Hyena Butt?

Today, one of the Mason interns was troubled and confused as to why he couldn't achieve a below parallel squat without his pelvis slipping into posterior tilt, and lumbar spine into flexion . I describe this squatting mistake as "hyena butt."  Come on, you've seen a hyena run…Their butt is always tucked in toward their front haunches…Or maybe it looks more like a scared dog tucking its tail…Whatever you want to call it, it’s not good.  Here’s what’s happening or not happening when you see it, and some techniques to help remedy the situation. Weak psoai are the primary culprit of hyena butt.  Because few actively achieve hip flexion above 90 degrees (psoai aren’t activated below 90 degrees) during their weekly routines, the psoai become dormant.  In situations requiring a significant amount of hip flexion, such as a below parallel squat, weak psoai will limit one’s ability to maintain proper pelvic anterior tilt, causing one to draw ROM from the lumbar spine.  This compensation leads to the hyena butt. 

Being able to maintain proper lumbar spine alignment during hip flexion is significant for a couple reasons.  First, without proper lumbar spine alignment, hamstring and glute function will be compensated significantly limiting the generation and transmission of force. Second, lazy posai will often cause the other flexors of the hip to become tight and overactive.  Frequent knee and back pain can be experienced with imbalances in this area.  Lastly, the shear stress imposed on the spine during lumbar flexion is tremendous.  Slap a couple hundred pounds on your back, as you would during a below parallel squat, then round that lower back (hyena butt), and by god you’ve mixed yourself a delicious cocktail called disc herniation…best if enjoyed supine.  

But, there is still hope for all my hyena butt friends.  There are a variety of drills to strengthen the psoai.  They require quite a bit of precision, careful progression and typically the watchful eye of coach.  Here's one taken from our online database of exercises used to coach our distance clients.  It's called the "seated psoas march."  Coaching cues include, sitting with the knees just above 90 degrees; point toes-up; lift foot off of ground while maintaining a neutral spine (lower back shouldn't move!).

So come see us at, SAPT!

Chris

Happy Labor Day

I hope most of you are able to enjoy a relaxing day off today. In case you missed any of them, here are the posts from the past week: 1) The Best Physical Preparation Advice I've Heard

2) Packing a Nutritional Punch

3) Strength Training is About More than Just the Weight on the Bar

4) The Perspective of a Strength Coach

5) Yet Another Variation of the Pushup and Split Squat

Be back soon!

A quick perspective on coaching…

My contribution this week delves more into the delivery aspect of my job as a strength coach. Yesterday, marked the start of my first full year with the university I coach at and it got me thinking about all the intangibles of coaching that oddly enough, I’m as equally cognizant of/concerned with than the actual programming that I provide the student-athletes under my watch. Here’s the simple fact, maintaining my status as “leader” of a group of 30 alphas, is the most important, and exhausting, part of my job. How do I maintain rapport? Here’s what works for me:

Consistency: In no circumstance do I deviate from the expectations I place on my student-athletes. And it doesn’t matter if you’re the guy that hit 20 bombs last year, or the utility guy that had 20 pinch-hit appearances, they’re both the same in my book. If I’m going to lift with perfect form, they’re going to lift with perfect form, everyday; I don’t care if that means their preconceived strength prowess takes a hit. Overtime, the garnered respect, and the athletes realized improvements, will speak for themselves.

Civil: The coaches I had who got all hot and bothered, enjoyed tossing around profanities, never did much for me (thankfully this was extremely infrequent!). In fact, I found it kind of humorous that they couldn’t come-up with more intelligent ways to voice their displeasure with a certain individual or situation. Even if their “constructive criticism” was delivered with a smattering of “bombs,” it always felt weird. It's like listening to a friend attempting to share some guidance after a couple too many, kind-of intelligible but the frequent burping is all you really remember. I always try to get my point across without all the theatrics so my message isn’t muddled as it passes through oftentimes still maturing-thick-skulls and short attention spans. They’ll respect the civil delivery, and the line separating friend, and authority figure will remain clearly intact. Plus high-blood pressure runs in my family.

Belief: I don’t care how little, or how much, you know about developing a plan of best practice, any doubt you have in what you’re imposing will be quickly exposed. I encourage questioning from my student-athletes as it’s a way for them to learn and recognize all the considerations that go into the plan I provide them. This dialogue also proves to them that each and every movement on the sheet has a purpose. But, whether my approach today will be the same as it is tomorrow, I have to believe in what’s on the sheet. Because sometimes looking a kid in the eye and saying, “because based on my current understanding, I believe it’ll make you a better person and athlete,” is reason enough. Believe in yourself, believe in your capabilities, and they’ll have no choice but to believe in you.

Maybe this made sense,

Chris

A smorgasbord of SAPT goodness...

Big shout-out to all the SAPT volleyballers who dominated in their respective tryouts; especially to Kenzie and Alexis, who as freshman, made their varsity squads!  Checkout Kenzie's kill deep in her end of the court during her first varsity scrimmage...the "happy dance" that ensues is just priceless.

Here's Sterling SAPTee and softball player, Jena, testing her chinups.  Her first day she could do 1/2 a rep, now she can do 3...just sayin'.  And, it wasn't just from mindlessly tuggin' on a bar; appropriately progressing your vertical pull requires a lot of careful programming, and even more focused determined effort from the trainee.  We like to blend isometrics, eccentrics, and band assisted variations.

Another Sterling SAPTee and softball player, Meghan, demonstrates some pretty vicious medball slams...sounds like a friggin' firing range.

I stumbled upon this swarthy guys youtube channel the other day. My wife says I look like a blouted blowfish when I train...love you too sweety! 

So, I'm heading-up to Michigan this weekend to take part in a very special wedding.  For those who don't know, last summer my cousin Ryan suffered a serious spinal chord injury.  He was supposed to stand in my wedding, but the severity of his injury left him physically unable to.  Well, about a year later I'll be standing-up in his, and proudly watching him WALK down the aisle, something doctors told him likely wouldn't be able to do.  If you have a second, checkout his story by clicking HERE. 

Not because he thought he could, but because he knew he would,

Chris

To failure, or not to failure, is that even a question?

If am trying to gain some muscle mass should I always train to failure?  Thanks,

Billy

Hi Billy,

Thanks for the question.

As is my answer to most things in life, it depends, and even more so, it depends on who you ask.  But understand this; training to failure is not synonymous with muscle growth, and I personally I feel that it can be dangerous if utilized by the wrong populations, and can have an adverse training effect if used in the wrong situations. 

With no understanding of your weight training experience level, current and long term training approach, training frequency, biological age, short and long term training goals are etc., the best I can do provide you a fairly general answer.

First, let’s establish muscle growth contributors: hormones, food, training stimulus and ample recovery from those training sessions.  Lacking any of these four things will significantly limit muscle growth.  For instance, prepubescent populations shouldn’t concern themselves with muscle gain due to lack of hormone production, and should focus more on improving integrity of connective tissue, learning proper motor patters, and becoming more neurologically efficient.  Similarly, those who don’t eat enough, nor get adequate rest in between training sessions, are significantly limiting growth potential.  I’d closely investigate those two things as many looking to gain muscle are strikingly lacking in these two areas.  As I believe your question pertains more to finding the “magical” set and rep scheme, I can tell you there isn’t one, but staying within certain rep and total volume ranges will ensure high amounts of tissue disruption, without always needing to train to failure.  

If I, or any of my athletes are engaged in a hypertrophy focused training block, I always prefer training to positive failure for most sets, defined as when one can no longer complete another rep with good form.  This strategy mainly pertains to their accessory work which depending on the time of year, and programming intentions, will typically fall in the 7-15 rep/set range.  A variety of factors will determine how many total sets/sessions/frequency.  I’ll also shorten rest in between sets.  Sets will always stop feeling like they had another 2 reps “in the tank” during their main compound movement (ie. squat, deadlift, etc.) of the day.  That’s my strength coach-biased answer, and I’m sticking to it…for now. 

Below is a picture of “Big Joe;” he’s the dude in the blue singlet.

 “Big Joe” trained with us at SAPT to prep for his wrestling and baseball seasons.  “Big Joe” is now a Division 1 athlete at a big-time SEC school.  “Big Joe,” never trained to absolute failure with us at SAPT and “Big Joe” is…well…big.

If you’re looking to safely and intelligently put on some muscle, and improve function this offseason, you gotta get in touch with us by clicking HERE…

Neurological efficiency is where it’s at, though,

Chris

Are you a winter and/or spring sport athlete? You NEED to read this!!!

With yet another successful summer coming to a close, SAPT is gearing-up for a fall and winter full of unprecedented physical achievements! If your primary competitive season takes place in the winter, or spring, the time is NOW(!) to begin your performance training at SAPT! As our “cook’em slow” mantra suggests, physical adaptation and subsequent performance improvement doesn’t happen overnight, rather accrued through consistent hard-work over the course of a comfortable window of preparation. Don’t be left “cramming before the final,” contact us now to get a head start on your competition!

Contact us now so you may begin experiencing:

-Soft tissue techniques, activation, mobility and flexibility drills aimed at reducing mechanical asymmetries in the body, improve tissue quality and recovery rate, and reduce risk of injury.

-An accumulation block of preparation where training volume will be high to improve work capacities and allow for growth and development to occur.

-A more concentrated block of training where intensities peak and volume settles, aimed at improving maximal strength, power output, lateral agility, linear speed and acceleration.

-Tapering intensities as the competitive season draws near to allow for the acquisition of sport specific skill to become the primary focus during this time.

Want to see these methodologies in motion? Checkout our student-athletes in action by clicking HERE…

Convinced SAPT is the right fit for you? Or, maybe you’d prefer to participate in a FREE trial session first? Contacting us is as easy as clicking HERE!

You won’t be disappointed…

Chris