A Philosophy of Strength and Health

  I don't ever remember being intimidated by overhead lifting. I was lucky to get expert instruction early in my career. But there are many sport and medical professionals who are unsure of the safety of lifting overhead. Some are adamantly against it. Bilateral work with a bar, overhead and behind the head, is advanced and demands full ROM. It doesn't require extra ROM, but it does require normal, full ROM. Athletes and non-athletes who do not have normal, full shoulder ROM clearly need to do more remedial, single-arm overhead work. Everyone needs to earn the right to do advanced movements. Many just need to take some time to find the motion they actually have; if you haven't put your hands over your head very often, you probably don't know what you are capable of doing. But let me be clear: I've worked with many people who never ever need to use a barbell. I did what was appropriate and necessary for their needs, not my ego or somebody else's idea of what...

 "We did core today."  That phrase makes me furrow my brow and chuckle at the same time. I suppose it is a vestige of bodybuilding and assigning body parts to workouts. We can do better for our athletes if we evolve our mindset and programming to think beyond the isolated torso. And that black hole of training called "stability." If you must give a session or a part of a session a name, I'd like to suggest an alternative framework. We'll stay on the "c" theme, but start from a foundation of movement, not stillness. To do this, I ask you to leave behind ideas of isolating and activating torso muscle groups. Embrace the terms connection, coordination and control. --- Most of life (and sport, for that matter) are not still.  In archery, biathlon, gymnastics or rowing, the stillness we observe is part of one or many transitions from one posture to another. The athlete demonstrates significant control and coordination for a relatively short time; moving...

Pulls -- high pulls and straight arm pulls -- are staples of the competitive weightlifter. Non-weightlifting athletes also use them to compliment things like medicine ball throws. Over the years, I have moved away from barbell pulls, especially high pulls, for non-weightlifting athletes. This may seem like picking nits. However, my job is to bulletproof athletes. I work hard to do it with the least additional joint wear and tear possible, while keeping things simple. First, I don't like the idea of promoting any type of arm pulling if we are going to do any power cleans or power snatches in the future. Arm pulling is the opposite of what we want with these movements.  Second, it is a skill to hold, accelerate, decelerate and lower a barbell when doing pulls. There is a significant anterior load and traction on the upper traps and long thoracic nerve that must be controlled, particularly when you lower the bar. (Thank you Joe Pryztula for reminding me of this!) Most weightli...

Last week Donie Fox had a great article for HMMRMedia -- "Using Foundational Legs Exercises as the Cornerstone of Rehabilitation." Check it out if you haven't already. Donie's article is important in my mind because it addresses a critical issue in the rehab world. There is a serious lack of appreciation for and mastery of the use of basic movements (squats, lunges, step ups) to build foundational lower extremity strength. Donie and I have decided to go into more depth on this topic in our next few podcasts. We will also hopefully touch on return to running programming criteria. Here are some barriers, in my opinion, to rehab professionals adopting a "foundational legs" approach. I'm not trying to be overly critical or a curmudgeon here. I am simply trying to share my observations after 20 years of working at all points on the rehab and performance spectrum. Ok, here goes. 1.  "Protection" mindset vs "performance" min...

In support of my HMMRMedia article today , I wanted to give people a look at some of the Spectrum Squat variations I have used -- and show athletes doing them in actual training sessions. The athletes featured are Morgan Northrop (US national team, aerials skiing, 5' 6" and 128 lbs), Eli Kimche (high school senior, golf, 6' 4") and Nolan Berry (high school senior at the time, basketball, 6' 10" and 220 lbs). The video quality isn't super high, but this is the real deal, flaws and all. Morgan and Eli do a fantastic job of using their full range of motion. Eli is doing is first ever Spectrum Squats in these videos and is learning to rack the KBs. He only has KBs at home so we work with what we have during the COVID -19 times. Morgan is a pro at Spectrum Squats and has used them to their fullest throughout every training year. The video of Nolan is for all of you working with tall, somewhat inflexible athletes. I worked with Nolan...

Over the next few days, Martin Bingisser will be sharing a video lesson and several articles related to programming for leg strength. James Marshall wrote a great piece -- "Training the Legs Through Movement" -- that was featured last week. Donie Fox and I will have follow up articles in the next few days that build on this idea.  In preparation for the video lesson discussion, Martin sent out some questions. I thought it would be good for me to write out my thoughts and take some time to reflect. Here are my thoughts on two of the questions. I hope my reflections spark your curiosity and direct you to the article by James and the follow up articles that will appear later today and this week. Sorry for the wacky formatting. I have been trying to get it all neat and tidy, but Blogger has not cooperated with me today. So I'm playing with it all right now. Alpine ski racer Cooper Iacobelli explores the Russian boxes. ---- One point both James and Donie have...

There are many ways to train power. At this point in my career, I think many athletes are better off training power without a barbell. I am not against it, but it demands a high level of skill, specific equipment and time to do it safely. Developing athletes are better off expressing this aspect of physicality via sprinting, jumping, bounding, throwing and putting. Exploit the acceleration, distance and time elements of the power equation. Power = Work / Time Power = Force x Distance / Time Power = (Mass x Acceleration) x Distance / Time Training for power doesn't always mean we have to train for maximal power, with heavy resistance as the key variable. And when we do need to train for maximal power, we should have the tissue and joint infrastructure ready to handle the demands of those tasks. We need the right foundational movement competencies so we are prepared. As James Marshall said in his most recent HMMRMedia article , we need a system and framework that purposefully ...