tight ankles?

Sitting wrecks your hip action

Super Squat Hip Sequence from K Starr

Stretching is pants

Bill is always recommending that I look at Paul Ingrahm's material.  I don't know why but I've only just now checked him out.  Thanks Bill

Here is Paul on stretching and the ITB band, both things that I've mentioned here recently!

Check out his site:  Save Yourself

The One Joint Rule

Kelly gave me a shout out on his blog the other day.  I've already said that I didn't deserve to be on that list, but it is nice to be mentioned.

 It’s a pretty powerful statement that a brilliant Scot (Conditioning Research) and a guy with an Iphone and an obsession with performance (me) are on the same list as the NYT, and WSJ?  Crazy.

If you don't know Kelly here he is talking about the importance of maintaining proper posture in movement.

It Starts With an Injury by Tom Furman

Tom Furman

This is a guest post from Tom Furman.  I asked Tom to write something because, on a recommendation from a certain blog, I had bought his ebook: 10 Exercises to De-Age your Body by 10 Years.  I read the book and was really impressed by it - simple straightforward movements that I could give to anyone. I've recommended it to others and even bought an extra copy to pass on to someone else.  For $5 you can't go wrong.  I recently contacted Tom and asked if he wanted to do a post here to promote the book a bit (I am getting nothing out of this by the way).  He has replied with this superb post:


Aging injures and injuries age

Years ago I heard the saying, "Aging injures and injuries age". It had a powerful effect on me. When you get hurt, you change. For some it is a wake up call to take care of your body and fitness. For others it is a wonderful opportunity to gain attention and rationalize their massive shift from active to sedentary.

The funny thing is, when we are young and athletically competitive, we almost wear our injuries as badges of honor. We feel indestructible, almost invulnerable. The twisted ankle or injured knee is almost a right of passage. We never think about slowing down. Try keeping an adolescent from moving around when they get such powerful satisfaction from the physical adventures. It's nearly impossible.

A challenge is a goal that is thrown at your feet

At some point things change. We get injured and something clicks in our brain telling us exactly how mortal we are. It's at this point that we hit a fork in the road. One path is to severely limit or restrict our physical motion and effort. To avoid hard work, active recreation and new physical pursuits. We say we are "too old, injured or afraid". The other path is to view the pain and limitation as a message that we are being challenged. A challenge is a goal that is thrown at your feet. It can be highly energized emotionally and therefore can be very substantial.

In our modern world with modern medicine, we are very safe. Not too many Sabertooth Tigers hunting us down. Because of technology, we can live a life that largely negates any real need for mobility. Escalators, elevators and even electric carts that are available for people that don't want to walk through grocery stores have made the need to move well and almost secondary consideration. This is detrimental to healthy aging and life long physical freedom.

The power of choice and the ability to walk as a warrior

There is a saying that, "I would rather burn out than rust out". It lends itself to the extremes but makes the point about the power of choice and the ability to walk as a warrior all of your years. This can be as simple as choosing a series of drills or movements and doing them regularly and in enough repetition to build and maintain a base of movement and strength. They don't have to be complex. There is nothing new or exciting about this. Movements like dance, yoga, tai-chi and others have been around as long as man. The basic idea is two fold. If you stop doing something, you won't be able to do it. The second part is, whatever you are really bad at, is probably what you should focus on improving.

The first part is fairly easy. If playing golf is important, you can focus on skill and less on endurance and flexibility. If high level gymnastics is your standard, then you have your work cut out for you as you age. However the second half of this idea is less enjoyable. You have to constantly focus on what you aren't good at. If that means stretching for a big, strong, man, so be it. If it means squatting regularly for someone who has never done athletics, then it is time to face the music.

Movement

Above and beyond any sophisticated exercise regimen is a simplistic set of movements that are not grounded in tradition, philosophy or skill. They simply reflect some fundamental actions of the human body which can erode with neglect, lack of interest or just plain laziness. That silly movement routine that the Coach used before gym class could be a minimum protocol to add spring to your step and reduce your physiological age relative to your peers. Even fundamental calisthenics can be a litmus test to maintain vigor as time marches on.

The reality is that the terms "aging and inactivity" need not go together. We can do little about the advancing years, but we can do a lot about the activity part.

To get started on deaging your body, order "Ten Exercises that will De-Age your body by 10 Years", which is fully illustrated with photos on how to do each exercise. ($5 e-book in pdf form) Available at: www.physicalstrategies.blogspot.com/p/e-book.html

Tom Furman has been involved in martial arts and conditioning since 1972. With an early background in wrestling and a student of the methods of the York Barbell Club, Tom immediately separated fact from fiction growing up outside Pittsburgh. Eleven members of his family were combat veterans, the most famous one being “Uncle Charlie” (Charles Bronson).


His down to earth training methods are derived from his decades long practice of martial arts and his study of exercise science. The application of force, improvement of movement and durability rank high on his list of priorities when training. He gives credit to hundreds of hours of seminars, training sessions, and ‘backyard’ workouts, including training time with many martial arts legends. He also credits his incredibly gifted training partners who came from varied backgrounds such as Exercise Physiologists, Airborne Rangers, Bounty Hunters, Boxing Trainers and Coast Guard Rescue Divers.

Interview with Dan John

Good stuff from  Dan John.  Lots of his ideas here are covered in his Intervention material.

Part 1



Part 2

toolkit for maintenance

Colin has posted a great little piece about the basic equipment that you need to work on maintaining good posture and alignment.

I’m always preaching to my clients of the need to get stronger, that it is fundamental to their goal of pain free movement. From combating the effects of aging to helping make you a better athlete being stronger will help. The stronger you are, to a degree, the more room for error you have in everything from your diet to your ability to deal with injuries.

Get over to Edinburgh Deep Tissue Massage and have a read.

More on Walking / Hiking / Trekking Poles - Todd Hargrove

I wanted to follow up on the post from earlier about the effect of poles on gait and how they might impact on balance and proprioception.

A Warning from the British Mountaineers

First of all I wanted to point out something that I noticed this on the BMC (British Mountaineering Council) website:

If you use poles all of the time you’ll lose the ability to balance naturally as you step up, walk over uneven ground or boulder hop. So if you are only taking a short walk with a light pack then leave the poles behind or save them for the steep descents. Youngsters need to develop this skill, called proprioception, before they walk any distance using poles.

Even the premier mountaineering organisation of Britain recognises the danger that poles pole use poses to proprioception!

Todd Hargrove - Better Movement

Anyway, I wanted to get the view of an expert on mobility, proprioception and human movement so I got in touch with Todd Hargrove

Todd has an excellent blog - Better Movement - where he discusses how to learn to move better, which means moving more efficiently and with less pain.

He recently wrote an very good post on the Perfect Health Diet blog about joint mobility exercises explaining their use not primarily to move the tissues and joints but, much more importantly, to develop the brain's sense of the body, its various "maps" of the body.  It is the brain - more specifically its use of the sensory data that the body provides through the mechanoreceptors - that is the crucial element of our movement and exercise.

Having given that introduction, here are Todd's thoughts on the use of walking poles and their impact on proprioception, balance and gait:

_______________________________________________________________________________

Todd Hargrove on Walking / Hiking / Trekking Poles

I saw your recent article on poles, and I thought it was an interesting question.

Shoes

I think you are right about the role of shoes. Proprioceptive information from the feet are a key source of information for the brain to know how to move when walking.  Thick hiking shoes reduce this information in two ways.

• First, it prevents you from feeling the ground. This is inherently threatening and causes you to press the ground little harder in order to sense it. 
• Second, the shoes prevent joint motion, which is a source of mechanoreception.

Poles

As to the poles, you are right that this changes the normal mechanics of walking from that of a biped to that of a quadruped. My guess is that this is probably not the end of the world because we all started as quadrupeds as babies (we crawled as our initial mode of locomotion) and our ancestors were quadrupeds. So while it is  not a disaster but it is a regression.

People use their hands to move when they are babies (crawling), when they are old (walkers, handrails or canes) or when they are in the process of falling.  So the poles may simply be a sign that the hiker is afraid of falling.

And, under the SAID principle, walking with poles will make you better ...... at walking with poles, and worse waking without, just like using a crutch.  Of course  for some people crutches are a good idea -  I would guess that they can take pressure off the knees, just as a handrail does when you ascend stairs.

Proprioception

As to proprioception, the poles increase the amount of proprioceptive information from the arms. Perhaps this extra information is necessary for many people because the feet aren't doing their job. I think you are right that the poles would distract attention from the feet.  Again, you are training yourself to rely on the arms for your sensory data, rather than your feet.

Conclusion

So I guess my basic thought is they are crutch, both mechanically and proprioceptively. I don't know if the poles will "ruin your gait", but they are not  optimal for a healthy person, and I think they will cause you to lose an opportunity to improve your gait.  


______________________________________________________________________________

Thanks for you thoughts Todd!

You can read more from Todd at his blog.  (one of my favourite posts from him is this one on posture)

Lumbar rotations

This is a good mobility move for a part of the body that is often too stiff and immobile due to our sedentary lives.  It is also one of the basic 5 daily mobility moves that Colin Gordon recommends

Sitting....Kelly Starrett at Google

This is superb.  Kelly Starret talking about sitting.

You don't know squat.....

I had a good session with Colin (Edinburgh Deep Tissue Massage) last night.  After working out some kinks in my legs, neck and hip flexors he was checking out my squat pattern.

One of the thing he was getting me to work on was keeping the knees out and really squatting down between my legs, rather than just sitting back.  He explained that one of the keys was to keep the feet from collapsing to maintain the proper angle at the ankle.  Interesting and challenging.

Kelly Starret explains similar principles and Dan John explains the goblet squat in the same terms:

....people discover at this moment ... a basic physiological fact: The legs are not stuck like stilts under the torso. Rather, the torso is slung between the legs.

As you go down, leaning back with arms straight, you'll discover one of the true keys of lifting: you squat between your legs. You don't fold and unfold like an accordion; you sink between your legs. Don't just sit and read this. Get up and do it!

(There is another good goblet squat article here)

Kelly explains the issue of keeping a stable arch here:

Shoulder Stability

I  learned things from this.  Great stuff...and the microphone works

Hip Pain Relief - Martha Peterson

I've just ordered this lady's DVD after seeing it mentioned by Dan John.  It will be interesting to see what she has to say.

KStarr on sitting

I love this guy

Mobility / Prehab with Dan John

The great Dan John has posted some new videos of mobility moves he is currently working on.    Birddogs, Can Openers and Tactical Frogs.....

Improve your squat depth

I like Nick Tumminello's stuff




this is also good

Mobility - Get your 5 a day

Colin (of Edinburgh Deep Tissue Massage)  has a great post up on daily mobility moves:  Getting your 5-a-day

We all know the importance of getting our 5 portions of fruit and veg every day well this is my take  on the idea applied to some simple mobility/flexibilty work that we would all benefit form on a daily basis. Most people now have sedentary jobs and find themselves being in front of a computer either all day or a substantial part of  it. The effects of this sedentary lifestyle on the body are often create a more kyphotic posture, flattening the lumbar curve and exaggerating both the thoracic and cervical curves. The musculature of the back, as a generalisation, gets lengthened whilst that on the front gets shortened and the joints of the spine start to stiffen and lose their mobilty. Along with this the hips also stiffen and the glutes get over stretched and switch off. The hamstrings shorten and the quads lengthen and so on it goes through the body.

So what can we do to help alleviate the problems........

READ THE REST HERE

Mobility Workouts

The blog of daily mobility routines by Kelly Starrett has been gaining some exposure across the internet recently.

You can check it out here.

Stretching and joint mobilisation.....

I find discussion of joint mobilization fascinating. The seminar I went to lat year with mc (interviewed here) was full of interesting ideas on which I am still reflecting.

This looks relevant - getting call centre workers to do some brief - 10-min daily - exercise sessions.

they performed 10 different sets of exercises, including stretching (hamstrings, spinal column, forearms, and shoulders), joint mobilization (hands, wrists, shoulders, column, hips, knees and ankles) and relaxation.

They ended up feeling better with less fatigue and discomfort. Ok there are limitations to this study and its style, but I think it comes back to movement being good. In any case, at the least sitting on your behind all day is depressing. Movement makes you feel better and think better - as in the book Spark.

Anyway, the full text of the study is here:

Stretching and Joint Mobilization Exercises Reduce Call-Center Operators’ Musculoskeletal Discomfort and Fatigue