T'ai Chi Ch'uan Ching
Chang San-feng reminds me to work on mobility if I am to have any chance at fighting skill:
The postures should be without defect, without hollows or projections from the proper alignment.
McGill on hip ROM
These results indicate that changes in passive ROM or core endurance do not automatically transfer to changes in functional movement patterns. This implies that training and rehabilitation programs may benefit from an additional focus on ‘grooving’ new motor patterns if new found movement range is to be utilized.
Passive flexibility is not active flexibility. Roger.
ROI
The most immediately productive improvements to my fitness have been:
- Going from essentially no exercise to the varied (some might say haphazard) and moderately demanding conditioning and strength-endurance work of light-contact karate
- Going from light-contact karate to running and sprinting several miles, five to six days a week, as part of Ultimate
- Going from light-contact karate to judo, jiu-jitsu, muay Thai, wrestling and MMA
- Going from judo twice a week to yoga five times a week
- Going from not lifting (or lifting light and infrequently) to lifting heavy
These changes to my strength-conditioning-mobility regimen each provided a tremendous return on investment within only a month. It was quite dramatic each time: a wicked trough of pain, followed by a surge along some axis of physicality. Adding yoga boosted my flexibility; adding Ultimate shot my flexibility and conditioning through the roof; trying new combat sports wildly improved my conditioning, speed, and proprioception; starting lifting gave me never-before-known strength, mobility, and power.
To that list I now add the most basic of mobility exercises: spending time in the third world squat. K* obviously considers it a fundamental; it was the first thing he showed in his MobilityWOD. I have felt the power of this drill once before, when throwing brief sit-in-a-squat breaks throughout my work day. This helped my barbell squat a great deal, but it wasn’t really earth-shattering.
Now that I have added a “squat test” to my lifting workouts, I see the true power. The “squat breaks” gave me a third world squat, but actually timing them, increasing my times each workout, has been transformative. I can straighten my back in the bottom of the squat. The upright ass-to-grass squat, which had eluded me for so long, and so infuriatingly, is now in reach.
I’m so excited for what this means for my barbell squat. My best is still only about 5 minutes sitting in the squat. Maybe if I keep on it my pistols will start to look better? I can only assume it will help my jiu-jitsu.
Athletic Skill Levels | Crossfit Seattle
The Paleo Solution podcast is at its best in three situations: when they hit the right balance of complexity and relevance with regards to science, when they go on rants about proper programming and planning, and when they interview a particularly on-point luminary. Tonight I caught up on Robb’s chat with Dave Werner, which found itself covering some topics that happened to ride that maximally productive edge between what I know and don’t know, where I just barely can’t articulate it.
Werner makes a strong case for local everyman’s gyms, for grassroots competitive opportunities for the naturally unathletic, and for general-purpose fitness markers that can be used as guidelines in planning one’s training for GPP. The first of those three earned my respect for his philosophy. The second made me respect his coaching. The third made me hungry to see these standards:
The Levels are designed to provide a general fitness perspective, to help set appropriate goals, and to allow focus work on weak areas that result in the rewarding mastery of activities you couldn’t do before… The Athletic Skill Levels are intended to be a gauge and a guide, not a standardized test you are obliged to “pass.”… The skills are intended to be broadly representative of general fitness.
Being that I’m the closest thing that passes for a coach to the people in my house, this caught my ear as a way to put everyone’s progress in perspective. Being that I love “universal” measuring sticks, it also provides a goal for me in my own training.
The 4 levels as used in Dave Werner’s gym are available as a PDF, with the descriptions as follows:
Level I – Healthy beginner. This level is the minimum standard for health. Lacking these basic levels of strength, flexibility and work capacity makes daily life unnecessarily limited. The complete Level I should be attainable within three to 12 months for those with no significant limitations. At this level, proper basic movements, such as hip flexion and active shoulder use, are developed, while healed injuries and structural problems are resolved.
Level II – Intermediate athlete. All healthy adults can aspire to this level of fitness and should perceive these skills as normal…
Level III – Advanced athlete. Few people posses this level of general fitness, although any healthy person can achieve it. The strength, work capacity, power and skill required to meet these goals can prepare you to tackle any kind of physical performance with competence and confidence. Expect to invest another three to five years of consistent effort. This is an appropriate level of general fitness for those who depend on their fitness: competitive athletes, military, law enforcement and firefighters. Engaging in combat or highly competitive sports without possessing the abilities of Level III is inviting injury or failure. Any additional requirements of your sport need to be added to this list.
I omit level four in the interests of my own ego.
It wouldn’t be appropriate or necessary to do any formal testing at this point in my training, but it appears that I’m comfortably in Level II and in the running for Level III in a few areas, such as deadlifts, cleans, overhead presses, rope climbs, rowing, and pistols. However, the parts where I fall short in Level III I fall significantly short, and in some cases it’s been a sticking point for me in training. My squat is nowhere near 1.5xBW after some work; 10 handstand push-ups is out of the question until I get my elbow/shoulder mobility figured out; a pull-up with 130 pounds sounds absurd; a six-minute mile would take dedicated training for at least two months.
But that’s good. It would be folly to rest on my treasured deadlift and ignore my lack of a bodyweight snatch. This keeps the “general” in my “general strength training” and my “general physical preparedness”.
I also found the not-so-useful, highly CrossFit-specific standards from CrossFit LA (PDF), as well as the NorCal (Robb Wolf) Level I and Level II class minimums, which are rather interesting. For my own analysis, I bolded the ones I think I have in the bag, with the caveat that I’m guessing on a few:
Level 1: 400 meter run: W-1:45, M-1:30; push ups: W-10, M-20; deadlift: W- BW x 3 reps, M-1.25BW x 3 reps; 500 meter row: W – 2:10, M – 1:50; dips: W – 3, M – 3 on rings; pull ups: W – 3, M – 5; L-sit: 10 seconds; back squat: W – .75BW, M – BW; handstand: 30 seconds chest to wall; front plank: W – 60 sec with 25# plank, M – 60 sec with 45# plate; MetCon: Day 1 On Ramp workout, W – under 7 min, M – under 6 min
Level 2: ring dips: W – 6, M – 10; 400 meter run: W – 1:25, M – 1:15; deadlift: W – 1.25BW x 3 reps, M – 1.5BW x 3 reps; pull ups: W – 7, M – 12; back squat: W – BW, M 1.5BW; handstand push ups: W – 3, M – 6; power clean: W – .75BW, M – BW; L-sit: 20 seconds; overhead squat: W – 65lbs x 10 reps, M – 95lbs x 10 reps; MetCon: TBA during testing week
Mobility > Strength
In the interests of:
- addressing long-standing mobility and joint health issues,
- recognizing the simple fact that my desired volume of lifting is greater than my normal recovery capabilities,
- allocating more of my limited recovery to a planned increase in running and combat sports,
I have decided on the following lifting program.
- A: Warm-up, back squat 3x5, mobility work, chin-ups (2 sets of 3 to 5 with holds and negatives, 1 set for reps)
- B: Warm-up, front squat 1x5, deadlift 1x5 or 1x3 or singles, mobility work, overhead press 3x5.
Warm-ups consist of a thorough rotation of all the joints, five minutes of jogging or jump-rope or shadowboxing, leg raises/swings, and arm circles/swings. (The latter two cover the two major complex joints, the hips and shoulders.) I have been slacking on these, because it’s easy to put them aside and focus on getting under the bar. Until, that is, one notices that lifting the bar hurts.
If I have extra time during the warm-up, or during the re-warm-up for the second exercise if necessary, I like to do some pistols and lunges in order to stay fresh on those unilateral movements.
Mobility work consists of mandatory and optional exercises. Mandatory are a 3rd world squat test, three sets of five wall slides, and band work for the shoulder and hip. (Doing a test-retest of the rack position before and after shoulder external rotational work with the band was educational.) Optional are overhead squats with a broomstick, duck walks, and physical therapy stretches for the wrist and elbow.
I aim to regain the habit of morning runs and stretches, as well.
“Quadruped Rock Back”, apparently helpful for the types of issues that my back squat is having. Avoiding the issue entirely via front squats seems to be a better fix for m current progression plan, but someday I’ll back squat, so I might as well stash this somewhere.
(Source: youtube.com)
Clear the T-Spine, Now We Can Start Talking Shoulders | Mobility WOD
Might I be the guy doing the strange thing in the gym? I might.
The Superhero Complex: Stretch & Activate Easily For Squats by Greg Everett - Catalyst Athletics Blog
Something to try in my next black-iron workout:
The superhero complex: a static spiderman lunge followed by a superman hold (or spiderperson lunge and superperson hold for those of you who find the gender bias of the English language offensive). Generally the spiderman lunge is held for 20-30 seconds per leg, immediately followed by a superman hold for 5-10 seconds. This complex can be done between squat sets both to make your training more efficient, and to continue improving your position in the squat as you go. Do at least 1-2 sets of it before your first set, then do 1 set between each set of squats.
I think front squatting has been helping me with better torso alignment in the bottom of the third-world squat (and thereby across all squats). Hopefully this will join the fight on the side of justice.
Fundamental 5, part 2
They nailed the pull-ups and squats this time, with emphasis on variants like the lunge and overhead squat. I noticed a lot more forms of locomotion in this set—walk, run, swim, crawl. Swimming goes in my “fun” bucket, and crawls made it into my warm-ups recently.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Krista Scott-Dixon’s shout-out:
Rotation/resisted rotation: This can be throwing a projectile, throwing a punch, or throwing a judo opponent.
In reference to discussion of the minimal five, Jack said:
This reminds me: the missing piece of Dan J’s movements pattern collection is a rotation/counter-rotation exercise. His choice of one-arm exercises for push/pull here fixes that to some degree.
From discussions with Mr. John, he considers loaded carries, particuarly lopsided ones, to cover this base. Kettlebell waiter’s walks, for instance, turn out to be great fun.
However, I think it would make sense to distinguish ”force to produce rotation” from “force to resist rotation,” which is why the fundamentals currently floating in my head are squat, deadlift, push, pull, carry, rotate. (As time passes, squat/deadlift tends to look more and more like “lower-body push/pull”.)
“Rotate” seems to be of particular importance for throwing arts.
Shoulder dislocates - GymnasticBodies
It sounds trivial, but I’ve been looking for some time for a minutely-detailed description of shoulder dislocations. Coach Sommer delivers the goods:
Hold a belt in front of you at waist height (note: you may also use a dowel and more advanced athletes should use a weighted bar ranging anywhere from 5-20 lbs). As you lift the belt up and then backwards over your head, rather than thinking of moving your hands back, first “inlocate” or, in other words, think of rolling your shoulders forward. This will rotate the shoulder joint in the socket, making the backwards movement much smoother.
As you bring the belt back forward, first “dislocate” or roll the shoulders backward, then bring the arms around.
The shoulder roll cues are just what I needed.
Elite Experience
Just a quick hit. Dan John’s fundamental human movements are replicated, I assume independently, with the omission of his loaded carries:
As far as our assessment protocol, I tend to keep it simple and review the client in a squat, a bend pattern, a push movement and a pull. We also sometimes look at a lunge (always but sometimes not immediately due to the individuals strength) and we tailor our approach based on how they perform these movements. Other than mostly free weight resistance training we use a great deal of mobility work (big fan of the video series by San Fan Cross Fit and Kelly lately) and a great deal of remedial work for problem areas that demonstrate themselves during our initial assessment.
Mobility, strength, repeat.
Understanding achieved re: TFL, ITB, SMFR, and Lehman’s muddily stated case.
Starrett notes—with specificity and clarity that Lehman lacks—that it is indeed the related muscular tissue, not the ITB itself, that gets gunked up. “It’s the interface that gets so nasty and ropy.” Starrett advocates a forward-and-back roll, not a roll up and down the femur.
I also appreciated his “bunch of pencils” analogy, and the anatomical aside that the ITB is the “I-beam” wall creating the anterior and posterior compartments.
jackrusher replied to your link: Foam rolling / IT Band skepticism
It’s clear that nothing is going to deform the IT band (short of a bandsaw), but I don’t know of anyone saying there is. The TFL and other structures at the ends of the ITB do seem to benefit from self MFR, so why not do it?
I dimly suspected a straw man but hadn’t had the chance to cross-check what Lehman claims people say with my Mike Robertson and Greg Everett material.
Lehman has a point that overuse of self-MFR before lifting might be similar to static stretching (which I believe Everett and Robertson touch on). For that reason it would be good to understand the mechanism being effected, and to see some science on how it affects performance.
Note also that Lehman denigrates muscle stretching as well:
you [sic] might be able to stretch the muscles that attach to the IT Band. However, muscle stretching is also very difficult. The changes in muscle stiffness we see with stretching and warm up are again due to the viscoelastic properties of tissue. Muscles don’t become looser they just have increased tolerance to stretch. This is most likely an adaptation of the nervous system rather than any change in muscle tissue properties.
What kind of word games is this guy playing?
