The 6 Characteristics of a Good Dynamic Warm-up

Written on December 20, 2011 at 7:22 pm, by Eric Cressey

The dynamic warm-up is an extremely important component of a strength and conditioning program.  In addition to reducing the risk of injury while enhancing subsequent performance in a variety of contexts, it’s also a great place to implement corrective exercise drills to address underlying muscle imbalances.

With that in mind, to get the most out of your dynamic warm-up, keep in mind these six characteristics of an effective pre-training program.

1. A good dynamic warm-up should be preceded by soft tissue work.

Every one of our clients at Cressey Performance goes through the following foam rolling series (at the very least) prior to their first warm-up drills.

For a bit more on the rationale behind foam rolling, check out this post of mine from a few months ago.  Needless to say, it’s important – and will make your dynamic warm-up far more productive.

2. A good dynamic warm-up should progress from ground-based to standing.

When I write a warm-up, I want athletes to do all their ground-based activation and mobility drills first, rather than mix them in with standing exercises.  This works not only for the sake of convenience, but also in terms of facility logistics: traffic throughout the gym is more predictable.  As an example, I might use a wall hip flexor mobilization to improve hip extension range of motion before I’d get an athlete up to do lunge variations in the standing position.

I like to see things progress from ground-based, to standing in-place (e.g., scapular wall slides, bowler squats), to standing and moving.

3. A good dynamic warm-up should progress from single-joint to multi-joint movements.

We might do a rocking ankle mobilization or quadruped extension-rotation early in the warm-up to work purely on ankle mobility and thoracic spine mobility, respectively, but once the warm-up progresses and one becomes upright, all the joints need to be working together in an appropriate balance of mobility and stability.  Just count how many different pieces are in place on this drill:

4. A good dynamic warm-up addresses mobility at the ankles, hips, and thoracic spine.

Even if people just worked on these three areas (to the exclusion of everything else) and then moved on to the rest of their strength training programs, the world would be a much healthier and high-performance place.  Throw on restrictive footwear and sit hunched over a desk all day, and these are the areas that will suffer the most – so make sure you’ve got drills for each in the warm-up.  Keep in mind that while one drill each for the ankle and thoracic spine mobility will be sufficient for most, it’ll likely take several to take care of the hips, as they need to be moved in all three planes of motion.

5. A good dynamic warm-up should take into account joint laxity.

This is something I have to keep in mind all the time, as many of our baseball pitchers have considerable congenital joint laxity.  Their joint ranges of motion are already so good that we don’t need to do much (if at all) in terms of mobility work.  Rather, we do substantially more low-level activation drills during the warm-up period to teach them how to stabilize joints prior to more intense exercise.  Conversely, if you have someone who is as tight as a drum, chances are that you can be more aggressive with mobility drills, knowing the subsequent stability will come more easily to them.

6. A good dynamic warm-up should actually increase body temperature.

I see a lot of people who drag their heels going through a warm-up, thinking too much or simply wasting time along the way.  You don’t need to do 20 different drills, but rather select 8-10 drills and do them at a pace that allows you to get your body temperature and joint range of motion up sufficiently to be prepared for a more specific warm-up (e.g., light deadlifts).  If you take it too slowly, it just won’t have the same effect.  While everyone is different when it comes to perspiration, I like to see athletes sweating a little bit by the end of the warm-up.

These are just a few quick and easy guidelines I like to keep in mind when writing the dynamic warm-ups in our strength and conditioning programs.  Of course, each client has unique needs – from actual physical limitations to space/equipment limitations – that one must take into account as well.

To learn more, I’d encourage you to check out Assess and Correct: Breaking Barriers to Unlock Performance.  This two-DVD set provides 27 assessments and 78 corrective exercises that can serve as the foundation for effective dynamic warm-ups in your strength and conditioning programs.

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Black Friday/Cyber Monday Sale

Written on November 25, 2011 at 8:25 am, by Eric Cressey

I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of anything I would rather do less than get up at 4am and go stand in line at some store with thousands of other people to take advantage of some sale.  And, it’s with that in mind that Mike Robertson, Bill Hartman, Mike Reinold, and I are proud to announce a sale through Monday (11/28) at midnight on the following products:

Assess and Correct DVD Set
Inside-Out DVD Set
Magnificent Mobility DVD
The Bulletproof Knees and Back Seminar DVD Set
Building the Efficient DVD Set
2008 Indianapolis Performance Enhancement Seminar DVD Set
The Single-leg Solution DVD Set and Manual
Bulletproof Knees Manual and DVD
Optimal Shoulder Performance DVD Set

I’ve linked to each one of these products individually so that you can learn more about each of them, but you can purchase them individually or together easily at the Robertson Training Systems Product Page. The only exception would be Optimal Shoulder Performance, which can be purchased exclusively through www.ShoulderPerformance.com with the coupon code bfcm2011.

If you’re someone who is “new” to our products, I’d encourage you to check out this video on Assess and Correct to learn a bit more about how we roll with one of these products.  Assess and Correct is a great place to start, if you haven’t purchased any of our stuff yet:

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Corrective Exercise: Sequencing the Law of Repetition Motion Sequence

Written on July 6, 2011 at 6:32 am, by Eric Cressey

When it comes to corrective exercise programs, everyone simply wants to know “what” is and isn’t included – and rightfully so. Picking the right strength exercises and mobility drills – and contraindicating others – is absolutely crucial to making sure you get folks to where they want to be.

However, very rarely will you hear anyone specifically discuss the “when” in these scenarios, and as I’ll demonstrate in today’s piece, it’s likely just as crucial to get this aspect correct.

To begin to illustrate my point, I’m going to reuse a quote from an article I wrote a few weeks ago, Correcting Bad Posture: Are Deadlifts Enough?, on the Law of Repetitive Motion :

Consider the law of repetitive motion, where “I” is injury to the tissues, “N” is the number of repetitions, “F” is the force of each repetition as a percentage of maximal strength, “A” is the amplitude (range of motion) of each repetition, and “R” is rest.  To reduce injury to tissues (which negative postural adaptations can be considered), you have to work on each of the five factors in this equation.

You perform soft tissue work – whether it’s foam rolling or targeted manual therapy – on the excessively short or stiff tissues (I).  You reduce the number of repetitions (length of time in poor posture: R), and in certain cases, you may work to strengthen an injured tissue (reduce F).  You incorporate mobility drills (increase A) and avoid bad postures (increase R).

What I failed to mention a few weeks ago, though, was that the sequencing of these corrective modalities must be perfect in order to optimize the training/corrective effect and avoid exacerbating symptoms.  Case in point, we recently had a client come to us as a last resort with chronic shoulder issues, as he was hoping to avoid surgery.  Physical therapy had made no difference for him (aside from shrinking his wallet with co-pays), and following that poor outcome, he’d had a similar result with soft tissue treatments twice a week for six weeks.  In a single four-week program, we had him back to playing golf pain free.  What was the difference?

In the first physical therapy experience, he’d been given a bunch of traditional rotator cuff and scapular stabilization exercises.  There had been absolutely no focus on soft tissue work or targeted mobility drills to get the ball rolling.  In other words, all he did was improve stability within the range of motion he already had.  In the equation above, all he really worked on was reducing the “F” by getting a bit stronger.

In his soft tissue treatment experiences, he felt a bit better walking out of the office, but ran into a world of hurt when his provider encouraged him to “just do triceps pressdowns and lat pulldowns” for strength training.  In other words, this practitioner worked on reducing “I” and increasing “A,” but totally missed the boat with respect  to enhancing strength (reducing “F”) and increasing rest (“R”) because of the inappropriate follow-up strength exercise prescription.  Doh!

What did we do differently to get him to where he needed to be?  For starters, he saw Dr. Nate Tiplady, a manual therapist at CP, twice a week for combination Graston Technique and Active Release treatments (reducing “I”) at the start of his training sessions.  He followed that up with a specific manual stretching, positional breathing, and mobility exercise warm-up program (increase “A”) that was designed uniquely for him.  Then, he performed strength training to establish stability (decrease “F”) within the new ranges of motion (ROM) attained without reproducing his symptoms (decreasing “N” and increasing “R).

The sequencing was key, as we couldn’t have done some of the strength exercises we used if we hadn’t first gotten the soft tissue work and improved his ROM.  He may have had valuable inclusions in his previous rehabilitation efforts, but he never had them at the same time, in the correct sequence.

This thought process actually closely parallels a corrective exercise approach Charlie Weingroff put out there much more succinctly in his Rehab = Training, Training = Rehab DVD set:

Get Long. Get Strong. Train Hard.

Keep in mind that there are loads of different ways that you can “get long.”  You might use soft tissue work (Active Release, Graston Technique, Traditional Massage, etc.), positional breathing (Postural Respiration Institute), mobility drills (Assess and Correct), manual stretching, or any of a host of other approaches (Mulligan, DNS, Maitland, McKenzie, etc).  You use whatever you are comfortable using within your scope of practice.

When it’s time to “get strong,” you can do so via several schools of thought as well – but the important thing is that the strength exercises you choose don’t provoke any symptoms.

It’s interesting to note that this corrective exercise approach actually parallels what we do with our everyday strength and conditioning programs at Cressey Performance – and what I put forth in Show and Go: High Performance Training to Look, Feel, and Move Better.  We foam roll, do mobility warm-ups, and then get cracking on strength and stability within these “acutely” optimized ranges of motion to make them more permanent.

Related Posts

Corrective Exercise: Why Stiffness Can be a Good Thing
Strength Training Programs: Lifting Heavy Weights vs. Corrective Exercise – Finding a Balance

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Assess and Correct “Completely Changed My Life”

Written on April 1, 2011 at 8:37 am, by Eric Cressey

We received the following testimonial from a very satisfied Assess and Correct customer via email last week, and I thought I’d share.

“After spending five years heading in the wrong direction regarding my training, I was left with many injuries in my upper as well as my lower body. I had multiple muscle/strength imbalances and horrible posture which caused overuse injuries, chronic pain, pinched nerves and other problems. I physically couldn’t do a single thing without causing some sort of pain. Even though I was only 22 years old at the time, I just assumed that I had headed so far down the wrong path that I would never recover and never be able to comfortably work out again. I accidentally came across one of Eric’s articles about one of my many problems. I read the article and instantly looked for others.

“After some deliberation I decided that Assess and Correct might be something that could help me. I gave it a try, consistently performing the exercises, in combination with other exercises recommended by Cressey, Robertson, and Hartman aimed at restoring correct posture. The best way to describe this product was that it completely changed my life.

“I have loads of mobility and stability in all the right places. I went through every exercise or mobility drill in every progression even if I didn’t need to. All the exercises are described thoroughly and simple to complete. Injuries or no injuries, I would recommend this product to every single person who lives and active lifestyle. I am a believer and will be a lifetime follower of Eric Cressey, Mike Robertson, and Bill Hartman. Thanks, guys!”

Click here to pick up a copy of Assess and Correct for yourself!

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Oblique Strains in Baseball: 2011 Update

Written on March 29, 2011 at 6:56 am, by Eric Cressey

Just over three years ago, during a period where oblique strains were on the rise in professional baseball and the USA Today profiled this “new” injury, I wrote an article on what I perceived to be the causes of the issue.  Check it out: Oblique Strains and Rotational Power.

This year, the topic has come back to the forefront, as players like Joba Chamberlain, Sergio Mitre, Curtis Granderson, and Brian Wilson have experienced the injury this spring training alone.

While my thoughts from the initial article are still very much applicable, I do have some additional thoughts on the matter for 2011:

1. Is anyone surprised that the rise in oblique injuries in baseball is paralleled by the exponential rise in hip injuries and lower back pain? I don’t care whether you work in a factory or play a professional sport; violent, repetitive, and persistently unilateral-dominant rotation (especially if it is uncontrolled) will eventually chew up a hip, low back, or oblique; it’s just a matter of where people break down.

In other words, pro athletes are generating a tremendous amount of power from the hips – moreso, in fact, than they ever have before thanks to the advances in strength training, nutrition, supplementation, and, unfortunately, in some cases, illegal “pharmaceutical interventions.”  Assuming mechanics are relative good (as they should be in a professional athlete), rotate a hip faster and you’ll improve bat speed and throwing velocity; it’s that simple.  This force production alone is enough to chew up a labrum, irritate a hip capsule, and deliver enough localized eccentric stress to cause a loss in range of motion.  The Cliff’s Notes version is that we’ve increased hip strength and power (more on this in a bit), but most folks have overlooked tissue quality (foam rolling, massage, and more focal approaches like Active Release and Graston) and mobility training.

If the hips stiffen up, the lumbar spine will move excessively in all planes of motion – and, in turn, affect the positioning of the thoracic spine.  Throw off the thoracic spine, and you’ll negatively impact scapular (and shoulder), respiratory (via the rib cage), and cervical spine.  Hips that are strong – but have short or stiff musculature can throw off the whole shebang.

2. “Strong” isn’t a detailed enough description. I think that it goes beyond that, as you have to consider that a big part of this is a discrepancy between concentric and eccentric strength.  Concentrically, you have the trailing leg hip generating tremendous rotational power, and eccentrically, you have the lead leg musculature decelerating that rotation.

Moreover, because the front hip can’t be expected to dissipate all that rotational velocity – and because the thoracic spine is rotating from the drive of the upper extremities – you put the muscles acting at the lumbar spine in a situation where they must provide incredible stiffness to resist rotation.  It is essentially the opposite of being between a rock and a hard place; they are the rock between two moving parts.  Structurally, though, they’re well equipped to handle this responsibility; just look at how the line of pull of each of these muscles (as well as the tendinous inscriptions of the rectus abdominus) runs horizontally to resist rotation.  That’s eccentric control.

How do we train it?  Definitely not with sit-ups, crunches, or sidebends.  The former are too sagittal plane oriented and not particularly functional at all.  The latter really doesn’t reflect the stability-oriented nature of our “core.”  The bulk of our oblique strain prevention core training program should be movements that resist rotation:

While on the topic, it’s also important to resist lumbar hypextension, as poor anterior core strength can allow the rib cage to flare up (increases the stretch on the most commonly injured area of the obliques: at the attachment to the 11th rib on the non-throwing side) and even interfere with ideal respiratory function (the diaphragm can’t take  on its optimal dome shape, so we overuse accessory breathing muscles like pec minor, sternocleidomastoid, scalenes, etc).

So, to recap: I don’t think oblique strains are a new injury epidemic or the result of team doctors just getting better with diagnostics.  Rather, I think that we’re talking about a movement dysfunction that has been prevalent for quite some time – but we just happen to have had several of them in a short amount of time that has made the media more alert to the issue.  The truth is that if we worried more about “inefficiency” and not pathology,” journalists could have “broken” this story a long time ago.

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Dean Somerset Interviews Me – Part 2

Written on March 15, 2011 at 2:43 pm, by Eric Cressey

This is the second half of an interview I did for Dean Somerset’s website.  In case you missed part 1, you can check it out HERE.

DS: What are the best supplements for the money, in your opinion?

EC: For most folks, fish oil, vitamin D, a decent low-carb protein powder, creatine, and a greens supplement (I prefer Athletic Greens) will get the job done.  I’d add in probiotics for many people as well.  The longer I’m in this field, the more of a minimalist I become.

DS: There are a lot of misconceptions and misinterpretations on core strength and core training out there. Some say you have to lay perfectly still and think happy thoughts while flexing your belly button, while other say you need to use stability balls to get anything, and other say heavy stuff on your shoulders does the trick. Also, the definition of where the core is and what it does seems to be either incomplete, or somewhat lacking in common sense, as most of the anatomical diagrams will show the core as a hollow vessel, and eliminate the internal organs from the picture. What do you consider to be important in the anatomy of the core, and what would be your go-to core training exercises?

EC: I tend to fall in the camp that it encompasses just about the entire body.  We can all agree that the hamstrings probably deserve a place in the role of the core, since they attach to the pelvis via the ischial tuberosity and sacrotuberous ligament, right?

Well, those same hamstrings attach below the knee on both the tibia and fibula.  They share a function (knee flexion) with the gastrocnemius, clearly are in close “fascial proximity,” and have neural innervations from the same origin at the lumbar spine (sciatic nerve).  The gastrocnemious attaches on the calcaneus – so we’ve established “hip to foot” relationships of the “core.”

Add latissimus dorsi to the picture.  It attaches to the iliac crest, thoracolumbar fascia, thoracic spine, ribs, scapula, and humerus.  That would be a “hip to arm” connection, right?

Add in the trapezius, which runs from as far down as T12 to the base of the skull, and you can argue that you’ve got a “hip to head” relationship, too.

We’ll just train it with crunches, though, right???

I don’t think it’s as simple as just memorizing the anatomy of the muscles surrounding the lumbar spine; it’s about understanding the complex, functional relationship among all the muscles and their tendons, the ligaments, the fascia, the nerves, and the bony structures to which they attach.  Things are more complex than we try to make them – which is probably why a lot of people have chronic back pain that goes misdiagnosed and mistreated.

While much of the industry has gone to the “don’t move the lumbar spine” end of the continuum, it’s really not that black and white.  It – like any other body segment – should have some movement.  The problem just becomes when we add load to that movement.  And, more specifically, things get dangerous when we add load to the end range of that movement.  Going into full lumbar flexion with an 800-pound deadlift isn’t going to make your intervertebral discs very happy, and not controlling violent extension and rotation during an athletic movement like swinging or throwing could very well leave you with a stress fracture, oblique strain, or spondylolisthesis at some point.

That said, there should be movement during daily activities; otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to tie our shoes, and my puppy wouldn’t be able to lick his unmentionables for twenty minutes every night before he falls asleep.  When we start adding resistance, crazy velocity, and high volumes to the equation, though, we change the game.

To that end, I’ll continue to train anti-rotation and anti-extension exercises in the gym because the favorable outcomes we’ve seen with this approach have been tremendous.  If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.

DS: Chewing tobacco: help or hindrance??

EC: I’m probably not the best one to ask.  I dipped once when I was about 18 and booted a few minutes later – and then felt miserably for about four hours afterward.  It wasn’t one of my finer moments.

DS: I had a client who I was training for hockey a few years ago, and he forgot to go to the washroom for what I like to call a “pre-game.” During the middle of his heavy squats, while I was spotting him, he, well for a lack of better term, he “released,” and had to go change his shorts. Any training blooper highlight moments from CP?

EC: Honestly, there are too many to list!  Most of them take place when our pro baseball guys are just shooting the breeze in the office.  Throw in a British golfer, pro boxer, or Ironman competitor, and you get enough people from different walks of life to make any conversation memorable and absolutely hilarious.  To that end, we actually have a quote book in the office; it’s got dozens of pages of stupid things that have been said over the past three years or so.

DS: Who is the bigger prankster, you or Tony?

EC: I’m not sure that I’d say that either of us are huge pranksters, but Tony is definitely the brunt of a lot more jokes at CP.  We always joke that every 2-3 months, we have a “Tony Moment” where he learns about something and is absolutely blown away to find out that we had already known about it for months.

That said, the CP jester is definitely our pitching coordinator, Matt Blake, as some of these videos show:

DS: You have a lot of people looking up to you and aspiring to hit the level of professional success that you’ve been able to attain in a relatively short period of time. Who do you look up to so that you’re continuously motivated to push and achieve more?

EC:  That is a tough question to answer because my goal has never been to “be” someone else.  If I was to blindly follow someone else’s steps, it wouldn’t be the career I had in mind.  So, I feel like if you are going to be successful in what you do, there has to be some degree of innate motivation in you.

That said, I look to a lot of people for inspiration.

My father owns his own business and that had a more profound impact on me than you could possibly imagine as I opened my own facility.  Without even knowing it, he taught me that your business problems are your own and that you never make them anyone else’s problems.  And, give your employees autonomy, and as long as you’ve picked the right people, they won’t let you down.

My mother is a high school teacher and administrator – and is pretty much the Mother Teresa of my hometown.  Over the years, I’ve watched on numerous occasions as she has fed some of her students who couldn’t afford to eat.  I’ve gone to the grocery store with her countless times – and it always takes an extra hour or so because she runs into so many grateful parents and students she’s dealt with over the years.  She established the first International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum in the state of Maine at her school.  She didn’t have to do any of this; it wasn’t mandated by her salary, and it certainly isn’t something a lot of other teachers do.  She taught me that your job has to fulfill you in some way far more significant than money, and that good will never runs out.

My grandparents were married for over 60 years before my grandfather passed away this fall.  They taught me that family comes first – and my wife and I have had many talks about how they educated us on how a marriage should work.

In the industry, there are quite a few people I look to for advice.  Alwyn Cosgrove has taught me a ton about how to run a business.  Mike Robertson has been a guy with whom I’ve collaborated a lot – and we’ve both gotten better in the process.  I look to guys like Bill Hartman and Charlie Weingroff as very bright individuals who simply enjoy learning for the sake of learning – and that’s something I enjoy. Pat Rigsby is a guy who has shown me more about how to balance all of life’s demands – from family time to various business endeavors.

I could go on and on, but the point is that I draw inspiration from a lot of sources – both intrinsic and extrinsic.

DS: You’ve stated that for baseball player, olympic lifting and vertical jumping aren’t really necessary as the sport doesn’t require it. Most trainers gave you hell, but you stood your ground and proved them all wrong. What other concepts have you brought to the table that have helped re-form many common misconceptions about training and sports development?

EC:  It’s funny; right after I published that piece at T-nation about how power is “plane-specific,” I got an email from a researcher who was studying the exact same thing – and finding preliminary data that completely verified what I’d said.  Sometimes, research is out there to validate what we’re already doing.

Whether I’ve made people changed their thought processes or not, a few things I’ve tried to bring to the forefront are:

1. The Difference Between Inefficiency and Pathology – We’ve always been taught that if an x-ray or MRI tells us that we’re structurally out of whack, then we’re screwed.  The truth is that all of us – even when we’re asymptomatic – have structural issues on diagnostic imaging.  The people who are in pain are the ones who don’t move efficiently on top of these structural flaws.  I see this every day with the pitching shoulders that come through my door; I assume that they’re all “broken” and that we are just managing them to avoid them hitting a painful threshold.

2. The Concept of Long-Term Athletic Development Beginning with Strength – This is an area where I’ve tried to lead by example with our training model at Cressey Performance.  I’m not interested in running a group of 20 14-year-olds through a bunch of agility ladders.  If we want the best long term results and safety, our #1 job in a youth population is to improve strength.  Sure, they run faster, jump higher, and throw harder – but they also decelerate better and change directions more efficiently.  You can run all the “quickness drills” that you want with a young population, but the truth is that you’ll never improve speed or agility unless you teach them to put more force in to the ground.  It’s like polishing the hub cabs on a car with no horsepower; you’re studying for the wrong test.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of facilities out there that are just about finding a training model that allows one to run a ton of kids through the same program without much concern for the actual benefits to be gained (or lack thereof).  I’m not interested in babysitting.

3. The Differences Between Flexibility and Mobility – This was a key portion of my contribution to the recently released IYCA High School Strength Coach Certification. Mobility refers to the ability to reach certain positions, whereas flexibility refers to just one factor (joint range of motion) that affects that ability.  Mobility is also dependent on stability, the foundation for which is neuromuscular recruitment.  When we test flexibility, we’re talking about isolated testing of relaxed muscles/tendons.  To be blunt, we’re ignoring the nervous system.

Mobility encompasses multiple joints and therefore likely involves fascial contributions to movement, whereas flexibility may only involve 1-2 joints and may therefore minimize the impact of fascia on an assessment.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we can easily assess mobility in a general sense – but determining the cause of limitations is more challenging.  Flexibility, too, is a quick assessment – but correcting the limitation discovered doesn’t guarantee that movement quality will improve.

4. The belief that there is always something you can do to get better, regardless of injury – I’ve never been a fan of doctors and physical therapists telling injured patients to “just rest.”  First off, rest alone is rarely the answer.  Just as importantly, though, this recommendation ignores the fact that there are endocrine, immune, functional, psychological, and social benefits that are still to be derived from exercising.  When I’m working with clients who are injured, I feel that it’s my job to show them what they can do and not just what they can’t do.  And, there is always something you can do to maintain a training effect.

5. Weighted baseballs might actually be safer than traditional 5oz baseballs – and at the very least, they can be a beneficial training addition. This article sums it up quite well, so I won’t reinvent the wheel.  A lot of people can’t believe it when I saw that we used weighted balls, but the results have been nothing short of fantastic.

These are just the few things that came to mind right off the top of my head.  I’d like to think that there are more!

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Everything You Need to Know About Assess and Correct

Written on January 18, 2011 at 5:33 am, by Eric Cressey

We sometimes get questions about how our products differ from one another, so Mike Robertson stepped up and created the following webinar to describe a bit about one of our most popular products, Assess and Correct.  If you’re on the fence about purchasing, this should help with your decision.

“Assess and Correct may be the most comprehensive corrective exercise product on the market.  I feel this DVD is a must have for anyone looking to make positive changes in their athletes’ bodies – or their own.

The assessment section provides simple and detailed information for tests that can help anyone become more aware of their body’s limitations while the correction progressions offer forward thinking solutions that guarantee optimal performance.

Eric, Bill and Mike have done it again!”

Mike Irr
Head Strength & Conditioning Coach, Charlotte Bobcats

“Assess and Correct is the most useful physical evaluation tool I’ve ever seen. It’s like having instant access to the knowledge that Hartman, Robertson, and Cressey have gained through years of experience studying anatomy and human movement, and working with real people.

“But most important, it’s presented in a way that you can put it to use immediately. In fact, the design of the manual is genius because you’re given a series of simple tests to identify postural and movement problems, followed by smart exercise progressions–which you can tailor to a client’s ability—to correct any issues. So it’s a powerful tool that will help any coach create more effective training plans, customized to an individual’s true NEEDS. The upshot: Assess and Correct will make any fitness professional better at what he or she does.

“One other note: Because I’m a fitness journalist, the authors offered me a free manual for review (common in the industry), but I had already purchased it. When they tried to refund my money, I requested that they not. The reason: I found the material to be so valuable that I felt like I SHOULD paid for it. I’m not sure there’s any testimonial I could give that’s better than that.”

Adam Campbell
Fitness Director, Men’s Health

Click here to purchase Assess and Correcting: Breaking Barriers to Unlock Performance!

Strategies for Correcting Bad Posture: Part 3

Written on December 3, 2010 at 7:54 am, by Eric Cressey

This is the third installment of my Correcting Bad Posture series.  In case you missed the first two installments, you can check them out here:

Strategies for Correcting Bad Posture: Part 1

Strategies for Correcting Bad Posture: Part 2

Today, we pick up with tip #9…

9. It’s not just the strength exercises you perform; it’s how you perform them. Often, people think that they just need to pick a bunch of “posture correction” exercises and they’ll magically be fixed.  Unfortunately, it’s not that simple, as making corrections takes time, patience, consistency, and perfect technique.  As an example, check out the following video of what some bad rows often look like in someone with a short pec minor, which pulls the coracoid process down and makes it tough to posteriorly tilt and retract the scapula.  The first substitution pattern you’ll see (first three reps) is forward head posture replacing scapular retraction, and the second one (reps 4-6) is humeral (hyper)extension replacing scapular retraction.

Ideally, the chin/neck/head should remain in neutral and the scapula should retract and depress in sync with humeral movement.

Of course, these problems don’t just occur with rowing motions; they may be seen with everything from deadlifts, to push-ups, to chin-ups.  So, be cognizant of how you’re doing these strength exercises; you may just be making bad posture worse!

10. Get regular soft tissue work. I don’t care whether it’s a focal modality like Active Release, a mid-range modality like Graston Technique, or a more diffuse approach like general massage; just make sure that you get some sort of soft tissue work!  A foam roller is a good start and something that you can use between more targeted treatments with a qualified professional.  A lot of people really think that they are “breaking up scar tissue” with these modalities, and they certainly might be, but the truth is that I think more of the benefits come from altering fluid balance in the tissues, stimulating the autonomic nervous system, and “turning on” the sensory receptors in the fascia.

For more thoughts along these lines, check out my recap of a Thomas Myers presentation: The Fascial Knock on Distance Running for Pitchers.

11. Recognize that lower body postural improvements will be a lot more stubborn than upper body postural improvements. Most of this series has been dedicated to improving upper body postural distortions (forward head posture and kyphosis).  The truth is that they are always intimately linked (as the next installment will show) – however, in the upper body, bad posture “comes around” a bit sooner.  Why?

We don’t walk on our hands (well, at least not the majority of the time).

Joking aside, though, the fact that we bear weight on our lower body and core means that it’s going to take a ton of time to see changes in anterior pelvic tilt and overpronation, as we’re talking about fundamentally changing the people have walked for decades by attempting to reposition their center of gravity.  That’s not easy.

So why, then, do a lot of people get relief with “corrective exercises” aimed at bad posture?  Very simply, they’re creating better stability in the range of motion they already have; an example would be strengthening the anterior core (with prone bridges, rollouts, etc.) in someone who has a big anterior pelvic tilt and lordosis.  You’re only realigning the pelvis and spine temporarily, but you’re giving them enough time and stability near their end range to give them some transient changes.  The same would be true of targeted mobility and soft tissue work; it acutely changes ROM and tissue density to make movement easier.

Long-term success, of course, comes when you are consistent with these initiatives and don’t allow yourself to fall into bad posture habits in your daily life.  In fact, I have actually joked that we could probably improve posture the quickest if we just had people lie down between training sessions!

12. Add “fillers” to your weight training program. Mobility drills aimed at correcting bad posture are often viewed as boring, and in today’s busy world, they are often the first thing removed when people need to get in and out of the gym quickly.  To keep folks from skipping these important exercises, I recommend they include them as “fillers.”  Maybe you do a set each of ankle and thoracic spine mobility drills between each set of deadlifts (or any strength exercise, for that matter) – because you’d be resting for a couple of minutes and doing nothing, anyway.  These little additions go a long way in the big picture as long as you’re consistent with them.

I’ll be back next week with Part 4 of the Correcting Bad Posture series.

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Groin Strain? Get Manual Therapy.

Written on October 28, 2010 at 6:06 am, by Eric Cressey

If you’ve had a groin strain (or adductor strain, for the anatomy geeks like me in the crowd) – or would like to prevent one in the first place – read on.

Those of you who check out this website regularly probably already know that I’m a huge advocate of good manual therapy – especially disciplines like Graston and Active Release.  One area where we constantly see athletes really “gritty” is the hip adductors (groin muscles) – and it’s one reason why we see so many groin strains in the general population.  Note that treatments DON’T have to be this aggressive to yield favorable outcomes; it’s just an extreme example of someone with a pale skin tone that makes it even more prominent:

Soccer and hockey players really overuse the adductors during the kicking motion and skating stride, respectively.  And, even outside athletic populations, you’ll see a lot of people who don’t activate the gluteus maximum well as a hip extension – so you have the adductor magnus taking over to help out with this important task.  The only problem is that the adductor magnus internally rotates and adducts the hip, whereas the glute max externally rotates and abducts the hip.  Movements get altered, one muscle gets overworked and all fibrotic, and the next thing you know you’ve got a nasty “tweak” just south of the frank and beans (or female equivalent).

Really, that’s not the issue, though.  Nobody is denying that groin strains occur – but there are different treatment approaches to dealing with this issue on the rehabilitation side of things.  Some professionals use manual therapy during their treatments, while others don’t.  Can you guess which school of thought gets my backing?

Well, it turns out that the “include manual therapy” side of the argument gets the backing of Weir et al in light of some new research they just published.  These researchers found that athletes with groin strains returned to sports 4.5 weeks sooner when they received manual therapy plus stretching and a return to running program as compared to an exercise therapy and return to running program only.  It took the average time lost down from 17.3 weeks to 12.8 weeks in those with good long-term outcomes! For a bit more information on the manual therapy discipline utilized in this particular study, check out this abstract.

Need a quick tutorial on how to come back from a groin strain?

1. Find a good physical therapist who does manual therapy.
2. Listen to and do everything he/she says.
3. If anything hurts in the gym, don’t do it.  In most cases, deadlifting variations are okay, but single-leg work will really exacerbate the pain.  Squatting is usually a problem at first, and then gets better over time.  It really depends on which of the adductors you strained.
4. When you are cleared for return to full function, keep hammering on glute activation and hip mobility as outlined in Assess & Correct.

5. Make sure you’re continuing to foam roll the area and getting the occasional treatment on them with that same manual therapy you had during your rehabilitation.  Here’s a great self myofascial release option with the foam roller:

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Flat Feet and Hypermobile: Okay for Barefoot Training?

Written on August 23, 2010 at 4:14 am, by Eric Cressey

Q: I read with great interest your recent review of Muscle Imbalances Revealed, and in particular, your comments on Mike Robertson’s presentation that touched on factors related to excessive pronation.  I have this excessive foot pronation, plus a spondylolisthesis, a history of ankle sprains, double-jointed elbows and knees, and hips that move around like John Travolta’s in Saturday Night Fever. Basically I should have given up my career and gone into the Cirque de Soleil.

What I want to know is that specifically with my feet if wearing a supportive shoe with orthotics is such a bad thing. Everyone is on this barefoot kick, but it just doesn’t work for me. If I go barefoot my hips move out of correct position and my ankles and calves ache. In fact, when I was a child, my dad had to massage my calves and arches at night because I’d be in tears from the pain of being flat-footed. Once I got my first orthotics at age 7, I was so much more comfortable. I feel that orthotics and a nice flat shoe for me helps me use my feet correctly and allows me to stay away from internal rotation of the tibia and femur, and reduces pelvic tilt, etc.

Or, I could be mistaken? What do you think, and have you heard anyone else talk about this? Other hypermobile people and I have talked about this and we all seem to feel the same: barefoot is not the way to go for us.

A: Extensive barefoot stuff is definitely not for everyone, and if you were having issues that significant at such a young age, you’re probably just someone with a structurally different foot type.  There are definitely scenarios where orthotics are indicated, and the fact that you’ve gotten so much symptomatic relief from them tells me that they’re a good thing in your case.

That said, you might still benefit from just a bit of barefoot training – like deadlifting barefoot and doing some bowler squats and the like.  Basically, just use it for situations where foot positioning doesn’t change.  Then, you don’t have to mess around with how it affects the gait cycle.  I think you’ll get some of the benefits of strengthening the small muscles of the feet and improving proprioception (in light of your history of ankle sprains) without all the unfavorable compensations further up.  And in folks who don’t have your hypermobility, improving dorsiflexion ROM would be an added benefit.

I wouldn’t say that it’s specific to hypermobile individuals, though.  A lot of them probably have issues with barefoot training because they lack the strength and underlying stability required at the lower leg and hip to take the ground reaction force stress off the feet.  Remember that mobility and stability are always working at odds with one another; if you’ve got too much of one, you have to train the other one to pick up the slack.  My hunch is that most of these people don’t have structural pronation; they have excessive functional pronation because the anti-pronators – specifically the hip external rotators – aren’t strong enough to decelerate that pronation.  Check out the valgus (poor) positioning on the left here:

Of course, in the general population, we see it for this reason, as well as the fact that most people walk around in terrible cinder blocks footwear that completely “tunes out” the joints and muscles of the feet.

A lot of the folks that try barefoot training and wind up in pain get that way because they’re idiots and jump right in full-tilt.  You can’t go from wearing cross-trainers to wearing thin pieces of cloth/rubber overnight.  And, as Nick Tumminello wisely pointed out recently, while our ancestors were barefoot all the time, they weren’t barefoot on CONCRETE for loads of mileage.  And, they weren’t as overweight as today’s society is, with such low relative strength. As always, people get hurt because they are stupid and not because a specific training modality is bad.

Typically, in a broad sense, I recommend that people do their 1-leg (pistol) squats, all deadlifting variations, and box squats without sneakers.

As long as they aren’t really overweight – or presenting with a history of foot problems – we’ll also have them do their warm-ups without sneakers.

Everything else (including more quad dominant squatting variations) are done with footwear. I’m a big fan of the New Balance Minimus; you can read my full review at the following link: The New Balance Minimus: The Best Minimalist Training Shoe on the Market.

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