Robertson Training Systems

Active and Passive Stability

The past couple of days, I've been diving head-first back into the research and textbook world.

Believe it or not, I'm not a total cyborg like Eric Cressey - I have to actually take breaks from this stuff, from time-to-time :)

Regardless, whenever I start working on a new project I want to make sure I've reviewed as much literature as possible, even if that means re-reading things that I may have already gone over in the past.

Last night, I was reading a bunch of spine related stuff, and it reminded me of some posts I made regarding the difference between active and passive stability at the knee joints. If you're interested, be sure to check those out via the links below:

Knee Stability After Knee Surgery

Q&A: Passive Knee Stability

How do you Train Minus Two Knee Ligaments?

(And for the record, just check out that last post - who EVER thought a website could look that bad? I need to give my web guys a raise or something!)

The spine is no different from other joints in the body - it employs the use of both active AND passive stabilizers.

What's interesting, though, is the extreme difference in joint loading between the two.

Basic research has shown that if you look at the passive stabilizers of the spine (the spine itself, ligaments, etc.), it can only handle about 20 Newtons worth of force.

(Don't worry, I'm not taking you back to Physics class here; instead, just look at the next point.)

In contrast, research by McGill and Axler showed that even basic core training exercises can produce somewhere between 6,000 and 18,000 Newstons of force!!!

How is this possible? How can we have such a huge discrepancy between what our spine "should" be able to take, and what it does?

Two words: Active Stabilizers.

I know numerous people who feel like their life is over due to an injury. Instead of focusing on the negative, take a step back and evaluate where you're at, and what you can do to improve your situation.

At the end of the day, one factor that you can almost always control is the strength of your muscles, and therefore, your active stability.

So whether you have a bendy spine, "loose" knees, or floppy shoulders, a little strength training with proper technique and reasonable loads can go a long way to keeping you injury-free and feeling great.

All the best

Mike

(To read and post comments for this entry, visit http://robertsontrainingsystems.com/)

The 3 Cardinal Rules

A Guest Blog by Brian Grasso

The 3 Cardinal ‘Versus’ for Training Young Athletes

When I look around the industry, I find myself becoming more and more discontented with the view. It seems that there is a never-ending litany of new, innovative and advanced techniques in the field of strength and conditioning that are, in essence, just re-fabricated models and methods that have proved tried and true for literally decades.

This is especially true at the youth level where we tend to walk the fine line of wavering between dummying down adult-based prescription and creating ‘novel’ schemes of building the same results that can, and are developed through the standard basics.

When working with young athletes (aged 6 – 18) I implore you to resist the temptation of thinking too far outside the box and instead concentrate your time and effort on both pondering and answering these 3 specific questions:

Is this Concept vs Cool?
Is it Recipe vs Chef?
What’s the difference between Athletes & Non-Athletes?

Let’s examine those further.

Concept vs Cool

Do we really need another 90-minute seminar that teaches Fitness Professionals ‘150 Awesome Exercises on the BOSU Ball’?

Or a certification that has 80% of its content based on sample programs for the specific demographic in question?

Our industry has become a ‘cool’ extravaganza. The more daring, off-the-wall, dazzling and ‘neato’ an exercise or training system is, the more popular it becomes. Ironically, the less effective it more often than not is, as well.

Lost in the sex appeal of watching fitness models slathered in man tan parade as ‘fitness gurus’ and performing the newest stunts on unstable surfaces (because that evokes a proprioceptive response and burns more calories, you see) is that we seem to have ditched our sense of ‘concept’ as it relates to exercise and performance gains.

I’ll be the first to admit that it’s mesmerizing to watch an incredible display of athletic skill being performed and that the symptomotolgy of the training program in question often seems worth the potential (i.e. beads of sweat pouring off one’s head as proof of the exercises difficulty and subsequent effectiveness). But as Fitness Professionals and Youth Fitness Specialists who have stood up, raised their hands and declared themselves worthy of the task of caring for a population in such desperate need of a clarion voice, it’s disconcerting to know that we fall prey to this circus show time-and-time again.

In the ‘Concept vs Cool’ argument, I want nothing more than for you to use common sense when determining value and worth of a training program or exercise:

It looks cool, but what’s the concept behind the suggested benefit?
Although I’ve never considered science the linchpin of anything in fitness, are there any research conclusions that can back the claims?
One exercise or sample program does NOT a training system make… Where does this fit in? Can it work with my young athlete’s life and honor what they need from a growth, development, long-term and tertiary life considerations?
Does the risk-reward equation produce a sum that’s favorable?

Recipe vs Chef

I mentioned the reality of some certifications or products being as heavily weighted as 80% sample-based programs. I want to examine that notion a little farther.

I’m the biggest fan in the world of ‘Done-For-You’. I like time-saving. I enjoy experts who really know there stuff giving me a glimpse into their brains and how they do things from a practical standpoint.

But I stop at the water’s edge every time… Sample programs are nothing more than a ‘glimpse’ into how they would do things WITHIN THE SITUATIONS THAT ARE UNIQUE TO THEM. Without question, there are universal realities that can be applied to all young athletes irrespective of situational factors, but there is also a sensibility in programming that suggests individuality holds the key for optimum success.

What are the training ages of the young athletes the sample-program wielding expert has just given you? How do they differ from the kids you train?

What pre-cursor and preparatory elements were put in place from a technical perspective prior to the expert using these specific training programs?

What are the psychological differences and weight-room conduct variances between a 16 year old at Beverly Hills High versus a 16 year old at Compton Tech? How do young athletes who attend historically championship high schools differ from kids whose high schools have never even made the playoffs?

Do the socio-economic factors relating to a particular high school demographic cause more or less stress to the young athletes in question than a high school who sits on the other end of the demographic spectrum? Does this factor affect nutrition, sleep patterns or other forms of regeneration?

How many young athletes does the expert have to work with at one time? How large is the space they’re working within? Are the equipment options the same as they are for you?

Thus, the need for our industry to understand the concept much more than the practicality of how it’s applied.

Concept appreciation suggests that you get the ‘what’ and the ‘why’, and are therefore fluent in figuring out the ‘how’ as it relates to your specific situations.

Athletes vs Non-Athletes

This topic deviates away from the fitness industry at large and speaks more to the issues related to youth fitness, but it carries a very similar tone as the ‘Concept vs Cool’ and ‘Recipe vs Chef’ arguments.

A 10-year old soccer player needs nothing different in terms of training than a 10-year old basketball player. Moreover, an 80-year old superstar baseball player should have a training system that has a remarkable resemblance to the one an 8-year old, non-athletic, overweight child should be following.

And thus the linchpin of the entire ‘concept’ contention – training programs of any merit follow the inherent and natural, organic features of the organism itself. An 8-year old soccer player and an 8-year old overweight child have one discernable quality in common; their age.

Now, chronological age is by no means the only or even best way of determining the training stimulus needs for anyone, but it does provide a general backdrop of necessity; especially from a developmental perspective.

All aspects of coordination (balance, kinesthetic differentiation, rhythm, spatial awareness, movement adequacy) are most optimally developed when the human organism is very plastic and pre-peak height velocity. Although the progressions or regressions of specific exercises may vary, these characteristics must be present in any training program written for young people.

Here are some key questions to ask yourself:

Is my training program more specific to the sport or the relative needs of the young athlete based on age?
Am I being varied and multi-lateral in my approach to movement, or concentrating on reflecting the innate patterns of positional play?
Am I programming for the things this young athlete DOESN’T experience or get exposure to in the sport they play?
Do I know for sure if this 8-year old overweight child will not grow up to be a star quarterback? If the answer is ‘no’ (which it is) then should my training system be more regulatory in terms of human potential and less concerned with the symptoms associated with the young person’s current lifestyle?

Cool vs Concept.

Recipe vs Chef.

Athletes vs Non-Athletes.

Three things I want you to consider very closely.

Brian Grasso has trained more than 15,000 young athletes worldwide over the past decade. He is the Founder and CEO of the International Youth Conditioning Association – the only youth-based certification organization in the entire industry. For more information, visit www.IYCA.org

(To read and post comments for this entry, visit http://robertsontrainingsystems.com/)

MR's September Goals

Ever have one of those times in your life where things seem to be hitting on all cylinders?

That’s kind of where I’m at right now. Things are going really well in virtually every facet of my life, so I figured I’d share a little bit of personal information with this post.

I get a lot of questions regarding how I’m training, what I do for recovery, how I get work done, etc. In this post, I’m going to outline the next month of my life and what I plan to do with it.

Obviously, long-term goals are great – you need to have that long-term vision of where you want to go. But I also feel like shorter term items work well not only in training, but in life as well.

Anyway, I’m not sure if you’ll like this post but hopefully you’ll take something away from it! At the very least, I hope you don't think I'm some crazy egomaniac :)

Training

Training has been going really well as of late. I’m hitting my first month of 5-3-1, and I feel it’s exactly what I need at this point in time.

I know some of you may think, “why not just write your own program?” And that's a very valid question.

One problem is that I can write anywhere between 40 and 70 programs in any given month, so writing my own creative work isn't always fun.

Plus, I’m pulled in a lot of directions, so it’s nice to not have to think that much about my own lifting. I know exactly what I need to hit on any given day from a lifting perspective. I just plug and chug in my Excel spreadsheet and my big lifts are filled in. All I have to do is determine what lifts I need from an accessory/supplemental standpoint, and the program is ready to rock.

Plus, I just vibe with the long-term focus of the program in general. You don’t get strong in one week or one training program – you do it over the course of an entire training career.

I’ve also been very diligent about incorporating the PRI corrective exercises into my routine as well. I feel at this point in time, I’m probably moving as well as I ever have. The next step is to start laying some strength on top of that movement quality.

We’ll see how it goes ;)

Finally, we’re slowly building a kick-ass training crew at IFAST. On Tuesday and Thursday mornings, I can have anywhere between 3 and 6 other motivated individuals, which really helps. Nothing sucks worse than consistently training by yourself.

I have no doubt if we can keep this crew intact, we’re all going to set some PR’s in the coming months/years.

Recovery

As training intensity/volume is going up, I need to balance that with recovery work. Luckily, this is something that I’ve always bought into, so it’s really just a matter of reincorporating a lot of the stuff that I’ve done in the past.

Sleep is a huge component of my personal recovery routine. When I was training/coaching clients at 6 am, this often fell by the wayside, and my training suffered as a result.

I’m lucky now that I don’t have any 6 am mornings, so I can get pretty consistent sleep. If you’re interested in improving sleep quality or sleep in general, be sure to check out my Sleep 101 blog.

One thing that I’ve started doing in the past 7 months is some weekly meditation. I don’t always get to do it as often as I’d like, but I’m pretty good about getting this in somewhere between 3 and 5 times per week. As I continue to do more of this and learn more about it, you may see some blogs covering the topic in a bit more depth.

Finally, I’m a huge believer in soft-tissue work to help expedite recovery, improve movement quality, and just feel good in general. I’m back on a fairly consistent routine in this regard, and I think I’ve talked Bill into dropping some ART bombs on me on a regular basis to keep things moving along.

Professional

Now, let’s get to the stuff I’m sure you’re most interested in :-)

I’m going to make a big, hairy, audacious goal here (a BHAG, if you will): I’m going to take the next 30 days and try to complete my low back care manual.

Ludicrous, right? That’s what I think, too. But I’m going to give this an honest to goodness shot.

I’ve only started going through all the responses to my survey, and I think this is a product that people legitimately need. I’ve gotten amazing feedback from Bulletproof Knees, and I feel like this product could potentially be even bigger.

The thing I have to remind myself is that everyone will not like it, and it won’t help everybody. But I think I have a pretty tried-and-true system that will help a lot of people get healthy and restore lost function.

I’m getting excited just thinking about it, to be quite honest!

But as the saying goes, before you add something, you need to figure out what you’re going to take away. A smart guy by the name of Brett Jones told me that last weekend, actually!

To help me achieve this goal, I’ve already started cutting back on my e-mails. This is one of those things has a tendency to spiral out of control if you let it. I’d often find myself checking e-mail simply because I had nothing else to do, which isn’t a good habit to fall into.

My goal is to check and respond to e-mail once per day, twice in a worst-case scenario.

Along those same lines, I’m cutting back on checking my blog/RSS feed as well. This is one of those things that can spiral out of control as well. Next thing you know, you’re checking your RSS feed 10 times per day just to see if there’s any new content.

So e-mail 1-2x/day, and RSS feed 1x/day or every other day. This alone should make a huge difference.

Finally, it’s already time to start prepping for my seminar in Vancouver this December. I’m sure some people think you just show up and present, but I’m a little anal-retentive in this regard.

When you are developing two full days worth of content, it takes a while just to develop all of the PowerPoint slides and material. THEN, you actually need to take time to rehearse the material so you don’t look like a moron in front of 80-100 total strangers.

Needless to say, it’s a big endeavor, but I’m really excited.

Summary

So that’s what I’ve got going on, and the goals I’ve set for myself for the next month.

What are you guys hoping to achieve this month? Any specific goals?

Or maybe more importantly, a big, hairy, audacious goal you’d like to share with the group?

I’ll be looking forward to your feedback below. Have a great holiday weekend!

All the best

Mike

(To read and post comments for this entry, visit http://robertsontrainingsystems.com/)

And then there was VIDEO

I'm once again working on the site, and this time I REALLY need your input.

Here's what I need:

I'm working on a new section for the site that focuses on video. The goal will be to answer your most pressing questions via a video response. This could be related to exercise technique, performance, coaching cues, whatever.

Basically, if you have a question you want me to answer, I'd love for you to post it in the "Comments" section below.

I'm sure I'm going to get a ton of great feedback, so keep in mind there's no way I'll be able to answer every single-question. That doesn't mean I don't love you, or don't want to help you out. You still rock :)

I'd love to get the video project rolling in the next couple of weeks, so be sure to leave your feedback below ASAP.

As always, thanks for your continued support of myself and Robertson Training Systems!

All the best

Mike

(To read and post comments for this entry, visit http://robertsontrainingsystems.com/)

A Killer Chin-up Variation

In today’s edition of Exercise of the Week, we’re going to cover a sweet variation on an old-school strength exercise.

You’re all probably familiar with the traditional chin-up/pull-up variation with the knees bent and ankles tucked behind you. It looks something like this:

And while the standard chin-up/pull-up is still a great option, here’s a little tweak that I think you’ll find a bit more challenging.

The Pillar/Plank Chin-up is an exercise I originally heard about from physical therapist Charlie Weingroff. I’m not sure if he calls it the pillar chin-up or not, but that's really not here nor there. :)

Hang from a chinning bar, but before you perform the lift, do the following things:

Dorsiflex your toes (pull them UP towards your face).
Straighten your legs, extending your knees.
Squeeze your glutes and drive your hips forward.

NOW, with all these things going on, perform your traditional chin-up. Here are the big coaching points when it comes to chinning/pulling:

Elbows straight/extended at the bottom.
Initiate by pulling through the elbows, not just flexing the biceps.
At the top, the chest should touch the bar and you should squeeze your shoulder blades DOWN (think of tucking them in your back pocket).
Lower under control to the starting position and repeat for the necessary number of reps.

I really like this version, as it seems to integrate the body a bit better, versus dissociating between upper and lower bodies.

Along those same lines, you guys know how obsessed I am with getting the core and glutes involved in our lifts, and this version really cranks up the stabilization needs of our torso and hips.

Give this variation a shot TODAY! I think you’ll really enjoy it.

Stay strong

(To read and post comments for this entry, visit http://robertsontrainingsystems.com/)

3 Keys to Long Term Bench Press Success

Today I'm going to link you over to the CriticalBench.com site. I wrote a guest blog over there that I think you'll really enjoy, especially if you're interested in driving your bench press numbers up!

3 Keys to Long-Term Bench Press Success

Got questions about the bench press? Be sure to leave them below and I'll answer them ASAP!

Stay strong

(To read and post comments for this entry, visit http://robertsontrainingsystems.com/)

Unstable Surface Training for Beginners

Unstable Surface Training: Functional training revolution, or simply the current training fad?

(Photo courtesy of TRXFitness.co.uk)

Unstable surface training (UST) is currently all the rage in the fitness world. Go to any fitness seminar or boot camp and you’ll immediately notice tools like Blast straps or TRX systems being employed.

The question becomes, how efficacious is this sort of training?

Is it helping people achieve their goals?

Is it something YOU should be utilizing?

Or is it just the next big fad within the fitness industry?

Before we get into the nuts and bolts, let’s briefly examine what we currently know about unstable surface training.

Upper Body versus Lower Body UST

The first topic we need to examine is the difference between upper body and lower body UST.

In his ebook, “Unstable Surface Training: From Research to Real World Applications” Eric Cressey gave numerous examples as to why UST may not be suitable for performance training in the lower extremity.

Rather than rehashing all the literature here, I figured I’d give you one brief quote from Cressey’s [1] abstract (and yes, I did read the whole paper, thank you very much!):

“These results indicate that UST using inflatable rubber discs attenuates performance improvements in healthy, trained athletes. Such implements have proved valuable in rehabilitation, but caution should be exercised when applying UST to athletic performance and general exercise scenarios.”

Rehabbing a sprained ankle is one thing – but squatting or lunging on an UST like a Dyna disc or Airex pad may not be in our best interest if the end-goal is improving strength and/or power production.

Core training and upper extremity training, however, are great options for UST exercises performed with a TRX, blast straps, or even just medicine balls.

But again, it all comes down to preparedness. Let’s examine the concept of stability as it relates to UST.

The Stability Continuum

Stability is the name of the game when it comes to UST. Here’s a little graphic to help you better understand how the stabilization continuum works:

More Stability

More Prime Mover Activation

Less Stabilizer Activation

Less Stability

Less Prime Mover Activation

More Stabilizer Activation

Instead of working on theory, let’s use some practical examples to help outline how this comes together in training.

On the left hand side of the continuum, think about activities that maximize stability. A great example here would be the leg press, or any machine-based exercise. In the case of the leg press you are very stable as your entire torso is supported, and stabilization requirements from the hips and thighs are minimal as well since you’re locked into a specific movement pattern.

Photo courtesy of MuscleTech.com

With that increase in stability, you increase prime mover activation. This is why you can move ridiculous weights on the leg press, at least compared to what you can squat.

If we move to the right, we could envision a bilateral squat. You obviously need more stability to perform a squat than you would a leg press. As such, you decrease prime mover activation to an extent, while increasing stabilizer activation.

The Incomparable Dave Draper

If we wanted to move even further to the right, we could imagine a single-leg squat, where we have reduced the base of support (BOS) to almost nothing. Single-leg squats are the king of single-leg exercises, as your body is forced to not only stabilize itself, but also to produce force throughout a large range of motion as well.

Mike Boyle Single-Leg Squatting

Of course, we could continue going and going, if we so chose – single-leg squats on a Dyna disc, Airex pad, etc. But hopefully this brings a very important point to light:

More stability means more prime mover activation and less stabilizer activation.

Less stability means more stabilizer activation and less prime mover activation.

The question then becomes, what helps you achieve your goals?

For a bodybuilder whose only goal is to build huge legs, the leg press may be a viable option. Now I’m not saying it’s something I recommend to my trainees and clients (I don’t work with a ton of bodybuilders, personally) but I can understand their implementation with regards to their specific goals.

In contrast, an athlete who needs a lot of dynamic stability in their upper body or core could definitely benefit from some specific UST. The key is to determine if this is a safe and effective option for the client at hand.

Elite gymnasts like Nastia Liukin require high-levels of stability from their core and shoulders to move effectively

Let’s look at some specific cases where UST may be contraindicated, and then how to begin implementing UST into your own training.

When is Unstable Surface Training NOT appropriate?

Unfortunately, not everyone is immediately prepared to train for UST from the get go.

As I’ve mentioned numerous times on this blog and within my articles, we have to consider what a client is prepared to do first and foremost.

Just because you WANT to do something doesn’t mean you’re physically prepared to do it.

One of the most basic exercises you can perform in an unstable training environment is the push-up. However, we know that a ton of our clients and athletes do push-ups like this:

Their core is weak and/or unstable, and their low back sags excessively throughout the course of the lift.

The issue with many clients performing UST is that their core stability is often one of, if not the weakest, link in their body! And then they decide to perform UST which places an even greater emphasis on stability, which further magnifies this weak link.

If you took this guy and had him perform push-ups in an unstable environment, I can tell you for a fact his stabilization patterns are going to be even worse.

Instead, we need to make sure people can stabilize effectively in a stable environment first and foremost, before moving them into UST.

I know, I know – I’m a pariah for suggesting that you can’t do all the cool stuff right off the rip. But again, I’m not just focused on being the cool kid in school; I want to give you information that’s going to make you move and feel better for a lifetime.

For upper extremity training, until someone can perform a flawless push-up on the floor, or a flawless inverted row, they shouldn’t be doing it on an unstable surface. And flawless in this case means three things:

Core/stomach tight.
Glutes/butt tight.
Chest up and out.

I'm definitely not perfect, but here's an idea of how a solid push-up should look.

In essence, we’re trying to get them into a neutral pelvic alignment and keep their hips up/extended throughout. Like I’ve said numerous times before, it’s not as simple as upper body or lower body training – this is total body training!

Core training is no different – some of my favorite core training exercises are performed using a TRX or blast strap set-up, but we need to make sure we’re prepared.

Mike Boyle has talked extensively about his anterior core progression. We start with exercises like rollouts on a ball or Ab Dolly, and then move to an ab wheel, and then we can try out advanced unstable variations such as blast strap flutters, Miyagis, or fallouts, all of which you can find on the Robertson Training Systems You Tube page.

So maybe you’re not 100% prepared for UST today – how can we get you to that point safely and effectively?

I’m glad you asked… :)

Progressing into the world of Unstable Surface Training

The starting point for UST is solid movement on a stable surface.

Remember: If you can't do it in a stable environment, you have no business moving to an unstable environment!

The next step is to start incorporating lower-intensity UST into your workout. Again, start with basic exercises that you’re familiar with – push-ups, inverted rows, or maybe even some core progressions.

The key is to not let your old/inefficient stabilization patterns get in the way. Luckily, adjustments are quick and easy with both the TRX suspension trainer and blast-straps. Simply move the handles up to a point where you can stabilize effectively, and you’re good to go!

Watch the two videos below and you'll see how moving the handles up/down can make a big difference in how hard you're forced to work!

As you can see, the lower the TRX or blast straps go, the more of your own bodyweight you’ll have to push-up and stabilize. Please don’t let your ego get in the way. You have to do it right to derive maximal benefits!

Taking UST to the Next Level – A Practical Approach

Whenever I discuss UST, I’m immediately reminded of former IFAST client JC who we prepped for FBI school. This guy was built like a brick house – huge hips and thighs, a wide back and shoulders, etc.

Basically, this guy was jacked.

The problem was his core was horribly unstable. It was like we were looking at two distinct bodies – the upper and lower body was jacked, but the core that didn’t seem to tie the two together.

With JC, we started with basic stability exercises like front planks, side planks and birddogs. For a big, strong guy like this, this definitely isn’t sexy or fun, but it’s what we needed to do to develop a solid foundation.

The next step was to get him some dynamic stability, or stability while moving. His hip flexors were really stiff, so it was hard to get him into pelvic neutral/hip extension. Again, this is where we really worked to master the basics – split-squats, push-ups, inverted rows, etc., all performed in a stable environment where he could re-create a more effective stabilization pattern.

After a few months, his progress was noticeable – he was moving and feeling much better. We then moved into some UST to really tie things together. JC started off with basics such as push-ups and inverted rows, and eventually moved to advanced versions of each with only one leg on the ground.

This progression took several months, but it was amazing watching his movement quality improve over that time. All of a sudden, it was like his entire body was moving as a seamless, functional unit – not just a collection of body parts.

At the end of the day, proper lumbo-pelvic stabilization is key. If you aren’t stable through your core, pelvis and low back in a stable environment, you’re never going to get there by doing advanced exercises that are beyond your capabilities.

It isn’t fun early on, but the results are worth it over the long haul if you’re willing to put in the time and energy.

Summary

UST is a fantastic training medium, as it’s not only fun but gives you a ton of fantastic benefits as well. The key is to make sure that you’re prepared to do the movements in a safe and effective manner, while not jumping into things too quickly.

Use the progressions and coaching tips I outline above, and you’ll be killing some UST in your training in no time!

All the best

Mike

PS – If you’re interested in purchasing a TRX system or set of blast straps, simply follow one of the links below:

TRX Suspension Trainer

Blast Strap

1. Cressey, E.M., et al., The effects of ten weeks of lower-body unstable surface training on markers of athletic performance. J Strength Cond Res, 2007. 21(2): p. 561-7.

(To read and post comments for this entry, visit http://robertsontrainingsystems.com/)

Negativity and Life

I'm going off the beaten path a bit here today, but I think you'll be able to relate.

Fear, negativity and/or a "scarcity" mindset are things we must address on a daily basis. Here are two of my favorite quotes about negativity:

~ From the backstabbing co-worker to the meddling sister-in-law, you are in charge of how you react to the people and events in your life. You can either give negativity power over your life, or you can choose happiness instead.

Take control and choose to focus on what is important in your life. Those who cannot live fully often become destroyers of life. ~

- Anais Nin

~ Negativity sucks away energy. If part of the negativity stems from your attitude or perspective, commit yourself at the beginning of each day and each activity to find something positive in yourself and in others around you.

If the people around you are negative and you can't change that, either remove yourself from the situation or view it simply as one obstacle you face in pursuing your own potential.

Stay focused on your own goals and make the best of the situation. ~

- Terry Orlick

Unfortunately, not everyone wants you to achieve your goals in life. They don't want you to be strong, lean or fit.

They don't want you to make more money, get that promotion, or feel great about the work you do.

It's sad, but true.

Take a few moments every day to reflect on not only your energy, but the energy of those around you. The saying goes that you are the composite of the five people closest to you. Take inventory! Are the people around you empowering you to grow and become the best YOU that you can?

Whenever I'm feeling negative, I take a step back to reflect on my goals, and why what I'm doing is important. I'm far from perfect, but I'm always trying to improve myself and take what I do to the next level.

What about you? If you're feeling negative or crappy, how do you recalibrate and get back on track?

I'll be looking forward to your feedback below!

All the best

Mike

(To read and post comments for this entry, visit http://robertsontrainingsystems.com/)

Random Friday 8-20-10

So we've got another week in the books, and I figured it's time to do a Random Friday post. Enjoy!

The 2010 Midwest Performance Enhancement Seminar is One Week Out!

The 2010 Midwest Performance Enhancement Seminar is 8 days out, and we’re still getting quite a few people registered.

If you’re interested in learning from industry experts like Lee Taft, Bill Hartman, Brett Jones, and a slew of other great presenters, please sign up ASAP by following the link below:

2010 Midwest Performance Enhancement Seminar Registration

Take a survey, win a sweet prize!

As many of you know, I’m getting ready to start work on my next project which will be geared towards low back pain.

In order to better understand my consumers and their needs, I’ve developed a short survey that will help me develop a kick-ass product that really helps people get healthy and feel great.

If you're currently suffering from low back pain, or if you’ve suffered from low back pain in the past, please take 5 minutes out of your Friday to fill out the survey below.

Robertson Training Systems Low Back Pain Survey

Now I’m sure some of you will do this just because you rock, but if you need a little added incentive, here goes.

The last question asks for your e-mail address – if you fill out the entire survey and leave your e-mail address at the end, I’ll buy one lucky winner the Stuart McGill product of their choice! Dr. McGill is the foremost researcher when it comes to lower backs, and his DVD’s and manuals are top notch.

Again, it will only take a couple of minutes. If you can help me out, that would be great and I would really appreciate your feedback!

Think you're strong?

Think you’re strong? Think again. I came across this video clip a few days ago, and it’s seriously inspiring stuff. Check it out!

Eric Cressey takes you to school on deadlifts

My good friend and colleague Eric Cressey recently released an awesome video on proper deadlifting technique. You need to be signed up for his newsletter to check it out, but this 9 minute video has tons of great hands-on information.

If you’re not already a subscriber, what are you waiting for?

Eric Cressey Knows Deadlifts

Big update coming September 1^st

As many of you know, IFAST has continued to grow at a rapid pace.

Along those same lines, this seminar has been taking a huge portion of my time recently as well.

But, I’ve got a pretty sweet set of updates coming the first week of September, so make sure to stay tuned. I think you’ll really like what I’ve got coming :)

Stay strong and have a great weekend!

Best

(To read and post comments for this entry, visit http://robertsontrainingsystems.com/)

Knee Pain Basics Part 3

Coaching Your Way to Healthy Knees!

In this final installment of our knee pain basics series, we’re going to cover specific things you can do in your training sessions to maximize your knee health.

If you’ve been living under a rock the past two weeks and missed the first two installments, be sure to check them out first via the links below.

Knee Pain Basics Part 1 – Philosophy

Knee Pain Basics Part 2 – Programming

Now, let’s get into the exact things you need to be watching for when you, or your clients, are training.

Are you really coaching vertical shin?

One of the points I discussed at length in Part I is the idea of training with a vertical shin.

Unfortunately, I know how people move. There are numerous times when I give them an exercise that should be performed with a vertical shin, but they still figure out a way to cheat!

Let’s take a pull-through for example. A pull-through should be performed with a vertical shin, and it should be a very hip dominant exercise. Watch how most people perform pull-throughs, though, and you’ll see a different story.

Instead of keeping the chest up and really focusing on pushing the hips back, they get lazy, squat the weight down, and basically use their quads to perform the movement.

What ends up happening is your entire center of gravity drifts forward, and you end up bringing your quads into the lift.

It doesn’t look like much, but doing this time-and-again reinforces poor patterns and strengthens muscle groups that are already strong to begin with.

Instead, think about exaggerating pushing the hips back, and even pushing the hips UP at the end range of motion. I picked up this tip from Olympic lifting coach Grant “Rufus” Gardis and I can honestly tell you my hamstrings have never been so since employing this technique!

You see the same thing in single-leg exercises as well. When someone performs a split-squat, they should be able to drop straight down and keep the front shin vertical.

If someone is very quad dominant, they will have a tendency to let the front knee “drift” forward. While this isn’t necessarily injurious, for someone with knee pain, this could exacerbate his or her condition.

Don’t just pay lip service to vertical shin. If someone has knee pain and you want to keep them healthy, be diligent about watching their shin angles and making sure that they are properly executing the exercises you have programmed for them.

Quit the Knee Cave!

While vertical tibia is huge for sparing the knee in the weight room, another key concept is controlling knee cave. While you’ll often see knee cave in the gym, you’ll see it even more so in sporting events that require hip stability and control in all three planes of motion.

When strength training the feet, knees, and hips should be in a straight line throughout. If you squat down and your knees have a tendency to fall “in,” you have weak hips (primarily glute max and some posterior glute medius) that need to be addressed. This will generally be magnified when performing single-leg work.

Below is a video of one of our distance runners as he transitioned from slow, controlled movements to dynamic, explosive ones. As you can see, he has a tendency to cave his knee not only when he jumps but when he lands as well.

The goal should be to control knee cave, not only in the gym but on the field as well. An inability to control knee valgus and hip internal rotation could result in a torn ACL, MCL, and/or meniscus.

Single-Leg Work

Single-leg work is fantastic for people with knee pain, and it provides some very specific benefits.

Lengthening the hip flexors

Quadriceps shortness/stiffness is a common finding in people with anterior knee pain. A recent study by Witvrouw [1] determined that in young athletes who developed patellofemoral pain, the painful knees demonstrated a loss of quadriceps flexibility compared to healthy athletes.

Let’s look at this from a training perspective. Watch as Molly (one of my online training clients) performs her split-squat:

As you can see, she not only has a tendency to drift forward on the working leg side, but she is also always in a position of anterior tilt on the trailing leg!

This illustrates my point regarding pelvic control. If she were able to contract the glutes and external obliques on the trailing leg side, she would have better control of her pelvis. Instead, she recruits the muscle groups in which she is strong for stability: her hip flexors and lower back.

Below is a video of myself. In this case, look at my set-up: My glutes and obliques on the trailing leg side are contracted throughout, bringing my pelvis into neutral and my hip into extension.

As I drop down into the split-squat, it gets really hard to maintain this contraction, as I’m moving into an active stretch. Molly and I are actually quite similar in our backgrounds, as we have both powerlifted and relied upon our quad and lower back strength to get us through.

This isn’t to say my technique is flawless, but it should demonstrate that lengthening the hip flexors via pelvic control and hip position is a benefit of single-leg work.

Posterior chain development

Now that we’ve fixed the back leg, it’s time to fix the front leg.

Once the trailing leg glute/oblique is tight, you need to drop straight down to maintain a vertical tibia. Again, check out Molly’s split-squat:

And again, watch how I attempt to drop straight down – not only does this keep the tibia/shin vertical, but it also helps recruit the glutes/hamstrings to a higher degree.

Hip stability

A final benefit of single-leg training is hip stability. Here’s an example of how someone with poor hip stability may set-up when they perform a split-squat. This is Sarah, another fabulous online client.

As you can see, she has very poor hip stability and as a result she’s forced to set-up with a very wide stance. This widens her base of support, making her more stable.

Here’s Sarah a few months later. We really worked to bring up her weak areas (external obliques, gluteals, etc.) and she’s been dialed in and focused on her technique as well.

Sarah still has some work to do, but that’s a huge change in just a few short months!

Decreased loading

Finally, the loads are typically far less in single-leg exercises than they would use in a big, double-leg lift such as a squat or deadlift. In the case of someone with knee pain, a reduction in total loading generally doesn’t hurt.

I can tell you with all honesty that single-leg work is very powerful. If you are interested in learning more about single-leg training or how to incorporate it effectively into your training, be sure to check out the Single-Leg Solution.

Bilateral Lifting – Watch for the Shift!

Another common finding when coaching/training someone with knee pain is a shift when they perform bilateral lifts.

For instance, let’s go back to our patellar tendinosis example from Part II. This gentleman had a significant shift away from his affected side, which was making it very hard to get his hip integrated into the lift.

In essence, his knee was out there on an island with no help from his hip.

I’ve seen it both ways – sometimes your client will shift away from the pain, and sometimes they’ll actually shift to the side of pain, versus away from it.

At the end of the day, the goal is to get them more symmetrical so they are loading both sides more evenly.

One of the most common findings you’ll see is people who set up asymmetrically from the start, and then wonder why their squat is asymmetrical! When coaching your clients and athletes on bilateral lifts, make sure they’re starting from a symmetrical position with regards to stance width, internal/external rotation of the feet/knees/hips, etc.

If you notice a shift when squatting, you could always try an RNT method using a band pulling them towards the side they shift into. This way, they will be forced to “shift” away from the pull, thus evening out their squat.

Unfortunately, as much as I like RNT work for unilateral work, I don’t see the same results during bilateral work.

Instead, I’ll often have the client/athlete squat to a box, limiting their depth to a point just before they shift. As they get stronger and better aligned, depth is progressively increased.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the Postural Restoration Institute here as well. Since incorporating some of their pelvic realignment tools (as well as some of our own), the changes we’ve seen with regards to movement symmetry has been astounding. If you’re in the field, definitely check these guys out.

Get them out of Anterior Tilt!

Anterior tilt (and it’s lesser known cousin, swayback) is seen quite often in clients with anterior knee pain. When you’re in anterior tilt, the hip flexors are short and stiff, while the gluteals and obliques are lengthened and weak. The hamstrings are weak as well, but typically overactive in relation to the gluteals.

The solution to getting their knees healthy once and for all is to really hammer the concept of pelvic neutral. Keep in mind this can’t be fixed with just one or two pieces.

The entire training program must not only be programmed to get them out of anterior tilt, but it has to be coached effectively as well!

Split-stance is again a great starting point. Split-stance can teach your clients and athletes what pelvic neutral feels like – how to maintain tension in the gluteals and obliques, while lengthening the hip flexors.

I’ll be doing a video post on the benefits of split-stance training in the next couple of weeks, so definitely stay tuned for that one.

While split-stance is effective, that’s only the starting point for improving alignment and stabilization patterns. When we get down to the nitty-gritty, we need to be cognizant of our stabilization patterns in every exercise.

Doing a bench press? Keep the core and glutes tight throughout.

Military presses? Push-ups? Keep the core and glutes tight throughout.

It’s not just bracing though – we need to have that skinny/tall brace where we’re cuing an external oblique contraction, not just rectus abdominus. If you’re crunched over when you’re bracing, you’re doing it wrong. When in doubt, go back to the PVC pipe.

My favorite series of cues to get someone into the proper alignment goes like this:

Glutes tight,
Obliques tight, and
Chest out.

Here’s a great example of how a push-up can either improve your stabilization pattern, or reinforce a suboptimal pattern.

Below is one our clients at IFAST. As you might imagine, he’s a strong guy from a “lifts” perspective, but his stability patterns when he started left something to be desired. Here’s a video of his push-up:

What’s readily noticeable here is how he chooses to achieve stability. He sits at a desk all day long, and therefore his preferred method of stabilization comes from using his lumbar spinal erectors and his hip flexors. We’ve worked long and hard to get him out of the position, and into a more neutral alignment.

It’s going to take an entire program to get you fixed up, not just one or two pieces. You really need to make core stability and pelvic alignment a cornerstone of your training program if you want to get those knees healthy once and for all.

Finally, it’s not just programming correctly – you actually have to execute each and every exercise with flawless technique if you want to derive maximal results!

Summary

So there you have it – my philosophy on knee training, how I write programs to prevent and/or alleviate it, and the coaching issues that matter most.

At the end of the day, though, I can’t answer every question that you might have regarding knee health and knee pain. So if you’ve read the entire series and you still have questions, be sure to post them below.

As well, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Bulletproof Knees one more time. I feel this is a fantastic product that covers all the ins-and-outs of knee health, and something that belongs on every coach and trainers bookshelf.

If you haven’t already, pick up a copy of Bulletproof Knees today. You won’t be disappointed!

All the best

Mike

PS – Kudos to Molly, Sarah, Gabe and the rest of the crew for letting me use their videos in this post. You guys rock!

1. Witvrouw, E., et al., Intrinsic risk factors for the development of anterior knee pain in an athletic population. A two-year prospective study. Am J Sports Med, 2000. 28(4): p. 480-9.

(To read and post comments for this entry, visit http://robertsontrainingsystems.com/)

What is YOUR Goal?

This past weekend, my wife and I had a little getaway for our 6-year wedding anniversary. It was a fantastic time, with the only problem being the heat index was 100+ degrees everyday!

That's not really the point of the post, though.

Upon our return, I realized something – it’s already August 17^th! That’s right, the year is already almost two-thirds over.

This is one of those times when you have to take a step back and really acknowledge what you have, or have not, accomplished so far this year.

Since this is a training blog, let’s focus on training-related goals:

If your goal was to lose weight or body fat, have you done that?
If your goal was to add muscle, have you done that?
If your goal was to get stronger, have you done that?

I’m constantly reminded that people have training ADD, worse now than probably ever before. There’s so much information out there on the Internet, and so many conflicting programs, it’s no wonder people aren’t achieving the results they want.

Whether you have achieved your goals for this year or not is irrelevant. That’s in the past. The only thing you have control over is the present, and by extension, the future.

Here’s what I want you to do – a challenge if you will.

If you’re serious about achieving a goal, PLEASE don’t wait until the end of the year to make a resolution. Start today!

The key here is I want you to write down your goal, and then stick to it for the next 3 months. When you switch monthly between getting bigger, getting stronger, and trying to see your abs, you end up getting no results.

Instead, whatever goal you choose, I want you to stick to that for the next 3 months.

In the comments section below, let us know what your primary training goal is for the next 3 months. It could be getting healthy, getting stronger, getting leaner, whatever.

But here’s the most important thing – WRITE IT DOWN! This will get you focused and dialed in for the months to come.

I look forward to seeing your training goals!

Best

(To read and post comments for this entry, visit http://robertsontrainingsystems.com/)

Coordination Training & Young Athletes

The myths and falsehoods associated with Coordination Training are plenty. I’ll outline the ‘Top 3’ here:

Coordination is a singular element that is defined by a universal ability or lack of ability
Coordination cannot be trained nor taught
Coordination-based stimulus should be restricted to preadolescent children

This article will provide a broad-based look at each of those myths and shed some light on the realities behind coordination training as a continuum for the complete development of young athletes aged 6 – 18.

(1) The Characteristics of Coordination

Largely considered a singular facet of athletic ability, it is not uncommon to hear Coaches, Parents or Trainers suggest that a given young athlete possess ‘good’ or ‘bad’ coordination.

This generalization does not reflect the true nature of the beast, or specific features that combine to create coordination from a macro-perspective. Coordination, in fact, is comprised of several different characteristics:

Balance – a state of bodily equilibrium in either static or dynamic planes
Rhythm – the expression of timing
Movement Adequacy – display of efficiency or fluidity during locomotion
Synchronization of Movement – harmonization and organization of movement
Kinesthetic Differentiation – the degree of force required to produce a desired result
Spatial Awareness – ability to know where you are in space and in relation to objects

While many of these traits have great overlap and synergy, they are unmistakably separate and can, in fact, be improved in relatively isolated ways. That’s not to suggest that your training programs should look to carve up the elements of coordination and work through them in a solitary manner necessarily. Just a notation intended to show that coordination as it relates to young athletes can be improved at the micro level.

(2) Teaching Young Athletes to Be Coordinated

The answer, in short, is yes.

Coordination ability is not unlike any other biomotor – proficiencies in strength, speed, agility and even cardiovascular capacity (through mechanical intervention) can be taught, and at any age.

The interesting caveat with coordination-based work however, is that its elements are tied directly to CNS development and therefore have a natural sensitive period along a chronological spectrum. The actuality of sensitive periods tends to be a contentious topic amongst researchers and many Coaches – some of whom are not satisfied with current research and therefore not eager to believe in their existence and others who accept sensitive periods of development to be perfectly valid.

It’s worth pointing out that I am in no way a scientist or researcher, but have read numerous books and research reviews on the subject and feel satisfied that they do exist and can be maximized (optimized for a lifetime) through proper stimulus.

This ‘optimization’ issue is the true crux of the matter. Especially during the very early years of life (0 – 12 years) the CNS contains a great deal of plasticity, or ability to adapt. This plastic nature carries through the mid-adolescents, but then significantly decreases from there.

Many mistake this point as an implication that the human organism cannot learn new skills in any capacity once their CNS has passed the point of being optimally plastic, but this is not true. Skill of any athletic merit can be learned at virtually any age throughout life. What the plasticity argument holds is that these skills could never be optimized if they were not introduced at a young age.

‘Why Michael Couldn’t Hit: And Other Tales of The Neurology of Sports’ is a fascinating book by Dr. Harold Klwans and a review of his prediction that Michael Jordan, one of the greatest athletes of all time, would not become an extraordinary baseball player during his attempts to do so with the Chicago White Sox.

Dr. Klwans contented that because Jordan did not learn nor practice the specific motor and hand-eye aspects of hitting baseballs when he was young, no matter how great an athlete he was, he would never be able to do so at an advanced level.

Inevitably, Dr. Klwans was correct.

The case for neural plasticity suggests that during the formative years of growth, it is imperative that young athletes be introduced to all types of stimulus that fuel improvement to the elements of coordination listed above. This is one of the very critical reasons that all young athletes should play a variety of sports seasonally and avoid any sort of ‘sport specific’ training.

Unilateral approaches to enhancing sport proficiency will meet with disastrous results from a performance standpoint if general athletic ability, overall coordination and non-specific load training is not reinforced from a young age.

This bring us to the final myth…

(3) Are Some Young Athletes Too Old?

Now, while there is truth to the matter that many of the sensitive periods for coordination development lay during the preadolescent phase of life, it would be shortsighted to suggest that teenage athletes should not be exposed to this type of training.

Firstly, much of the training of coordination takes the form of injury preventative. Any sort of ‘balance’ exercise, for example, requires proprioceptive conditioning and increases in stabilizer recruitment. With ‘synchronization of movement’, large ROM and mobility work is necessary. ‘Kinesthetic differentiation’, by definition, involves sub-maximal efforts or ‘fine-touch’ capacity which is a drastically different stimulus than most young athletes are used to in training settings.

Beyond that, there is the matter of motor skill linking. According to Jozef Drabik, as much as 60% of the training done by Olympic athletes should take the form of non-direct load (i.e. non-sport-specific). To truly stimulate these rather advanced athletes however, one option, which is a standard during the warm-up phase of a training session, is to link advanced motor skills (coordination exercises) together creating a complex movement pattern.

For example:

Run Forward ---> Decelerate ---> 360 Jump ---> Forward Roll ---> Tuck Jump

Scramble to Balance ---> 1-Leg Squat ---> A Skips ---> Army Crawl ---> Grab Ball/Stand/Throw to Target

In each of these patterns, we have represented:

Spatial Awareness
Synchronization of Movement
Balance (dynamic and static)
Movement Adequacy
Kinesthetic Differentiation
Rhythm

I have used warm-up sequences just like these with high school, collegiate and professional athletes from a variety of sports.

(To read and post comments for this entry, visit http://robertsontrainingsystems.com/)

Knee Pain Basics Part 2

Programming and Training Thoughts to Reduce Knee Pain

In Part I of our series, we discussed my core philosophy behind knee pain, and how to address it from a theoretical standpoint. In case you missed it, check it out via the link below:

Knee Pain Basics, Part I

In our second edition, we’re going to talk about specific things you can do within your training program to help alleviate knee pain, or eliminate it all together. While I’m not a big fan of “rules” in training, these are some of the tried and true principles I use in 99% of the programs for knee-pain clients.

Enjoy!

Rule #1 - Vertical shin is your friend

Vertical shin may be the most powerful rule I give you, as almost all knee pain suffers have more issues with deep knee flexion and/or dorsiflexion at the ankle.

When you bend your knee, many think your knee is truly just a “hinge” and it bends forward and back. This isn’t entirely true. In fact, when you flex your knee there is a combination of two movements going on:

Rolling – The femur (thigh bone) “spinning” or “rotating” on your tibia (lower leg bone)

Gliding – The femur “gliding” forward on your tibia

The picture below should help illustrate this.

This is something I’ve programmed for years, and in a podcast with Charlie Weingroff we discussed this even further. When you keep the tibia more vertical, you get a more pure “roll” of the femur, which doesn’t seem to stress the knee as much. The primary forces you have to deal with are compressive forces.

In contrast, when you allow the tibia to drift forward (increasing dorsiflexion), you get a combination of both rolling AND gliding. There are always compressive forces involved when you’re standing, but when you get the glide you have shear forces as well.

For this reason alone, most of my knee pain sufferer’s training programs start with vertical shin exercises like pull-throughs, RDL’s, deadlift variations, and possibly even split-squat variations. Not only do they spare the knee, but they bring up typically weak body parts such as the glutes and hamstrings as well.

Rule #2 - HAMMER hip and ankle mobility

While I’ve mentioned this numerous times in the past, that doesn’t mean everyone is heeding my advice!

Hip and ankle mobility are two of the simplest things you can improve upon to get your knees feeling better faster. Unfortunately, people assume that they can sit at a desk all day long, and then simply work some foam rolling and mobility magic in their pre-workout routine and all is well.

If you are a big, jacked dude with knee pain, write this down: You probably need to address your hip and ankle mobility on a daily basis!

Products like Assess and Correct give you the tools necessary to customize your warm-up routine and make some major strides with regards to mobility, stability, and movement quality in general.

But pre-workout alone may not be enough.

If you’re really big and/or stiff, or mobility is an issue, try going through a light mobility circuit first thing in the morning.

If you sit all day at work, try purchasing a stand-up desk, or even an Airex pad so you can perform hip flexor stretches while you generate those TPS reports.

And if you’re really big, stiff, and jacked up, you may need to lay off the heavy iron for a few weeks until you get your hip and ankle mobility in order.

I know – sometimes I feel like a pariah having to say these things, but it’s true. Make a serious effort to improve your hip and ankle mobility, and I think you’ll be shocked at how much better your entire body feels, not just your knees.

Rule #3 – Improve your tissue quality

The focus on tissue quality is something that has really come about in the past 5-10 years. In the past everyone thought it was cool to “get a massage,” and we knew that elite athletes were big believers as well.

That doesn’t mean Regular Joe’s and Jane’s were getting massage on any sort of regular basis, though.

If you’re suffering from knee pain, this is another one of those simple tools that can make a profound difference – and QUICK! I can’t tell you how many cases of long-term knee pain I’ve seen that have been immediately improved by getting some dedicated soft-tissue work done.

The primary areas people need to hit when suffering from knee pain include the tensor fascia latae (TFL), iliotibial band (ITB), the quadriceps (especially rectus femoris and vastus lateralis), and the calves.

The next question that invariably comes up is, what type of soft-tissue work is best?

People like to debate this point until the cows come home. Listen: There are pros and cons to every method. Some are cheaper and less effective. Others are more effective and/or powerful, but they aren’t all that affordable.

The idea is to figure out what works for you with regards to time, money and most importantly, results.

Foam rolling is cheap and easy to perform. If you’ve never foam rolled before and want to learn more about it, I give you a free 47-page manual just for signing up for my newsletter (conveniently located on the right-hand side of the screen).

Massage is definitely a step up from foam rolling. A good pair of hands can get you moving and feeling better almost immediately. Unfortunately, good hands cost a lot more money than a one-time purchase like a foam roller. Not to mention, good hands are hard to find!

Active release technique (ART) is even more focused than massage. Most massage therapists will work in a more “general” sense, and kind of address everything. In contrast, an ART practitioner will focus on very specific areas – typically scarred, fibrotic or adhered tissues (when two structures basically “stick” to each other).

If you aren’t performing any soft-tissue work in your program, don’t worry about what is best – just start doing something! Over time, you can try different modalities and see what works best for you and your specific conditions.

Rule #4 – Develop some core stability

Core stability is imperative if your goal is long-term knee health. But in reality, core stability is imperative if you want just about any joint to stay healthy – it really is that important.

Unfortunately, we’ve still got people arguing over the efficacy of exercises like crunches and sit-ups in a core-training program. In my opinion, they’re totally missing the boat.

If your only goal is to look hawt at the beach, and you have no regard for your long-term low back health, do all the sit-ups and crunches you want. If you want more info on this topic, be sure to read my post about Understanding Your Abs.

We can argue until we’re blue in the face as to how efficacious these movements are, but the fact of the matter is we’re focused on the wrong goal. The goal should be stability – I call it core stability because it’s all encompassing, but it could also be called lumbar stability, pelvic stability, or trunk stability.

The name of the game is stability – NOT movement!

I’ll digress for now, but this topic will be rehashed in the very near future! :)

Instead of focusing on the rectus abdominus and trunk flexion, we need to place a premium on developing our external obliques. The obliques are critical in our “core” equation, as they help control our pelvis, and perhaps most importantly, help bring us back to a more neutral alignment if we’re in a position of anterior pelvic tilt.

Instead of having strong obliques, you’ll often see someone who is very rectus dominant – as a result, they’re not only slouched forward through the shoulders, but they lack pelvic stability as well.

Poor pelvic stability generally leads to an anterior pelvic tilt. This anterior pelvic tilt leads to ALL exercises being more quad/hip flexor dominant than they should.

And you wonder why your knee hurts???

Instead, we need to get those obliques strong and your pelvis stable. Getting someone back to pelvic neutral, in a relative sense, makes ALL their lifts more hip dominant.

And for someone suffering from knee pain, this is a wonderful thing.

Rule #5 - Isolate then integrate the hips

I touched on this point previously in Part I, but I wanted to dig a little bit deeper here.

There’s an intimate link between the hips and knees. Weakness or instability in the hips is strongly correlated with knee pain or dysfunction.

Bottom line? If we want to take a holistic approach to knee health, we need both isolate out the weak muscle groups, and then re-integrate them back into functional movement patterns.

Here’s an example: Someone is performing a split-squat with their right leg in front, and their hip is adducted (closer to the mid-line relative to their hip) and internally rotated (kneecap points inward).

We could try and cue them out of this all day – and that’s actually the first thing I would try to do. If someone can successfully perform an exercise without me changing or interfering with their program, I’m all for it.

But if I coach/cue them up and they physically can’t do the exercise correctly, it’s time to address the specific weakness and/or regress the exercise. In this case, I would focus on addressing the posterior gluteus medius and glute max.

Early in the workout you could start with low-level exercises such as side-lying clams, or even a hip wall slide. Chances are, these clients have no clue what these muscles are, what they feel like, or how to recruit them. When I put them in an isolative environment, they don’t have the same preconceived notions of how strong they should be, how the movement should look, etc.

Quite simply, they can focus on using the appropriate muscles.

Once we’ve taught them how to recruit those muscles, it’s time to utilize them in a movement pattern such as the split-squat we discussed above. Cue them to turn on those same muscle groups – to abduct and externally rotate their hip, to get them in a more neutral alignment.

If you keep hammering away at the integrated exercises, it doesn’t work.

If you only utilize low-level, motor control/facilitation exercises, it doesn’t work.

It only works when you put the two together.

Summary

I hope you now have a better idea of how to develop a training program for someone suffering from knee pain. If not, you can always pick up a copy of Bulletproof Knees to help you out!

In Part III, we’ll discuss some specific coaching cues and tools you can use to milk these programs for maximum effectiveness.

All the best

Mike

(To read and post comments for this entry, visit http://robertsontrainingsystems.com/)

Knee Pain Basics Part 1

How To Get (And Keep!) Your Knees Healthy for a Lifetime

Today we’re going to cover the basics of knee pain – whether you’re an end-user, a trainer/coach, or somewhere in between, I hope this piece gives you an understanding of my core philosophy behind long-term knee health.

Rule #1 – Do No Harm!

Are we seeing a trend here?

In my shoulder and low back series’ (available in my newsletter archives), this was one of my prevailing thoughts. If you don’t know what to do when someone is injured, the very least you can do is keep them out of pain by restricting their activities and playing it smart.

Obviously, this isn’t the ideal situation – but it’s a thousand times better than making things worse!

Rule #2 - Get a Quality Diagnosis

Write this one down: Knee pain rarely stems from a solely knee-based issue.

One of the issues that continue to plague our industry (and as an “industry,” I’m talking everyone from PT’s to trainers, coaches to orthos, etc.) is that people fail to recognize the body works as a functional unit.

If someone enters your facility with knee pain, you just check out his or her knees. Right?

WRONG!

I’m all for a “knee” assessment at the start. Dr. Shelbourne (one of the foremost experts on ACL surgery and rehab) begins every single knee assessment he does by examining knee extension and knee flexion range of motion. If knee flexion and extension aren’t symmetrical between sides, these are the first things to get addressed in their training.

More importantly, he has evidence-based results to back him up. So again, I’m not saying NOT to examine the joint in question.

However, there are tons of analogies out there – some will say the knee is a dumb joint, others will say it’s a slave to the ankles and hips. Both aren’t too far from the truth; the knee only has so much say in its own fate.

And therefore, a knee only assessment can only provide you with so much information.

When you’re training someone with knee pain of any sort, it’s very rare that the knee pain is solely a knee issue. There are obviously times when a structure in the knee is causing pain (torn ACL, menisci, etc., severe arthritic changes, etc.) but even some seemingly “knee” based issues such as patellar tendinosis are manifested due to bigger issues throughout the kinetic chain.

Here’s a practical example: I had a client come down from Chicago two years ago who had suffered from “patellar tendonitis” (aka jumpers knee) for the past 4 years. His sports med professional up there gave the diagnosis of tendonitis to him, and it had plagued him like no other. The ONLY thing these people had examined was his knee, and his rehab protocol consisted of ice, rest, and possibly some modalities.

He was a very athletic guy who was playing both volleyball and basketball at the time, so you can imagine how a painful knee condition like this had been holding back his performance.

We started examining him, and it was no wonder this guy had knee pain. Horribly short hip flexors, a significant shift on his squatting pattern, and a host of other issues left me with no other conclusion: He was suffering from patellar tendinosis, not patellar tendonitis.

Here is a quick list of what we did to get him fixed up:

Performed an eccentric single-leg squat protocol on a decline slant board twice per day to encourage tendon strength and development.
Worked diligently to loosen up his flexors via soft-tissue work, static stretching, dynamic stretching, single-leg training, etc.
Strengthened his posterior chain, and really hammered his hip stabilizers.
Made him conscious of his shift on bilateral movements so that he could correct it.

Within two months he was playing volleyball virtually pain-free, even during long weekend tournaments where he would play up to 10 matches over the course of 3-4 days.

Bottom line? If you want to develop a holistic approach to knee health, you need to assess a number of different areas: Hip and ankle mobility, tissue quality of the surrounding areas (gastroc, hamstrings, quads, TFL/IT Band, and a host of other structures too numerous to note here), foot stability, hip stability, etc.

Quite simply, looking solely at someone’s knee is a sure-fire way to miss some potentially huge pieces of the puzzle. Make sure your assessment is on point and looks beyond the joint in question.

Rule #3 – Figure Out What Hurts

While this may fly in the face to point #1, it needs to be said: Beyond just doing no harm, you need to figure out what exactly hurts and avoid that motion, at least in the short-term.

With the lower back, if some rounds their lumbar spine and gets pain, they’re flexion intolerant. You keep them out of flexion.

The opposite is true as well – if they have pain with lumbar extension, you keep them out of extension.

Here’s a knee example: We had a guy come into our gym a few months ago who had 70% of his lateral meniscus removed. Conventional wisdom would say, “Don’t squat this guy.”

However, when Bill took him through his assessment, this guy could actually squat below parallel 100% pain-free! We could argue whether heavy squatting was a good thing for him from a long-term perspective, but I simply use this to make a point.

We can’t assume what should or shouldn’t work. Some people may come to us with horrible MRI’s or X-ray’s, yet they are wonderfully functional and pain-free.

In contrast, others may have the cleanest radiology reports known to man, yet every subtle movement causes them pain.

Everyone is individual. Figure out what works (and what doesn’t) and then prescribe and coach exercises accordingly.

Rule #4 - Hammer those hips!

While the knee may be a dumb joint, the hip actually has a lot of “say” in what goes on that the knee with regards to its position, alignment, etc..

Some of the strongest evidence we have in regard to the link between knee pain and hip dysfunction comes in the form of research on patello-femoral pain. For years, people stated that patello-femoral pain was due to an imbalance between the quadriceps.

Here’s the theory: If you can imagine a tug-of-war going on at the knee, the vastus lateralis (your outer quad muscle) is stronger/stiffer than the vastus medialis obliquus (your inner quad muscle). As a result, this lateral pull causes irritation on the outer portion of your knee joint.

In recent years, there’s been a plethora of evidence mounting in support of hip dysfunction being directly correlated to patello-femoral pain [1-4]. If you have weak or unstable hips, chances are it could manifest itself in knee pain.

This is where a balance of low-level, motor control type exercises and bigger lifts come into play. Even though some people are quick to pooh-pooh isolation exercises such as glute bridges, clam shells, etc., they serve a purpose. Many clients and athletes are terribly dysfunctional, so it doesn’t hurt to dedicate some training time to teaching people how to utilize these underdeveloped or under-recruited muscle groups.

The battle doesn’t end there, though. This is one of the biggest drawbacks of “corrective exercise” – it doesn’t stop with the isolative exercises! Once you figure out what’s weak you isolate it out to improve recruitment and motor control, but you have to take that new-found strength/stability and build it back into actual movement patterns like squats, deadlifts, single-leg work, etc.

I didn’t mention the pelvis here much, but that’s only because I have bigger things in mind for that joint. If you want a primer, feel free to check out Muscle Imbalances Revealed, where I outlined my exact approach to training the pelvis and hips. Needless to say, forgetting about the pelvis is a huge no-no – if you can’t control your pelvis, your hips aren’t going to be in the right position.

Summary

I hope you have a better idea as to my basic philosophy on knee pain, as well as ways to start addressing it. Whether you’re a trainer, coach, or end-user, knowing more about the human body is never a bad thing.

In Part II of this series, we’ll discuss the actual training interventions I use to get someone healthy and back in action.

Stay strong

PS - If you want my entire thought process on knee health, be sure to check out my Bulletproof Knees manual.

References

1. Ireland, M.L., et al., Hip strength in females with and without patellofemoral pain. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther, 2003. 33(11): p. 671-6.

2. Prins, M.R. and P. van der Wurff, Females with patellofemoral pain syndrome have weak hip muscles: a systematic review. Aust J Physiother, 2009. 55(1): p. 9-15.

3. Long-Rossi, F. and G.B. Salsich, Pain and hip lateral rotator muscle strength contribute to functional status in females with patellofemoral pain. Physiother Res Int, 2010. 15(1): p. 57-64.

4. Powers, C.M., The influence of altered lower-extremity kinematics on patellofemoral joint dysfunction: a theoretical perspective. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther, 2003. 33(11): p. 639-46.

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Sleep 101

Is sleep the final piece of your training puzzle?

Several months ago, I posted a blog called “The 3 Pillars of Training.”

For those of you who aren’t interested in reading the entire post, let me summarize: The 3 key components of seeing progress, regardless of your goals, are training, nutrition and recovery.

Obviously, more than a few people are talking about training on “teh Interwebz” these days. And of the course, over the past decade, nutrition is getting more and more coverage as well.

The question I have is this: Why aren’t we talking about recovery?

And along those same lines, why aren’t we talking more about sleep?

Regardless of whether your goal in training is fat loss, building muscle, getting stronger, or dominating kids in the athletic arena, enhancing the quality and quantity of your sleep can provide huge dividends.

Let’s examine the key components of getting a good night’s sleep.

Developing a Routine

The first step to getting more rest is developing a routine. Just like you have a routine when you get ready to head to work or school in the morning, you need a routine to ensure that you optimize your sleep each and every night.

Here are a random collection of tips and tricks that I’ve picked up over the years to develop my own routine:

Take a shower or bath before bed.

While I’m sure some of you are averse to showering twice per day, this second cleansing not only warms up your body and tissues, but also can help you relax. It also leads seamlessly into the next step.
Do some static stretching.

While I’m sure I’ll get lambasted for this one, I still feel there’s a role for static stretching in most people’s programs. The key is stretching the appropriate muscle groups; specifically, the ones that are almost always chronically short and/or stiff. The major players to include here are the hip flexors (especially rectus femoris and TFL), the pecs, the lats, etc.
Find something quality to read and read it!

Reading is another step in the process that allows us to relax. I find that the longer I read, the better I sleep.

The argument then becomes, what do you read? Tim Ferriss of the 4-Hour Work Week would recommend fiction. Unfortunately, this is one of the only times I can’t agree with Tim, and I’m fully ready to admit it may just be me.

The few times I’ve tried to read fiction prior to bed, next thing I know it’s 2 or 3 in the morning and I’m still reading. If it’s good fiction, it’s generally hard to put down!

In contrast, I prefer something within my trade immediately before bed. If you opt for personal development and/or fiction, do that for 15-30 minutes early on, and then finish off with something a little less engaging.
Minimize caffeine and booze.

Many experts would recommend minimizing caffeine after 2 pm, and I’d whole-heartedly agree. According to IFAST intern extraordinaire Eric Oetter, caffeine has a 9-hour half life, so a better recommendation might be to ingest caffeine no later than 9 hours before you hit the sack.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, while booze might make it easier to fall asleep (think back to college for a moment here), it’s generally not conducive to deep, restful sleep.

Get rid of the technology!

Let me begin by admitting this is one tip that I’ve had issues with in the past myself.

Put away your iPhone, PDA, laptop, TV, etc. and actually do the other things that I’ve recommended. Constantly staying “plugged in” is a sure-fire way that your brain stays engaged and turned on, when you should be relaxing.

If need be, consider placing your electronic devices somewhere else in your house entirely if they become an issue. I can tell you from experience there’s nothing worse than getting an angry or important e-mail right before bed!
Perform the “brain dump.”

I actually heard the term “brain dump” several years ago in an interview between Nate Green and Bill Hartman. The concept is simple: When you have a bunch of ideas bouncing around in your head, it’s very difficult to relax.

Instead, either immediately before bed or as part of your winding-down ritual, perform a brain dump where you get everything out of your head. This could be e-mails you have to type, calls you need to make, creative ideas, etc.

You can write them down, e-mail them to yourself, whatever. Just get those ideas out of your head ASAP! You’ll not only be more organized, but your brain will actually help you sort this info out as you sleep, helping you become more productive.
Go to bed and wake-up at the same time daily.

This one isn’t earth shattering, but how many of you actually do it? When you get-up at 8 am one day, 5 am the next, and maybe 11 am on weekends, your body has no clue what’s going on.

Try and go to bed and wake-up at the same time everyday. Getting in a routine will help dial your body in and maximize the benefits of your sleep.

Optimizing the Environment

Now that you’ve created a bedtime ritual, it’s time to really dial in your sleeping environment.

Find a comfortable temperature to sleep in.

There’s nothing worse than trying to sleep in an environment that’s either too hot or too cold. I can’t tell you what exactly works for you, but chances are you already know about the right temperature for you to sleep in.

When in doubt, I can tell you this – it’s better to sleep in a room that’s more on the cool side than on the hot side. If you’ve ever been buried in the covers during the winter months with no desire to come out, you probably have a good idea of what I’m talking about!

Luke...Come to the dark side.

This one is simple: Get your sleeping environment as dark as possible. No TV’s on in the background, bright clocks, night-lights, etc. The darker your room, the easier it will be for you to fall, and more importantly stay asleep. It may be helpful to invest in some seriously dark window treatments* to help keep the rays out early in the AM as well.

*Who says a meathead can’t be sophisticated? I just worked the term “window treatments” into my blog. GET IT!!!

Use some "white noise."

“White noise” is another simple tool to help you get, and stay, asleep longer. Good choices here are a fan, sounds from a sleep machine, etc. Not too much to say on this one.

Clean sheets

It may sound a little corny, but you know how good clean sheets feel? Yeah, me too. Wash your sheets from time-to-time – you’ll thank me!

Improving Sleep while Traveling

If you guys are anything like me, you travel from time-to-time. The problem is, you never know what you’re getting into every time you travel! Some hotels are quiet, dark, and relaxing. Others, it’s like the Frat Party from Animal House is on your level each and every night!

You can’t necessarily choose your neighbors, but here are a few tips that have worked well for me in the past.

Get it Dark!

Just like before, the darker the better. When I first get to a hotel I do my best to check out the blinds and see if I can fully cover the windows.

Another tip that works well is placing a towel under the door. It may sound insignificant, but the amount of light that comes in from under your door can seriously influence your sleep.

White noise

White noise shows up on the list again here. Obviously, if your room has a fan either on the ceiling or in the bathroom, that’s a definite bonus.

No fans? No problem! If you have an iPhone check out the “White Noise” app. When I was staying at the hotel for the RKC in 2009, this was a lifesaver. You can choose from tons of different sounds, including rainfall, thunderstorms, and even an oscillating fan!

Stick with the routine whenever possible!

Obviously sticking with your routine can be challenging when you’re on the road, but the closer you stick to your routine regardless of travel, time changes, etc., can go a long way to feeling great and enjoying your travel that much more.

Advanced Techniques

So we’ve covered your pre-sleep routine, how to set-up your environment to catch maximal snoozes, and even some tips for better sleeping while travel. All we have left to cover is a few advanced techniques that some of you may be interested in.

The following techniques are things I used much more frequently when I was competing in sports, especially when I was competing heavily in powerlifting. For those of you who are competitive or who take your training very seriously, I can’t recommend these highly enough.

Progressive relaxation

Progressive relaxation is a very simple technique that I find works great for minimizing muscle tension and enhancing relaxation.

Lie on your back, and starting with your feet, progressively contract and relax individual muscle groups. For instance, start with the following:
- Flex your feet for 5 seconds, and then relax for 5 seconds.
- Plantarflex your ankle for 5 seconds, and then relax for 5 seconds.
- Dorsiflex your ankle for 5 seconds, and then relax for 5 seconds.
- Flex your quads for 5 seconds, and then relax for 5 seconds.
- Continue this pattern throughout all the major muscle groups, making sure to emphasize the muscles of the face and hands (to areas where we store a lot of tension).

Deep, diaphragmatic breathing

Diaphragmatic breathing is a critical component of movement and life. For a great primer on diaphragmatic breathing, be sure to check out this blog post by Patrick Ward.

Following your progressive relaxation, place one hand on your belly and the opposite hand on your chest. Take in a full deep breath through your nose, and try to make sure that the hand on your belly moves faster and higher than the hand on your chest.

I will typically do this for 5 repetitions, with each inhalation and exhalation taking about 10 seconds.

Visualization

The final step in our puzzle is visualization. Every great athlete/performer likely does visualization in some sense, so the following is simply my interpretation of how I use visualization.

I remember reading an article by bodybuilder Robbie Robinson back in the day about dead lifting, and he mentioned that his deadlifting workout started the day before he trained. That’s how serious he took visualization in his training process.

If I’m preparing for a squat workout, I would think about every aspect of said workout: What I’m going to wear, the drive to the gym, my warm-up process, how the bar feels in my hands and on my back, how I set-up, perform the repetitions, etc.

The more realistic and detailed you can make your visualization, the better it will help you in the long-run.
"Corrective" sleeping

Normally, I love to explain in depth why I do things the way I do. This is the exception to the rule – you’ll have to take my word for this one!

If you sleep on your left side (right hip is towards the ceiling) sleep with a small pillow in between your knees and your knees/hips flexed.

If you sleep on your right side (left hip is towards the ceiling), sleep with a small pillow in between your ankles and your knees/hips flexed.

If you want more information on the “Why” behind these recommendations, check out the homosapiens over at the Postural Restoration Institute (yes, that’s an inside joke – watch the DVD’s or attend a course and you’ll see what I mean.)

Summary

I’m sure you’re impressed that I just wrote over 2000 words on the topic of sleep, but it really is that important. I sincerely hope you’ll try out some of these techniques to aid in taking your sleep to the next level.

However, I’m sure I forgot something along the way. Anything you guys would like to add? If so, be sure to leave your thoughts in the “Comments” section below!

Stay strong

Mike

(To read and post comments for this entry, visit http://robertsontrainingsystems.com/)