Static Posture Assessment Mistakes: Part 3

Written on April 1, 2009 at 11:22 am, by Eric Cressey

The positioning of the feet in a static posture assessment can tell you a lot, but simply looking without following up won’t give you a definitive answer.  The most common postural distortion you’ll see is an externally rotated foot position.

It’s common to assume that this is simply a case of an athlete with hips that are stuck in external rotation.  And, in many cases, this is definitely the culprit.  For these athletes, a hearty dose of knee-to-knee stretches will do the trick (along with some stretches for the hip external rotators in a position of hip extension).

For other athletes, though, this foot position is simply a compensation, as athletes will turn the feet out to compensate for a lack of dorsiflexion (toe-to-shin) range-of-motion.  These athletes need to work hard to improve ankle mobility with a combination of lower-extremity soft tissue work and mobility drills.

For more information on postural assessment strategies, check out the Building the Efficient Athlete DVD set.

Enter your email below to subscribe to our FREE newsletter:

Barefoot Weight Training Guidelines

Written on February 23, 2009 at 5:00 am, by Eric Cressey

Q: I know that you’re a bid advocate of including barefoot weight training in your strength and conditioning programs.  What in general is your “shoeless” policy with your athletes, if any?

A: Yes, we use a lot of barefoot weight training around Cressey Performance in our strength training programs.  In addition to strengthening the smaller muscles of the feet, barefoot training “accidentally” improves ankle mobility in athletes who have been stuck in restrictive shoes their entire lives.

Here are the exercises we’re open to doing barefoot:

All deadlift variations (rack pulls and DB variations included), box squats (hip dominant), and all any body weight mobility drills.

We don’t go barefoot for any loaded single-leg movements (aside from 1-leg RDLs and 1-leg squats/pistols) or more quad-dominant squatting variations.

All that said, we are careful about integrating barefoot drills in very overweight or very weak clients.  These individuals do not go barefoot for any of our dynamic flexibility warm-ups aside from in-place ankle mobilizations, as lunging variations can be a bit too much stress on them at first.

We do, however, encourage clients (in most cases) to go with a good minimalist shoe. My personal favorite is the New Balance Minimus.

Sign-up today for our FREE newsletter and receive a four-part video series on how to deadlift!