We’ve come along way over the last decade when it comes to training the core. Not too long ago, training the core consisted of mainly exercises like sit ups, with no specific attention to how the core functions.
One of the key areas of core training that I focus on to enhance movement quality and performance is stabilizing the core while the arms and legs move. Essentially proximal stability, with underlying distal mobility of the extremities.
However, don’t forget that the body is amazing at compensating to get the job done.
Any lack of mobility or motor control will often result in compensatory movements. Many people want to fly through their core program, but often times don’t focus on the quality of the movement.
A common error I see when people perform a front plank is over relying on the hip flexors to hold the position. You sometimes see them tighten their core but also come up into a bit of hip flexion.
If you hold planks for too long, you may also notice that you slowly creep up into this position as your core fatigues and your hip flexors take over.
There are two easy ways to improve this:
1. Focus on tightening your core AND your glutes. This should help hold the neutral pelvic position. 2. Perform sets of planks with each rep being ~8-10 seconds, with no break, just a quick reset, instead of sustained holds.⠀This will keep the focus on the core before the hip flexors take over.
Similar to the front plank, the side plank is easy to use larger muscle groups to compensate. One easy way to ruin a good side plank is simply to lift the body too high off the table. You’ll see too much side bend and will make this a lateral bend motion instead of a core stability exercise.
To fix this, try performing with a mirror so you can see your form. Your body should be in a straight line with a nice neutral spine.
One of the common faults we see with the dead bug core exercises is a loss of neutral spine when the arms or the legs are full extended. ⠀The person tends to focus on getting there hands and feet extended, rather than keeping their core stable.
Remember the goal of the exercise is to brace and stabilize the core while moving the extremities.
Be sure to keep that brace, but also realize that it’s often better to reduce your arm and leg motion a bit if you are struggling and arching your back.⠀I’d rather you make the exercise less challenging, but performed well, then slowly progress over time.
I’m a big fan of the bird dog exercise for two main reasons:
1) It’s great exercise to work on driving hip extension with proper core stability. A lot of people hyperextend their back instead of extending their hip. 2) Because you use alternate arm and leg for advanced variations, it also provides some rotational stability through the core.
But people LOVE to perform this exercise poorly by compensating and arching their back. Many people struggle to extend their hip while keeping their spine stable. Be sure to keep your core stable and just work on reaching with arms and legs.⠀Similar to the dead bug, I’d rather you reduce the quantity of your motion, and focus on the quality of the motion.
A common flaw with the glute bridge exercise (and hip thrusts) is thinking that you need to go as far as possible, as far as your body will go. ⠀ But keep in mind, the goal here is the glutes, not the low back. So the exercise should really be performed to extend you hips and NOT your back. ⠀ To help with this, really tighten your anterior core during the exercise and focus on squeezing your glutes. Then, simply stop the motion when the glutes are done squeezing. Many people want to keep going. They tighten their glutes, but then keep pushing the body higher over the ground. Resist the urge to continue by hyperextending at your back.
Check out Eric Cressey and I’s Functional Stability Training of the Core program. We discuss the core in detail and how we rehabilitate and train the core.
I still dislike all of those exercises, and today I wanted to share 3 more exercises that I am not going to use anymore. These are pretty popular exercises, so I expect many to disagree with me. I actually have no problem with you using these exercise, I just wanted to share some reasons why I have started to critically assess the value of them, and have considered not performing them anymore
Side Planks
Woah, I’m starting by throwing out a haymaker! Side planks?!? But everyone needs side planks!
Side planks are actually a great exercise for the core, and fairly common staple in people’s core programs. But over the years I have found that many people have complained about the impact the side plank position has on their shoulders.
So I would modify their programs. And then it would happen with someone else. And someone else.
I think the position has the shoulder abducted slightly below 90 degrees of abduction and then puts full body weight through the joint in a super orientated force vector:
So I’ve added side planks as an exercise I’m not going to be using much in the future. There are variations that may work that place less strain on the shoulder, like the feet-off-the-bench variation, but other functional activities like weighted carries can likely provide a similar treatment or training effect, while not irritating the shoulder.
Now, realize I am biased. I work with a lot of people with shoulder pain and hypermobility. So perhaps my population tend to not handle them as well. But if my population doesn’t, maybe your population won’t either.
TRX Y’s
Next up is the TRX Y. I love the TRX, and the TRX Rip Trainer, two great devices. But I’ve always felt uncomfortable when performing a shoulder Y exercise using the TRX.
The shoulder Y is designed to incorporate upward rotation of the scapula, protraction, and posterior tilt of the scapula. It’s a great exercise for the lower trapezius.
However, when performed on the TRX, the Y exercises is drastically different, involving more scapular retraction and upward shrugging. Plus, the Y exercise is much more subtle, using your body weight, even at an angle, simply overloads the exercise and causes compensation. I think this promotes poor habits.
Just because two exercises may look the same, like the TRX Y and the Prone Y, doesn’t mean they have the same effect on the body.
Hip Flexor Stretch
My 3rd exercise is the wall hip flexor stretch. I’ve been pretty vocal on the fact that many people do this stretch poorly, hyperextending their back and placing more stress on their anterior hip capsule than on their hip flexors.
I popularized the use of the True Hip Flexor Stretch to help people shift focus on the right structures.
But even I sometimes felt that some people were Ok to do the standard wall stretch if they were “loose enough.”
You know what, I think those loose people actually just compensated more, like in the below video. So if we are really working on the flexibility of the hip flexors or on anterior pelvic tilt, I think we should all probably be sticking to a variation of the true hip flexor stretch and maybe just leaning forward more, than going back to the wall.
I really want to hear what you think, hit the comments below and let me know if you agree, disagree, or have more to add to this list! I don’t hate these exercises for everyone, but for now, these are a few I’m going to use less frequently.
https://mikereinold.com/wp-content/uploads/MikeReinold.com-Blog-Featured-Image-2.png6281200Mike Reinoldhttps://mikereinold.com/wp-content/uploads/MikeReinold-Small-Signature-Logo-2017-red.pngMike Reinold2017-10-09 06:00:352019-06-21 14:09:493 Popular Exercises I Am No Longer Using
We’re big fans of farmer carries and suitcase carries at Champion.
Carries do a great job of developing functional core stability by adding an offset weight to the center of rotation of the body. But carries also offer so many other benefits – from grip strength, to upper body development, to overall athleticism.
Often times, clients with poor core strength or control will compensate during the carry.
If the core can not stabilize the trunk with the added load of the carry, it will compensate by relying on the static stabilizers of the body and rocking back into hyperextension of the back or leaning to the side.
In the below video, Kiefer Lammi, our Director of Fitness at Champion, shows how we have started to modify the carry in these individuals by adding a march. Not only does this promote better core control, it also facilitates training the trunk to remain stable while the distal extremities move functionally. This is one of the fundamental principles to enhance how well people move and perform.
Follow Champion For More
If you enjoyed this video, the team at Champion and I have been producing a ton of great content on Champion’s social media profiles, including regular content for #MovementMonday and #TechniquesTuesday, plus a ton more:
How many people come to you and complain that they have tight hamstrings? It seems like an epidemic sometimes, right? I know it’s pretty common for me, at least.
Many people just tug away at their hamstrings and aggressively stretch, which may not only be barking up the wrong tree, but also disadvantageous.
I have really gotten away from blindly stretching the hamstrings without a proper assessment, as I feel that pelvic position is often the reason why people think they are tight. This is pretty easy to miss.
In the video below, I want to explain and help you visualize the how pelvic tilt influences hamstring mobility and spine position. Often times the hamstrings feel “tight” or “short” when in reality their pelvic position is just giving us this illusion. I talk about this a lot with clients at Champion and often find myself making these drawings on our whiteboard.
Keep this in mind next time you think someone has tight hamstrings or has too much thoracic kyphosis. Often times the key is in the hips!
How Pelvic Tilt Influences Hamstring and Spine Mobility
Strategies for Anterior Pelvic Tilt
If you are interested in learning more, I have a couple of great webinars for my Inner Circle members that you may find helpful:
Today’s article is an AMAZING guest post from my friend Dean Somerset. I’ve been talking a lot lately about how hip anatomy should change your mechanics and why exercises like squats should be individualized based on each person, but Dean blows this topic out of the water with this article. If you love this stuff as much as I, check out the link at the bottom for Dean and Tony Gentilcore’s new program, The Complete Shoulder & Hip Blueprint. This is just the tip of the iceberg of what is covered in the program.
Hip Variations and Why My Squat Isn’t Your Squat
In a recent workshop, I had a group of 50 fit and active fitness professionals and asked them all to do their best bodyweight squat with a position that felt good, didn’t produce pain, and was as deep as they could manage. As you can imagine, looking around the room produced 50 different squats. Some were wide, narrow, deep, high, turned out feet or some variation all of the above.
Did these differences mean there was a standard everyone should aim for, and those who weren’t there had to try to improve their mobility or strength or balance in that position? Maybe, but there’s probably a bunch of other reasons as to why 50 people have 50 different squats.
A standard requirement for powerlifting is to squat to a depth that involves having the crease of the hips below the vertical position of the knee. That’s probably the only known requirement for squat depth out there. The universal recommendation of “ass to grass” depth being the best thing since sliced bread may sound nice on paper (or in Instagram videos or Youtube segments), but it might be something that’s relatively difficult for some people to achieve, and for others it could be downright impossible, regardless of how much mobility work or soft tissue attacks they go through. The benefits of a deep squat seem to only be reserved for those who have the ability to express those benefits by accessing that range of motion without some other compensatory issue.
Let’s just consider simple stuff like anthropometric differences between individuals. Someone who is taller will have a bigger range of motion to go through to hit a parallel position than someone who is shorter, and someone with longer femurs in relation to their torso length will have a harder time maintaining balance over their base of support compared to someone who has shorter femurs. A long femur could be any femur that comprises more than26% of an individual’s’ total height. So someone who is tall and long femured will have trouble getting down to or below parallel due to simply having the limb lengths to allow the bar to stay over the base of support during the squat motion without losing balance one way or the other.
Not as commonly known is the degree of retroversion or anteversion the femoral necks can make. The shaft of the femur doesn’t just always go straight up and insert into the pelvis with a solid 90 degree alignment. On occasion the neck can be angled forward (femoral head is anterior to the shaft) in a position known as anteversion, or angled backward (femoral head is posterior to the shaft) in a position known as retroversion.Zalawadia et al (2010) showed the variances in femoral neck angles could be as much as 24 degrees between samples, which can be a huge difference when it comes to the ability to move a joint through a range of motion.
The acetabulum could itself be in a position of anteversion or retroversion, and this difference itself could be more than 30 degrees. This means the same shaped acetabulum would give someone who has the most anteverted acetabulum 30 extra degrees of flexion than someone who had the most retroverted acetabulum, but would give them 30 degrees more extension than the anteverted hips.
There’s also the differences in centre-edge angles, or the angle made from the center of the femoral head through the vertical axis and the outer edge of the lateral acetabulum. Laborie et al (2012) measured this angle in 2038 19 year old Norwegians, and found that it ranged from 20.8 degrees to 45.0 degrees with a mean of 32 in males and 31 in females.
Now to throw even another monkey wrench into the problem, there’s the simple fact that your left and right hips can be at different angles from each other! Zalawadia (same guy as before) showed that the angle of anteversion or retroversion of the femur could be significantly different from left to right, sometimes more than 20 degrees worth of difference.
All of this can have a direct effect on their available range of motion. You can’t easily mobilize bone into bone and create a new range from that interaction, so if one person has hips where the bony alignment and shape doesn’t causes earlier contact in a specific direction compared to someone else who has a different shaped and aligned hip structure, it’s going to show in their overall mobility.
Elson and Aspinal (2008) showed that there can be a massive variation in both passive and active movements of the hip across age ranges and gender differences. They showed a true hip flexion range of between 80-140 degrees (mean of 25)with no lumbar rounding, a strict active straight leg raise with no lumbar rounding range of 30-90 degrees (mean of 70), and active leg raise with lumbar rounding of 50-90 degrees (mean of 86). This means someone in their sample managed to get 60 degrees more hip flexion than someone else in the sample. There was also a range of between 5-40 degrees of hip extension too, and across an age range from 19-89 years old, that’s a notable difference, especially if you work in general populations where everyone walks into the gym and over to the squat rack.
D’Lima et al (2000) found that hip flexion ROM could be as low as 75 degrees with 0 degrees of both acetabular anteversion or femoral anteversion, but as high as 155 degrees, with 30 degrees of both acetabular anteversion or femoral anteversion. An increase in femoral neck diameter of as little as 2mm was able to reduce hip flexion range by 1.5 – 8.5 degrees, depending on the direction of motion.
So essentially, your ability to achieve a specific range of motion is as much up to your unique articular geometry as it is to your strength and mobility. In many cases, it’s entirely independent of your strength and mobility, and no amount of stretching, mashing, crushing, or stripping will improve it. In many cases, trying to achieve that range of motion that’s outside of your joints ability to achieve will cause less desirable results, like bone to bone contact and irritation (potentially leading to things like femoroacetabular impingement), or compensatory movement from other joints like the SI joint or lumbar spine.
So with as much involved with the structure as I’ve presented here, and how impactful it can be to the end result of total motion of the hips during exercises, how can you determine whether it’s a limiting factor or not? If you happen to have X-ray vision you can do a good job of this, but you’d likely be charging a heck of a lot more money than you are right now for your services.
What we have available is a detailed assessment that focuses on a combination of features.
Involving a passive assessment to assume a theoretically available range of motion and shape of movement capability, an active assessment to see how they can use that range and whether there’s a difference between the two, and then determining strength or motor pattern aptitudes for the movements can be the best tools we have at our disposal, and then coaching the movement until their face sweats blood.
By using multiple approaches to assessing available and usable range of motion, you can get multiple views into a room that can paint a broader picture of what’s available. If the person has the ability to easily let their knee drop to their chest on your treatment table and squat to the floor, there’s obviously no restriction to their range of motion. If they have trouble breaking 90 degrees, even if they move wider through abduction and external rotation, their active range is limited through multiple tests, and their ability to show you a squat shows a lumbar flexion at around 90 degrees of hip flexion as well, the odds of you mobilizing that tissue to produce a significantly bigger range may be limited.
Passive Assessment of Hip Structure
Active Hip Flexion Capability Against Gravity
Active Rockback for Hip Flexion without Gravity Influence
Supported Squat Assessment
If all of these tests show a specific limitation to the range of motion consistently across all situations, it could be assumed that there would be a structural limitation versus passive insufficiency, weakness or other considerations. If active testing is limited but passive or supported assessments are fine, there could be a strength or motor pattern limitation holding the movement back.
Now sure, there’s a lot of brakes that could be restricting that range, from things like scar tissue to guarding and some soft tissue restrictions. Doing some work to help reduce that can help improve overall range of motion, but in some cases will be limited to just minimal gains. In some situations, trainers or therapists may work on improving range of motion for weeks or months and see no improvement, and in many cases the deck would be stacked against them seeing any improvement at all.
As mentioned earlier, there could also be an asymmetric structural element at play, which may necessitate an asymmetric setup for the movement where one foot is either turned out more, held slightly forward or back, or even turned into something like a one-heel elevated squat. The difference between this and a lunge is merely how far back that elevated foot is relative to the other foot, but again it’s taking advantage of potential asymmetries in structure and allowing an asymmetric set up to be more congruent with the individual.
Another way to think of it is if we have a potentially asymmetric structure yet force a symmetric set up on it, we may be creating an imbalance or compensative element in our training versus preventing it.
The Complete Hip and Shoulder Blueprint
These and many more elements are discussed in Complete Shoulder & Hip Blueprint, a new continuing education resource from Tony Gentilcore and Dean Somerset. This digital video product is 11 hours of lecture and hands on where they break down pertinent anatomy, considerations for program design, and delve into assessments, corrective options, and training considerations for these 2 highly involved complex structures.
The series is currently on a launch sale pricing, and the entire package is available for only $137 versus the regular pricing of $177. The sale is on from November 1 through 5, so act quickly to get your copy. Click below to learn more or check out the below preview video!
https://mikereinold.com/wp-content/uploads/fig_4_-_customized_squat_pattern.jpg354395Mike Reinoldhttps://mikereinold.com/wp-content/uploads/MikeReinold-Small-Signature-Logo-2017-red.pngMike Reinold2016-11-01 06:00:302019-06-21 13:57:48Hip Variations and Why My Squat Isn’t Your Squat
Many people have called the deadlift, “the king of all exercises.” And rightfully so, as there may not be a bigger bang-for-your-buck exercise out there.
In my opinion, the deadlift is the most underutilized exercise in rehabilitation. Perhaps the move is intimidating? Perhaps people are afraid of barbells? Perhaps people are worried patients may hurt their backs? Perhaps rehab professionals don’t know enough about strength and conditioning?
I always say that I am a much better physical therapist because I am also a strength coach, and always keep learning from many great strength coaches.
As the gap between rehab and performance continues to narrow, the deadlift may be the final exercise to cross the chasm. We shouldn’t be afraid of the deadlift, however, we also need to understand the the conventional deadlift is not for everyone.
Why Everyone Should Deadlift
One of the most important trends in rehabilitation and strength and conditioning over the last decade or two has been the move away from muscle-based exercises and shift towards movement-based exercises. Rather than work on quad strength, work on squatting, for example. (Photo credit by the man, the myth, and the deadlift legend Tony Gentilcore)
The deadlift is essentially a hip hinge pattern, which is extremely functional and equally elusive for many people.
Put simply, people can’t hinge anymore! It’s amazing.
As our society changes and relies more on poor posture patterns, prolonged seated periods, and things like excessive use of smartphones, I’m amazed how it seems even kids can’t touch their toes anymore.
Working on a poor hip hinge pattern is extremely helpful for so many different issues that I see every day. From back pain, to knee pain, to even poor sport performance.
We have become so anterior chain dominant. Luckily, the deadlift hits the entire posterior chain in one big lift.
So the the deadlift really helps with the hip hinge pattern, but there are so many other benefits including working on better posture, glute development, lower extremity power development, a stronger core, stronger lats, and even enhanced grip strength.
You can see why it’s such a big bang-for-your-buck exercise.
Why Everyone Shouldn’t Deadlift
Wait a minute…
I just spent the first half talking about how beneficial the deadlift is for so many people. Why shouldn’t everyone perform a deadlift?
Let me clarify – I’m talking about the conventional barbell deadlift.
Take a step back and remember that we are more concerned about movements, than muscles, right? So luckily there are many variations of hinging, and even deadlifts, that can be utilized to achieve all the above great goals.
Perhaps the deadlift is so underutilized in the rehab setting because everyone just looks at the conventional barbell deadlift. That’s like going straight to the top, saying that there is no way you can perform that exercise, then just scrapping all forms of deadlifts and hip hinge exercises.
Most people that walk into the door at Champion have no chance at being successful at a conventional barbell deadlift. Among other things, you need:
Good mobility
An understanding of the hinge pattern neuromuscular pattern
The ability to load, essentially lift a weight with intent
Most people don’t have at least 2-3 of these qualities.
We’ll try to get them there with the right blend of mobility drills, corrective exercises, and manual therapy, but that doesn’t mean we have to wait to start deadlifting. We just need to start at a more regressed level.
So, don’t immediately scrap the deadlift, find a way to incorporate it. Work within your mobility and limited range, try a variation using a kettlebell or sumo stance, and use submaximal loads until you can groove a proper hip hinge pattern.
As you improve, you can incorporate more advanced forms of the deadlift, but don’t simply scrap the deadlift until then, modify!
3 Ways to Modify a Deadlift so Anyone Can Perform
If you want to learn more, I have an Inner Circle webinar on 3 Ways to Modify the Deadlift so Anyone Can Perform. In this presentation, I break down the 3 most common reasons why people often don’t perform a deadlift, the inability to load, poor hinge patterns, and altered hip anatomy. Deadlifts are great, and really underutilized in rehab, but with these 3 modifications, anyone should be able to perform them.
The notion of core training has been around for years and years. As far back as I can remember, people have been doing crunches, sit-ups, weighted side bends, and more. You could walk into any gym in the world and probably see someone doing some sort of “core” exercise.
Even today, there are still people performing sit-ups or some other variation in their training program. But as we continue to learn more about the spine, these traditional core exercises may actually be disadvantageous. According to Dr. Stuart McGill, a noted spine biomechanist from the University of Waterloo:
“The spine may be more prone to injury when they are in a fully flexed posture.”
Last time I checked, when someone is performing a sit-up, they are in a great deal of flexion.
Many other studies by McGill and other researchers have been published on the increased risk of high repetition and/or loaded lumbar spine motion. Since this research has been published, there has been a pendulum swing towards performing more neutral spine movements such as planks.
In another study by Cholewicki and McGill in Clinical Biomechanics:
“One important mechanical function of the lumbar spine is to support the upper body by transmitting compressive and shearing forces to the lower body during the performance of everyday activities. To enable the successful transmission of these forces, mechanical stability of the spinal system must be assured.”
By performing some type of plank or neutral spine exercise, this can potentially train the core to transmit force from the upper body to the lower body or vice versa without compromising the spine.
Performing plank variations is great, but as humans, we move in multiple planes of motion. Therefore, we need to train the core to function in all planes of motion.
Core Musculature
There are many muscles that contribute to the functioning of a stable core position. These muscles include:
Rectus Abdominis
Internal Obliques
External Obliques
Transverse Abdominis
Multifidi
Quadratus Lumborum
Diaphragm
Pelvic Floor
Latissimus Dorsi
There have been studies performed over the years saying that transverse abdominis or multifidi are the main stabilizers of the lumbar spine. Study after study, many by McGill, have refuted that 1 or 2 muscles are the primary stabilizers of the spine. McGill et al. in the Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology found that:
“The collection of works synthesized here point to the notion that stability results from highly coordinated muscle activation patterns involving many muscles, and that the recruitment patterns must continually change, depending on the task.”
Therefore, when we are training or treating our clients, we should not be attempting to isolate one muscle we performing lifting tasks. Some muscles may be more active than others in one task as compared to another. Instead, we should be working to maintain a neutral spine position and to resist motion through the lumbar spine.
The McGill Big 3
McGill came up with a series of 3 exercises, entitled “The Big 3” to help teach and re-educate patients or clients returning from a low back injury on how to properly stabilize their spine.
They include:
McGill Curl-Up
Key Points:
Place finger tips under low back.
Maintain a neutral spine position at low back and neck.
Slightly lift shoulders off ground while maintaining spine position.
Bird Dog
Key Points:
Maintain a neutral spine.
Imagine you have a drink on your low back. Don’t let it spill
Side Plank
Key Points:
Start on your side in a hip hinged position (hips slightly flexed).
Bring hips forward, not up.
These exercises are great implements to add into the beginning of a strength and conditioning program or during a rehab program for someone returning from a low back injury. But, these exercises are a foundation for movement. If we are going to build core stability throughout, thence need to have a solid foundation as well as solid “walls and a roof.”
Core Training Progression
There are typically two functions of the core:
Transmit force from the lower body to the upper body or vice versa.
Resist motion.
For example, if you are a baseball player and are throwing or swinging a bat, you want to have some motion through your lumbar spine, but predominantly through the hips and thoracic spine. If we try to stop motion at the lumbar spine, your effectiveness as an athlete will be subpar.
Regarding the other aspect of resisting motion, if you are going to pick something heavy up off the ground, you want to maintain a neutral spine posture so that your core can transmit force from your legs and into your arms as you lift to the implement.
We need to appreciate these two different situations as we program for our clients.
The three planes of movement that the core musculature works in is the:
Sagittal Plane
Frontal Plane
Transverse Plane
The sagittal plane is lumbar spine flexion and extension. The frontal plane is lateral flexion or sidebending. The transverse plane is rotation to the right or left.
Anti-extension core training consists of the body’s ability to resist movement into lumbar spine extension or to slow down motion from a flexed position to neutral, or from neutral to extension.
Exercises that focus on anti-extension stability are:
RKC Plank
Key Points:
Pull your elbows toward your toes.
Squeeze your glutes as hard as you can.
Maintain a neutral spine.
TRX Fallouts
Key Points:
Maintain a neutral spine.
Tuck tailbone/bring belt towards chin.
Slide arms out while keeping neutral spine.
Farmer’s Carries
Key Points:
Hold relatively heavy weight in each hand.
Ribs down/neutral spine.
Walk. Don’t lose neutral spine posture as you walk.
Dead Bugs
Key Points:
Flatten low back to ground so that spine is neutral.
Bring right arm overhead and left leg out away from body.
Do not lose neutral spine position. Return to starting position.
Repeat on other arm/leg.
Tall Kneeling Anti-Extension Press
Key Points:
Setup cable at head height when in tall kneeling.
Maintain a neutral spine and press cable overhead.
Cable will try to pull you into extension. Don’t let it.
The only thing moving should be your arms.
Anti-Lateral Flexion Core Training
Anti-lateral flexion core training consists of the body’s ability to resist movement into lumbar spine lateral flexion to the right or left or to slow down motion from a flexed position to neutral, or from neutral to the opposite laterally flexed position.
Exercises that focus on anti-lateral flexion core stability are:
Suitcase Carries
Key Points:
Hold weight in one hand.
Do not let weight pull you out of a tall, neutral posture.
Don’t overcompensate to and flex to the opposite side.
Walk.
Side Planks
Key Points:
Start on your side in a neutral spine, slightly hips flexed position.
Maintain neutral spine and bring hips forward.
Maintain a straight line from your head, shoulders, spine, hips, knees, and ankles.
Racked Carries
Key Points:
Maintain a tall posture similar to the suitcase carries.
Walk.
Anti-Rotation Core Training
Anti-rotation core training consists of the body’s ability to resist movement into lumbar spine rotation to the right or left or to slow down motion from a rotated position to neutral, or from neutral to a rotated position.
Exercises that focus on anti-rotation core stability are:
Anti-Rotation Press
Key Points:
Start behind cable arm.
When you press your hands away, don’t let the machine rotate you. Maintain a neutral spine.
Perform facing both directions.
1/2 Kneeling Chops
Key Points:
Leg closest to the machine should be up.
Bring arms down and across your body to you far side hip.
Only move head and arms.
Perform on both sides.
1/2 Kneeling Lifts
Key Points:
Leg closest to machine should be down.
Same cues as chops, but bring cable to far side shoulder.
TRX Anti-Rotation Press
Key Points:
Feet should be in tandem.
Maintain a neutral spine position.
Don’t let your body rotate or sidebend during press.
Perform on both sides.
Multi-Planar Movements and Rotational Sport Athletes
Once the body has mastered the basic core progressions and anti-movement-based drills, it is important to incorporate multi-planar and rotational movements. These movements work on incorporating movement through the hips and thoracic spine versus some of the movements before where basically no movement was occurring.
As mentioned before, these exercises will help the athlete and client to control themselves going from one position to another. As a rotational sport athlete, we don’t want to completely limit any spine motion. We want the body to be able to control and decelerate the body using the musculature versus passive restraints (ie. bone, ligament, etc.) at end range. These can also be used by non-rotational sport athletes as well.
Sledgehammer Hits
Key Points:
Bring the sledgehammer up over one shoulder. Don’t let it bring you into lumbar extension.
Hit the tire while maintaining a neutral spine.
Alternate per side.
Medicine Ball Overhead Slams
Key Points:
Raise the medicine ball overhead.
Avoid going into lumbar extension.
Slam the ball to the ground while maintaining a neutral spine.
Medicine Ball Overhead Rotational Slams
Key Points:
Bring the ball up overhead. Don’t let it bring you into lumbar extension.
Throw while maintaining a neutral spine.
Medicine Ball Scoop Toss
Key Points:
Load your back leg with your weight.
Transfer weight quickly from back to front leg.
Majority of the motion should be coming from the thoracic spine and hips.
Perform on both sides.
Medicine Ball Shotput Toss
Key Points:
Load medicine ball at shoulder height.
Load back hip/leg.
Quickly drive off back leg and twist through hips/thoracic spine.
Perform on both sides.
Breathing and Core Training
Implementing breathing with core training is very important. If we are constantly holding our breath while performing core exercises, then we are compensating using the valsalva maneuver versus training the musculature to have to stabilize throughout the exercise.
*Disclaimer*: if you have heavy weight in your hands or on your back in the cases of a deadlift or squat, then I am a proponent of using the breath to brace the core and spine. When it comes to core exercises as mentioned above, remember to breath.
With the said, here are a couple of exercises where implementing the breath adds another component to the movement.
Anti-Rotation Press with Full Exhale
Key Points:
Same as before with Anti-rotation Press.
Complete full exhale when hands are out in front of your body.
Maintain proper form during exhale and inhale.
Prone Plank with Full Exhale
Key Points:
Same as before with Plank.
Complete full inhale and exhale without losing form.
Strength Training and Core Stability
Lastly, we can’t go through an entire article and not discuss the use of core stability and strength training. I am a firm believer that just performing squats and deadlifts are not enough to improve core and trunk stability. Adding some of the movements mentioned above can add another component to create a well-rounded training program.
When it comes to performing squats, deadlifts, etc., maintaining a neutral spine during the lifts is extremely important. Yes, there are some elite level lifters out there who can sway away from a neutral position in one direction or the other. For the vast majority of people performing strength movements such as these, a neutral spine should be maintained.
There you have it. By incorporating core stability exercises throughout all planes of motion, it will allow your clients and/or athletes to reduce their risk for injuries as well as improve their performance.
Learn More About Core Training
If you want to learn even more about functional core training, check out Mike Reinold and Eric Cressey’s Functional Stability Training for the Core. The program goes over many of these progressions and a whole lot more to help you completely understand the true role of the core and how to incorporate functional core training into your rehab and strength training programs:
Andrew Millett is a Boston-based physical therapist in the field of orthopedic and sports medicine physical therapy. He helps to bridge the gap between physical therapy and strength and conditioning. Visit his website at AndrewMillettPT.com.
https://mikereinold.com/wp-content/uploads/fig_3_-_featured_image_-_360_degree_core_training.png650519Mike Reinoldhttps://mikereinold.com/wp-content/uploads/MikeReinold-Small-Signature-Logo-2017-red.pngMike Reinold2016-09-19 06:00:332019-06-21 13:56:09Working Core Training in 360 Degrees
This week’s post comes from my friend and colleague at Champion, Dave Tilley. Dave is no doubt one of the most impressive up-and-coming PTs out there right now and we are thrilled to have him part of our team at Champion. In this day and age, I’m seeing more and more students and young professionals skip the basics. In this post, Dave talks about how he focuses on some of the basics to achieve optimal performance.
Layering The Basics For Optimal Movement
Within my first few weeks of working at Champion, I remember one day Mike Reinold said, “Over the years I think people have overcomplicated things a lot. I’m actually trying to get back to the basics, and just do them really well.”
This stuck with me as I reflected back on my first few years coming out of PT school. After graduating, I dove into a lot of continuing education trying to catch up with all the new information available. I found myself swimming in a ton of really complicated material related to evaluation, treatment, and research concepts.
I think I let myself get into the complex material a little too much, and I found myself missing a lot of basics when working with clients. The more I learn and gain experience, I am finally able to find the balance. Overall, I have drifted back into making sure the basics are done really well before utilizing more complex approaches.
Coming from my gymnastics background, it’s a sport that is built around mastering the basics and revisiting them constantly. The gymnasts I coach do 45 minutes of basics daily in their workout.
The highest-level elite athletes I have worked with do the basics better than anyone else, and this it what makes the sport so hard.
These same high-level athletes tend to be the best compensators on the planet, having nervous systems that “get the job done” even if it means sacrificing tissue health.
When treating them, it often comes down to revisiting basics first. These “basics” include soft tissue or joint mobility, baseline strength, fundamental dynamic control, and more. It’s only once these factors have been addressed that we can start tweaking the complicated variables of program designed, complex movement patterns and high-level performance.
Here are a few “layers” of categories I consider for the maximizing movement, performance, and rehabilitation.
Performance / Competition Level Basics
Does the person have a well-structured program design, which utilizes appropriate work to rest ratios and a periodized model that fits their goals?
Does the person understand the basics of nutrition, hydration, sleep, and recovery methods to maximize the training effect from the point above?
Is there some form of athlete monitoring (ideally subjective and objective) for understanding what is happening physiologically and psychologically during the training?
Does the athlete have tools or strategies for competition planning, stress management, and mental preparedness?
Sport / Skill Level Basics
Has the athlete grown up in a sporting environment that allowed a large range of sensory, motor, and movement based fundamentals to develop. With growing rates of early specialization and year-round training, this tends to become and issue in older athletes?
Does the athlete understand a large range of fundamental movements (squat, hinge, run, push, pull, jump, etc) and are they equally represented in the program. As skill specific training increases this may drop off but it should never be completely lost?
Do they understand and show the basics of sport specific movements being trained. Examples include fundamental shaping for gymnastics skills, basic mechanics for pitching, or mastery of barbell only clean/snatch movements in Olympic Lifting?
Movement Level Basics
Within the skill specific patterns, does the athlete possess the basic movement components required to complete them. Examples for this may include having adequate overhead mobility or squat depth to hit the Olympic lifting positions, having basic lumbopelvic strength during the gymnastics drills, or adequate single leg stability to transfer dynamic force during a baseball pitch?
Joint Level Basics
If the basic movement patterns are not demonstrated, we have to work backwards even further to check the joint level basics within each movement pattern.
Within the overhead mobility example, does the person show adequate thoracic spine mobility, glenohumeral capsular and soft tissue mobility, underlying scapular or rotator cuff strength, and basic dynamic stability? For the stride mechanics, is there adequate hip, ankle, and great toe mobility present, along with glute strength and internal hip co-contraction to tolerate the high forces being generated?
Where to start for checking off the basics depends on the client. It depends on if they are rehabilitation or performance based, their history, and their evaluation.
It’s important to remember these categories are not mutually exclusive. They are very much interactive. If someone is week 1 postoperative from an ACL surgery, I’m not really worried about his or her power clean mechanics just yet. But, I still may be considering sleep, nutrition, hydration, maintaining metabolic capacity, and training the uninvolved areas of the body to optimize their rehabilitation.
A gymnast or athlete who is not injured but comes to me for performance goals, we may spend more time on the skill specific movements and overall training concepts. However, if they are missing some fundamental strength and joint mobility we may consider that within the treatment sessions.
With this said, I do think that reading and trying to understand complicated concepts is important. After all the human body is pretty complex. To make progress in the fields of human movement, I think we need to break down these larger usually more theoretically constructs.
With that said, we have to always remember that basics and foundational concepts will always need to be in place. As people say, a house built on sand is doomed from the beginning. When troubleshooting a client’s lack of progress in training, rather than spending 30 minutes trying to correct their 3 degree tibial internal rotation asymmetry maybe we should consider the fact they averaged 5 hours of sleep and worked 10 hour days last week.
It’s good to take a step back and make sure we have addressed the low hanging fruit before we scale the entire tree. Only once the basics are covered can we start tackling more complex concepts to help optimize their movement or performance. Just a few thoughts from my point of view, but I hope people found this helpful to think about.
About the Author
Dave Tilley, DPT, is a physical therapist at Champion PT and Performance. Dave comes from an extensive gymnastics background, being a former competitive athlete for 18 years and having 12 years of coaching experience. His unique background as a former athlete and current optional level coach gives him a one of a kind approach to the performance and rehabilitation of gymnasts. Along with his clinical work, Dave is has a website, http://shiftmovementscience.com, that helps teach coaches, athletes, and healthcare providers about optimal performance and injury reduction concepts.
https://mikereinold.com/wp-content/uploads/Layering_The_Basics_For_Optimal_Movement.jpg300755Mike Reinoldhttps://mikereinold.com/wp-content/uploads/MikeReinold-Small-Signature-Logo-2017-red.pngMike Reinold2016-08-01 06:00:042019-06-21 13:51:36Layering The Basics For Optimal Movement
Want to Learn More About How I Train the Core?
How many people come to you and complain that they have tight hamstrings? It seems like an epidemic sometimes, right? I know it’s pretty common for me, at least. 
One of the most important trends in rehabilitation and strength and conditioning over the last decade or two has been the move away from muscle-based exercises and shift towards movement-based exercises. Rather than work on quad strength, work on squatting, for example. (Photo credit by the man, the myth, and the deadlift legend 
There are many muscles that contribute to the functioning of a stable core position. These muscles include:
Andrew Millett is a Boston-based physical therapist in the field of orthopedic and sports medicine physical therapy. He helps to bridge the gap between physical therapy and strength and conditioning. Visit his website at 
Dave Tilley, DPT, is a physical therapist at Champion PT and Performance. 