is a true test of “soft core” function.

- Pain is not a signal we can train through.

- You need to get your clients to stop doing negative activities that will hold back their progress in your program.  Once movement clears up and is above a minimum standard, they can work back to doing what they like to do.  If they aren’t willing to give these things up, the results of the program will always make you look bad, as they wont improve.  For example, the best back surgeons will not operate on smokers because smoking delays the healing process and their results will not be as good, making the surgeon look bad.  You wouldn’t ask your mechanic to run along side you car and fix the engine WHILE YOU ARE DRIVING IT!

- Don’t be ready to add a positive (corrective exercise/strategy) to a training program.  First try and remove a negative! 

- Any movement that you cannot score at least a two one means that you can’t do any conditioning or strength work on that movement.  You must meet the minimum standard.

- The definition of corrective exercise is move well and then move more.  Most people just want to move more.

- The best way to get your core to work right is to correct your worst movement pattern.  If you can get mobility back, your core will turn on automatically and do what it needs to do (mobility before stability).  Your core may not be able to work properly right now because your ankle is locked up, or your hips don’t move well, etc…Doing all the core work and plank exercises in the world wont fix this problem.

- Work backwards to the crib for correcting movements!

• This was one of my favorite comments of the weekend.  You can read more about how developmental kinesiology applies to the FMS in my article HERE.

- If you don’t move well in a pattern, don’t move often in that pattern until it improves.  For example, if the squat pattern is bad, don’t worry about doing plyos or jumping activities until it is better.

- It disappoints me to see research that tests stability without the researchers clearing mobility first.  Stability is driven by optimal mobility, as mobility improves mechanoreceptor stimulation.  Poor mobility = poor mechanoreceoptor function = poor stability.

- A higher center of gravity will make you authentically stabilize.  Seek to use a higher center of gravity in some of your exercises/movements.

- If you go into a movement pattern and the muscles that are being lengthened contract and push you out of the pattern, THIS IS NOT TIGHTNESS.  This is actually a contraction, even though the client describes it as tightness.  A good example of this is clients who can’t touch their toes and claim that their hamstrings are tight, when in reality, the hamstrings are turning on (when they should be lengthening) during the movement to provide stability to the pelvis since the core is not doing what it needs to do.  This is muscular contraction and not hamstring tightness.

- Inconsistencies in the FMS are usually stability problems, while consistencies are typically mobility problems.

- If you want to see your abs eat better.  If you want your abs to work better, move better!

- The definition of functional exercise is what it produces, NOT what it looks like.

- You gotta break a pattern before you can make a pattern!

- We’d like to think that we can verbalize to people how they can move better, but we can’t.  Try and tell someone who has never rode a bike how to do it and see if they can go out and reproduce it.  They can’t!  They have to actually go out, get on the bike, and try it out a few times to under stand what it feels like.  Exercise is the same way.

- You can’t motor learn authentically in a painful pattern.

Hopefully you found these notes useful and they made you think a little bit.  As I said, the course is excellent and I highly recommend it to anyone.

Patrick
patrick@optimumsportsperformance.com

This weekend I attended the Functional Movement Screen course here in Phoenix. 

Gray Cook and Lee Burton did an incredible job of teaching the course and I have 9-pages of notes/pearl’s of wisdom in my notebook, as well as several notes about the tests and the exercises that I jotted down in the FMS manual that was given to us at the course.  I wont bother putting up the notes I took in the FMS manual since they may not make sense unless you take the course.  I highly recommend taking the course if you are a professional in this field, as it is full of great info and it is presented well. 

Rather, I will document the pearls of wisdom that Gray gave us during his presentations through out the weekend.  These are just one-liners or parts of his thought process that are made to make you think.  I’ll be reading through these pearls several times over the next few weeks, as there is a lot to be learned from them.

Because of the volume of notes that I took, I’ll break it up into two parts so they are easier to digest.  Later this week, I’ll post part 2 of the pearls of wisdom.

Gray’s Pearls Part 1:

- When someone’s back hurts they don’t want to blame their lifestyle, fitness level, or daily patterns.  Instead, they want to blame their back pain on starting the lawn mover last week,  which, in reality, is probably just the straw that broke the camel’s back.  Human beings live under the philosophy of, “I have a snowball and I have to throw it at someone.”  No one wants to take responsibility.

- If the CNS and transverse abdominus don’t communicate together nothing will happen.  You can “shred someone’s abs” while they are lying on the floor, but as soon as they stand up they will revert back to the bad pattern(s) they are used to.

- Are dysfunctions anatomically specific or movement specific?  They gluteus medius may appear to do what it needs to do in a bilateral stance (IE squatting), but as soon as we get to a single leg stance or split stance, the person’s movement may deteriorate.  Is the problem really the gluteus medius?  Or is the problem the fact that they don’t move well in that pattern?

- Stop thinking about things from a kinesiological standpoint.  Movements are movements.  Movements aren’t specific to one single muscle.  You need to move better if you want to improve function.

- Eye movements alone will light up muscular activity in the direction you are looking.

- If you want people to move better stop shopping exercises and break down their movements.

- For corrective exercise, put people in a position where they are making a lot of mistakes (this position needs to be a safe position though and not dangerous) and SHUT UP!  Don’t over coach them.  Let them work it out and learn to develop the pattern…THIS is motor learning!  The baby didn’t need you to coach it on how to roll in the crib, crawl or stand.  It figured it out on its own.

- Walking and running strides have a heel strike that is between 1-4 inches apart.

- Don’t migrate to just doing one thing – IE, runners just run, kettlebell coaches just coach kettlebells, etc. – you need to have variety and be well rounded.  What would happen if I told you to eat chicken breast three times a day, everyday, for the rest of your life?  YOU’D MISS THINGS!  Don’t miss things.

- Build systems to protect yourself from your own subjectivity.

- Your soft core (diaphragm, multifidi, pelvic floor, and transverse abdominus) needs to hold everything together.  It makes up about 20% of your core activity.

- You have three things to consider when dealing with a client/athlete:

1. The first thing you always need to consider is movement.  If movement quality is not above a minimum standard, then this is the first problem you need to deal with.
2. Performance problems come next.  If you move well, go ahead and add some conditioning, strength and speed.
3. Issues with skill are the final thing to fix (IE, golf swing, throwing technique, running form, etc.)

- Even an inappropriately performed deadlift does not have as much intradisc pressure as sitting down and pushing or pulling on things (performing exercises).  Stand up and move!

- You can’t coach people to do a movement that they can’t do.  All they are doing is trying to survive the pattern!  Poor movement is a balance reaction.

• That one makes me think of the coaches who scream at their high school football players to “push their knees out” during the squat, even though the kids can’t do it.  You can scream all you want, but it will not make them push their knees out!

- Neurodevelopmentally speaking, it was always quality before quantity.  This should be true with our exercise programs as well.

- Tarzan, to me, is the epitome of fitness.  The guy is strong, agile and quick.  He can run, jump, climb and swing through trees.  If we take a person who moves well and put them on a crossfit type of training program, we turn them into tarzan.  If we take that same program and give it to the majority of people in society who move poorly, we turn them into a patient.

- If you can’t change the movement of the majority of clients you are working with then you are doing something wrong.  You need to have a standard operating procedure as a way to test and re-test their movement patterns.

- Once you can get a good toe touch and active straight leg raise, go immediately to deadlifting.  Re-pattern that range of motion by locking down the newly gained mobility with some stability.

- The brain will create a mobility problem because it is the only option you have left it.

- Foam rolling should lead you to better movement.  If it doesn’t, then you aren’t doing something right, and foam rolling may not be what you need.

- The only thing documented for depression that does not have side effects is exercise.

- Strength or mobility asymmetries of greater than 10% in an asymmetrical sport (IE, golf) are a problem!

- You can’t strengthen stabilizers and assume the timing of them will improve.  Muscles like the rotator cuff musculature and rhomboids are muscles that need to fire FAST, not necessarily strong.  Seek to improve the timing of these muscles.

- Gray on the difference between training programs and training systems:

• Programs are carried out the same way, no matter what happens.  Systems have a way of breaking things down and telling us “if this, then than” and “if that, then this”.  Use systems instead of programs to get what you want in your clients training programs.

- The FMS is species specific, not sport specific.  The FMS is made up of basic patterns that everyone should be able to perform, regardless of sport.  These patterns show themselves in everyday movements and sports movements because we are all human beings.

- Intelligence is made up of two-systems working together: Pattern recognition and memory recall.

- The FMS seeks to predict injury from a behavioral standpoint.  That behavior is measured by your ability to move through certain patterns.

…Part 2 coming up later this week!!

Patrick
patrick@optimumsportsperformance.com