Snowboarding Through the Coach's Eye

We see faulty movement patterns happen all the time. Knees caving in during a squat, back rounding over in a deadlift, shoulders rolling forward during a row, arch collapsing in the feet... the list goes on. Most of these movement patterns are given their proper attention in a controlled setting such as a performance training facility, but what happens when you walk out the doors of SAPT? These faulty movements continue to occur, we just don't give them as much attention. It doesn't have to take a deadlift, goblet squat, or bulgarian split squat to demonstrate faulty movement.  It's everywhere, even on the slopes!  Here's a quick movement analysis of a snowboarding clip.  Enjoy!

Competition vs. Participation

It seems like we are at a crossroads in youth sport.  Perhaps mirroring the politics of today, the opinions of how sport should be played appear to be as polarizing as ever. One camp believes we are in the midst of the “wussification of America”.  They believe that today’s children are given too much and participation trophies are creating generations of American’s who don’t know how to win.  They believe that success, failure, and learning from those experiences bring out the best in our children.  The “wussification” camp has it’s own site and has even claimed that teaching activities like yoga is breeding a generation of non-competitors.  Comedian Adam Carrola went off on the “Participation Trophy Generation” and talked about how it’s impacting our economy.  Even the Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr., talked about his concern with where youth sports are heading.  There’s statistics that show that the millennial generation, who the Wall Street Journal labeled “trophy kids”, are as entitled as ever.  Let’s call this camp “old school”, where they believe we are softening up on our future leaders and creating a less competitive culture.

The other camp believes that sports have become too serious.  Rick Reilly, a popular ESPN columnist, wrote about Pee Wee Coaches imploring 8 year old football players to have a “killer instinct”.  Last month, The Bloomington South High School girls’ basketball team made headlines by beating  Arlington High School 107-2.  Athlete’s are being offered scholarships before they get to high school.  Parents are being jailed for fighting at games.  Sports have become big business, and many parents have become more interested in athletic scholarship, or making it to the Pro’s, then emphasizing academics and using sport experience as an opportunity to learn.  Let’s call this camp “new school”, where they believe our society has placed too much emphasis on winning and not enough on participation and having fun.

So, who is right?  Well, both believe our children may not be learning as much as they should.  And I am not sure either is wrong.  I don’t believe in “old school”, I don’t believe in “new school”, I believe in “right school”, and figuring out what mix of the past and the future is best for the present.

Clearly, this is a topic that will continue to garner attention and changes will be made.  Whether, the emphasis for change needs to be solely on increased competition or participation, perhaps, like our politics, the answer lies somewhere in the middle.

Friday Musings 1/18/13: Coaching the Overhead Press, Deadlift Program, Tying the Perfect Tie

No, it is indeed not Friday at the time of posting this....decided to do this round a day early.

1. Coaching the Overhead Press

There's something intrinsically satisfying about pressing a heavy weight overhead, not to mention the host of benefits it provides, provided you don't butcher it. I actually did a little Q & A on overhead pressing HERE, for those interested. Moving on...

A cue often given in the overhead press is to "push the head and body through" at the top, the goal here being to prevent the bar from drifting too far away from the body. However, I often see people woefully abuse this cue to the extreme and jut their head way too far out at the top, slipping into gross extension, especially at the cervical spine:

Those of us coaches in the crowd often experience profuse bleeding of the cornea when we see people perform a pushup with the oh-so-prolific forward head posture, so why is does it all of a sudden become a different ball game when we press vertical instead of horizontal? You can see, if I flip the above picture of Kelsey 90 degrees, where she would be in the horizontal plane:

Not a pretty "pushup" position, right?

Yes, you do want to prevent the bar drifting away from the midline of the body, but be sure to keep the head neutral - aka a packed neck - as you finish the lift at the top:

When we jut the head forward, all we essentially wind up doing is cranking on that levator scapulae - thus cementing a downward scapular rotation pattern (not ideal) - and substituting forward head posture for actual scapular upward rotation and posterior tilt, anterior core stability, shoulder flexion, and T-Spine extension.

Translation: Shoving the head forward turns you into a walking ball of fail.

Keep those glutes tight, abs engaged, ribcage down, and ideally you'll want a vertical line going through the bar, ears, and midfoot when at the top of the press.

2. High Frequency Deadlifting

Back in 2012 I wrote a post called A Little Deadlift Experiment, Part 1, in which I briefly discussed a high-frequency deadlifting plan I used to add 40 pounds to my deadlift in 4 weeks. I never ended up writing Part 2 (yes, fail on my part), but I received a number of questions, both on the blog and through email, on how it ended up.

Well, I actually only ended up doing it for another month, but I did add another ten pounds to my total during that month. Excellent. I stopped it due to the pursuit of a few other goals, but I did want to share that I've "experimented" with the program on other people and it has worked wonders.

Mark - one of my buddies, and a physical therapist - called me up last year year telling me he made a bet with his supervisor that he could eventually deadlift over 400lbs. The kicker? He only had about 4 months to do it, his deadlift 1RM was sitting right around 300lbs, and he made the dreaded Alpo Bet, a la Dan John. So he called me in hopes I could help him add 100lbs to his deadlift in a matter of a few months.

Great.

After berating him on the phone for making me responsible to help him win an absurd bet he never should have made, I gave him the very deadlift program I used.

The result? His deadlift shot up from 300lbs to 435lbs in a matter of five training cycles, leaving him the winner of the bet and relieving him from eating a can of Alpo in front of his supervisor. What?!

Keep in mind, he had over three years of solid lifting experience under his belt, so these weren't newbie gains, either.

Note: All the credit goes to Mark on this one. He worked his tail off - despite the fact that he has a very demanding schedule and was undergoing some significant "life" changes - and trusted me every step of the way with the seemingly asinine program I gave him.  

I'm not going to share the program here yet though, as I may end up using it for future article or online program. Patience, patience....

3. Tying the Perfect Tie

This one's for you gents in the crowd.

Maybe I'm a bit of an anomaly here, given that I'm fortunate enough to wear t-shirts and athletic shorts to work each day, but getting ready for an event requiring a tie can be exceedingly frustrating. (Yes, you office workers in the crowd, go ahead and shake your heads in reproach, I realize I have it easy.)

Fortunately, Tim Ferriss seems to be an expert at doing any and every random task extraordinarily well, and tying ties is no exception. Here is a quick, extremely useful video on how to tie the perfect tie, every time.

It can take a couple tries, but once you get it, you're golden. Ever since employing this tactic I've been able to boast the best tie in the room at formal events. What what!

I've run out of musings for the time being, hope everyone has a great weekend.

Thoughts on Injuries: Get Stronger

Tadashi wrote a great post last week. If you haven't read it... you should do so. I wanted to expand a bit on this particular point of his post:

Another aspect that all of these athletes have in common is that they were strong before the injury occurred. If you are a healthy competitive athlete, you have NOTHING to lose by getting stronger. The stronger you can make your active restraints (muscles) the more protection you build around your passive structures (ligaments/tendons/bones). Just ask DeJuan Blair, center for the San Antonio Spurs, who has no choice but to depend on his quadriceps and hamstrings to stabilize his knee. Why? Because he actually has no ACLs. Both of his ACLs were operated on when he was in high school, but the surgery was not successful in repairing the ligaments and the remaining scar tissue was re-absorbed. If his lower body musculature didn’t pick up the slack for this missing ligament, I’d take a wild guess and say he wouldn’t be playing professional basketball. Or any basketball.

Building the strength in all the right places will also build confidence coming back from an injury. As Adrian Peterson rushes down the field breaking tackles and making cuts he’s probably not thinking, “I sure hope this new ACL stays in one piece on this play.” Subconsciously I know he’s thinking “I’m sure glad I have enough control in my glutes to keep my knee tracking properly and my hamstrings are strong enough to prevent anterior translation of my tibia!” Sounds like something he would say

Smart man huh? I agree 100% that being stronger (before and after an injury) decreases the chance of injury (assuming non-contact), decreases the recovery time and, in some cases, allows an athlete to return to play despite having an "unrepaired" injury. Couple of examples:

Conrad Mann, resident Superhero at SAPT, recently had not one, but two knee replacements in the past year. Guess what? He was already in pretty good shape (100 pound chin up... check out the T-Day lift from 2011) and was quite strong heading into his first surgery. (he came in and trained the day before, both times!) Guess what? He's had an extremely rapid recovery (enough to impress his doctor) and actually started trap bar deadlifting about2 months ago. Need I mention that he's trap bar deadlifting 200 lbs already? His glutes, hamstrings and core were very well developed before surgery which all have helped supported his new knees during the period of learning to move with titanium instead of bones in his legs.

Brett Contreas and Dean Somerset (both of whom were my encouragement after my own back injury to continue to train wisely) are two strength coaches who have had some pretty serious back injuries. Both found exercises that they could do and still create a training effect (aka: getting stronger) as well as incorporated solid rehab techniques mobility and soft tissue work. They also are two brilliant fellows and learned everything they could about what muscles needed to be trained in order to protect their backs when they were able to train more aggressively again, despite the injuries remaining "un-fixed." Thanks to both of them, I learned how to rehab my own back, strengthen my active restraints around my spine and train like a beast again.

Also, I tore both my labrums in my hips (passive restraints) 3 years ago because if stupid training techniques and FAI. What can be cause FAI? Weak glutes, weak anterior core (thus an exaggerated anterior pelvic tilt) and joint laxity. I had all three. Exercises such as squatting when these are present are perfect for cultivating tears in labrums. Well, after 2 years of training, my glutes are stronger, my core is stronger (thank you swings!) and I've worked on joint stability in both my hips and lower back. Guess what? Unless I perform a movement that directly causes my hip to internally rotate, like getting in and out of a car, I pretty much forget that I have torn labrums and I trust that surrounding muscles are strong enough to protect my hips.

Life is rough and injuries happen. But, like Tadashi said, injuries are not the end of the world for an athlete, or even the average Joe (and they're not an excuse to stop working out!!). Get stronger today to prevent injuries tomorrow. And, should something come along that busts you up a bit, figure out how to work around it. You can always strengthen something. If you train wisely, do your rehab and keep striving to get stronger, injuries can be easily overcome.

RGIII! And Some Thoughts on Injuries

On Sunday I was watching the NFL playoffs at a local sports bar. In the fourth quarter of the Redskins-Seahawks game we all watched in horror as rookie quarterback Robert Griffin III fell to the ground with a serious knee injury. The whole room filled with Redskins fans fell silent with an overwhelming sense of devastation. Then the silence was replaced with frustrated murmurs and angry comments.

“Coach Shanahan shoulda taken him out in the 3rd!”

“Why was he even on the field?!”

“NOOOO!!!”

Being a Skins fan myself I can understand the frustration. However there was one comment that cut across the room that really… irked me.

“Well that’s it man, there goes his career. He’s done.”

Hrm...I disagree. I heard the same comments uttered last season when it looked like Adrian Peterson’s knee imploded. Over the next year he had surgery, did his rehab, and got back in the game as if he never skipped a day. Sports are brutal and athletes get hurt, but they can come back. Peyton Manning is another example. After having a level of his cervical vertabrae fused together he returned to help bring his new team to the playoffs.

One of my biggest inspirations is Ted Toalston, a competitive powerlifter in the 198 weight class. In 2011 he suffered a very severe lumbar herniation and underwent spine surgery. Since then he has been smart and consistent in his training, making his return to the platform with a performance that qualified him for the world championships. At the WPC World Championship he pulled off a 705lb squat, 479lb bench, and 650lb deadlift. He listens to his body, does his mobility work, takes care of soft tissue restrictions, trains hard, and trains smart. This is all within a year's time, and I’m pretty sure the bulk of it was spent taking all the right steps to recovery and return, not face-palming at home thinking “there goes my career…”

A lot of their success boils down to their goal-oriented attitude. If these athletes thought, “well, there goes my career,” there would be no point of aggressively attacking the rehab process and doing everything they need to do to get back into the game. If there is something they need to do to get better they will find out what it is and they will do it. The work ethic that helped them become great athletes in the first place is the same work ethic that will get them from injured to playing, and I think it is something we can all learn from and be inspired by.

Another aspect that all of these athletes have in common is that they were strong before the injury occurred. If you are a healthy competitive athlete, you have NOTHING to lose by getting stronger. The stronger you can make your active restraints (muscles) the more protection you build around your passive structures (ligaments/tendons/bones). Just ask DeJuan Blair, center for the San Antonio Spurs, who has no choice but to depend on his quadriceps and hamstrings to stabilize his knee. Why? Because he actually has no ACLs. Both of his ACLs were operated on when he was in high school, but the surgery was not successful in repairing the ligaments and the remaining scar tissue was re-absorbed. If his lower body musculature didn’t pick up the slack for this missing ligament, I’d take a wild guess and say he wouldn’t be playing professional basketball. Or any basketball.

Building the strength in all the right places will also build confidence coming back from an injury. As Adrian Peterson rushes down the field breaking tackles and making cuts he’s probably not thinking, “I sure hope this new ACL stays in one piece on this play.” Subconsciously I know he’s thinking “I’m sure glad I have enough control in my glutes to keep my knee tracking properly and my hamstrings are strong enough to prevent anterior translation of my tibia!” Sounds like something he would say.

The same can be said about a strong core. You should build up the strength in your abs, lower back and glutes to the point where you are confident in the muscular stiffness you can create around your spine, and not simply pray that you have enough structural integrity in the passive structures in your back as you unrack a heavy weight. Whether you are hurt or healthy, there no reason why you shouldn't strive to be stronger and more confident.

The Redskins had a tremendous season, and I am looking forward to the return of RGIII. To the pessimistic fan that thinks all is lost for the young quarterback:

“Strength is never a weakness” -Mark Bell

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t- you’re right.” -Henry Ford

A Tip on Coaching New Exercises

Below is a short video regarding a tip I've found extremely useful when it comes to coaching exercises, specifically when working with someone new or walking someone through an exercise that is new to them.

Let's get to it! Hopefully you find it helpful.