This is actually a really good question because I think pushups are one of those exercises that are poorly executed by a number of people, and so if we understand a little bit more about how we're actually moving through space and how we're actually producing force, I think we're gonna get a lot better at number one, coaching them, and then number two, making decisions as to whether it's even an appropriate exercise for someone to perform. Let's start with the dirty little secret about the push-up. Most folks would say that the top position of the push-up is the start position and the bottom position is the end position. And I would respectfully disagree. We have to reverse this process. We have to think a little bit differently. And I would compare this to how we would say that the first squat is performed by a young child. So for those of you that have small children that went through this evolution from the ground up where they learned how to how to stand, they didn't stand and then squat and then stand back up, they actually moved into a squat and then stood up. So we want to look at the pushup from the same perspective: that the bottom position is actually going to be the start. And so if we look at the upper extremity relative to the hand, what we're going to see is that we're going to be in an early phase of propulsion, which is going to be towards an external rotation bias. If we move towards the top, we're going to move towards middle propulsion, but we're never going to quite get there. And so we're always carrying a little bit of this ER bias with it. Even as the force production increases, we need to hang on to external rotation. So Malty, your intention of maintaining this ER queuing throughout the pushup is actually quite accurate. We need to be able to hang on to that, which means we're going to need some posterior expansion throughout, because we're never really going to make it through towards that middle to max propulsive position through the upper extremity. If we look at the shoulder girdle itself, the shoulder girdle is going to maintain that external rotation bias throughout. And so the thing that we always want to remember is that this internal rotation is superimposed upon the field of external rotation. But let's be clear here that this is not an arc. It is not an arc. It is a four-dimensional space that actually changes shape depending on what position you're in and the compression and expansion strategies that you're going to utilize.

from the ground up where they learned how to stand they didn't stand and then squat and then stand back up they actually moved into a squat and then stood up so we want to look at the push up from the same perspective that the bottom position is actually going to be the start and so if we look at the upper extremity relative to the hand what we're going to see is that we're going to be in an early phase of propulsion this is going to be towards an external rotation bias if we move towards the top we're going to move towards middle propulsion but we're never going going to quite get there and so we're always carrying a little bit of this er bias with it even as the force production increases we need to hang on to extra rotation so malty your intention of maintaining this er queuing throughout the pushup is actually quite accurate we need to be able to hang on to that which means we're going to need some posterior expansion throughout because we're never really going to make it through towards that middle to max propulsive position through the upper extremity if we look at the shoulder girdle itself the shoulder girdle is going to maintain that your bias throughout and so the thing that we always want to remember is that this internal rotation is superimposed upon the field of external rotation but let's be clear here that this is not an arc is it a four dimensional space that actually changes shape depending on what position you're in and then the compression and expansion strategies that you're going to utilize because we're going to show a massive ir bias here at the end of this little talk where we actually take away a ton of the extra rotation if we move down to the hand we can look at the hand as it moves through higher force production very much like we do a foot so let me grab the foot real quick and so if we think about like an early propulsive foot we have this externally rotated tibia we've got an arch in the foot and then as the tibia translates forward we have this drop of the arch now if I started in an early propulsive strategy here and I move towards this middle but I don't quite get there you'll see that the arch does drop down to a small degree as the tibia starts to internally rotate and we're going to see the exact same thing going through the hand but because we're not going to reach max p we're not going to see a maximum pronation through the hand but we are going to see it move in that general direction so once again we do have movement towards internal rotation to produce the higher force but we're maintaining the air bus

Now at the thorax, the scapulae are going to move towards one another to promote compression through the higher force path as you move through the pushup. But at the top, you should see a recovery of that posterior expansion. So we're going to see a fairly strong yielding action in that posterior thorax to help us maintain the compressor force into the ground and to maintain that yield that we need posteriorly. The way that I would look at this is that your scaps should be friends, but they should never meet. We don't wanna see scaps that are compressing against one another. That's gonna be a compensatory strategy to magnify the amount of compression. So let's go ahead and talk about some of these faults that are gonna show up in a lot of the push-ups that you're going to see or attempt to coach. Most of these, these compensatory strategies are to increase a compression strategy or to gain internal rotation. So once again, we're going to see this medial border of the scapulae try to compress against the dorsal rostral thorax. And so if we see a magnification of that, we're going to see the scapulae approximate which is again trying to capture this internally rotated orientation to produce force. Anytime you see an increase in lumbar curve, so if you see somebody that is performing a pushup with traditional extension, what they're trying to do is they're trying to internally rotate into the ground, so they're trying to capture more internal rotation and create some downward force because they can't do it otherwise. Scapular elevation is going to be another common compensatory strategy. This is another attempt to capture internal rotation as is the the humeral position moving away from the body which is going to move it towards more internal rotation. You'll see something as strong as a forward head also trying to create more internal rotation into the ground. So again all these compensatory strategies are somebody that that is incapable maintaining the appropriate ER bias and producing force through this early towards middle propulsive strategy so obvious substitutions then under those circumstances you drop them down to their knees so typical push-up is gonna be somewhere in the general vicinity of 75% of the body weight load on the hand and the bottom position to about 70% of the top. Give or take a few percentage points. If you drop them to their knees, it's gonna be about 60 at the highest load and 50 at the least. And then obviously if that doesn't work, then you can move them to an elevated position where you would do something where you just put a bar in a rack and basically you're just elevating the floor so to speak and reducing the amount of load on the hands. So, Malte, I hope this answers your question for you.

I think you need to continue with your cues for the ER bias, but also make sure that you're modifying the exercise appropriately so people can actually execute a decent push-up. If you have any other questions, please go to askbillhartman at gmail.com, askbillhartman at gmail.com, and I will see you guys tomorrow. So a while back we did a video on three shoulder impingements, three strategies, three solutions. Wouldn't it be cool if the hip was the same? It is. Good morning. Happy Tuesday. I have neuro coffee in hand. That's really good. I just got off a mentorship call, so I'm a little fired up. It was a really, really good one. It was very, very, very much fun. So let's go ahead and dig into Tuesday's Q&A, and this comes from Chris. Chris and I were having a discussion, and he says, I really appreciate the three impingements, three strategies, three solutions for the shoulder that you did. Would there be something similar going on in the hip regarding impingement? And if so, could you do the same thing for the hip that you did for the shoulder? Thanks. So Chris, you're not going to believe this, but this hip impingement thing is exactly like the impingements in the shoulder. We just have to look at it from the appropriate perspective. And so when we did the shoulder thing, we talked about the three classic impingement tests that we would use, and then we gave solutions. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to compare these hip representations directly to the shoulder representations and you'll kind of see how this all plays out. And so we'll talk about like what interferes and what doesn't and then we'll give some exercise progression. So there'll be a fair number of exercise examples in this I think as we go through this. So let's break this down a little bit. So we had in the shoulder, we did the Hawkins Kennedy, we did a Mears test, and then we did like the classic painful arc. And so the way that these are going to be represented in the hip is going to be through our hip flexion, traditional hip flexion measures, and through our abduction measures. And so all of these are going to be representative of external rotation measures, but the interference is going to be internal rotation in every case. And so we're going to have a situation where, because of the orientation, we're going to give up some ER. We're going to have an overemphasis on the IR, and that's what causes the compressor strategies that can actually result in pain, or as we would say a diagnosis of impingement. And so let's look at the Hawkins Kennedy test first. So if we look at the shoulder, we're going to see that it's internal rotation at about 90 degrees of traditional flexion. And so that would be representative of internal rotation superimposed on a little bit of hip flexion at 90 degrees in the hip. And so there's our commonality. But what we've got as far as findings are concerned is this is going to be a situation where we've got posterior lower compression. So we're going to lose early hip flexion because hip flexion under these circumstances would be in this early stage of hip flexion. The problem is we got to think about this in 4D. Remember, it's not an arc. So if I'm coming up this way, that would normally be external rotation. The problem is under these circumstances with the posterior lower compression, external rotation is way up there. And so external rotation goes this way, not straight up in front. If I go straight up in front, I'm moving into internal rotation, which means I'm going to max out my internal rotation too soon. And then under those circumstances, I keep driving harder and harder into orientation, and I bang into it right at 90 degrees. And so there's my compressive strategy. So what we have here is an outlet, a pelvic outlet that wants to remain narrow, wants to remain eccentrically oriented. As far as interference goes we want to eliminate all this bilateral hip extension kind of stuff because again ER is way out there we want to restore it here in the middle so so this means that those of you who are just fond of your hip thrust because you want glute development let's get off of that train right now no low cable pull-throughs and then your reverse hypers are also going to be off the table under those circumstances. So from an exercise standpoint we want to reorient the pelvis. And we're gonna stick with unilateral activities. And so you know how I love my cross-connects. And so we're gonna use a cross-connect, but I want you to pay attention to something very, very important here. And this is gonna be your foot contacts. And so if we're doing a supine cross-connect, we wanna make sure that we're capturing the foot position on the wall. This is first met head on the ground. So to speak, the ground is now the wall. And we got that medial heel contact. We wanna maintain that throughout, because this is where we're starting to initiate internal rotation from an externally rotated position. And this is what we have to recapture when we're talking about reorienting the pelvis. And then we want to move to something that's a little bit more hip flexion. So we can move into a hook lying situation. We still want to induce some internal rotation. So we're going to put something between your knees to hang on to that internal rotation, but from a position of external rotation first. Once we can capture 90 degrees of hip flexion, we got a lot of cool stuff that we can do. So we can start some rolling activities and we're going to teach you how to roll into the affected side, and we're going to drive propulsive strategies on the opposing side. As far as some gym-related stuff, we can use our box squat, but we're going to use a touch and go. So remember, we've got an eccentrically oriented pelvic diaphragm. We want to concentrically orient that sucker. And so if I unload on the box, I'm going to get some of that eccentric orientation and some yielding action that I don't want. Then again, because I have 90 degrees of hip flexion, I can start to turn into that side so I can start to capture a true internal rotation at the right point. And so that's going to be my Jefferson split squat. It's going to become real handy because I'm going to start from that ER orientation. I'm going to hang on to ER orientation as I start to superimpose the normal IR on top of it. We could use split stance activities that are using an ipsilateral cable load. So if I was doing a left foot forward split squat, I could put the cable in the left hand, hold that left side back, and again, I'm going to move from an ER position to an IR position under those normal circumstances. 3D straps that are going to push you into the original orientation and teach you how to resist and move into it, another great opportunity to recap for these positions. Let's move on to the next one. So we talked about the Neer, which is impingement above 120 degrees in the shoulder. So we're going to represent this kind of the same way. So this is going to be the end range hip flexion measure where we're going to start to feel that impingement. And so what we have here is a situation where what I need under those circumstances to have a normal hip flexion end range is that I have to have a lumbar spine that can turn towards that measurement side of the hip. So the ipsilateral side. If a spine can't turn that way, then I'm going to end up with that end range impingement. So this is going to be a wide ISA that can't close. And so now I have a concentrically oriented pelvic diaphragm. So right away, my interference is going to be hinging activity. So I got to minimize hinging activities. The exception might be a higher box squat with a delay strategy on the box so I can get the outlet to eccentrically orient and capture some yielding action so that might be the exception to that. We do have 90 degrees available to us so we can do all sorts of cool things so we're going to start in a staggered chopping action we want to reduce the effects of gravity but we also want to start to be able to turn the spine towards the affected side. And so in the staggered stance, we're not compressing that hip, and we can start to encourage the turn of the sacrum, turn of the spine in that direction. This is where we're gonna start to use our Romanian deadlift, because again, we do have 90 degrees available to us. We wanna turn the spine. So I'm gonna put a contralateral load on my Romanian deadlift towards the heel's elevated side. And again, to turn the spine in the sacrum. If I want to go into a split squat activity, I can do that as well, but I'm going to elevate the front heel under these circumstances. So again, I want to maintain that yield as I move into that 90 degrees. If I need to promote more expansion, more yielding action, I can start to move you into a propulsive activity as well. Ultimately, what I want to be able to do is to recapture an eccentrically oriented pelvic outlet in deep hip flexion. So my ultimate resolution here is going to be a heels elevated deep squat with a band around the knees but this is not pushing out into the band this is maintaining an orientation of the femur so I can get the pelvis to move around the femur and this is going to help me capture that eccentric orientation of the outlet in the bottom of the deep squat and so basically we're at the top of the squat we're going to take an inhale we're going to exhale to mid-range where we would typically have the concentric orientation and then I'm going to re-inhale to eccentric orientation, the pelvic diaphragm as I sit down into that deep squat. Okay, so that covers the Hawkins Kennedy and the shoulder with the equivalent of the hip, the Neer in the shoulder with the equivalent hip. And so now we have to have a painful arc. And so under these circumstances, what we're going to use is the traditional hip abduction measure, also an external rotation measure. And so what we're going to see here is we're going to have a hip that has a lot of internal rotation and not a lot of external rotation. And we're going to see that limitation in hip abduction or external rotation. And we're going to get more of a lateral type of a discomfort. Where this is going to commonly show up is we're going to see people with the right oblique orientation of the pelvis. And so where we get the compressive strategy is here and it's going to drive this left side up and over the right side.

And so that would be representative of internal rotation superimposed on a little bit of hip flexion at 90 degrees in the hip. And so there's our commonality. But what we've got as far as findings are concerned is this is going to be a situation where we've got posterior lower compression. So we're going to lose early hip flexion because hip external rotation under these circumstances would be in this early stage of hip flexion. The problem is we got to think about this in 4D. Remember, it's not an arc. So if I'm coming up this way, that would normally be external rotation. The problem is under these circumstances with the posterior lower compression, external rotation is way up there. And so external rotation goes this way, not straight up in front. If I go straight up in front, I'm moving into internal rotation, which means I'm going to max out my internal rotation too soon. And then under those circumstances, I keep driving harder and harder into that orientation, and I bang into it right at 90 degrees. And so there's my compressive strategy. So what we have here is an outlet, a pelvic outlet that wants to remain narrow, wants to remain eccentrically oriented. As far as interference goes, we want to eliminate all this bilateral hip extension kind of stuff because again ER is way out there; we want to restore it here in the middle. So this means that those of you who are just fond of your hip thrust because you want glute development, let's get off of that train right now. No low cable pull-throughs and then your reverse hypers are also going to be off the table under those circumstances. So from an exercise standpoint we want to reorient the pelvis. And we're gonna stick with unilateral activities. And so you know how I love my cross-connects. And so we're gonna use a cross-connect, but I want you to pay attention to something very, very important here. And this is gonna be your foot contacts. And so if we're doing a supine cross-connect, we wanna make sure that we're capturing the foot position on the wall. This is first met head on the ground. So to speak, the ground is now the wall. And we got that medial heel contact. We wanna maintain that throughout, because this is where we're starting to initiate internal rotation from an externally rotated position. And this is what we have to recapture when we're talking about reorienting the pelvis. And then we want to move to something that's a little bit more hip flexion. So we can move into a hook lying situation. We still want to induce some internal rotation. So we're going to put something between your knees to hang on to that internal rotation, but from a position of external rotation first.

Once we can capture 90 degrees of hip flexion, we have many options. We can start rolling activities and teach you how to roll into the affected side, driving propulsive strategies on the opposing side. Regarding gym activities, we can use a box squat with a touch-and-go approach. Remember, we have an eccentrically oriented pelvic diaphragm that we want to concentrically orient. If we unload on the box, we risk eccentric orientation and unwanted yielding action. Having 90 degrees of hip flexion allows us to turn into the side, capturing true external rotation. This is where the Jefferson split squat becomes useful: we start from an externally rotated position and hold that external rotation as we superimpose the normal internal rotation. We could also use split stance activities with an ipsilateral cable load. For example, with a left foot forward split squat, holding the cable in the left hand keeps the left side back while moving from an externally rotated to an internally rotated position. Additionally, 3D straps can be used to promote the desired external rotation orientation and teach resistance against internal rotation.

We do have 90 degrees available to us so we can do all sorts of cool things. We're going to start in a staggered chopping action. We want to reduce the effects of gravity, but we also want to start to be able to turn the spine towards the affected side. And so in the staggered stance, we're not compressing that hip, and we can start to encourage the turn of the sacrum, turn of the spine in that direction. This is where we're going to start to use our Camperini deadlift because again, we do have 90 degrees available to us. We want to turn the spine. So I'm going to put a contralateral load on my Camperini deadlift towards the heel's elevated side, and again, to turn the spine and the sacrum. If I want to go into a split squat activity, I can do that as well, but I'm going to elevate the front heel under these circumstances. So again, I want to maintain that yield as I move into that 90 degrees. If I need to promote more expansion, more yielding action, I can start to move you into a propulsive activity as well. Ultimately, what I want to be able to do is to recapture an eccentrically oriented pelvic outlet in deep hip flexion. So my ultimate resolution here is going to be a heels elevated deep squat with a band around the knees but this is not pushing out into the band this is maintaining an orientation of the femur so I can get the pelvis to move around the femur and this is going to help me capture that eccentric orientation of the outlet in the bottom of the deep squat and so basically we're at the top of the squat we're going to take an inhale we're going to exhale to mid-range where we would typically have the concentric orientation and then I'm going to re-inhale to eccentric orientation of the pelvic diaphragm as I sit down into that deep squat.

So this is our typical right oblique and what we're going to see is we're going to see the impingement on this side. And so this is the inability to acquire a late propulsive strategy on that affected side. So from an interference standpoint we want to avoid the bilateral symmetrical activities for a while, because what we have to do under these circumstances is take that right side and push back into the left to overcome the oblique axis. So we can start in left sideline with a right propulsive type of an activity. In this case if we go into the gym we're going to use our Camp Rainy deadlift again with the heel elevated, but this time we're going to put in Ipsilateral load on that heel elevated side because what we want to do is we want to hold that back and push with the right foot. And that load's going to emphasize that right push. So again, we're turning back against the oblique. We can do a right foot forward, front foot elevated, right side loaded, split squat. So this is about driving that late propulsive strategy on the right side all day every day. Right suitcase carry is going to get us there. Go back to the video that we did about the suitcase carrying was a week or so ago and you'll see that we were talking about increasing max p on the opposing side but we're going to take advantage of the ipsilateral side under these circumstances where we would normally use like a cable chopping activity in the early phases of trying to recapture the turn of the spine under these circumstances I'm going to use a cable lift because I'm trying to drive that right propulsive strategy and it's much easier to do a cable lift under these circumstances and still capture the turn into the opposite side. A little bit of a finish, kind of conditioning thing. Your right to left sled drag is going to be a nice way to finish because again we're just emphasizing that right propulsive strategy. So Chris, I hope that is helpful for you and for the rest of you. Remember the shoulders and the hips aren't very much the same, so don't treat them any differently. Very, very useful in regards to your confirmations and checks and balances in regards to range of motion. So use them accordingly.

There's a lot of back and forth, which has been really good. I've enjoyed these calls tremendously. We go long on these calls because they are so much fun. So please join us for that. Today, I want to talk about dorsal rostral expansion because I've received a couple questions through Q&A, have had a couple clients dealing with issues, and it seems that people have difficulty sensing whether they are accomplishing this task or not. Let's talk about measures that will support whether we are reacquiring dorsal rostral expansion. This will be your traditional measures of external rotation at 90 degrees of shoulder abduction. When you lose that measure, it is clear that you have dorsal rostral compression issues preventing you from capturing the shoulder position to allow external rotation to occur. You are also likely to lose horizontal abduction under these circumstances, so monitor those first and foremost. Number two, you must eliminate interference. So, eliminate anything that gets in the way of your goals. The interference includes bilateral symmetrical rowing, chin-ups, and pull-downs with an extreme arch; supine pressing, like bench pressing, with scapulae approximated; and bilateral face pulls. None of these exercises are inherently bad, but when trying to reacquire dorsal rostral expansion, they are interference. Lateral activities can create reciprocal turning, which can be a benefit under certain circumstances, but in many cases, these exercises are great for powerlifting and bodybuilding because they increase the compressive strategy that allows you to increase force production in your bench press, which is great. They flatten you out, making you wider, which bodybuilders love, but you will sacrifice something in the process in most cases. Other activities that cause interference include the traditional I's, Y's, and T's that everybody thinks they need for shoulder health. Some people benefit from these, but many don't. All you have to do is remember the Terry project from a long time ago. Terry was a client who had been doing a program that included I's, Y's, and T's as a foundation, trying to improve his posture, and ended up getting a double whammy: working really hard with no return on investment and actually going in the wrong direction. Please keep that in mind.

But before I do that, go to the ITNY video on YouTube. Make sure you watch that. And then we're going to look at a clip on feeling dorsal rostral expansion. So you understand what that actually feels like. And I'm going to show you two of my favorite exercises for expanding the dorsal rostral area. One is a seated version, which is great for people that have wide infrastructural angles, concentrically oriented pelvic outlets. And then the standing version, which is the better band pull apart video, which I just love that exercise for a lot of people. So hopefully that is helpful for you guys today. Have a great Wednesday. And then we will see you tomorrow morning on the Eat Coffee and Coaches Conference call. So I got a question from Ryan and Ryan says, I'm wondering what dorsal rostral expansion should feel like. I think I know how to do it and I believe I can see it during certain exercises, although I'm not sure how it should feel. Any explanation would be helpful. Ryan this is a really good question because I think that it's a lot easier for us to visualize this on someone else than it is to feel it ourselves. So let's go through a couple of potential strategies that might be helpful. So Ryan one of the simplest things that you can do is actually just anchor the upper extremity and then try to create the dorsal rostral expansion. So one of the easiest ways to do this is to keep us through this inhalation strategy in the early phases of flexion. So all I really need to do is turn towards my table and I'm going to anchor my hands on the table so I'm not leaning on them because that could potentially create a compressive strategy posteriorly but I do want to have have physical contact with the table. I'm also going to emphasize the pisiform side of the heel of my hand, so the pinky side of my hand, because that's going to help me promote posterior expansion of the dorsal rostral area. So as I anchor my hands on the table, that's my primary point of contact. I'm going to extend the arms, and I'm going to try to create as much space between my scapula is possible. Now, a lot of folks under these circumstances have a tendency to want to try to elevate the scaps. So the easiest cue that I get folks is go ahead and shrug up as hard as you can, but then unshrug and that's the position that I want you to push from. And so now all I want to do is create distance away from the table. So while I don't want to lean on the table, I'm going to push myself away from the table and that's going to create a stretching sensation between my scapula. Then if I take my inhalation from there, And I breathe in, I start to feel an increase in that stretching sensation. And that's your dorsal rostral area expanding. Ryan, I'd also refer you to the dorsal rostral expansion exercise in sitting that is already up on YouTube. Ryan, if you're still having trouble feeling dorsal rostral expansion, here's a little tweak that we can give to a similar position that we use with hands on the table. But what I want you to do is you're going to make fists. You're going to crisscross your fists and put the pinky side of your hands together. Drop it down between your knees. I'm going to turn sideways so you can see this. I'm going to gain myself a little bit of squeeze with my knees, nothing too strong. And then I'm going to try to move away from my hands. And again, making sure I have the unshrugged position and I'm going to pull away. And again, what you're going to feel is a little bit more dorsal rostral expansion under those circumstances by that stretch between the scapula. And then once again, I would hit a comfortable inhalation. So you can feel that area expand. I would avoid an aggressive inhalation as this might cause a compensatory breathing strategy where you would try to expand anterior livers versus posteriorly. So again, the general inhalation under those circumstances, fist crossed, arms long, and try to create that space between the scapula. See how that works for you, Ryan. If it doesn't, let me know and we'll figure something else out. So I got a question from Mike and Mike asked, what's the best strategy for one to achieve dorsal rostral expansion without creating a bunch of forward bending of the spine? So this is a really common problem because a lot of people can't differentiate between expanding that dorsal rostral area between the scapula and bending the spine forward. So I'm just going to show you a little activity that's very easy to execute. and it will give you a very true sensation of dorsal rosso expansion. You're going to need a little bit of a band tension and you're going to need a surface to rest your elbows on. That's what I'm going to do is I'm just going to support my elbows on the surface. I'm going to make sure that I'm not reaching above 60 degrees, but I want the elbows in front of the body. Now I'm going to imagine somebody pulling down on my back pockets a little bit and so that's going to bring me back towards the posterior or the back side of my sit bones or your tuberosities. And then what I'm going to do is I'm just going to use the surface to expand posteriorly between the shoulder blades and then push my hands apart. So I'm supineating and externally rotating without moving my elbows. So I'm trying to get my hands a little bit wider than my elbows. Now if I take a breath in here, I get pure dorsal rostral expansion. So that gives me the sensation. Now I can take that sensation and just carry it over to any other activity where I'm also trying to achieve that dorsal rostral expansion. So give that a try. If you're doing some kind of band pull apart activity, thinking that you can alleviate your shoulder pain with bench pressing, you might want to think again. The band pull apart actually compresses the space between the shoulder blades that steals the range of motion in your shoulder that might be causing the pain in the first place. Instead, try this. Take a short band around your wrist like so. Put your forearms against the wall, keep your elbows below shoulder level. Take a little baby squat, tuck your hips under, push back to expand the space between your shoulder blades, and then pull your hands apart. You're gonna feel a little bit of burn on the back of the shoulder, but you're also gonna get that expansion in the upper back that's gonna restore the shoulder range of motion that bench press is stealing. Good morning. Happy Thursday. I have neuro coffee in hand and It is perfect, as usual.

And I breathe in, I start to feel an increase in that stretching sensation. And that's your dorsal rostral area expanding. Ryan, I'd also refer you to the dorsal rostral expansion exercise in sitting that is already up on YouTube. Ryan, if you're still having trouble feeling dorsal rostral expansion, here's a little tweak that we can give to a similar position that we use with hands on the table. But what I want you to do is you're going to make fists. You're going to crisscross your fists and put the pinky side of your hands together. Drop it down between your knees. I'm going to turn sideways so you can see this. I'm going to gain myself a little bit of squeeze with my knees, nothing too strong. And then I'm going to try to move away from my hands. And again, making sure I have the unshrugged position and I'm going to pull away. And again, what you're going to feel is a little bit more dorsal rostral expansion under those circumstances by that stretch between the scapula. And then once again, I would hit a comfortable inhalation. So you can feel that area expand. I would avoid an aggressive inhalation as this might cause a compensatory breathing strategy where you would try to expand anterior livers versus posteriorly. So again, the general inhalation under those circumstances, fist crossed, arms long, and try to create that space between the scapula.

Now if I take a breath in here, I get pure dorsal rostral expansion. So that gives me the sensation. Now I can take that sensation and just carry it over to any other activity where I'm also trying to achieve that dorsal rostral expansion. So give that a try. If you're doing some kind of band pull apart activity thinking that you can alleviate your shoulder pain with bench pressing, you might want to think again. The band pull apart actually compresses the space between the shoulder blades that steals the range of motion in your shoulder that might be causing the pain in the first place. Instead, try this. Take a short band around your wrist like so. Put your forearms against the wall, keep your elbows below shoulder level. Take a little baby squat, tuck your hips under, push back to expand the space between your shoulder blades, and then pull your hands apart. You're gonna feel a little bit of burn on the back of the shoulder, but you're also gonna get that expansion in the upper back that's gonna restore the shoulder range of motion that bench press is stealing.

I got a question, Bill. What was your philosophy when you first started and how has it changed these days?

I got an answer.

What was your philosophy when you first started and how has it changed these days?

Oh, Nikki, you don't want to go there.

Why? Let's do it.

Do you know how old I am? Yes. Do you know how many evolutions that I've been through? Let's hear it. It was horrible. It was miserable. I was an idiot. I would not send my worst enemy to Bill Hartman in year one. I don't think about that stuff too much, to be honest with you, Nikki, because I don't like where I was when I started. It was kind of embarrassing. But I don't know. It's just been an evolution. The last 10 years have been really, really good. I've just been able to ask better questions because I've had enough reps and horrible, miserable failures. I think I was young when I came out of school, so the concept of failure was something that I was afraid of. Now it's just another part of the puzzle. So if you want to go to the endgame philosophy, that's probably the biggest thing: I'm not afraid to fail anymore. I did not have a philosophy when I came out of school. I was lost, I was a puppy, I had an oatmeal for a brain.

That brings me to my next question.

Okay, it's the Nicki show, go ahead.

Somebody has to have a show today. Go ahead. You mentioned that you felt lost after a thing. Have you ever felt lost during your career path and what helped you find your spot or your place in your career where you didn't feel lost anymore?

So I quit for a year. Actually, I quit for a year and did something else because I thought it was going to be a big thing, and it turned out to be absolutely nothing. Coming back from that was important for me to do. I recognized the fact that there are only a few things I'm good at. I always tell people to emphasize your strengths because your weaknesses will always be weaknesses. That year was a discovery period where I found out I was really good at the other thing and that's where I should spend my time. That's where my drive started to come from. Again, my curiosity was exceptionally high coming back from that year. I started asking a lot of questions and looking for answers. Then there was this thing called the internet, which was gaining popularity and provided me with more information. In the old days, we had to read books and go to libraries to get journals and articles. We used a card to make photocopies instead of downloading PDFs in seconds. I would spend hours on weekends at a medical school library downtown, downloading articles. It was a moment of recognition—I just needed to stick with what I'm good at and develop that as hard as I possibly can. I had a couple of people who gave me guidance early on from PT school, and I got to work with one of my mentors for a couple of years.

Yeah. Do you think it's normal to feel lost at some point in your career?

I don't know. I think it's going to be an individual thing. I think some people are just really, really self-aware. And that's one of the greatest superpowers. And some of us find it early. I'm a late bloomer. I'm going to be 55 in May. So I'm a really late bloomer as far as I'm concerned. I think that if I would have had the opportunity to be exposed to the amount of information that is available now, I think it would be probably a different evolution. But I'm really happy about the way it turned out because I'm like ridiculously happy where I am in life in general. Like it took me forever to get here, but I'm really happy to be here. And so again, I think you just kind of, everybody finds their own way, but feeling lost is not something to worry about as long as you remain curious. And as long as you continue to ask questions and as long as you continue to seek more information and not just information, but to gain the experience that goes with it.

I have one more deeper question on the Bill Hartman show this morning. So on that note and kind of on the tail end of all of those, what do you think that personally, like inside of you—not outside of your environment or not necessary to learning—but you personally on the inside made you successful or made you who you are now? Like, I know that like, I think like you, like you put out some of the answers, but what do you think that's like the three like most successful traits in you? Well, number one: I don't know that I'm successful, okay? I'm happy, which is more important. Having a curiosity about what you do is one of the most powerful things because it drives you to continue to progress, right? I still have questions. I still look for answers, right? And so I think that that's probably number one. Like the minute you stop being curious, you don't ask questions anymore. And then you make an assumption that you know enough. And then there's no growth. And one of my greatest fears is that I'm actually an old man sitting in a nursing home sitting in a wheelchair and all this is being imagined, right? Because that's where I don't want to be. I always want to be invested and excited about what I do. And so I think the curiosity is the number one thing because it does continue to push you like when you're tired, but you still have to answer that one question because it's just burning up inside of you to have an answer. And so, I don't know if I would have a top three to be honest with you because I just think that the curiosity drives the excitement. The excitement drives the motivation. And then the discovery is the reward. So, you know, it's just people like to talk about, like they know something about the brain and they say, oh, it's your dopamine reward system. It's like, okay, so let's just say that that is what's going on. It's like, every time you discover something new or something of value or something that kind of makes sense, and you do get that excitement, you know, like, you know, getting the perfect red velvet cake with the extra buttercream icing on it, you know, what I'm talking about, you know, and then you put your favorite caramel flavored ice cream on top of it. Does everybody do that? Or is it just me? So it's that moment where it's just like, this is perfect and you feel that and then you get driven again. But without the curiosity, I don't think there's a cascade like that. And so if you're not curious about this and then you're not going to do well because the struggle is therefore a reason to keep the challenge in front of you, which is really, really important. But if you're not curious and then you struggle, now you hate yourself and you hate every moment and you can't live like that.

Can we just talk about infrastructural angles and stuff?

So on that note and kind of on the tail end of all of those, what do you think that, personally, like inside of you—not outside of your environment or not necessary to learning—but you personally, on the inside, made you successful or made you who you are now? Like, I know that you like you put out some of the answers, but what do you think that's like the three most successful traits in you? Like, is it? Yeah.

Well, number one, I don't know that I'm successful. I'm happy, which is more important. Having a curiosity about what you do is one of the most powerful things because it drives you to continue to progress. I still have questions. I still look for answers. I think that's probably number one. The minute you stop being curious, you don't ask questions anymore, and then you make an assumption that you know enough. And then there's no growth. One of my greatest fears is that I'm actually an old man sitting in a nursing home in a wheelchair and all this is being imagined because that's where I don't want to be. I always want to be invested and excited about what I do. So I think the curiosity is the number one thing because it does continue to push you like when you're tired, but you still have to answer that one question because it's just burning up inside of you to have an answer. I don't know if I would have a top three to be honest with you because I just think that the curiosity drives the excitement. The excitement drives the motivation. And then the discovery is the reward. So people like to talk about, like they know something about the brain and they say, oh, it's your dopamine reward system. Let's just say that that is what's going on. Every time you discover something new or something of value or something that kind of makes sense, and you do get that excitement, like getting that perfect red velvet cake with the extra buttercream icing on it and then you put your favorite caramel flavored ice cream on top of it. Does everybody do that? Or is it just me? So it's that moment where it's just like this is perfect and you feel that and then you get driven again. But without the curiosity, I don't think there's a cascade like that. If you're not curious about this and then you're not going to do well because the struggle is therefore a reason to keep the challenge in front of you, which is really, really important. But if you're not curious and then you struggle, now you hate yourself and you hate every moment and you can't live like that.

It felt like two minutes. Really, really good questions. Tough questions, actually, and kind of philosophical, but got a lot of great feedback on that, so I hope you can join us next Thursday, 6 a.m. for the Coffee and Coaches Conference call. Now, let's dig into today's Q&A. It's gonna allow us to examine some of our expansion to compression to expansion concepts, and we're gonna do it under the guise of a golf swing. This is a two-parter question. And like I said, we'll review some extra rotation and introvertation concepts. We'll look at the swing. And then we're gonna look at some of the negative secondary consequences of when we don't have this representation of expansion to compression. Because I think a lot of things show up clinically when people either lose their capabilities or they train away some capabilities. So, let's go to Johnny's question. Johnny says, hey Bill, hey Johnny, is hip abduction? And he puts it in quotes. Johnny's really smart. At 90 degrees of traditional hip flexion. Once again, I like the traditional. hip flexion considered ERI. Okay, so is this movement away from midline, interrotation or extra rotation? So let's grab the pelvis and let's take a look at this thing. So when we look at where we are at 90 degrees, so theoretically, if everything's all fine and wonderful, we're going to be starting from this position of interrotation. But we have to consider when we have movement away from midline, when we want to decide what's happening here at the hip, we have to consider the relationship between the femur, the inominate bone, the sacrum, and the lumbar spine because all of them are going to contribute to the position and the movement and so under whatever circumstances this may be occurring I can have a different outcome. So if I start from this position which we would say is traditional hip flexion at 90 degrees degrees, and I'm going to move away. If I have an inominant that is biased towards inhalation, as this moves away from midline, I'm going to see more of an external rotation. But visually, obviously, it's going to move in this straight line, if you will. But the reality is that I'm producing a rotation here at the hip joint. If I am biased towards an inhalation strategy at the pelvis, then what I'm going to see is I'm going to see it turn this way as it moves away from midline, and now I've produced an internal rotation. So, Jami, I think that when you're trying to determine which one it is, you're going to have to look at the context in which it's being applied. And so if I was in a split squat and I see someone to need deviate outward under most circumstances, you're going to show me that's going to be biased towards inhalation. That's going to be an ER kind of a situation. Sometimes as you see people move through that 90 degrees in a deep squat for them to actually achieve the deep squat. What they're doing is they're moving that hip into internal rotation, even as the knees are deviating away from midline. So again, I think you need to pay attention to those relationships.

So what does the internal rotation representation of the pelvis look like? And how might you go about acquiring this? And he asks because he wants to relate it to the golf swing. Because we've talked about this before, where I mentioned that the two ends of the golf swing are external rotation, which I think is confusing to a lot of people. Because I think that the representation has always been that it is an IR position. One of the things that we always need to understand is that we have superimposition of internal and external rotations. It's not an either or. So dead guy anatomy has given us this imaginary zero point that's straight up, and so anything out here is ER, anything in here is IR, and the reality is that we have this expansive field of ER, and we superimpose internal rotation on top of that. if we take away the external rotation field. So if I squeeze this external rotation field inward, then that creates a limitation on my internal rotation capabilities. And this is where we're gonna see compensatory strategies evolve. And we'll get to that kind of at the end of this talk where we talk about some of the substitutions that we may see for this loss of range of motion. But we wanna go back and look at how our external rotation represents our expansive strategy and we move towards internal rotation. This is where we have that maximal compressive capability and this is where our highest force is produced at this point of maximal compression. Our expansion is where we demonstrate movement and velocity. So let's not confuse the two because we move into these positions of internal rotation and that's where time stops. That's where we squeeze. That's where we compress and that's where we produce our highest forces. Now, what does this ER look like in the pelvis? Because, Johnny, I want to talk about the ER position so we can move you towards the IR position so you get that representation as well. Now, what I would refer you to, we talked about early and late propulsive strategies in a recent video. I think it was back in December. I'll post the little thingy here that you can click on. on YouTube, so we're going to look at this early propulsive strategy. I'm going to talk about the right hip. If I was a right-handed golfer, this would be my backside hip, so my back swing is going to go to the right. What we're going to see, Johnny, is we're going to see this sacrum moving back on the ilium because I've got to turn the sacrum towards the right side. I've got to turn the lumbar spine towards the right side. Lumbar spine can't turn in that direction if I'm internally rotated on this side. So I have to have this representation of external rotation. Now, does that mean that there's no internal rotation? Absolutely not. Because I have to create this and then I can actually turn into this hip. And so again, I'm starting to superimpose internal rotation on top of my field of external rotation that is created by my early propulsive representation of the pelvis. So, let me reach over here. Give me one second. I gotta grab my foot. So now, if we talk about foot position, and you'll see this on just about every golfer, but when I see my foot position, I got this early propulsive representation of the foot. that's gonna look like that as they move into their backswing. But I wanna make sure that I hang onto this first metatarsal head because if I pick that up off the ground, I am in a compensatory strategy. And so you'll see this in people that do not have their full field of external rotation. They try to internally rotate on top of it and they don't have enough rotational capabilities. So they end up picking up their big toe off the ground and they can still turn, but it becomes an orientation. And if I can recapture the first metatarsal head as I perform my downswing, a lot of good things can still happen. But if I don't do that, then I'm all over the place. I'm going to hit that. I'm going to hit thin. Who knows what the clubface is going to do actually under those circumstances. And so if you're spraying the ball over the place, I would start looking at your right foot position. If we look at the thorax, we're going to have the same concept that we have in the pelvis. So where I was creating that yielding action in that early propulsive representation, I'm going to have a thorax that looks like basically the same shape. I'm going to create a delay. in that right side of the thorax. I'm going to have an expansive strategy in the right side of the thorax, and that's what's going to allow me to turn. So turning is both sides moving forward at the same time. It's just that one side is moving faster than the other, and that's what produces the turn. So I have the delay on the right, I have overcoming on the left, and that's what produces my turn into my back swing. Now, Johnny, your question about the internal rotation representation. So if I am moving from my expanded inhalation, ER strategy, early propulsive representation in the backswing, I need to get to IR. So that's going to turn the sacrum straight ahead.