I wanted to drop a special post today to let everyone know that it’s the last day to pick up Functional Stability Training of the Lower Body by Mike Reinold and Eric Cressey at the sale price of $79.95 before it goes up to $99.95 at midnight tonight.

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 I also wanted to break down some of the big rocks I’ve seen and learned while I have been going through the videos so you can get an idea of how cool this product actually is. I should also let you know that the information is geared towards fitness professionals with a good working knowledge of anatomy as well as clinicians looking to expand their repertoire in assessments, corrective strategies and strength training programs for lower body considerations, but it would also make a great compliment to anyone who has a real thirst for knowledge in terms of fitness, anatomy and biomechanics.

Essentially, it’s a fitness and anatomy geeks equivalent of a Star Trek convention.

Rock #1: Alignment is not always Neutral, even when Lying in Neutral

This was a big one from Mike Reinolds’ first webinar in the series, and it was literally a game-changer for me, as I was able to apply it about an hour later with a client that I was hitting a brick wall with in terms of how to get him to open his hips more for squats. Within a few minutes, I had a new perspective on his movement, which then helped him get to a new depth in his squat that was previously unattainable.

 

By the way, he’s 70. It’s not flawless, but it’s pretty amazing nonetheless.

Let’s say you have short and tight hip flexors and tight lumbar erectors when you stand. It would go without saying that those areas will probably still remain short and tight when you lay down, and the posture of your pelvis will probably be affected. However, looking at the majority of the information presented on assessments, no one mentions this simple fact in terms of how it would affect the results of the assessment.

If the hips were anteriorly tilted when you lie on your back, the ability to do an active straight leg raise would be compromised due to the hamstrings already being on stretch, without even lifting the leg. Simply going into a posterior tilt with your hips can give you a lot more information about bilateral differences in hip position and range of motion capability. Additionally, going outside of the strict saggital plane to avoid bone to bone restrictions can have a massive effect on accurate measurement for the individual.

Big Rock #2: The Adductors Don’t get Enough Attention 

Given some recent work with hockey players at different levels, I’ve spent a bit more time looking at the specifics of the game and its ability to beat up the athletes in fairly predictable ways. One aspect of this that’s a big cause of concern, be it in the professional ranks or juniors, is the incidence of groin strains/pulls and sports hernias.

Eric did an awesome job showcasing how the adductor group was very intimately tied in to groin strains and hernias in that players with reduced adductor strength had a greater incidence of injury compared to players who had fairly equal strength between the adductors and abductors. One that blew me away was when he showed that if the adductors are at less than 80% of the strength of the abductors, the rate of groin strain goes up 17 times.

Alternatively, individuals who had patellofemoral pain tended to have 23% greater adductor strength compared to asymptomatic controls, which makes sense due to the increased rate of femoral and tibial internal rotation in PFS clients.

What this means is that adductors are pretty important, but they don’t respond best to direct work through open chain exercises, such as hooking a cable up to your ankle and swinging that bad boy around like you’re trying to sweep a soccer ball. Since the adductors work antagonistically to the glutes in saggital plane activities, they have to be trained with the glutes to help create leg stabilization in the saggital plane first before you start going outside the line and hit up frontal plane stuff. This means when doing lunges to pay attention to hip and shin alignment, making sure the femur comes forward at 90 degrees of the hips instead of going off in its own little party, and making sure the foot isn’t turned in or out or that the knee cap isn’t pointing off at an odd angle.

If someone can’t stabilize here, they can’t stabilize any better in the frontal plane where the stabilization of the core becomes compromised compared to saggital plane movements due to the hip position being more aggressive and challenging the core to a greater extent. Start saggital and then move to frontal.

Another big one from this same vein was to assess hip rotation ith a slight posterior tilt to open up the ability of the hip to rotate freely. Since part of the adductors cause hip flexion and internal rotation, while others contribute to hip extension and external rotation, testing both rotation directions is essentially involving the adductors, which makes them a pretty big deal.

#3: There’s a Difference Between Anatomical Leg Length Discrepancy and Functional Leg Length Discrepancy

Going back to Mike’s first point about a rotated pelvis, imagine if only one hip was rotated forward. That would put the pelvis in an asymmetrical position and alter the height of the hip in normal stance.

What this means is that most measurements of leg length where the distance from the lateral malleolous to the ASIS gives the length of the leg is not necessarily accurate if one hip is rotated forward and that isn’t taken into account. This means that putting a small heel lift in this shoe to help redue the imbalance would actually feed into it and cause a further rotation of the pelvis, and probably lead to some SI joint and low back issues.

Now unfortunately I haven’t made it through the “15 Things I Learned from the Deadlift” webinar yet, but that’s on point for later today once I get home once my wife is done racing her triathlon. I’m pretty sure I’m going to watch it and then immediately go and start deadlifting my lawnmower. Maybe even single leg deadlifting it.

As I said earlier, today is the last day for the sale, where you get the entire package for only $79.95. This truly is a steal of a deal, and you would be hard pressed to find more information that is immediately applicable for such a wide range of clientele and athletes for such a low cost. Most information products contain more concepts and thoughts than direct actions you can use, where as this one contains a great balance of theory and application, while also showcasing a lot of concepts supported by research as well as the observations of two incredibly smart and involved professionals.

Pick your copy up today before midnight to ge the cheap cheap rate, and start geeking out like me.

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