Personal Trainer, Fitness Educator, and Web Developer
Rowing is one of our fundamental movements that everyone should master. It’s relatively easy to find people with a big chest or big legs who are still weak. It’s impossible to find someone with a big back who is weak.
Here’s a playlist of five videos describing the muscles involved in the rowing movement. Namely, the lower traps, the upper traps, the rhomboids, the lats, and a little troubleshooting.
Like these videos? Then you’ll love The Movement Seminar.
So you’ve caught yourself or someone else doing this little lean thing while lunging.
Whatever is going on, you know that it ain’t right. That’s a great start! But… what IS going on?
There are a few things that might be going on here. I’ll describe them based on how they look.
On my way to the gym. Running late. Got out of the office late. Then forgot something and had to head back really quickly. Stopped at seemingly every traffic light that has ever existed.
Surely you’ve experienced that. Do you ever skip your warm up when that happens?
How much of it do you skip? Do you even have a warm up?
There are some parts of a warm up that are absolutely essential. Then there are some things that you can use to “stack the deck”, so to speak, to ensure you’re optimizing your session.
A good warm up sets you up for a great workout.
Continue readingLast updated: July 18, 2021
There’s no bigger insight into someone’s behavior than the head and neck. But what drives the head and neck?
If you want to be a great movement coach, you need high empathy and knowledge of anatomy. What is someone feeling and how does that feeling affect the structures of the body?
I’m not even talking about empathy in the obvious sense of human interaction. Will it help you seem like less of a robot? Sure. Will more people like you? Probably. But the hidden power of empathy for coaches is in decision making.
Imagine the basketball coach who keeps telling a kid to stay low out of a cut. The coach repeats the same words — over and over — throughout the season, but the kid does not respond.
Most coaches would say this kid is unathletic, unteachable, or disobedient.
But what if that kid cannot physically move his body that way? Maybe he just eats too much food before practice and pops straight up out of a cut because his hip is impinging in the bottom. I say this with 100% certainty of possibility.
If this coach wants to improve, he should know basic nutrition, biomechanics of the hip joint, and the anatomy of the thorax and abdomen. And, perhaps most importantly, he cannot assume anything.
This example and the hip joint is a starting point, but what about the head and neck? It’s the same, just in a different part of the body. I make better coaching decisions now that I’m paying attention to my clients’ head positions.
If someone has a rib cage that’s riding up, I’ll look to see what’s happening at the pelvis.
If someone has a slight head tilt when moving their arms, I’ll look to see what I can change at their thorax.
If someone is constantly looking down, I’ll challenge them to look straight ahead.
If someone is popping up out of a cut, I’ll look to see if their head and neck can bend.
The complexity of the joints in the head an neck make this undertaking difficult, but the sternocleidomastoid is the best place to start. This is the single muscle with the greatest ability to affect the head and neck because it’s relatively thick and has huge moment arms. It is, therefore, a strong mover in all three anatomical planes of motion.
As if the physics wasn’t enough, remember that the brain is always preoccupied with what the head is doing. Don’t believe me? Here’s a short list of what’s on the agenda for today:
I’m here to help you dissect this topic piece by piece. I’ve included references for those who want to dive deeper. Each section of this post is meant to lead into the next one, but I’ve supplemented the writing with many pictures in hopes to make this article clearer and more engaging. If you want, you could get away with skipping around.
Given the positive feedback received on my post over the serratus anterior, I knew the present article had to be written.
Let’s start off with generalities.
Continue readingThis is part III of a four part series. All parts have all been published, so here is part I, part II, part III, and part IV.
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Day 3 was the first appearance of James Anderson, and this dude knocked it out of the park.
Ron is, well, the king. Lori is the empathizer. Cantrell has patience. J-Poo (THE Jen Poulin) helps you apply. And James makes things visual.
And none of them will baby you.
They’re some of the best teachers in the world, and James made sure we knew that.
PRI is an iceberg.
When Bill first exposed us to it at IFAST several years ago, we saw the tip of the iceberg.
“Oh, so you should foam roll your right adductor, do right clamshells, and left adductor pullbacks.”
The Myokinematic Restoration manual lists a treatment algorithm based on position and pathology. Seeing and feeling the changes from repositioning had me hooked immediately. So, naturally, we had an exercise for each of the first four sections and everyone did them. But can you break stuff down that easily?
Turns out you can’t.
Our initial vision only saw the tip of the iceberg. Now that I’m underwater, I can appreciate just how broad and complex this PRI thing is. My goal with these blogs is to convey this complexity to all of the people who invest their time reading my words.
I try not to post much directly from the manual because I think you should get it and go through it for yourself, but the following list opened the Day 3 section of our manual and I think it is a good representation of the depth of the PRI rabbit hole:
Right Brachial Chain (R BC) or Posterior Exterior Chain (PEC) gait patterns reflect:
(PRI AI 2014 Manual, p. 162)
Are you considering all of the possibilities?
Bet you didn’t consider the possibility of this picture
Here are the main concepts of this section
Okay, so on to gait. When during gait is my head directly over my feet?
Midstance, correct. Now when is my potential energy highest?
Mistance, correct, because center of gravity (COG) is highest there. What makes it higher?
Thoracic extension, correct. Man you’re good at this. So if I drive more thoracic extension, my COG will go up. If I start up higher like this, but I still need to control my gait, what is needed?
More kinetic energy, correct. Because energy is conserved and, during gait, it is shifted between potential and kinetic energy based on where you are in the gait cycle. This is a simple view, but still effective for learning. Now can I access the kinetic energy I need if I am unable to flex my thorax?
No I can’t, you are correct. So I can’t transfer energy well. Picture efficiency of gait as being like water. Dissention and fighting the forces of nature does not help you, you need to learn to go with the flow.
Normal sagittal plane motion of the shoulder during gait is 6 degrees of flexion and 24 degrees of extension (PRI 2014 AI Manual, p. 166). If I don’t have that arm swing, do you think I’m walking effciently? No way. I don’t have the arm swing to help decelerate trunk rotation and my back has to start working overtime. I’m walking with two feet on my feet and two feet on my hands. I’m no longer a biped.
Same goes for all of those other bullets we talked about. Can’t flex your thorax? You suck at making kinetic energy during gait. Can’t IR your left hip? Can’t IR your right shoulder? Can’t rotate your thorax? Maybe I only notice my right visual field and these limitations are driven from that.
What about those people who can’t stop looking at the ground? As I was giving some exercises to one of our more tenured clients the other day, her positions looked great, except that her head was down. Way down. When I asked her to bring it up and look at the garage 75 feet away, she broke down. Her shakes made it look like a deadlift PR. She needs help learning how to manage space.
Because, you see, if she’s looking down (cervical flexion), then her thorax is extended. In order to flex the thorax, she needs to appreciate appropriate cervical extension. Instead of referencing the ground with her feet, she uses her eyes.
“You need to learn how to push on the floor or the floor will push on you.”
-James Anderson
If we don’t help her learn how to manage space, she’ll use her neck. Do any of your clients have neck stiffness? I know mine do.
I hope the physics talk about gait and energy helped you (I know it helped me to go through it).
The majority of James’s talk was on the Superior T4 Syndrome patient, where the right neck becomes overactive. There are complex implications in the position of the rib cage, rotation of the thorax, and various thoracic musculature. You’ll have to get him to tell you about those things. I went over some of it in last month’s Elite Training Mentorship video.
Other bullets from Day 3:
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