Mobility Exercise of the Week: Wall Ankle Mobilizations with Adduction/Abduction

Written on April 9, 2012 at 3:59 pm, by Eric Cressey

Assuming you haven’t been living under a rock for the past few years, you’ve surely learned that ankle mobility is imperative to long-term lower-extremity health in strength and conditioning programs and actual sport participation.  If you need to learn why, check out this old post of mine: The Importance of Ankle Mobility.

While I think the industry has done a great job of highlighting the need for incorporating ankle mobility drills in one’s warm-up, I’m not convinced that we’ve done a good job of “exhausting” our creativity when it comes to those drills, as most of them occur purely in the sagittal plane.  While poor dorsiflexion is definitely the biggest issue at the ankle – and dorsiflexion does occur in the sagittal plane – I think we miss the boat when we only work on getting dorsiflexion in isolation.  In reality, you need multi-planar ankle mobility to be prepared for life’s events, so it’s advantageous to train it a bit in your warm-ups.

So, I bring to you the wall ankle mobilization with adduction/abduction.  It’s just like a regular wall ankle mobilization, but when you get to end range, you gently rock back and forth between adduction and abduction (and internal rotation and external rotation, in the process) to make it more of a multi-directional movement that also challenges hip mobility a bit. A special thanks goes out to Kansas City Royals pitcher Tim Collins for helping with the demonstration here:

A few important coaching cues/notes:

1. Everyone always asks whether or not I care what the back foot/leg is doing, and I don’t.  Just focus on the front side.

2. The individual should feel a stretch in the posterior lower leg, not a pinching in the front.  If there is pinching in the front, it’s a good idea to refer out to a good manual therapist.  In the meantime, you can train ankle mobility more conservatively with a rocking ankle mobilization:

3. If the individual’s heel comes up off the ground, slide the foot closer to the wall to regress the exercise.

4. The drill should be performed barefoot or in minimalist footwear.

5. We usually perform this as three reps per leg, and each rep has a few glides toward adduction and abduction. You can use it during the warm-up, or as a filler between sets of compound movements.  I like it between sets of deadlifts, since you’re already barefoot or in minimalist sneaker.

6. If you’re a heavy pronator (really flat feet and knock-knees), you probably don’t need to do the adduction (rock in) portion of each rep.

For more drills like this, be sure to check out Assess and Correct: Breaking Barriers to Unlock Performance.

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Mobility Exercise of the Week: Bowler Squat

Written on April 2, 2012 at 7:48 am, by Eric Cressey

I was introduced to the bowler squat originally by Dr. Stuart McGill at one of his seminars back around 2005.  Beyond the endorsement from one of the world’s premier spine experts, the fact that it’s been a mainstay in our strength and conditioning programs for about seven years should prove just how valuable I think this combination mobility/activation exercise is.

Before describing it, though, I should mention that the name is a bit misleading.  While it does look like a bowler’s motion, the truth is that it’s more of a “rotational deadlift” than it is a squat.  There is some knee flexion involved, but the shin remains essentially vertical, and most of the motion occurs at the hips – and that’s what makes it such a fantastic exercise.  Have a look:

We talk all the time about how important glute activation is, but most folks simply think that a few sets of supine bridges will get the job done. The problem is that this exercise occurs purely in the sagittal plane, while the glutes – as demonstrated by their line of pull – are also extremely active in the frontal and transverse planes.  The gluteus maximums isn’t just a hip extensor; it is also a hip abductor and external rotator.

As such, the gluteus maximus is essential to properly eccentrically controlling hip flexion, adduction, and internal rotation that occurs with every step, landing, lunge, and change-of-direction.  You can even think of it as an “anti-pronator.”

A bowler squat effectively challenges the glutes to both lengthen and activate in a weight-bearing position in all three planes.  And, for the tennis and baseball players out there, check out how closely the bowler squat replicates the finish position from a serve and pitch (I noted this in a recent article, Increasing Pitching Velocity: What Stride Length is and How to Improve It).

To perform the exercise, push the hips back as if attempting a 1-leg RDL, but reach across the body with the arm on the side of the non-support leg.  The “hips back” cue will get the sagittal plane, while the reach across will get the frontal and transverse plane. Make sure to keep the spine in neutral to ensure that the range of motion comes from the hips and not the lower back.  Keep the knee soft (not locked out), but not significantly flexed, either.  Be sure to get the hips all the way through at the top, finishing with a glute squeeze.

A few additional cues we may use are:

1. Tell the athlete to pretend like he/she is trying to pick up a basketball with the support foot; it can help those who keep tipping over.

2. Provide a target – a medicine ball or dumbbell – that the athlete should reach for in the bottom position (this keeps folks from cutting the movement short, or making it too sagittal plane dominant).

3. Encourage the athlete to keep the chin tucked (to keep the cervical spine in neutral).

4. Put your hand a few inches in front of the kneecap and tell the athlete not to touch your hand with the knee; this keeps an athlete from squatting too much when he/she should be hip-hinging.

Typically, we’ll perform this drill for one set of eight reps per side as part of the warm-up.  However, in a less experienced population – or one with very poor balance – this may serve as a great unloaded challenge that can be included as part of the actual strength training program.

Give it a shot!

For more exercises like this, be sure to check out Assess and Correct: Breaking Barries to Unlock Performance.

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5 Quick and Easy Ways to Feel and Move Better: Installment 1

Written on March 1, 2012 at 7:28 pm, by Eric Cressey

My “random thoughts” pieces are some of my favorite writings that I’ve ever published, and today seemed like a good day to throw out some quick and easy ideas on how you can feel better, move better, lose fat, gain muscle, get strong, and – if you’re super-motivated – take over the world.  Here goes…

1. Get a good training partner.

There are random dudes you meet at the gym who provide a mediocre lift-off on the bench press here and there, and then there are dedicated training partners.  There is a big difference.  A good training partner will tell you to get your act together and train hard when you’re slacking off, or even hold you back when your body is banged up, but you’re stupidly trying to push through it.  It’s guaranteed accountability, motivation, expertise, safety, competition, and all-around awesomeness.  To be honest, I often wonder if most people get the best results working with a trainer/strength coach for these factors more than the actual expertise the fitness professional provides!

2. Make your bedroom a cave.

One of the best investments my wife and I made when we bought our new house were reinforced window shades for our bedroom so that very little light could get through when they were down.  They make a dramatic difference in terms of how dark you can make your room at night (especially if you have street lights near your residence) and were 100% worth the extra cost, as compared to regular shades.

Even if you don’t want to spend the extra few bucks on souped-up shades, though, you can still get some of the benefits of “cave sleeping” by blocking out light from cell phones, alarm clocks, and – if you’re a frat boy – bright green neon signs of your favorite beer in your dorm room.  Also, do your best to shut the TV and computer off at least thirty minutes before you hit the sack as well, as it’ll give your brain time to wind down and transition to some deep, restful sleep.

3. Take Athletic Greens.

I’ve always been a non-responder to supplements.  As an example, I never gained an ounce when I started taking creatine in 2001, and never noticed a huge difference in sleep quality when I started taking ZMA. Still, I pretty much trust in research and go with these supplements, plus mainstays like fish oil and Vitamin D and assume that they’re doing their job.  It’s interesting how some of the most essential supplements we take are the ones where we might notice the most subtle difference, isn’t it?

Anyway, in 2011, I added Athletic Greens to this mix.  I look at it as whole food based “nutritional insurance” use it in place of my multivitamin.  I think it’s solid not only as a greens supplement (which, incidentally, doesn’t taste like dog crap), but also because it directly improves gut health to improve absorption of micronutrients.  With loads of superfoods, herbal extracts, trace elements, antioxidants, and pre- and probiotics, I could tell that it would be something that would decrease inflammation and improve immunity (something I’ve viewed as increasingly important with each passing year as life has gotten more stressful with the growth of Cressey Performance).

Interestingly, one of our long-time athletes who is now playing baseball at a highly ranked D1 university, started taking Athletic Greens after we chatted about it this summer, and he sent me this note:

Hey Eric, thanks for the recommendation on Athletic Greens. I love the product! I have not gotten sick once since I started taking it 4 months ago, and my body feels better than ever. This is the first semester I haven’t gotten sick. Hope all is well! 

I guess I’m not the only one who likes it!  Check it out for yourself here.

As an aside, they do a pretty cool combination where you can get greens, fish oil, and vitamin D all at once at a great price, and the fish oil is excellent quality. We have several athletes who get everything in this one place for convenience.

4. Go split-stance.

Last week, in my popular post, Are Pull-ups THAT Essential?, I included the following video of forearm wall slides at 135 degrees, a great drill we like to use to train upward rotation, as the arms are directly in the line of pull in the lower traps.  With this exercise, we always cue folks “glutes tight, core braced” so that they don’t just substitute lumbar extension in place of the scapulae moving into retraction/depression on the rib cage.

Unfortunately, these cues don’t work for everyone – particularly those who are super lordotic (huge arch in their lower back).  A great “substitute cue” for these folks is to simply go into a split stance, putting one foot out in front of the other (even if it’s just slightly).  As you have probably observed in performing single-leg exercises like lunges and split-squats, it is much harder to substitute lumbar extension for hip extension than it is with bilateral exercises like squats and deadlifts.  Fortunately, the same is true of substituting lumbar extension for scapular movement on the rib cage.  So, if you’re struggling with the exercise above, simply move one foot out in front of the other and you should be golden.

5. Get some assessments done.

Imagine you were about to embark on a cross country trip with a great vacation in mind in, say, San Diego.  However, I didn’t tell you where you were starting the journey.  While you might get to where you want to be (or at least close to it), it’d make the trip a lot more difficult. You’d probably blow a bunch of money on gas, sleep in some nasty motels in the middle of nowhere, pick up an awkward hitchhiked who smells like cabbage, and maybe even spend a night in a Tijuana jail along the way.  Not exactly optimal planning.

A strength and conditioning program isn’t much different than this cross-country trip.  If you don’t know how your body works – both internally and externally – you need to learn before you subject it to serious stress.  Get some bloodwork done to see if you have any deficiencies (e.g., Vitamin D, iron, essential fatty acids) that could interfere with your energy levels, ability to recover, or endocrine response to exercise.  Likewise, consult someone who understands movement to determine whether you have faulty movement patterns that could predispose you to injury.  I think this is one reason why Assess and Correct has been our most popular product ever; it gives folks some guidance on where to start and where to go.  Otherwise, the strength and conditioning program in front of you is really just a roadmap, and you don’t know where the starting point is.

These are just a few quick thoughts that came to mind today, but I’ll surely have many more in the follow-ups to this first installment.  Feel free to post some of your own ideas in the comments section below, too!

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Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 2/27/12

Written on February 27, 2012 at 1:27 am, by Eric Cressey

Here’s a list of recommended strength and conditioning reading to kick off you week.

The Prevalence of Radiographic Hip Abnormalities in Elite Soccer Players – This recently published study in the AJSM shows us just how common hip issues are in soccer players – even if they’re asymptomatic.  You can apply this to hockey players as well – and possibly on an even more pronounced level.  This goes hand-in-hand with some of my writings in the past about knees, shoulders, and lower backs.  Just because someone is asymptomatic does not mean that they are “healthy” – and this is why assessment and an understanding of population-specific norms are so important!

Band-Assisted 1-arm Push-ups: A Better Alternative – My buddy Shon Grosse outlines a good progression for those looking to build up to a one-arm push-up.

The College Student’s Guide to Grocery Shopping: Healthy Eating Made Easy – Former CP intern Jordan Syatt wrote up an outstanding free e-book aimed at college students trying to eat clean on a limited budget, but the truth is that there are some good lessons for those who do actually have the budget to spend a bit more, too.  One of my first articles ever published was Budgeting for Bodybuilders: Part 1 (age 20) and Part 2 (age 23), and Jordan outdid me; perhaps it’s a sign of great things to come for him in the years ahead?

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Increasing Pitching Velocity: What Stride Length Means and How to Improve It – Part 2

Written on February 16, 2012 at 11:18 am, by Eric Cressey

In part 1 of this series, I discussed the fact that – all other factors held constant – increasing stride length will improve pitching velocity.  Unfortunately, when you simply tell a pitcher to stride further down the mound, there are usually some unfavorable mechanical consequences that actually hinder pitching velocity.  So, be sure to read that piece before continuing on here.

That said, sometimes, physical limitations can make it difficult to acquire a longer stride.  To that end, I wanted to use this second installment to begin to outline the top five limiting factors for those looking to get down the mound and throw harder.

1. Hip Mobility

If you’re going to really get down the mound, you need outstanding adductor length on both the lead and trailing legs.  That goes without saying.  While we outline several options on our Assess and Correct DVD set, the split-stance kneeling adductor mobilization is definitely my favorite, as it improves adductor length in both hip flexion and extension:

 Just as important, players need to stop “hanging out” in adduction in sitting and standing.  I wrote about this in a bit more detail in my What I Learned in 2010 article (point #3).  This is incredibly common in right-handed throwers, in particular.  If your resting hip posture looks like this, fix it!

We use a variety of drills from the Postural Restoration Institute to help address the issue, but suffice it to say that you’ll be swimming upstream unless you learn to stop standing/sitting like this!

Additionally, you need adequate length of the trailing leg hip flexors – particularly rectus femoris – to ensure that you don’t cut off hip rotation prematurely.  I like the wall hip flexor mobilization for this purpose.  Keep in mind that we perform the exercises on both the front and trailing leg, as many pitchers will have substantial knee flexion deficit on the front leg secondary to the stress of landing/deceleration.

Third, you need adequate hip internal and external rotation on both sides.  Hip external rotation range-of-motion on the trailing leg is particularly important to allow force to be applied over a longer distance.  Additionally, hip internal rotation is key on the front side, as enables a thrower to utilize the lower half more efficiently in deceleration.  Those without adequate internal rotation on the front side often cut their arm paths short and miss high with pitches – and put much more stress on their arm because the deceleration “arc” is shorter.

External rotation is best gained through glute activation drills (supine bridges, side-lying clams, x-band walks) in conjunction with simply externally rotating the femur during the split-stance kneeling adductor mobilization I featured earlier.  For internal rotation, I like a gentle knee-t0-knee stretch/mobs (assuming no medial knee issues) , and bowler squats as a follow-up to get comfortable with the pattern.

 Of course, all these mobility drills must be complemented by quality soft tissue work: foam rolling and, ideally, manual therapy with a qualified practitioner.

So, as you can see, adequate hip mobility for optimizing pitching velocity must take place in a number of planes.  Additionally, you need to remember that mobility is always influenced by musculo-tendinous. capsular, ligamentous, and osseous (bony) restrictions, so no two pitchers will be the same in their needs.  And, some pitchers simply may not have the bone structures to get into certain positions that are easy for other pitchers to achieve.

2. Lower-Body Strength/Power

You can’t discuss lower-body mobility without appreciating the interaction it has with lower-body strength and power.

You see, mobility is simply your ability to get into a certain position or posture.  Flexibility is simply the excursion through which a joint can move.   What’s the problem?

Flexibility doesn’t take into account stability.  Just because you can get your joints to a certain position in a non-weight-bearing scenario doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to achieve that same position when you’re in a weight-bearing position, trying to throw 95mph as you move downhill.  So, I’ll put my point in big, bold letters:

Pitchers need strength to have mobility.

Truth be told, building lower body strength in throwers isn’t tough.  You use all the basics – single-leg work, deadlift variations, squat variations (when appropriate), sled work, pull-throughs, glute-ham raise, hip thrusts, glute bridges, etc. – but just work to make sure that they are safe for throwers (e.g., use the front squat grip instead of the back squat grip).

Strength isn’t just a foundation for mobility, though; it’s also a foundation for power.  You can’t apply force quickly if you don’t have force!  So, once players have an adequate foundation of strength, they can benefit more from rotational medicine ball exercises and plyos in the frontal/transverse planes to learn to better apply force outside the sagittal plane.

Make no mistake about it; having adequate strength/power to push off and rotate aggressively – not to mention decelerate the body on the front leg – is essential to outstanding pitching velocity.

I’ll be back soon with Part 3 of this series.  In the meantime, if you’re looking for more hip mobility ideas for baseball players, check out Assess and Correct: Breaking Barriers to Unlock Performance.

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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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