But I PROMISE I am going to 1) be brief, and more importantly 2) showcase why it’s important and why it will help you feel better, move better, perform better, and likely turn you into a Jedi Master Spartan Sex God of Minas Tirith.1
The reason I ask is because, ideally, you want to see a 360 or 3D expansion of your ribcage when you take a breath in.
In other words you want to see a little of everything move – chest, belly, back, sides, not eyeballs.
Unfortunately, for the bulk of people out there, this isn’t the case. Many tend to be just be
“chest breathers” or just “belly breathers,” and what ends up happening is a poor Zone of Apposition.
A Zone of Appo Come Again Now?
Zone of Apposition can simply be referred to as alignment. Or, more specifically, it can be described as the act of bringing together or into proximity.
Photo Credit: Postural Restoration Institute (<– AKA smart mofo’s)
If you take a gander at the Optimal ZOA picture (middle) you’ll see a diaphragm that’s domed out as well as aligned (stacked) above the pelvic floor; the ribcage is connected to the pelvis.
Conversely, in the Sub-Optimal ZOA picture (right), the diaphragm is flattened out and the ribs are in a more flared position; they might as well be located in Mordor in relation to the pelvis.
In non-nerd speak: Shit’s all out of whack.
At this point you may be thinking to yourself, “fuck outta here Tony. Who cares? Zone of Apposition sounds more like a term accountants use than anything I need to be worried about. Squats.”
Well, after listening to my colleague, Dr. Sarah Duvall, speak on the matter, here’s why it matters.
A Loss of Zone of Apposition Means:
Decreased core stability, control, respiratory efficiency, and exercise tolerance under fatigue…in addition to postural ramifications.
Increased accessory breathing muscle activity (scalenes, traps, levator), paraspinal activity, lumbo-pelvic instability, low back pain, SI joint pain, and even headaches.
A Quickie Breathing Assessment
Sit down in a chair and place your hands so that your fingers sit underneath and go around the sides of your ribcage.
Inhale.
What happens?
If an alien explodes out of your chest, that sucks.
You should feel LATERAL (into your fingers) expansion of the ribcage with a some motion in your chest and belly too. To steal another train of thought from Sarah, you should think of your breath as the handle at the side of a bucket.
As you take a breath in the handle should move out – LATERALLY – away from the bucket. This is a brilliant analogy for your ribs expanding.
Too, another overlooked aspect of the breath is what’s referred to as the High Hinge Point. This is the area that’s just underneath the bra line.
Can you (or your clients) expand air into this area.
Normal ZOA. Uncanny Jackedness.
Sub-Optimal ZOA (High Hinge Point). Still Uncanny Jackedness
Breathing into the back is an arduous and foreign task for many people, but it’s a key element to improving the ZOA.
Here’s a nice drill to help with that which I’ve used many times with my postpartum clients (as well as those attempting to resolve nagging low back or shoulder issues; encouraging the ribcage to move/expand works wonders for many people).
And That’s That
I suck at writing conclusions. To summarize:
1. Work on LATERAL rib motion.
2. Consider a high-hinge point in people and work to promote back-body expansion as well.
3. My wife and I bought the yellow chair on Wayfair in case anyone’s wondering…;o)
Forget the more esoteric nuances of things like Heart Rate Variability, the efficacy of cold baths, or whether it’s better to follow a concurrent or linear periodization training program for best results.
For superior results in the weight-room I’d make the argument that the ONE thing many lifters fail to appreciate and understand is that easy training is goodtraining.
This past weekend I had the lovely experience of performing a rap battle presenting (alongside my wife) at the Raise the Bar Conference in Dallas, TX.
One of the key talking points I attempted to drive home during our talk was this idea that easy training is good training.
I love to explain it like this:
10% of your workouts you’re going to feel like Mick Jagger on cocaine. I.e., The weights will just fly up and you’ll make a run at a PR (or two).
10% of your workouts you’re going to feel like Mick Jagger the day after. I.e., You feel like you got run over by a Mack truck. I.e., warm-up weights feel like they’re cemented to the floor.
80% of your workouts are the ones where you go in and just do the work. You show up, get your reps in, and leave.
I’d argue for most people, most of the time, they should leave the gym wanting more. This is what 80% workouts are all about.
Don’t get me wrong: there’s a time and place for workouts and/or programs that exist solely to be ass-kickers and make you hate life:
Smolnov
German Volume Training
Sheiko
Anything involving a chain saw.
The thing to consider, though, and what many fail to recognize, is that programs like the ones mentioned above are designed to be done once a year (if that) and only for a fraction of time.
A small window of hell if you will.
They’re not designed to be done week in and week out for an extended length of time.
I mean heck, if you don’t believe me, take a deep dive into many of the most popular (strength) training programs of all-time (5/3/1, Juggernaut, Cube Method, any of Travis Mash’s programs). If you dissect any of them you’ll find the bulk of the work being done in those programs is in the 75-85% of 1RM territory.
Nothing hardcore or extreme to say the least.
It’s smart training, designed to ensure people feel fresh, recovered, and ready to attack every training session without, hopefully, all the bumps and bruises along the way.
In short: Focus on those 80% workouts. The ones you do on a random Thursday. Those are where you actually make progress over time.
Coming Soon – Strong Body, Strong Mind App
(The first app to combine BOTH strength training AND Mental Skills together from myself and Dr. Lisa Lewis)
Go HERE to learn more and be the first to know when it’s available.
The topic of low back pain (LBP) – how to assess it, diagnose it, and how to treat it – can be a controversial one. I italicized the word “can” because I don’t feel it’s all that controversial.
Cauliflower as an option for pizza crust or Zach being chosen as the bachelor on the current season of The Bachelor (when it’s 100% clear that a ham sandwich has more charisma) = controversial.
Simple stuff to consider to help with one’s LBP = not so much.
The topic of low back pain and how to address it is controversial because there’s no one clear approach or answer to solve it.
(And if the last 3+ years of this pandemic dumpster fire has taught us anything it’s that we looooooove to argue over what’s best and what works).
SPOILER ALERT: Everything and nothing causes LBP.
Have ten different doctors or physical therapists work with the same patient and it’s likely you’ll get ten different opinions as to what the root cause is and what tactics need to be implemented to resolve it.
One person says it’s due to delayed firing of the Transverse Abdominus (TA), while someone else states it’s due to someone’s less than great posture or tight hamstrings.
For the record, all are weak excuses at best.
The culprit can rarely be attributed to any ONE thing.
But it’s amazing how often “tight hamstrings” is the fall guy.
Low back pain? Tight hamstrings.
Knee hurts? Tight hamstrings.
Have Type II Diabetes? Tight hamstrings.
Brown patches on your front lawn? Hamstrings.
It’s uncanny.
I mean, I could just as easily sit here and say in worse case scenarios LBP results from drinking too much coffee. I have zero evidence to back that up, but whatever.
…neither do most of the other “culprits” people tend to use as scapegoats.
So, why not coffee?
Or Care Bears for that matter, those sadistic fucks.
What works for one person, may exacerbate symptoms for someone else. And as my good friend, Dr. John Rusin notes:
“Fact of the matter is: there is NO one right way. it’s a big mistake to lump all LBP into the same category and even a bigger mistake to assume all of it presents the same or should be treated the same.”
There’s no way for me to write a thorough blog post on such a loaded topic; especially one that will make everyone happy.
It’s impossible.
I have better odds at surviving a cage match with an Uruk-hai.
Part of me feels like the proper response to the question “what causes low back pain and what’s the best way to address it?” is this:
Most people reading aren’t clinicians or physical therapists. There’s very little (if any) diagnosing going on in the hands of a personal trainer or strength coach. And, truth be told, if you are a personal trainer or strength coach and you are diagnosing, YOU……NEED…….TO…….STOP.
Just stop.
It’s imperative to defer to your network of more qualified (and vetted) fitness/health professionals whom you trust to do that.
However, it’s important to also consider we (as in personal trainers and strength coaches) are often the “first line of entry” into the medical model. We’re the first to recognize faulty movement patterns, weakness, imbalances, and bear the brunt of questioning from our clients and athletes when they come to us with low back pain.
There’s quite a bit we can do to help people.
What follows is a brief look into my mind and what has worked for me in the past with regards to LBP; a Cliff Notes “big rock” brain dump if you will.
Sorry if I offended anyone who likes Care Bears.
1) Rest Is Lame
My #1 pet peeve (and many agree with me) is that “rest” is the worst piece of advice ever.
“Go stick your finger in that electrical socket over there” would be better.
This isn’t to say there aren’t extenuating circumstances where taking a chill pill is absolutely the right choice; sometimes we do need to back off and allow the body a window of time to heal or reduce pain/swelling/symptoms.
That said, I think it’s lame when a medical professional tells someone to “rest,” or worse, informs them that they’ll need to learn to “live with low back pain.”
It’s a defeatist attitude and will spell game over for many people. Before you know it they’re living on a foam roller and thinking about a “neutral spine” while washing their hands.
(NOTE: I am not anti-teaching neutral spine to people. It’s a lovely starting point for most people, but at some stage people need to learn to move in (and out) of precarious positions…because that’s life).
A common theme reverberated in the S&C community is to say “strength is corrective.” I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment. In fact, why the hell has this not been made into a t-shirt yet?
However, I think a slightly better moniker may be to say:
“Movement is corrective.“
We can use movement (and yes, strength) to help people get out of pain. Rest has its time and place, but I find stagnation to be more of a problem.
The body is meant to move and is wonderfully adaptive. And that’s the thing: adaptation and forcing the body to react to (appropriate levels of) change and stress is paramount to long-term success with LBP.
Sitting on a couch watching Divorce Court in the middle of the day isn’t going to help.
2) Move, But Move Well
I was watching Optimizing Movement with Mike Reinold recently and he noted there are three key elements to movement and why someone may not do it well:
Structural Issues
Coaching/Technique
Programming
It’s important to understand that, in this case, everyone is a unique snowflake.
Structure: Anatomically speaking there is huge variance amongst the population. Hip structure, for example, can have a large effect on someone’s ability to squat to a certain depth or get into certain positions. Likewise, who’s to say the hips are always the culprit? Even upper extremity considerations – like one’s ability to bring their arms overhead (lack of shoulder flexion) – can have dire consequences on back health.
The body likes to use the path of least resistance (also the most efficient) to accomplish any task. However in this case, “most efficient” doesn’t mean best. As Reinold notes:
“Efficient in this case refers to energy, not movement.”
Lack of shoulder flexion will often lead to compensation via more extension through the lumbar spine. It’s efficient movement, but it’s not better movement.
Coaching/Technique: I’m a firm believer that everyone should deadlift (it’s a hip hinge, learning to dissociate hip movement from lumbar movement, doesn’t mean we have to load it), but I don’t feel everyone should do it from the floor or with a straight bar.
Cater the exercise to the lifter, not the lifter to the exercise.
More on this below.
Programming: If someone lacks hip flexion why have them conventional deadlift? If someone lacks shoulder flexion why have them perform overhead pressing or kipping pull-ups? Some of the onus is on YOU, dear fitness professional.
Find what actions hurt or exacerbate symptoms, and stop doing it.
I know I just blew your mind right there.
For example:
1. Client says “x” hurts, and then places their body into some pretzel like contortionist position that would make a Cirque du Soliel performer give them a high-five.
Me: “Um, stop doing that.”
2. But that could also mean addressing how they walk or how they sit in a chair. Someone with flexion-based back pain, will like to be in flexion, a lot.
Maybe taking them through a slump test will offer some pertinent info.
Have them start in a “good” position:
Then, have them purposely “slump” into excessive flexion:
Someone who is flexion intolerant – despite preferring to be in that position – will often say this causes pain.
Ding, ding, ding.
So, the “fix” is to coach them up and try to keep them out of excessive spinal flexion. Cueing them how to sit in their chair and to get up (wider base of support, brace abs, chest up), building spinal endurance (and strength) via planks, and having them hang out in more extension may be the right path to take.
3. On the opposite side of the spectrum is extension, which is often a problem in more athletic populations and in those occupations requiring more standing (ahem: personal trainers/coaches).
Here you might put them into extension and see what happens.
Much like people who are flexion intolerant “liking” flexion, those in excessive extension will like to live in extension.
This will likely hurt.
Finding their spinal neutral is key too.
Hammering spinal endurance/strength via planks (done well) still hits the nail on the head, as does nudging them towards exercises that emphasize posterior pelvic tilt (much of time cuing people NOT to excessively arch during their set up on squats and deadlifts), and even drills that promote spinal flexion…albeit unloaded.
Spinal flexion doesn’t always have to be avoided. In fact, it’s sometimes needed.
Either way, meticulous attention to detail on finding spinal neutral – or pain from ROM – is huge. Once that is addressed, and symptoms has subsided, we can then encourage them to marinate in more amplitude of movement, taking them OUT of spine neutral (cause, it’s gonna happen in everyday life) and use the weight-room to help strengthen those new ROMs.
But I digress.
4) Don’t Treat People Like a Patient
I know this will rub some people the wrong way, but I still use the deadlift for the bulk of people I work with you have LBP.
Nothing sounds so absurd to me than when I hear someone say how the deadlift is ruining everyone’s spines.
To recap:
Deadlift = hip hinge.
Hip Hinge = learning to dissociate hip movement from lumbar movement.
Mic drop.
Resiliency is key in my book. And not many movements make the body more resilient than the deadlift or any properly progressed hip hinge exercise catered to the individual’s goals, injury history, and ability level:
Assuming I have coached someone up enough to understand spinal neutral and they’re able to maintain it, why not poke the bear and challenge them?
A deadlift doesn’t always mean using a straight bar and pulling heavy from the floor until someone shit’s their spleen.
I can use a kettlebell and band to groove the movement:
I can also use a trap bar, which is a more user-friendly way of deadlifting as it allows those with mobility restrictions to get into a better position compared to a straight bar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-sA3PG1kGY
Too, I have found great success with various other exercises:
Farmer and Suitcase carries
Shovel Holds
“Offset” loaded exercises like 1-arm DB presses or 1-arm rows, lunges or RDLs (where you hold ONE DB to the side and perform the exercise). It’s a great way to increase the challenge to the core musculature.
Or even outside-the-box exercises like Slideboard Miyagi’s
So long as we’re staying out of precarious positions or those positions which feed into the issue(s) at hand, we’re good.
Find a training effect with your clients/athletes.
Help them find their TRAINABLE MENU.
And That’s That
People have low back pain for a variety of reasons: They’re too tight, too loose, too weak, have poor kinesthetic awareness, or they’re left handed.
The umbrella theme to remember is that there is never ONE root cause or ONE definitive approach to address it across the board. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some “big rock” things to consider that will vastly improve your’s and their chances of success.
NOTE: There’s only a few more days to get my latest continuing education resource – Strategic Strength – at $50 off the regular price. Today’s post discusses one of the main topics covered in the course: Assessment.
Assessment.
People don’t like the feeling of being judged – especially by complete strangers.
However, when it comes to working with a coach or personal trainer for the first time, an “assessment” is pretty much standard procedure; a means to an end with regards to collecting data to better ascertain someone’s starting point.
In Short: An assessment guides the coach to help figure out the safest and most efficient path for a client to reach his or her’s goal(s).4
That being said…I feel many of us are approaching assessment the wrong way.
I am not writing this as an attack against assessment
Likewise I am also not here to say one way or the other how you should assess your clients.
You know your clients/athletes better than I do.
I don’t care if your assessment of choice is the Functional Movement Screen, the Selective Functional Movement Assessment, PRI (Postural Restoration Institute), DNS (Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization), FRC (Functional Range Conditioning), whatever institutions like NASM or ACE prefer, or, I don’t know, duck-duck-goose.
Everything has it’s strengths and weaknesses.
More to the point, I would think that as people progress through their careers they’d take it upon themselves to actively change their minds the more they learn and gain experience.
They’ll experiment more and eventually “cherry pick” from several modalities to best fit their philosophy and approach to training.
Ideally “assessment” should be a smorgasbord of reaches, rolls, carries, squats, hinges, toe touches, twists, presses, and bicep curls (<— only half kidding on that last one), among other things.
Here is Gray Cook’s definition of assessment (a good one, mind you):
“In the assessment you take your education background, your professional wisdom, the particular situation, the time constraints, other historical information like a medical history or previous problems…and put all that together. That’s an assessment.”
Pretty hard to disagree with that, right?
Here’s my lame attempt:
“Can the person sitting/standing in front of you do stuff?”
I’m not tossing darts at everyone, but I do find that the bulk of fitness professionals out there use the initial assessment as an opportunity to search every crevasse (not that crevasse, get your mind out of the gutter), nook & cranny, and area of the body for “dysfunction.”
Many use the assessment as an opportunity to demonstrate to someone how much of a walking ball of fail they are.
“Okay Mr. Jones here’s what we got: your hip flexors are tight, you have forward head posture, you lack frontal plane stability, you lack ample scapular upward rotation, your left big toe has zero dorsiflexion, you have weak glutes, you’re quad dominant, your shoulders are slightly internally rotated, you’re probably gluten intolerant, your wife is cheating on you, and I’m about 37% convinced you have cancer.
If you purchase a 24 pack you’ll save $13 per session. Whataya say?”
Some of the above may be relevant and stuff you should focus on as a trainer. I mean, I’m not going to sit here and belabor a coach for wanting to improve a client’s thoracic spine mobility.
However, if I were the person listening to some laundry list of things I suck at or need to improve on, I’d be like………
………..”fuck off.”
Be Careful of Being Told to “Fuck Off”
There’s much I can wax poetic on when it comes to the topic of assessment. My biggest pet-peeve, though, is when coaches/trainers place waaaaaaaaaay too much emphasis on someone’s resting/static posture.
Lets revisit the picture from above.
Many high-end gyms implement this advanced form of “postural assessment” as an up-sell to seduce more people into purchase training.
Said individual stands in front of a giant gridded screen and is then hooked up with a bunch of probes and what not that are placed at strategic locations around the body that bloop and bleep.
It’s reminiscent of one the most terrifying movies I have ever seen, Fire in the Sky.
Remember that one?
You know, that alien abduction movie from the early 90’s where the main character is relentlessly poked and prodded by a bunch of aliens on their spaceship?
It’s terrifying.
Anyway, I can’t help but be reminded of that movie whenever I see someone being told to stand in front of a grid so some trainer can scrutinize every inch of their posture in the hopes they’ll be hired to “fix” it.
Who says it needs to be fixed in the first place?
I’m reminded of a photograph shared by Fort Worth, TX based physical therapist, Dr. Jarod Hall a few years back which hammers home my point.
Here’s what he said/posted:
“I want everybody to look closely at this picture and tell me what you see…”
“I see 20 of the world’s top athletes that have tremendous range of motion, strength, body control, and physical capacity… Yet all have significant variances in their static posture as determined by the holy grail plumb-line.
Static posture is near worthless to measure for injury or pain prediction.”
Placing all your eggs into one basket – in this case static posture, which a lot of fitness professionals do – is unfortunate.
Posture is a Position, It’s Not a Death Sentence
To steal from another really smart physical therapist, Dr. Quinn Henoch, “posture will always be relative to two things:
the task at hand
and the load
If you’re not taking into consideration those two things during an assessment – in addition to movement, repetition, speed, etc – and you’re only assessing people based off static posture, well, you’re not smart.
The question, then, is….”what should an assessment look like or consist of?”
HEADS UP: My newest and latest continuing education resource – Strategic Strength – is now officially available to make out with purchase. It’s on sale all this week at $50 off the regular price.
I hope you’ll check it out. (waves Jedi hand – you WILL check it out).
This is a story about a woman, her deadlifting journey, and how the words we use matter.
Unfortunately there are no dragons involved, but it’s a BALLER tale nonetheless.
It begins in 2019 (remember those carefree days!?!) and takes us all the way to a mere three weeks ago where a Colorado State Record was broken.
To serve as slight prelude, I’d be remiss not to point you in the direction of a blog post I wrote in early 2020 titled The Words We Use Matter.
In it I discuss the often negative connotation the words we use have on the psyche of our athletes/clients.
The best example is the initial assessment/evaluation.
Instead of using it as an opportunity to empower someone and to demonstrate to them what they CAN do, we’ll often use the assessment as an invitation to chop them down a peg or two and hone in on their faults thinking, mistakingly, that by doing so we’ll “woo” them into submission; that the only way they can be “fixed” is by purchasing a 24-pack of sessions.
It’s relevant because 1) I go into detail on what NOT to do during an assessment in Strategic Strength and 2) in hindsight the seed(s) of that article were very much planted a year prior, in 2019, at a fitness event I was involved in.
The quick backstory is that I was invited to Colorado Springs to record a webinar at NSCA Headquarters for their 2019 Virtual Personal Trainers Conference.
My presentation was on “Hip Assessment” and how fitness professionals should lean more into the idea of asymmetry (brief take: it won’t kill you) and that it behooves us to take time to better individualize one’s squat and deadlift set-up & execution.
I.e., little tweaks here in there with regards to foot position, stance, or even the variation can go a long ways in helping a lift not only feel better, but feel more stable and powerful too.
Part of my presentation involved taking someone in the audience through a real-time assessment in addition to a technique audit.
Here’s visual proof of the interaction:
That’s me on the left and Jenny (Stein) on the right – you can check her out on IG HERE), a personal trainer located in Colorado Springs.
If I recall correctly, Jenny volunteered her deadlift because, according to her, “it had never felt great.” So I spent a solid 20-30 minutes taking Jenny through some shenanigans.
She had always performed her deadlifts with a conventional stance (feet closer together, hands just outside the knees) but it had always bothered her back.
So I widened her stance to a modified Sumo stance (pictured above) which allowed her to maintain a more upright torso and placed less shearing on her spine. I then got her to have a better appreciation of what it really feels like to ramp up full-body tension:
Finding her hamstrings by experimenting with hip position (up, down, back, forth, BAM, okay, right there).
Finding her lats: “squeeze an orange in your armpits.”
Having her put more force INTO the ground by PUSHING away from the floor rather than pulling.
Connecting the bar to the inner circle of the plates – “taking slack out of the bar.”
All these things helped her stay better engaged and helped her to maintain a neutral spine throughout each rep (no more back rounding).
Was she perfect?
No.
All I was after was “better.”
I kept things positive, focused on the “big rocks,” and tried my best to cement the things that were clicking with her at the moment.
(Another really brief digression: I go into MUCH more detail on ALL OF THE ABOVE in Strategic Strength. Hint, Hint Like, you get to SEE it for yourself).
In all, at the end of the live session, her deadlift felt and looked better, which was a win in my book.
Unbeknownst to me (at the time), during one of the breaks in filming, another male trainer in the audience approached Jenny to make some small talk. He asked her in passing if she had ever deadlifted before?
She said yes, but that she hadn’t a ton of experience.
His response:
“Yeah, those looked pretty shitty.”
What profound feedback!
Fucking asshat.
It was weeks later, when Jenny sent me a message thanking me for the coaching cues I gave her, that she told me about her exchange with the other trainer in attendance.
We had a chuckle about it, and shared a few eye rolls…
…but it made me wonder about this guy’s coaching style. Obviously I have no way of knowing for sure, but if he had such callous and insensitive commentary towards a complete stranger, wasn’t it safe to assume it was more of the same with his own clients as well?
Some people may respond positively to such feedback. In my experience, most would crumble.
(shrugs)
The words we use matter.
I mean, what if I had taken the same approach?
Let’s say we had a time machine and went back to my first interaction with Jenny and my initial feedback mirrored his (albeit with a bit more drama):
“OH MY GOD. MY EYES. MY EYES. THEY’RE BLEEDING. MAKE IT STOP. MAKE IT STOOOOOOOOOOOP.
Sorry Jenny, those looked really shitty. Also, your dog is ugly. Next.”
Chances are I’d have turned Jenny off completely and she never would have pursued training with deadlifts ever again.
Instead, This is What Happened
This is a message I received from Jenny in early 2020:
“Hey Tony!
I’m the girl from the NSCA with the “shitty deadlift.” I wanted to tell you that my ugly deadlift is now 335 pounds and I have entered my first powerlifting competition and may even grab a state record next year.
The time you spent with me that day last year sparked something and it may sound ridiculous, but I don’t know where I would be today without the magical creature called the deadlift. For some reason I felt compelled to share this with you today. What may have seemed ordinary and mundane to you completely changed my life.
Again, probably sounds over-dramatic but I truly mean it. You’re a gem. Keep doing what you do.”
We moved both courses to a new platform which will make both the delivery and user experience more enjoyable and seamless.
Dean and I both have a bunch of new followers6 since we last put them on sale.
It’s a new year and as such a lot of fitness professionals will need to start thinking about ramping up their continuing education and getting their CEU requirements in order.
Last but not least, we’re awesome.
Go HERE to enroll in one (or both courses).
IMPORTANT: use the coupon code wutang50 to receive your $50 off credit at checkout.
Now to the Shoulder Stuff
We can easily make the case that the shoulders are the most annoying and often injured part of the body for many people, meatheads in particular. And, to be candid, there are any number of things to consider with regards to why:
Rotator cuff weakness
Poor scapular stability (<– better term would be Controlled Scapular Mobility)
Postural considerations
Acromion type
Scapular kinematics (inability to upwardly rotate, for example)
It’s weird, though, when it comes to programming for the shoulders there’s this dichotomous yin-yang approach we have to consider:
What’s best for optimal (shoulder) performance?
And.
What’s best for optimal (shoulder) health?
Shoulder Performance
I’m in the business of helping people get bigger, faster, stronger, and generally more dieselfied.
This usually (but not always) revolves around lifting objects of appreciable weight. Watch any strong person bench press, squat, or deadlift a lot of weight and there’s a common theme you’ll notice:
1. You’ll likely have to unclench your sphincter after watching someone do something you never thought humanly possible:
2. With regards to the shoulders – specifically the shoulder blades – there’s meticulous attention paid to their positioning.
Those bad boys are locked down. Retracted and depressed.
Or, in non-geek speak: They’re not moving.
Doing so provides an infinite more amount of stability to the joint and also provides a more stable base of support (particularly for the bench press) to push from. When it comes to the deadlift and/or squat it allows one to maintain a more “rigid” torso, stay tight, and decreases the chance of energy leaks.
Force is more efficiently transferred within the kinetic chain.
Also, in non-geek speak: Just fucking trust me.
I’m no Eric Spoto, but I know how to coach the bench press and what to consider when it comes to performing at a high(er) level and making it so your shoulders don’t hate you.
Bench Press Set-Up: Shoulders Together & Down
Shoulder Health
It’s funny, when Dean Somerset and I teach our Complete Shoulder & Hip Blueprint workshop I’ll spend half a day imploring attendees to adopt the strategies mentioned above.
“Lock them down.”
…is what I’ll tell them. Referring to the shoulder blades and how it’s crucial to recognize ideal placement for performance
Then, after the lunch break, I’ll do a complete 180 and spend the rest of the day saying something to the effect of:
“Let those fuckers move.”
The shoulder blades do a lot:
Retract and protract
Elevate and depress
Upwardly and downwardly rotate
Posteriorly and anteriorly tilt.
It’s imperative to have “access” to the full spectrum of scapular motion in order to obtain optimal shoulder health.
We spend so much time telling people to squeeze their shoulder blades together – which, all told, isn’t a bad cue in of itself, but can cause a whole host of shoulder ouchies; downward rotation syndrome for starters – that it’s no wonder I get a range of quizzical looks whenever I tell people to let them move.
Protraction (or reaching) is a game changer for many.
1-Arm Quadruped Protraction
Easy Scapular Winging “Fix”
To go a step further and outside the “corrective” realm, when I coach people through a push-up or any kind of row variation a common mistake I find people make is keeping their shoulder blades pinned or glued together.
With push-ups I try to tell my clients to push away or “finish” at the top.
I don’t want their shoulder blades making out the entire time.
And with rows…
This Makes Me Sad
You’ll notice my shoulder blade isn’t moving at all; it’s staying in the retracted position throughout the duration of the set. This often leads to bicep tendon issues and anterior shoulder instability, amongst other things.
Instead I try to tell people I want their scapulae to move around their rib cage. After all that’s what they’re meant to do.
That’s More Like It
It’s profound how much this seemingly minor tweak will help with a lot of shoulder woes.
That’s It
Pretty easy, right?
Short, precise, and won’t require a book report.
Making a concerted effort to recognize and address both ends of the shoulder performance-health spectrum can and will make a huge difference and help you write more effective programs.
I had the opportunity to be invited onto the Coachable Podcast recently hosted by Kevin Dineen. Kevin and I met back in 2012-13(ish) at The Fitness Summit in Kansas City.
That year was my first year attending (as a speaker) and his first year attending (as an attendee). I don’t recall whether or not we Predator hand-shaked or not, but we probably did.
Because we’re both awesome.
In the years since he and I have crossed paths several times and as it happens he has invited me to be a presenter at the inaugural St. Louis Fitness Conference he’s organizing to be held later this Spring.
Starring at the barbell on the floor I couldn’t help but think to myself, “holy shit that’s a lot of weight.” Also, “I hope I don’t shit my spleen.”
The year: 2004. The place: Albany, NY, at some random Golds Gym.
I was visiting my sister and her family after a recent breakup with my then girlfriend and I decided to do what most guys would do when stuck in a vortex of rage, anger, sadness, and endless Julia Roberts movie marathons…
…I went to the gym to take my mind off of things.
This trip to the gym, however, would be different. I decided it was going to be the day.
No, not actually do some cardio.
I was going to deadlift 500 lbs for the first time.
I know this will surprise a lot of people when I say this, but I didn’t perform my first (real) deadlift until 2002 when I was 25 and still wet behind the ears with regards to my fitness career.
Mind you I had been lifting weights since I was 13, so it’s not like up until that point I had never seen a barbell.
It didn’t take long for me to become enamored with the deadlift. I loved that I was actually good at it, and I really loved how it made my body look and feel. It wasn’t long before I made it my mission to pull 500 lbs. It took me a little over a year to get there.8
Funnily enough, how I went about doing it was all sorts of contrarian compared to how I would approach the same task today.
Well, not 100% contrarian….but, you know, different.
1. I didn’t perform any traditional 90% work (working up to heavy singles). Instead I stayed in the 3-5 rep range, sometimes adding in some high(er) rep work for the hell of it. Whoever says you can’t improve your 1RM by working with sub-maximal weights is wrong.
As I like to remind my own clients today:
“you need to build a wider base with sub-maximal loads in order to reach higher peaks (in maximal strength).”
2. I didn’t use any special periodization scheme named after a Russian. I used good ol’ fashioned linear progression.
3. I didn’t rotate my movements every 2-3 weeks or follow some magical formula that had me incorporate the Mayan calendar. Nor did I perform some sort of dance to the deadlift gods every time there was a Lunar eclipse.
I performed the conventional deadlift almost exclusively.
Year round.
4. And maybe most blasphemous of all, I sometimes used wrist straps!!!
I know, I know…I didn’t want to be the one to break the news to you, but it’s true.
I believe straps should be used (sparingly) by pretty much everyone. For stark beginners it allows for more volume to be completed because grip becomes a limiting factor. For deadlifting terminators (I.e., really strong lifters) it also allows for more volume because grip becomes a limiting factor.
But this serves as a nice segue to a few question I receive almost without fail whenever I present:
Will using a mixed (under/over) grip when deadlifting cause any imbalances or is it dangerous?
Do you think straps should not be used during deadlifts?
First things first: Lets address the pink elephant in the room. I don’t feel utilizing a mixed grip is bad, and I do not think it’s dangerous.
This isn’t to say there aren’t some inherent risks involved.
But then again, every exercise has some degree of risk. I know a handful of people who have torn their biceps tendon – while deadlifting using a mixed grip. The supinated (underhand) side is almost always the culprit.
A LOT of people deadlift with a mixed grip, and A LOT of people never tear their bicep tendon. Much the same that a lot of people drive their cars and never get into an accident.
Watch any deadlift competition or powerlifitng meet and 99% of the lifters are pulling with a mixed grip. And the ones who aren’t are freaks of nature. They can probably also smell colors.
Pulling with a mixed grip allow someone to lift more weight as it prevents the bar from rolling in the hands. Sure we can also have a discussion on the efficacy of utilizing a hook grip, which is also an option.
I’m too wimpy and have never used the hook grip. If you use it I concede you’re tougher and much better than me.
Here’s My General Approach:
1. ALL warm-up/build-up sets are performed with a pronated (overhand grip).
2. ALL working sets are performed with a pronated grip until it becomes the limiting factor.
3. Once that occurs, I’ll then revert to a mixed grip….alternating back and forth with every subsequent set.
4. When performing max effort work, I’ll always choose my dominant grip, but I feel alternating grips with all other sets helps to “offset” any potential imbalances or injuries from happening.
Now, As Far As Straps
Despite what many may think, I don’t think it’s wrong or that you’re an awful human being or you’re breaking some kind of un-spoken Broscience rule if you use straps when you deadlift.
As I noted above, both ends of the deadlifting spectrum – beginners to Thanos – use straps. I think everyone can benefit from using them when it’s appropriate.
When I started deadlifting I occasionally used them because it allowed me to use heavier loads which 1) was awesome and 2) that’s pretty much it.
Straps allowed me to incorporate more progressive overload. My deadlift numbers increased. And I got yolked. Come at me Bro!
But I also understood that using straps was a crutch, and that if I really wanted to earn respect as a trainer and coach I had to, at some point, work my way up to a strapless pull. No one brags about their 1RM deadlift with straps in strength and conditioning circles. That’s amateur hour stuff for internet warriors to bicker over.
If you’re a competitive lifter, you can’t use straps in competition (outside of CrossFit, and maybe certain StrongMan events?)…so it makes sense to limit your use of straps in training.
If you’re not a competitive lifter, well then, who cares!?!
It’s just a matter of personal choice.
Note: If I am working with someone who’s had a previous bicep tendon or forearm injury, has elbow pain, or for some reason has a hard time supinating one or both arms, I’ll advocate that they use straps 100% of the time.
Offhandedly, straps do tend to slow people down which could be argued as a hinderance to performance. One mistake I see some trainees make with their setup is that they’ll bend over, grab the bar, and take way too long before they start their actual pull.
The logic is this: If you spend too much time at the bottom you’ll miss out on the stretch shortening cycle. As I like to coach it: Grip, dip, rip!
Digital Strategic Strength Workshop Coming Soon
For more insights on deadlifting, coaching, programming, assessment, and general badassery keep your eyes peeled for my upcoming continuing education resource which should be available this coming January!
I WAS invited onto the Principles of Performance Podcast recently hosted by Eric D’Agati and Mike Perry. If you’re looking for a much needed break from quality family time during the holidays I got your back.
You can download & listen from all major streaming services HERE.
Or, if you prefer to stare at my sultry eyes as I speak you can watch on YouTube below:
This is not an attempt at me saying dysfunction is a myth.
There are certainly any number of people walking into a gym on any given day with any number of “issues” that require a bit more, shall we say, TLC.
Lack of scapular upward rotation.
History of disc herniations.
Poor t-spine extension.
Gonorrhea.
You know, stuff like that.
That being said, I’m tired of coaches and personal trainers defaulting to verbiage that assumes everyone is broken because they can’t squat to a certain depth or lack 4.2 degrees of big toe dorsiflexion and then in order to fix said “things” they have to complete a laundry list of corrective exercises or go through an eleven week seance in order to begin actual exercise.
Sometimes, actually a lot of the time, we just need to kinda-sorta remind people that they can do stuff.
Take overhead mobility (shoulder flexion) for example.
I’m a firm believer people need to earn the right to overhead press, and putting someone though a simple overhead mobility screen is a simple way to ascertain that information.
My good friend and London based trainer, Luke Worthington, has a really nice way of stating things:
“Can you do it? Can you really do it
Observing a task as simple as an overhead reach, we should be asking ourselves where that motion came from…
…was it true motion from the shoulder (scapulae)? Or was some of that motion ‘borrowed’ from other segments?”
To that point, but to expound a bit further, it’s imperative to observe active vs. passive range of motion. I.e., comparing what they can do (active ROM) to what you, the coach, can help them do (passive ROM).
This is an important component of coaching.
As coaches we’ll see a limitation in active ROM and immediately think we have to start smashing, thrashing mobility, and/or putting someone through the gauntlet of corrective exercise purgatory in order to “fix” it.
Don’t forget passive ROM.
Because if you can nudge more ROM just by helping them a teeny, tiny bit…it’s not mobility issue. They have access to that ROM, but are unable to control it.
Here’s an Active vs. Passive screen in action:
To Summarize (for those who are too uppity to watch a less than three minute video):
Jonathan had limited active ROM with shoulder flexion.
Jonathan had access to more passive ROM when I helped him.
I then had him hold his end range to remind the brain that “oh, I’m okay, I got this.”
Jonathan improved his active ROM without me stretching him or showing him a litany of mobility drills.
My butt looks amazing.
Now, of course we’d have to perform a few simple drills to “cement” that new ROM before we started training, but the more cogent point I’m trying to make here is that…
JONATHAN…ISN’T…BROKEN.
I just had to provide a window where his brain had to figure shit out, which in turn resulted in him turning some shit on, which in turn allowed him to do some shit.
How’s that for simplifying things?
It’s not lost on me there’s much more to it than that. This is just me pausing the Rotisserie and cooking one part of the chicken.
If I want to cook the entire chicken – which I do, it’s delicious – I’d still want to address other stuff like tissue quality (pecs & lats), anterior core strength, not to mention upper trap, serratus activation, etc.
But, pretty cool nonetheless.
Want More Tidbits Like This That Will Melt Your Face?
Well, you’ll have to wait a few more weeks.
The DIGITAL Strategic Strength Workshop is coming soon!
