In spite of the fact that the last three attempts to go hit the driving range have been thwarted by either rain, blizzard or simply cold temperatures and windchill, I’m hoping to get out later this week when the temperatures are getting closer to humane and less likely to cause personal injury and loss of limbs. What can I say, it’s either winter or golf season here in Edmonton.

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What’s my handicap you ask? The fact that I’m a 220 pound beast who’s used to throwing and hitting things hard with a complete absence of control, and I’m playing a game that requires a soft touch and won’t let me crank a little 5 Finger Death Punch on the tee box to get me in the zone.

Golf is one of those games that makes absolutely no sense when it’s being thought of with deep thoughts, but for some unconscionable reason is extremely addictive. I started to get in a couple of rounds last summer, then broke down and got a set of clubs in order to play the last round of the year and hit the driving range for one whole time before winter decided to say “what’s up? Oh, you got some clubs, did you?? Well, I guess that means 12 inches of snow and colder temperatures than Siberia, doesn’t it? Who’s your daddy? That’s right.”

Seriously, me and Mother Nature had THAT kind of conversation.

In case you haven’t noticed over this fine Easter weekend I’ve been a straight up champ by putting Post Rehab Essentials on sale until the End of today, Monday April 9th at midnight. Normally it’s going for $209, but I’m letting it go for only $99, plus it has some CEU’s for the NSCA and a free 40 minute webinar on Developing Medical Referrals for Fitness Professionals. It’s pretty dope, and you should get a copy now while you’re thinking about it.

=====> CLICK HERE TO GET POST REHAB ESSENTIALS TODAY!! <=====

 

Over the weekend, I was doing my usual impersonation of Awesome McKickass, training clients to become complete iron ogres and whatnot, and a girl happened to be working out with her friend next to me and one of my clients, and was just simply CRUSHING IT!! I love seeing people hit the gym hard, and when women decide to throw down with front squats, box jumps, split lunges, and all sorts of fantasticalness like that it kind of makes my heart cry tears of happiness. What made it even more impressive is….

…well, check it out for yourself.

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Yep, she was rocking out the front squats with a prosthetic right leg. My client even said to me after seeing that “I guess I never have a valid excuse for why I may not feel like working out, do I?” Nope, sorry boss, no excuses are going to work after something like that. That kind of dedication and ballsiness trumps anything that’s playing on MTV today, now shut up and squat.

A few weeks ago I had a Twitter friend send me a tweet saying that I had to put together a Hunger Games workout plan to kind of capitalize on the trend that’s making the world-wide box offices it’s bitch.

I’ll be honest, the amount of fiction writing I’ve read in the past year would be completely limited to the platforms of the various provincial party candidates in the run-up to the Alberta elections here in a few weeks, and while many of them contain the elements of a good comedy, drama and horror all at the same time, I’m not sure if they count.

As a result, I had him send me the cliff notes and write up a short component on what he would see as being important if he were suddenly thrown into a post-apocalyptic world where teen-agers are entered into “Running Man” type situations to help feed their families. We’ll be putting out that collective post later this week. You’ve been warned.

 

I saw this explanational video a few days ago and thought it was, well, special.

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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Hold on, I need to breathe for a few seconds.

Okay,

okay that’s better

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, this made me laugh hard, and then the hard realization that it was actually serious set in and I stopped laughing. First, I have no idea where he’s pulling the fact that you have to get to thirty degrees extension to get maximal abdominal activation. Maybe he thought that one up while shopping at the Gap for those chinos to work out in. He’s the best-dressed trainer I’ve ever seen blowing people’s spine’s apart and making absolutely no anatomical or physiological sense as to why you would do such an exercise.

I’m a big believer in pushing people to their capacity, but something like this is done incorrectly 99 times out of 100, and is even being done incorrectly here. For him to do it properly, he would have to work on limiting the involvement of the rectus femoris as the prime accelerator by actually pausing a the bottom of the movement taking a full breath cycle, and then returning to the top focusing on making the pull come from the abdomen while also limiting the amount of spinal flexion and extension occurring.

He would also have to qualify the individual had the required psoas length to go through the movement prior to doing this otherwise they would run the risk of torquing their lumbar spine and creating shear force through their intervertebral discs, and also to see if the hip can actually go through extension to an appropriate range to limit any potential injuries. An easy way to test this would be through a basic Thomas test prior to rocking this sucker out.

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Now I’ll admit that this doesn’t actually look at only the psoas length, but looks at the ability of the isolateral hip to move through assize extension, which has a lot more to it than simply the psoas. The kicker is that if the individual can’t even get their hip to lay flat with no gravitational loading on the muscles, there’s no chance of the body being able to go through hip extension when there’s a perceived threat of increased loading, which means completing the movement will come more from the spine than it should, as evident by Chotchy McCargo-pants right around 0:45 seconds into this train wreck of a video. The part where he talks about contracting the quad to whip your body up makes me physically angry.

Last point for the day, you should definitely check out Charlie Weingroff’s article on foot placement during squats and why most common-sense approaches to squatting are completely lost in bro-science, and why using a proper foot placement actually requires the formation of a natural arch. He breaks down some of the common thought processes of where your foot should be, and what that actually means, plus how the body works when the foot is in contact with the ground instead of simply floating through the air. It’s probably one of the best reason’s why most people (read, MOST people) don’t really need orthotics and how some simple training alterations can make a big difference in how your foot functions, which makes you lift stupidly heavy things a lot easier.

If you’re fortunate enough to have the day off today, enjoy it, and if you’re a working schlub like me, at least it will be easier to get to work than on a typical day, right? Right?? Come on, we need something to make us feel better about working on a holiday for some people.