Sarah Walls 6/21/11 Sarah Walls 6/21/11

Great Warm-up Movement You've Never Tried

MB Push + StartWhat is it? A great warm-up tool for getting the CNS firing and reminding the body how to produce a lot of force against the ground. The movement approximates the start for a sprint event. You can’t get as low as you do in the blocks, but it helps teach and reinforce how to produce great amounts of force as you are falling forward.

Why use it? See above, plus it’s fun!

Who should use it? Any athlete that is concerned about a “quick first step.”

If I were to coach myself based on my demonstration in the video, I clearly need to work on allowing myself to fall a fraction of a second longer and spend another fraction of a second extending through and taking advantage of the triple extension moment.

Overall, not too bad for a woman who had a baby exactly one-year ago tomorrow!

Sarah Walls 6/19/11 Sarah Walls 6/19/11

Two Exercises to Boost Your Heart Rate, Spare Your Joints, and Have Fun while doing them, too.

One of the reasons SAPT clients love coming in to train at our facility is they get to do things they normally wouldn't in a commercial gym. I mean, how many times do you walk in your local gym and see sleds being pushed/pulled, medicine balls flying around, and people crawling around on the floor as they imitate various creatures from the animal kingdom?

Not to mention, the training they receive provides a nice "break" from the monotonous routines many people find themselves in day after day. After someone has been sitting at a desk for 8-10 hours straight, the LAST thing we're going to do is have them sit on a bunch of machines and ask them to mindlessly perform 3 sets of 10 on the chest press, leg extension, ab machine**, etc.

While it's clearly important to learn how to execute a proper squat, lunge, or hinge pattern, we also enjoy tossing in quite a few exercises that provide someone with a desired training effect (cardiovascular system development, increased strength, fat loss, etc.), and are just plain fun!

While I could discuss a host of various exercises we use to accomplish this, I'd like to share two for the time being:

Sledge Swings
Med Ball "Cyclone" Slams

In the first video, you'll see Doug giving the tire a piece of his mind with the sledgehammer:

And now we have Kieran performing the Cyclone Slam:

I'm a fan of both these exercises in particular for a few reasons:

1. They're a "low impact" method of improving your cardiovascular system.

Running, jumping rope, and many other common forms of "cardio" can be extremely taxing to the joints, especially when performed at high volumes. While you may be able to get away with it initially (or while you're young), you'll quickly begin to pay the price of including liberal amounts of high impact cardiovascular work.

Sledge swings and cyclone slams (or most med ball work in general) provide a fantastic outlet through which you can quickly elevate your heart rate, while at the same time sparing your joints and connective tissues. This can come in handy as a cross-training tool for endurance athletes, or for someone whose joints need a break.

2. They develop core power and strength.

Who doesn't want a stronger core? Whether your a combat athlete, a baseball player, or someone who only cares about looking better, these drills provide a solid training effect for the core. Including some more "power" oriented movements such as swings and med ball slams will provide a different stimulus to your torso than traditional core training will. Specifically, your trunk will have to undergo extension (eccentrically), and transmit force in all three planes of motion (frontal, sagittal, and transverse).

3. The sledge swings will enhance grip, forearm, and wrist strength.

Assuming your hitting a giant tire with the sledgehammer, you'll improve your wrist stability (due to the rebounding nature of the tire), on top of developing muscles all throughout your hands and forearms.

4. They're a sneaky way of incorporating some thoracic mobility into a program.

When performed correctly, your thoracic spine will undergo both extension and rotation (this is a good thing) during each repetition of these drills. Considering many of us have lost significant t-spine mobility (from slouching too much, perhaps like you're doing now as you read this), it's important to incorporate exercises that promote mobilization of the thoracic spine.

5. Everyone needs to take out a little aggression from time to time, don't they?

No need to elaborate here.

Anyway, I encourage you to remember that training should ALWAYS be fun (at least in some sense of the word), and I hope these exercises presented allow you to think a bit more outside the box when it comes to exercise. Training doesn't have to entail hopping on the treadmill for 45 minutes and mindlessly pounding away, step after step, all while watching the T.V. in order to make the minutes pass by more quickly.

**Please, for the love, don't ever subject yourself to one of these machines. You'd be better served jumping into a lion's den.

Sarah Walls 6/10/11 Sarah Walls 6/10/11

The Perfect Pushup: Diagnosing the Pushup

Pushups are probably looked down upon so often because they're the first exercise most people learned in grade school during gym class. They're often viewed as elementary and "too easy" for most, likely because they're not seen as sexy as another popular exercise: the bench press.

The funny thing is, the pushup seems to be one of the most frequently butchered exercises I see on a regular basis. When I walk around most gyms , I cringe at the form I see people using it's honestly very difficult to stop myself from running around like a Form Nazi in order to keep people from injuring themselves.

Today, I'm going to give the most common technique flaws I see take place during the everyday pushup, and some corrections on how to get much more "bang for your buck" from this exercise. The pushup is an AWESOME tool in your training arsenal, but the problem is it frequently isn't executed in a manner that will give people the results they're seeking.

I'll be giving video demonstrations of how NOT to do them, and then a video of what a real, perfect pushup looks like. All this on top of showing a few other pushup variations you can toy with once you master the perfect pushup. Aren't I a nice guy? You can buy me a cup of coffee later, no worries.

Anyway, let's get the geeky side of things out of the way. Here's where I'll be explaining the "why" behind pushups.

Why Perform Pushups?

* They teach you to control your body from head to toe. When performed correctly, they engage countless muscles in the pelvis, abdominals/low back, upper back, and then of course the chest, shoulders, and triceps. The nerdy way to describe the stabilization required during pushups is "lumbo-pelvic stability" which teaches you to control your core in a functional manner, leading to benefits both in and out of the weight room (I'll let you use your imagination here).

* It effectively trains movement of the scapulae (shoulder blades), giving you healthy shoulders for the long haul. Unlike the bench press, a pushup allows the shoulder blades to glide freely. When pushups are performed correctly (i.e. "pulling" yourself to the floor, and pressing yourself all the way up so your shoulder blades protract at the top) you engage the serratus anterior, a key player in shoulder health and function. The serratus, along with the lower trapezius, are two muscles that are pervasively dormant in our population. These two muscles work synergistically with the upper trapezius to upwardly rotate the scapula when your arm moves overhead (think: throwing a ball, or performing an overhead press). In fact, when I worked in the physical therapy clinic, the most common denominator in the patients with shoulder problems was weakness in both the serratus and the lower traps.

* They're a closed chain exercise, essentially making them more shoulder-friendly than the bench press (an open-chain exercise). * When done properly, they'll help boost your bench press, squat and deadlift numbers. Not to mention: aid you in your quest to achieve the look and function of a physical specimen. Hah! Now you're listening.

Anyway, below are videos of me performing various incorrect pushups. The technical flaws may evade you initially, but look closer, and you'll see them. You'll probably see some pushups that you weren't aware were even considered erroneous!

Note: The following 6 videos demonstrate INCORRECT form.

Error #1: Forward Head Posture

This is the most common error that people are unaware of, I believe. You'll see that my head juts forward, hitting the ground before my chest makes contact (the chest should touch the ground FIRST in a perfect pushup).

Error #2: No Scapular Retraction (aka "loose upper back")

Another common flaw most people are unaware of. You'll notice in the video that I "fall" to the ground, instead of intentionally "pulling" myself to the floor. The upper back is loose, there's no scapular retraction (think: pinching a pencil between your shoulder blades), and I'm essentially just letting gravity drop me to the floor.

Error #3: Excessive Elbow Flare

You'll see the elbows make a 90 degree angle with my torso (they should be tucked at roughly 45 degrees).

Error #4: Hip Sag

This is where the person lacks the "anterior-posterior" engagement of the core and the hips/low back sag to the floor (the body should form a completely straight line from head to toe, remaining stiff as a board).

Error #5: Elevated Hips

This is where the butt sticks up in the air. It's another compensation pattern (similar to #4) people slip into when they lack the core strength to effectively resist the pull of gravity throughout their entire body.

Error #6: Looking Straight Ahead/Looking "Up" (no video shown).

This is where people tilt their head up and look straight ahead as they perform pushups. It seems every sports coach tells their kids to do this! Look straight down at the floor when you do your pushups (unless you desire cervical problems down the road...be my guest).

So, what does a Perfect Pushup look like?

Here (at last!) is the correct version:

Key Coaching Cues:

* Hands just be just outside shoulder width, and the elbows tucked at 45 degrees (or less) to the torso. Don't listen to people who tell you that placing your hands wider will give you better chest development! All that will do is fast-track you to shoulder pain and a subsequent physical therapy appointment. * "Pull" yourself down to the ground, actively engaging the scapular retractors and essentially the entire upper-back musculature. * Keep your chin tucked (think: give yourself a "double chin") so you don't "reach for the ground" with your head. * The chest should touch the floor first (i.e. not your hips or your head) * Squeeze your abs and glutes tight throughout the entire movement * Entire body should be perfect alignment, and you should remain as tight as if someone were about to come along and try to knock you over.

Once you master the basic perfect pushup (it will take longer than you think: you should be able to do at least 20 before progressing further), there are a number of ways to increase difficulty. One way is wrap a sturdy resistance band around you, so that the movement will become harder as you reach the top portion of the pushup (as the band tension increases). You can elevate the feet as well.

Both versions are combined and shown in the video, here:

There are a million different variations you can use (in truth, you really don't need many, but it's always nice to spice things up from time to time). You can do walkover pushups, as shown here (much harder than they look!):