Axes of the Foot: TC and ST

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In conjunction with our study group at Precision Human Performance diving into the axes of the foot yesterday, I thought I'd post a brief re-view of part of what we discussed.

Making "Stupid" Smarter

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One thing I try work through in my head are ways to go about taking exercises that may be completely inappropriate for a client and manipulating the variables of the exercise in order to make it appropriate for their abilities and goals.  As a professional, I think this is an important skill to develop.

Maxing Motion

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Something I often fall into the trap of is having my clients move through all of their active range around a particular joint during a given exercise and magnitude profile.  I'm calling it a trap because I guess that is more or less my default right now, meaning that's kind of option A that I start with and then I might strategically choose to limit the range from there.  I guess I have an issue with this in my head because it seems to be the only thing I do it for.  I don't default to max resistance for every exercise and then scale back, nor do I think that way about speed/tempo, the duration of the set, or the effort I want put forth during the exercise.  So I think this needs to change in my head.



Most everything else I tend to drift towards moderate/easy for the first set or so then increase from there, so why with motion do I almost always start towards the most that my client can actively/comfortably attain?  Furthermore, even if I justified having them move through that much range with an easy load for the sake of warming up the tissue or practicing the motion, why do I almost always continue to have them explore that entire range once a greater resistance force is applied?  The irony is that the presented challenge in terms of resistance is usually only a challenge during a small part of the range, so how much challenge to the muscular tissue is actually being accomplished by moving through the rest of it?


I can certainly see viable reasons for moving through most of the available active range of a joint during specific exercises with specific individuals, but I'm not sure that it makes sense for me to keep seeing this as option A.  Instead, I think it is time to drop this piece that has been somewhat automatic up to this point and start to see not just the motion that is being performed, but the specific part of the motion that is performed, as a variable that needs to be strategically chosen and manipulated, as well.

Do you tend to default to moving through "full range" on your curls, squats, presses, pulls, etc, etc, etc?  Do you tend to default to maxing out on weight every rep, too?

Your body.  Your training.

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Lunges vs. Leg Press: A Discussion at PHP

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Last week Friday during study group at Precision Human Performance we had a really great discussion about why we would have a client or ourselves perform a lunge as opposed to a leg press.  For this discussion, we defined lunge as something that looks like this:

Ahh, college.  Okay so not the greatest video but I guess at the time I thought it was obvious what was going on with my legs and feet, even though they are completely out of the frame and arguably the most important part.  Fortunately, there are plenty of other videos of lunges on YouTube, almost all of which are much more entertaining than my own, so check those out if you need further clarification.

Then, for leg presses, we are looking at something like this:

Once again, a brilliant display of control in this video...

Okay, so the discussion started by Michelle Amore posing the question of why we would put somebody on a leg press.  Interestingly, when we broke everybody's responses down, it all came down to muscle in some regard, whether it be building it, controlling it, or biasing it (for more on this, take RTS™).

Once that was established, the discussion turned to which movement allows us to build, control, and/or bias muscle more efficiently and effectively in addition to identifying the difference between performing a leg press and a lunge.  We discussed the mechanics of each, how a leg press may have the ability to keep the challenge of performing the motion relatively high throughout a given range of motion while a lunge is often only really difficult at the bottom of the rep from a mechanical standpoint, depending on how low the individual is able to drop.

Most importantly, we discussed the differences in the amount of passive restraint typically imposed during each and how the less passively-restrained lunge dictates that less weight can be handled throughout the motion, which may ultimately mean less tension will be allowed to be generated by the muscles in order to perform that motion.  Likewise, the leg press with its higher degree of passive restraint allows for the user to almost lock themselves into the position so all of their energy, effort, and force can be directed towards performing hip and knee extension.

Think of this as similar to doing dumbbell presses on a stability ball versus on a flat bench.  If you measure the 1 rep max of each situation, you are almost always going to find that more weight can be pressed while lying supine on a bench (more passive restraint) than on a ball (less passive restraint).  This goes back to the discussion back in January about balance and how balance is a skill and, more relevant to this post, if your balanced is challenged in any way the number one goal of your brain will be to keep your center of mass over your base of support.  This means that if you create a scenario where keeping your center of mass over your base of support is no longer a challenge because of the imposed restraint, performing other tasks or motions can begin to take greater precedence.  However, without that passive restraint locking you in, ensuring that you maintain your COM over BOS will trump the execution of any motion attempted.

The takeaway message from all of this is the less passively restrained a motion is, the more the execution of that motion becomes a skill.  Bringing it back to the initial goals of the exercise, if we are performing this motion in order to build, control, and/or bias specific muscle tissue, attempting to achieve these goals by performing a skill is going to be less efficient than locking ourselves into a machine and shoving with everything we have.  However, if the goal is to improve the skill of lunging, then lunges would certainly have their place.

What are your thoughts on the Lunges vs. Leg Press discussion?  Drop a comment below!

Want to join in on the Precision Human Performance study groups?  Email info@precisionhumanperformance.com to get the GoToMeeting.com id!

Want to learn more? Take RTS™.

Your body. Your training.

Want to use this arti­cle in your blog, newslet­ter, or other plat­form? You may, but be sure to include all of the bio­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion found in the yellow box below!

Precision and Quality

 

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"The outcome of an exercise will only be as good as the precision with which the motion/position is performed and the exact way it is challenged.  It all boils down to the quality of each individual rep!"  (Purvis, Tom.  Resistance Training Specialist™ RTSm Science 1 Manual.  4:7.  2012.)

Above is one of my favorite excerpts found in the RTS™ course manuals.  These two sentences, for me, involve a huge portion of the process of exercise.

When I read this excerpt so many concepts come to mind--structure, progression, immediate/short-term/long-term goals, exercise mechanics, the exercise equation, satellite vs. zoom, communication, cuing, current status, current abilities, fatigue, length-tension, equipment selection--all things that should be taken into consideration when designing exercises and applying forces to the body.

How precise are you with your force application?

How precise are you with what you are moving and what you are holding still?

If you had to justify how you went about doing things with mechanics, physics, or physiological principles when you exercised or trained somebody, could you?

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If you had somebody watching over you taking notes and then questioning you afterwards, could you justify the earlier choices  you made?

What are the effects of your choice of exercise equipment on your ability to maintain the chosen position while performing the chosen motion?  Did those effects play into your choices?

If the concepts mentioned above do in fact determine the outcome of an exercise, what kind of outcome are you creating by either not considering all of the details or, if you are, not having the discipline to see to it that the details are maintained for the duration of the exercise?

If the positions, motions, or presented challenge are randomly chosen, can you expect the outcome of the exercise performed to be anything but?

I am by no means perfect at any of this, but I think it is something good to think about and remind myself of and question myself on on a frequent basis to try to ensure that I am providing the best exercise experience and process for my client and myself that I can.

What level of precision and quality do you expect and require of yourself?

Want to learn more?  Take RTS™.

Looking for a place to study some of these concepts in greater detail?  Join the Precision Human Performance study groups!

Your body.  Your training.

Want to use this arti­cle in your blog, newslet­ter, or other plat­form? You may, but be sure to include all of the bio­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion found in the yellow box below!

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Take RTS™.

*Filmed atPrecision Human Performance.

Your body. Your training.

Want to use this video in your blog, newslet­ter, or other plat­form? You can, but be sure to include all of the bio­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion found in the yel­low box below!