One way to progress the Anti-Tin Man RDL is by taking that same pattern into a more dynamic and less stable environment through Walking RDLs.
The Cross-Body Cable Extension has enormous potential to address a myriad of shoulder and upper back issues, but you’re doing it wrong.
Ditch the boring “three sets of eight to ten reps of rehab movement,” to break the mold and bridge the gap between training and rehab.
The most underrated benefit to this setup is allowing the thoracic spine and ribcage position to be easily manipulated. Hello, rear delts and lats!
Who’s Dani? Where is she from? What are her passions? What is she accomplishing in her practice and lifting career? She tells you here.
Crossbody extensions address tissue tolerance and scapular awareness—something to use for direct upper body training AND physical therapy.
There’s no reason to be sidelined into rehab purgatory when dealing with a combination labral tear with bicep tendinopathy. Read how this case study is applicable to you.
If you’re looking to be strong, improve durability, and look better, quiet technique will get you there with less wear and tear. Here are implications and executions of this technique using a variety of exercises.
Implementation is the easiest part of this exercise because you are using only your available range and not approaching this with a “must have the mobility of a 12-year-old gymnast” mentality. Here’s your chance to access planes and ranges of motion that most of us forget even exist.
Anyone who’s actually said this and FELT this lack of power knows how frustrating it can be: Despite the EBP nerds saying, “Well, the hip is extending, so the glute must be firing.” If you have felt the empty feeling, you know that you’re not firing on all cylinders.
When it comes to returning an intermediate-advanced lifter to a heavy compound, there are often more factors at play than we initially think. Perfect mechanics probably aren’t enough to get you back to where you need to be.
Do your shoulders hurt at the bottom of the bench? If so, what are you doing to fix it? This exercise may help.
I’m hoping that by the time this article gets published, things are on their way back to normal, but in the meantime (and even if they are), there are a few key tools I’ve given my clients to help them to mentally move forward (not just survive) when we feel a lack of control.
I see the same mistakes made over and over, and these mistakes are absolutely huge when it comes to being able to keep training progressively.
Physical rehabilitation is as much about the mind as it is the body. The right attitude is the first step to putting a stable, consistent rehabilitation plan in motion.
Programming through injury doesn’t need to be nearly as complicated as we make it. It’s not really all that different than programming a regular training block for a movement with a few differences.
If we want to help people, we have got to stop picking camps and start putting the client first. Here’s a prime example of how to do that with a focus on the respiratory system.
We think of the Kettlebell Windmill as a largely upper body exercise, but I’d like to make a case that it’s one of the most underutilized exercises to promote hip loading and control bilaterally.
There’s an assumption (known or unknown) that everyone has the proficiency to perform what we see “if we just lower the weight.” That’s quite the caveat with a lot of assumption, especially when it comes to movements like the Romanian Deadlift.
When a doctor who knows how I train gave me his diagnosis, I had no idea what to do because I hadn’t met anyone that had this constellation of stuff. Neither had he. The best foundation we came up with was based on the same principles in the previous articles.
Tendon injuries suck. The healing process for tendon injuries is slower than it is for muscle tears. If you ended up rupturing your tendon, you may require surgery. But there are still some things you can do in terms of rehabbing certain tendon injuries…
The biggest thing you need to take away from muscle tears is that the healing process is largely chemically based and physiologically mediated in order to remedy the mechanical disruption and restore (again) mechanical strength.
I’m not going to lie, I’ve had a number of injuries through my training, but Dave was right: groin injuries are a different beast, and the nature of the beast is going to depend more fully on what actual tissue was affected.
People with similar issues can respond differently to the same treatments, so having multiple solutions is a great way to increase the likelihood of success. As for arguing about different solutions with experts on the internet? Not so great.
Even though Instagram makes neural irradiation look cool, please take a moment to stop and ask yourself: What is it, and why are you doing it?
Every seasoned lifter appreciates how easy it is to lose simple habits in pursuit of getting stronger. One such habit: Getting a good grip.
Intelligent training does NOT need to be pussyfooting around HARD training. It also doesn’t need to be pushing you to a point where you have to “deserve” a rest day. Attending SWIS 2018 and listening to Dr. John Rusin and Christian Thibedeau, I thought it would be great to revisit this topic.
I’m as guilty as anyone when it comes to moving a weight that makes me “feel good” about training, versus doing a movement that requires less weight on the bar because it exposes weakness.
As a PT, I made the mistake of letting go of these good habits. By ignoring issues when they arose, I put my body in a compromising state.
If you’re looking a little shifty, if you’re feeling aches and pains on your competition movements, if you want a longer shelf life, if you want to feel athletic instead of “locked in” all of the time, finish your sessions with this. I promise you’ll move and feel better.
If you want to make a career out of working with strength athletes, there’s one thing that’s more important than everything else.
I needed to know I wasn’t going crazy for wanting to know where things were scarring down, and I needed to know what to expect based on the injury itself. So I broke the mold a bit.
Once you’ve started the waiting game and it has sunk in you’re out of training for a while, there are definite ways to set yourself up for success. This is something I’m currently experiencing myself after tearing the adductor longus tendon from my pelvis.
These are what I’d consider the biggest mistakes in letting injury dictate your ability to train.
There are so many layers wrapped up in recovery and getting back to competition. These are the key points that Dave had to embrace if he wanted to keep training for the next 10 years.
In order to get to the point of actually getting better and taking rehab seriously, a lifter must be willing to shift from short-term to long-term focus. Here’s what we did and how I think most rehab for strength athletes should be structured.
Dave LaMartina is one of the hardest working lifters I’ve met, and has proven over many years that he is willing to train through just about anything. After significant injury led to him stepping off the platform, he reached out to me, and this is how he came back.
When the time rolls around to start prepping for your next competition, you’ll wish you’d used your off-season wisely. Here are the five things you should focus on to provide the most improvement, longevity, and resilience.
Lifters who succeed share a lot of qualities — and so do lifters who fail. I’d challenge you to honestly evaluate how closely you fall on the spectrum of each of these qualities.
We seek enough, for what? To prove we did something? That we’re good “enough” at something? I’m fighting every day to overcome this and you should too.
I was setup better from this training cycle than any other. I easily made weight, had a coach with complete confidence in me, and a training partner that celebrated every step. But the meet had a different plan for me.
Only five days out from an important meet, I don’t have much time to fix the issues I’m having. For this reason I’m approaching the idea of a pre-meet deload a little differently.
Tempo training has the potential to be highly specialized to meet whatever metabolic demands, fiber type, or performance goal an athlete wants to develop.
Looking at lats, thoracic mobility, and the ribcage during an overhead exercise can tell you a lot about a person’s pattern, position, and movement quality.
If you anticipate an extended period of time off, there are lots of things you can do right to avoid common mistakes. Your goal should be to come back stronger and tremendously benefit from time away from heavy weight.
Where you lack motion or motor control, your body will pass down the chain to the next moving part that can buy you an extra bit to help you get into position. This is dysfunction.
If you Google “hip pain at the bottom of the squat,” you’re going to be left more than a little confused about what the cause might be and what you should do. Let’s sort through all of the information and advice.
Every medical professional gauges how much slack on the leash they can give you without negative effects because everyone’s threshold is a little different. What’s Dave’s? And why?
Your numbers will be subject to so many external variables, but your character is forged by intentionality.
If you try to ignore an injury, you’re going to end up in one of two places: with compensated strength or accumulated injury. Is continuing to train, but simply using lighter weights, the answer?
If you’ve addressed pelvis position but your mobility, mechanics, or pain aren’t changing, consider that your neurological reference center may need to shift. Shift it to your heels.
Training was so important to me. It covered my insecurity and kept me distracted from the ugliness that was brewing underneath.
Having mobility issues? While direct work in the traditional sense will certainly help, so will continuing to train, if you plan correctly.
Beyond skill-set, a physical therapist’s personal belief system, communication style, vision, and philosophy are just a few things you should consider when searching for the perfect match.
Three days before my heaviest deadlift of the meet training program and I couldn’t even bend down to grab the bar. Here are the techniques I used to mitigate my issues and make it to Boss of Bosses 3.
Although it’s hard to generalize knee pain, here are several things I commonly see in a clinical setting. You can attack these issues in a number of ways.
Get the most out of working with your rehab expert so you can move better with less pain.