Young Performance

Posted on July 16, 2018

Coaching Cue on the Deadbug

The dead bug is a great tool to use for both rehab and for improving performance in the athletic and general population. Creating stability with the floor will help the trunk musculature brace appropriately with virtually anyone on the planet being able to figure it out. There are a couple different ways that you can attack this exercise and I’ll cover that in this article.

The deadbug exercise is used for a variety of reason in strength and conditioning and PT. In PT, we can use it to help develop the trunk musculature which will potentially give us a better brace for protecting our low back. Or a better anchor for our hip extensors to fire from (by protecting the integrity of the pelvis). In strength and conditioning we can use it in a beginner program to help someone find their anterior core. We can also use it as an offseason type exercise to help the athletes reset.

Generally speaking, when thinking about strengthening the trunk musculature–or core–people immediately think about the 6-pack. Sure that is an important piece of the puzzle, however, consider all the other parts too. If you don’t have the ability to engage that internal Transverse Abdominus you’re going to have issues. The idea isn’t that you want to live in the 1980’s and make each muscle fire independent of the others (impossible by the way). Instead, find a way to coordinate all these groups together.

A common cue that is used to train the deadbug exercise is “push your low back to the floor”. This will certainly get you to engage your anterior core. But is it the best way to keep you in a neutral position and bracing?

Instead, try using a different line of cues. Let the patient/client use their fingertips to feel the brace. Simply have them find their ASIS and move in roughly an inch. As they brace appropriately they should feel their “core” push out into their fingertips. This is different from trying to suck your belly button to your spine though. It is more of a hollowing effect similar to that used in gymnastics.

This also has an impact on the rest of your body. If you’re cued to push your low back into the floor you will invariably drive all force into the floor. But what happens to your upper trunk, neck, head? If you’re bracing hard enough they’ll come off the floor similar to a crunch. Fine, if you’re trying to get the anterior core work. If you’re trying to get those deeper muscles to fire more effectively though, keeping neutral is a little better. It will allow the patient to keep their head and upper trunk on the floor with the neck finding the natural, neutral position.

Give it a try in your programming and find what works best for you. Feel free to give some feedback.

Posted on June 28, 2018

Quick Comment About Sleep

Today is a short post serving more as an addendum to the pool of recovery that we have already dipped our toe into.

Previously, I wrote about how sleep is such a vital component to the recovery process. I was writing it from a perspective of athlete or performance without really thinking too much about how it also impacts aesthetics.

Sure, if you’re not getting enough sleep following a training session or day, it will take you longer before you’re able to go at 100% efficiency again. Sure, if you’re not getting enough sleep you’re going to be crabby and probably make a lot of your coworkers/friends a little bothered. You’re physiology will be a little off because you weren’t able to clear out all the gunk from your CSF. Common knowledge now that we revisited the idea, right?

Now consider this scenario. An individual works out 3-4 times per week expending a stupid amount of energy. They eat mostly whole foods because they’re allegedly allergic to refined sugars and any gluten containing product. They supplement with BCAAs, hydrolyzed cross-flowed microfiltrated isolate whey protein, organic greens, wild salmon oil, etc. But they still have a beer gut? How?

They neglected to say that they sleep 3-5 hours a night on average. That doesn’t really create a great internal situation for your hormone profile. Cortisol (stress hormone) has received such a negative rep in the physiology world mostly for good reason. It is necessary, however, in excess can be your own worst enemy. High cortisol levels can be the result of high stress because you work 5 jobs totaling over 100 hours of work per week–stupid student loans. You need to make yourself dinner and attempt to go grocery shopping. Make appearances at family/friends/athletic events. Even if you did get a perfect 8 hours of sleep per night (56 hours a week) with the 100 hour work week, that leaves you 14 hours to accomplish the other things. Something has to give and it’s usually sleep.

Boom! Increased cortisol levels. Not to mention the accompanying stress that tags with all this madness. Feedback loop says: more cortisol. Unmanageable levels and you’re left with a petit beer gut even though you haven’t consumed a carbohydrate in about 5 years. What the what??

Get rid of one of the jobs (as long as you can pay your bills) and start getting some sleep. Eight hours is recommended but some people need more, some less. You’re body will thank you, and you’re results in the gym/practice facility will get exponentially better.

Posted on June 1, 2018

Getting to Overhead Pressing

Today I wanted to share a quick breakdown of how we progress to pressing overhead.

A lot of our overhead athletes have difficulty owning the overhead position so we use a variety of methods to help get them there. We start by reducing the amount of motor control that they need to use by putting them in a tall kneeling position. This allows them to focus on what the torso is doing. We also will use the landmine apparatus before they go straight overhead. This allows them to continue to get strong before they’re truly able to own the overhead position.

Posted on May 4, 2018

Hang Clean Progressions

Here is a quick video on how we coach athletes to get to a proper hang clean.

If we have a novice athlete in our facility, we generally try and teach them the hang clean first, however, if they aren’t able we will regress. We will focus on using triple extension, then move to triple extension with the arms, then put it all together over the course of a training block. These exercises are also great for athletes who do not want to use the hang clean because they’re under the impression that they aren’t good for them.

Posted on April 27, 2018 April 27, 2018

Exercises You Love to Hate

We all have an exercise or two that we absolutely hate doing in the gym. You see it on your program and immediately you want to go back into the locker room, change, and leave because of some made up 24-hour disease you make up to avoid doing that one exercise. If only there was a way to add an exercise into the one you hate to make it a little more tolerable.

So, I try to convince you all that you need this particular exercise. It is something that you’re not good at, and you can’t always just do the things that you’re good at. If you only do the things that you’re good at here then you’ll develop imbalances, pain, potentially long term injury. Which is inevitably met with, “I know, but I still don’t like it”.

Unanimously, the Assault or Airdyne sprints are the least favorite. Personally, I don’t mind the Assault bike, I will choose it as a preferred method of aerobic work because I don’t enjoy running mostly (unless it is after a ball). I’ve heard it been called a number of different names with words consisting of “death” and “machine”. I’ll stop and ask why people don’t like it and all I get in return is a shrug of the shoulders or no real reason at all. I understand, if you told me to run for a prolonged period of time I wouldn’t really be too pleasant about it. Even sprints, no thanks.

Split squats and rear foot elevated/bulgarian split squats are pretty high up on that list too.

Personally, I have a love-hate relationship with RFE split squats. I know they’re good for me, I know that I am getting stronger, I can readily see that carryover to performance in other lifts and sprint performance, but they absolutely wipe me out. I’m virtually junk after doing these. So the idea of doing anything else afterward is absolutely demoralizing. Especially if I were to do some sort of HIIT–forget it. But, like I said, it is a necessary evil.

There are a few others that I get the mysterious 2 hour sickness report on. What does everybody else say?

Posted on March 28, 2018 March 28, 2018

Passion Fruit

No, this isn’t a plug for a new Drake track. It is, however, another installment of the exotic fruit segment. If you’re not familiar yet, I have a strange fascination with trying new foods when I go to the store, more particularly exotic fruit because I can have it at work as a snack. Simply walk in the store, find the most bizarre thing that I haven’t tried before, buy it (or have the gf do it for me).

Leah packed another gem recently, passionfruit. This one is a little more messy to deal with so I suggest a spoon, bowl, and of course a knife. At first glance it doesn’t seem like much, just a little green ball. The more shriveled.., the more ripe. There was more to the description there, but not very P.C. Cut the thing in half and you get a neon goop that you scoop out. It’s a very unique flavor, tart to say the least, but I personally like that sort of thing.

Alright, it tastes good but what else? It is a sweet treat having less than 100 Calories if you count those things. Mostly consisting of sugar and fiber, but keep it context related here. Natural sugar from fruit isn’t the same as an Oreo. Contains a number of micronutrients like, Vitamin A, a few B, C, K also calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, sodium, and phosphorus to name just a few.

I guess there are a couple different kinds. As long as they taste similar I’m good. I would definitely enjoy this more at home than to look like a slob at work.

Posted on March 14, 2018 March 14, 2018

Core is more than a 6 Pack

There are certain things in the strength and conditioning/personal training field that make you cringe every time you hear them. Core is toward the top of that list, however, sometimes living in cliche phrases is what we need to do in order to communicate better with our patients/clients.

To better define what it is, let’s describe what connects to it.

First and foremost, when we think of the core, we think of the 6 pack–known as the rectus abdominus. The muscle is essentially a sheet that connects the front portion of your ribs to the front of you pelvis. It gets it’s shape from a central tendon–linea alba–and tendons that run horizontally from there.

But, if that was all there was, we would be in trouble. We have external obliques, internal obliques, and transverse abdominus that all band together to create a lattice of protection. This is great, because without this protection we would basically rupture our internal organs housed in the area.

If we all addressed the strength and endurance of this area we would probably all be a little better off. However, that is definitely not all that represents the core. We have these fancy postural muscles that help hold us upright. Commonly referred to the erector spinae group which is composed of three different pairs of muscles along the spine. There are little tiny muscles that run between each vertebra in the spine, there is the QL, which runs from the hips to the lower ribs. There is the iliopsoas group that runs from the lower spine to the hips. One of the bigger players, I feel, is the lats. They run from the upper arm and course all the way down to the hips. They can create shoulder stability and a great extension moment in the spine.

Clearly, it is difficult to find balance. Any imbalance, if great enough, will create movement dysfunction and surely pain. In my experience, the majority of kids coming in can’t do a pull up or even some sort of inverted row which is essentially a lesser version. They also present with a great amount of anterior tilt showing that their abs probably aren’t working all that well. How do they conquer gravity then?

When taking part in a workout program, especially in the lower training ages (you haven’t worked out in a couple of months) then make sure to keep it semi balanced. Realize that all your big lifts essentially have an extension moment on the spine, really requiring those meaty lats to hold down the fort. I would encourage you to find some sort of flexion moment at the trunk level.

Please leave any feedback below!

Posted on February 28, 2018 February 28, 2018

I Thought Trunk Flexion was Bad?

I was sitting down the other day writing some programs out and got to thinking, which is usually dangerous. Fortunately, my head didn’t explode. Instead, I was thinking about how I like to program–balanced. For a general population, I’ll make sure to keep the pushes and pulls pretty even, accounting for volume and intensity. The knee dominant and hip dominant variety also remains pretty equal. Of course we have to take into account how the individual presented in the assessment piece, but keeping things simple, that’s how it generally looks.

If I see an individual come in with downwardly rotated shoulders that are painful or not painful (without going into the physical therapy), I’ll start thinking that giving that individual some exercises to encourage upward rotation would be a good thing so that I can get them back to neutral.

Bottom line: if I can keep opposition/apposition balanced, things will be all good.

Now, let’s cannonball right into this rabbit hole. Think about all those hip hinge and knee dominant exercises, those bench presses and those rowing patterns. We are just encouraging extension. Even if you consider the corrective exercises that you may or may not sprinkle into the program, extension of some sort…usually. In fact, trunk flexion has such a negative stigma attached to it. It was a witch hunt for a while I think.

Who doesn’t love deadlifts? They’re tremendously basic, reinforce movement patterns for the future for jumping or olympic lifting. Conventional, sumo, RDL, trap bar, single leg–so much variety. But, they’re still extension in it’s most basic form.

So now what, just do crunches? Not exactly. We can still think smarter when it comes to this whole flexion thing.

Taken straight from the “smarter people than me” playbook, the reverse crunch. Here you are getting some external oblique (because of the line of pull), rectus abdominus, and of course transverse abdominus. We can further challenge the exercise by getting rid of the wall or weight to hold on. Those pesky internal obliques are left out which is something beyond the scope of this article.

This is just one option. There are a number of different exercises you can place in here to combat the constant stress of extension.

Add your favorite.

Posted on February 21, 2018

Like Exotic Fruit?

So I got packed a lunch again, like the twelve year old I am, by my girlfriend. I always enjoy it because there will inevitably end up having a huge surprise. It’s basically like Christmas every day. Today was pretty awesome, and had all my coworkers asking, “what is that?”

Enter Cherimoya.

Besides having it packed, I was also sent a text message with “how to” instructions as well as the health benefits.

It was really easy to eat believe it or not. Cut it in half and take apart chunks whenever you want a new piece, it basically pulls apart into nice chunks. Don’t eat the seeds. Enjoy.

This banana/coconut tasting fruit is high in Vitamin C as well as a number of B vitamins. It has a fair amount of iron, and since it is a fruit, a good amount of fiber. It apparently has more mineral weight compared to other fruits containing copper, magnesium, potassium, and manganese.

Bottom line, it is quick and easy to eat, tastes great, and is apparently pretty good for you too. Bring a napkin and something to spit the seeds into. I didn’t eat the skin, and didn’t see anything saying you couldn’t but since it reminded me of dragon skin I felt it was better not to.

I haven’t thought of putting a cherimoya into anything as far as recipes go. If anyone else has insight please share.

Posted on February 8, 2018 February 8, 2018

Two Things That Anyone Can Make Better

A common denominator for anyone and everyone walking in the door of our facility is a lack in strength or stability in particular areas of the body. Aesthetically, people want to know if they’ll get bigger (insert body part here), but realistically, two that are tremendously important should get better. Without further adieu, here they are:

1. Anterior Core

Almost everyone I see is tremendously weak here. It becomes even more clear when you ask someone to perform a simple push up. They literally just hang on the ligaments of the spine. How have you made it this far in life without learning how to perform a proper push up???

When I say anterior core, I’m referring to the portion known anatomically as rectus abdominus. Fancy latin. It connects the front portion of the ribs to the pelvis and when contracting forces the hips into a posterior pelvic tilt. Not always great to be in that position, but with proper opposition/apposition it is fairly balanced to our normal 13 degrees of anterior pelvic tilt.

When this is weak, you see a lot of extra anterior pelvic tilt. Your body just hangs out on whatever it knows will create stability…ligaments of your hips and spine. Is it any wonder that we have soo much low back pain!?

Strengthen the abs, it will help create stability. It isn’t the only answer as there are a few other abdominal muscles that are needed to help create that apposition we are looking for (different topic for a different day).

2. Buttcheeks

This is something that we work on almost every day in the facility. To create almost all athletic motion, you need the glutes. When developed, they can also have an aesthetic side to them too.

Glutes are great players in power, stability, multi direction motion. We all have a gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, and gluteus minimus. The hip joint (where the femur articulates with the acetabulum of the pelvis) also has a great deal of mobility, three planes actually. Contracting here will create an external rotation element on the femur (thigh) as well as an extension moment. It can create stability to the pelvis in a closed chain contraction taking shear off the low back. And it gives us great power and push off in the sagittal, frontal, and transverse planes of motion.

The right side is usually a little weaker, again, different conversation for a different day.

This is anecdotal at best on my part. When we screen our athletes and adults though, we see this to be consistent across the board. Maybe it is indigenous to the Merrimack Valley, but I highly doubt it. Let me know what you think by leaving a reply below.