Know Your "Why"

What do you spend most of your day doing?  Do you know why you do what you do?  If you’re an athlete, why do you play your sport?  Motivation can determine effort, resiliency, and ultimately have a profound impact on performance. Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs (see the pyramid below) speaks to why we act the way we act.  Our needs vary, but our self-actualization and esteem needs are greatly in our control, and vary from person to person.  However, if we recognize our motivation and why we desire certain things, then we are able to feed our motivation rather than starve it.

Take a look toward the top of the pyramid and determine why you do what you do.  That explanation should be embedded into you and be a constant reminder when the going gets tough.

Common Exercise Corrections: Pain in The Knee During Lunging

Installment numero three-o in the common exercise fix series. To recap: 99% of the time it's not the exercise, it's the execution that's causing issues.

So, let's say you're doing a split squat, step back lunge, forward/walking lunge or some other lunging variation that I forgot to mention and, oh bugger, your knee hurts.

If you have pain in the front knee...

- Check your shin angle. If it's not perpendicular to the floor... then you probably are experiencing pain in the front of your knee.

Look at that shin!

- Check your variation. Some folks just can't do forward-moving lunges. Switch to a reverse lunge (above) or split squat variation, thus minimizing the sheer force on the knee (also, of course, maintaining that vertical shin).

- Still having problems? Check how you're applying force through your foot. (Sorry, that was an awkward sentence) Are you pushing through the ball of your foot to stand up or your heel? Pushing through your heel will put the stress of standing up on your glute (instead of the quad) and your glutes are a LOT better at producing hip extension than your quads. Matter of fact, think about pulling yourself upright through your heel as you stand up. (This applies to step-ups too.)

If you have pain in the back knee...

- Check your back leg's placement. Are you in line or is the back leg at a goofy angle? You want to stand about hip-width apart and make sure that your knee is going straight down (instead of in or out at an angle). How does one create such a delightfully descending back knee? Squeeze your butt. It should straighten out any wild knees.

- Check your variation. Maybe switch to a lunge exercise that doesn't require the back leg to work as hard, a Bulgarian split squat, might work as you're not supposed to use the back leg as much.

Note* this has an ISO hold at the beginning of the set.

- Still hurting the back knee? Perhaps try a different single leg exercise such as a bowler squat, a single leg squat progression or single leg RDL. Those will help train the posterior chain (which might be the source of your knee pain, weak glutes or hamstrings) as well as your hip stabilizers (adductors, glute medii, quadratus lumborum) as it might be an instability in your hips that are causing the knee pain.

If, after trying all these fixers, your knees still hurt, well, don't do lunges (you're in the percentage of folks that just need to stay away from them). There are plenty of other single-leg exercises out there that are just as awesome!

Warm-up for the Overextended

It's pretty common to see people walking around with the devastating condition of anterior pelvic tilt (it probably sounds scarier than it actually is). These poor souls end up with overextended lumbar spines that can cause a lot of strain on the lower back. Some people never have any serious issues with it, while others may experience significant pain or injuries. If you fall into this category of the overextended it's important to keep some of the factors in mind and begin to start neutralizing your spinal position. A good preparation before a training session can help put your body in a better position to smash big weights, stick jumps cleaner, and stay injury-free. So how do you do it?

Step 1: Lengthen the Tight Muscles Cranking on Your Spine The hip flexor muscles, including the psoas, illiopsoas, and rectus femoris tend to tighten up and create this duck-like appearance of overextension.

So whip out your foam rollers and lacrosse balls and loosen up your hips and quads. These hip flexors get a lot of attention for being the culprits behind the swayback posture, but they don't work alone. The lats are a significant accomplice to this less-than-ideal spinal curvature. Because the lats attach so low on the back, they can yank on the spine and worsen the situation, so be sure your lats get some foam rolling love as well.

Step 2: Mobilize Stiff Joints A key component to positioning your spine into a better alignment is thoracic spine mobility. A hyperlordodic posture is often acccompanied by a rounded upper back, so get some t-spine extension work in. Some good ones include t-spine extensions on a foam roller, quadruped extension rotation, side lying windmills, and t-spine dips.

Then go ahead and loosen the hips as well with some hip flexor mobs, adductor dips and adductor rockbacks. Hurdle drills are also great for getting the hips moving.

Step 3: Turn on the Posterior Tilters Being stuck in anterior pelvic tilt is not solely created by tight muscles, but also the failure of the antagonists to pull things back into place. Two of the most important muscles needed to tilt your pelvis back towards neutral are the glutes and the abdominals. These two muscle groups are your soldiers in the war against overextension. Get them going with plank variations, reverse crunches, and glute bridge variations. I think this is a great place to add half-kneeling anti-rotation presses. With this exercise you tighten up your abs to resist rotation all while contracting your glute and providing a stretch for the hip flexor on the same side. A win-win-win situation.

Identify Identity

The establishment of roles is an important element of a team’s success.

While roles often call for individual sacrifice, it’s important to also indentify the identity of the athlete.  As an athlete, you should spell out the concrete elements of your personality that will remain unchanged regardless of the role needed from the team.

Consider the identification card below as your “athlete license."   Bring the license with you everywhere you go.  Your identity should remain unchanged regardless of environment, circumstance, or people.  It’s important to renew your license when it becomes expired (every three years), to make sure that all of the information is accurate.   Cut it out, keep it in your locker, wallet, or gym bag.  Always make sure to identify your identity and hang your hat on what makes you, you.

Identification CardIt doesn't have to be quite so pretty and pink, but consider filling a card out with the following questions answered:

Where are you from?  Why does this matter?

Who helps hold you accountable for your actions?

How does sport impact who you are? 

What traits define you as an athlete?

Working Out on Vacation

Whew! It's good to be back!

For those of you who are out there scratching their heads at the above remark, I spent the past three weeks adventuring around Europe; it was quite the incredible experience, to put it mildly, and I'm going to do a recap of the trip (along with some videos) early next week. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, I'm going to briefly tackle the subject of working out on vacation. I've had a number of people ask me this week, "So, what did you do for lifting whilst in Europe?"

Here's the #1 piece of advice I usually give people when they ask me what they should do while on vacation: Don't obsess over it. 

It is vacation after all, right? And given that most hotels, cruise ships, and resorts are outfitted with worse equipment than your average garage gym, you simply can't expect to to increase your strength levels while out of town.

BUT, as vacation typically does lend us to partaking in less-than-desirable eating, sleeping, and exercise habits, it's certainly not a bad idea to move around more than a beached whale while traveling.

For me personally, while backpacking around Europe, these were the guidelines I adhered to:

1. Again, don't obsess over it. If I'm too busy remaining perpetually worried about when I can get in a workout, I'll miss out on everything happening around me. 2. When I did get a chance to train, here are the rules I kept: Keep it short, and don't try to be a hero. I'll have plenty of time to train when I get back home, but I'm only in Europe so many times in my life (maybe once?). 3. Fortunately, I spent the majority of my trip hiking (Switzerland has some brutally awesome trails), canyoning (more on this next week), and walking around in general. There were VERY few days, with the exception of flight and train travel time, where I sat down longer than I was out walking around and remaining active. So, I ended up only doing one dedicated workout throughout the entire trip. Big deal. (Refer to rule #1.)

For those curious, here is what I did, and is a simple plan you can use while traveling virtually anywhere.

Warm-Up: Pushup to Yoga Stretch Complex, 1x5 each

Next, repeat the following circuit for 10-20 minutes:

A1. Goblet Squat to Overhead Stepback Lunge x5 (I held the backback that's in the picture at the top of this post)

A2. Spiderman Pushup x6/leg or Tempo Pushup x10

A3. Single-Leg Hip Thrust x8/leg hold :2 @top (used a bed to elevate my back)

A4. Side Plank to Plank to Side Plank x :20each

Nothing fancy, but it took very little time, while at the same time allowed me to get the juices flowin' and briefly tackle everything ranging from mobility, core stability, posterior chain work, to shoulder stability, and provided a minor strength stimulus for the upper and lower body.

The options are virtually limitless on what you could with your bodyweight, let alone if you brought along a pair of furniture sliders or a few resistance bands.

Common Exercise Corrections: Lower Back Pain in Deadlifting and Squatting

I hope everyone fared hurricane Sandy safely! We"re so thankful that worst of it bypassed the DC area!! Thoughts and prayers go out to those in NY and NJ which seemed to have brunt of Sandy"s fury poured out upon them!

Secondly, a GINORMOUS congratulations to the following SAPT ladies who made the all-district volleyball teams:

1st team- Caitlyn, Eliza and Hannah

2nd team - Kenzie

Honorable mention- Clare, Maggie and Carina

Congratulations ladies!! All your hard work in here paid off!

Anyway, onward and upward. As stated in my previous corrections post, it"s usually not the exercise that"s causing pain, it"s the execution.

Today"s topic: Lower back pain/irritation during a squat or deadlift.

From the outside eye, everything looks great: Lower back is tight and has a slight arch, the upper back is stiff, the hips are moving back like they should... but there"s a niggling pain in the lower back. What gives?

This is a perfect example. Kerry looks pretty good for the most part, but she had a little bit of a pain in her lower back as she pulled. (thankfully she told me. Lesson to trainees: coaches, though we are Jedis, we can"t always tell if you"re having a pain. Speak up!) As was the case with Kerry, more often that not, the athlete isn"t bracing the abs or is not using the glutes as much as (s)he needed.

Solution:

- "Brace your abs like Now we’re back to college student credit cards based systems, pretty much the world over. you"re about to get punched" is a standard cue I tell athletes. We incorporate bracing drills, to learn proper bracing technique, but this cue will work in a pinch if the athlete hasn"t mastered bracing yet.

- "Start squeezing your glutes/cracking the walnut BEFORE you pull off the ground." (alternately, in a squat, I tell the athlete to "spread the floor with their feet" on the way down and the way up) This cue usually makes the athlete more aware of their glutes and helps them think about using them more. By activating the glutes BEFORE the pull, it acts like a primer button for a lawn mower, it gets the engine ready to work! When they glutes are doing their job well then there"s much less strain on the lower back musculature.

Again, there isn"t much visually that changed between the first and the second video, but Kerry didn"t have pain and the pull looked much more solid and confident.

So, if you have a nagging pain, brace and crack the walnut! 9 times out of 10 that will clear it all up!