Hey MWodies,

Today’s mission is to sort out some of the very common problems we see in the pushup. The problem with poor mechanics in this movement, is that they bleed into nearly every other higher demand pressing effort. As always, solving problems of poor mechanics and pain should start with the trunk and mid-line stabilization. The problem here then, is the fact that many athletes are not strong enough to perform a good pushup and keep their trunk in good braced position. Knee based pushups are are hard to perform well and typically lead to poor elbow mechanics, and poor trunk organization. The pushup is a good mid range, easily performed movement that quickly diagnosis trunk stability problems, elbow problems, shoulder load sequencing problems, and problem of torque. When performing pull ups, we regularly use stretch bands to unload the movement. Until now, we really haven’t had a good analog for the pushup. Enter Mark Bell’s Sling Shot. Straight up, Mark is a great friend of mine and while I appreciated the applications of the Sling Shot for the bench, it took me awhile to see the real application of this tool. The genius application of the Shot is training athletes to have good motor patterning in the pushup. This solves so many long term down stream problems in more advanced pressing. So many times I have to rebuild someone’s dip, muscle up, or bench from the basic pushup position. The pushup is the core movement transfer exercise for every other pressing movement.

Kstar

Hey MWodies,

Today’s mission is a full frontal assault on your groin. We’ve performed an iteration of this mob on the MWod before, but I’ve been struggling to find that little something extra I’ve felt this mob has always been mission. Oh, and that little thing is called the joint capsule. We have to take a systems approach when we try and improve a position. Failing to account for motor control, sliding surfaces, muscle dynamics, or the joint capsule will always leave you a little short when it comes to optimizing positioning or restoring function. What makes this mob so wonderful, is that it accounts for the passive accessory motion of the hip when you are in the full frog. I’m not going to lie, this corner of your hip is full of ugliness (a wretched hive of scum and villainy). Without complicating matters too much, when we often see the high hamstring weirdness in athletes, it usually has this up stream hip tightness as a feature.

Get to it 2-3 minutes a side. Keep your glutes engaged. Test/Re-test with a deep squat.

Kstar

ps. This is my favorite mob ever, of all time.

pss. I hate the word crotch

Hey MWodies,

We’ve been saying for some time on the MWod, that we’ve got to move beyond a “one or zero”, completion/no completion, “just do it” sort of mind set. As my friend BMac says, “you can’t hide who you are”. If you you receive your snatch in an over-extended position, chances are we know exactly how you are going to run-over extended. We’ve been making the case for years that athletes need to pay attention to how the perform some of the “less” complex or ”less” difficult movements in their training. Otherwise, it is really easy to accidentally and deeply groove some pretty wonky movement patterning that will rear its ugly head during more complex, or heavily loaded movements. Take the innocuous double under for example. Without thinking about it, an athlete can easily groove a few hundred reps of some really bad jumping and landing, or some weird bouncing-piking hip thrust (BPHT- btw, tm) in a matter of minutes. Again, congrats on getting your double under, too bad you’ve wrecked your ability to ever really effectively jump, or open your hips violently. Practice doesn’t make perfect, practice makes permanent. Ask any olympic lifting coach how easy it is to get an athlete to stop donkey kicking their feet during transitions. They will laugh.

Don’t get me wrong. If you are competing for world champion of the world in double-unders, get it done. If you are getting paid to double under, get it done. Just understand that when you are 50k reps into a crappy dead end movement strategy (that’s only 44 miles of heel striking running for example), it’s hard to un-ring that bell.

Kstar

Hey MWodies,

This episode is dedicated to a friend in Australia with chronic low back pain. (You know who you are…)

Let’s make a simple equation:

Correct Movement + Right Lifestyle (nutrition, sleep, stress) = You are a Perfect Healing Machine (PHM)

Yes, it’s really that simple. If you set the right conditions for your body and move well, you have an infinite capacity to heal and reclaim function. Oh, and that’s at any age. Frankly we’ve never met a person that couldn’t improve on either the lifestyle or movement front (frankly it’s most often both).

So let’s take our Australian friend as a case study. Good guy, good personality, eats really well, moves really well. Still has low back pain. Turns out he’s really sore in the morning first thing out of bed. Strange. This is worst time of the day in fact.

Me: Please tell me you don’t sleep on your stomach.

Him: How did you know?

Me: Are you just toying with me or what?

Him: I’m not.

Me: Dewd, drink a VB as a foul and stop sleeping on your belly man! Show some respect for yourself! How old is your bed, please don’t say 8 years old and that’s it’s really hard.

Him: Weird! It’s really hard and it’s exactly 8 years old. My girlfriend has been giving me crap lately about it being so old.

Me: Weird. Marry her. She’s brilliant.

Look, if you are an athlete, you probably need a bed that is much softer than you think. You can’t spend 8 hours a night managing being both overextended AND unconscious. (You are probably just barely able to manage being over extended all the time anyway.)

Look, sleep in any position you want. As long as: your spine is neutral, your head isn’t craned all the way to the side where you can properly breath, and you don’t wake up messed up. I’ve spoken with two emergency room physicians that have herniated their necks after hitting the pillow and sleeping on their stomachs (with heads cranked to the side.) This by the way is VERY difficult to perform on your stomach. So, it’s pretty simple. Don’t sleep on your stomach. It’s a pretty serious adaptation error (puts your lifestyle variable in the negative).

You should wake up stoked, not broken.

KStar

Hey Supple-legion,

Today’s MWod episode drills down on the way I think about and order movement complexity, rehab/post surgery programming, and illuminating mobility problems in my athletes. When I first started to think about these kinds of problems, I started from the angle of spinning people back up after injury or stepping people back down to regroove/reteach motor patterning. It turns out, it was also the way we teach our beginners. It also explains why there are a whole bunch of older power lifters and fewer master olympic lifters. The second part of the video explains how challenging the athlete’s torso to be more upright is another way to make movement more difficult. Part two is coming tomorrow.

Holy Crap, this is the 400th post.

Kstar