Good morning. Happy Monday. I have NeuroCoffee in hand and it is perfect. All right. Looking forward to a very busy Monday. First things, IFast University members, we have a Q&A today at 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. So please join us for that. If you're not signed up for IFast University, you can go to ifastuniversity.com, get yourself signed up and join us today at 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Okay, digging into this Q&A. This is with Ian. Ian's been thinking about the toe touch a lot. He's been seeing some things, not really sure what he's looking at. One of the things about the toe touch that we want to recognize is very much like our squatting behaviors. We have periods where we have an early propulsive representation. We have a middle propulsive representation. We have a late propulsive representation in each segment of the toe touch. And so we're going to have compensatory strategies that are going to become apparent in situations where someone cannot access those spaces. There will always be ER, there will always be IR. It's just how they're going to be demonstrated. And if we can understand the compensatory strategies, then we can identify where these limitations are. Don't have to throw people on the table. Don't have to do measurements as such. We can execute in the gym based on needs and based on our intentions. So thank you, Ian, for this question. If you'd like to participate in a 15-minute consultation, please go to AskBillHartman at gmail.com. AskBillHartman at gmail.com. Put 15-minute consultation in the subject line. Don't forget to include your question in the email please. We'll arrange that at our mutual convenience. Everybody have an outstanding Monday and I'll see you tomorrow.

Hi Bill. Greetings. I was looking at your video on toe touch on IFast, which really blew my mind, like, just thinking about it now for a week straight and trying to figure it out. I was thinking about when someone's bending their knees in a squat versus just getting that posterior weight shift.

You get some comic books or something to read because that's a long time to be thinking about it.

I was thinking about when someone is bending their knees in a squat versus just getting that posterior weight shift. I cannot visualize what's happening, but I can tell what I'm thinking. I think when they bend their knees, I know they cannot keep the distal hamstring concentric to superimpose IR on top of ER. Would that be it? And with the posterior shift, I see that the same – like they cannot go into IR representation of their femurs and feet. So they would go back to get into late representation, which will be more negative TBI angle and late representation of the foot.

Yes.

I cannot visualize what's happening, but I can tell what I'm thinking. When they bend their knees, I know they cannot keep the distal hamstring concentric to superimpose IR on top of ER. With the posterior shift, I see that the same—they cannot go into IR representation of their femurs and feet. So they would go back to get into late representation, which will be more negative TBI angle and late representation of the foot.

So yeah you gotta be careful because again the foot representation is going to help you, you're on the right track, you're absolutely on the right track. Okay so the knee bend is going to be an IR substitution, right? For sure yeah right. So think about to move downward: okay, they're taking their axial skeleton, they're bending forward. To move downward, they have to have a space to move into.

Yeah.

Okay. What if there's no space? Have you ever seen somebody try to do a toe touch and they get to their hands just below their knees and then they stop?

Yeah.

Why do they stop?

Because they are already into IR.

So like literally all the space just closed up around them and there's no place to go. They have no other strategies available to them so they have to stop. So that's how like if you're testing a shoulder joint and you go to the end of the range of motion, the reason the joint stops moving is because there is no more space to move into. Like literally you've just compressed all the space around that joint and the joint stops.

Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah.

But if I can create a strategy that creates a space. So what strategies create spaces? ERs or IRs?

ERs.

Boom. Okay. So I shift my pelvis way back behind my heels. I am pushing space out of the way to make room for me. Right? Yeah. Okay. All right. So there's my ER. Okay. What representation of the pelvis would I expect to see?

Counter-mutation, but I'm just- Yeah. Okay.

Am I making space?

Oh yeah. It's counter-mutation, but I'm just- Yeah. Okay.

So what happens to the foot at the ground? Yes. There you go. Okay. So I just made space. And now I can drop down. So I move all the space back because if I went straight down, I wouldn't be able to go. So I push space backwards and now I can drop down right into what would be a middle representation. Now I have to hold the R representation to get there. And then I take my compressed sacrum and I bend it forward.

All right, so I basically do this so I can drop my weight in the middle of my basic support.

And they kind of look like a jackknife, you know what I'm talking about? When they're tucking their toes?

Yeah, yeah. And those people who usually just come below their knees and stop, if I think about it now, those are the people that have zero posterior weight shift. I usually see that and it makes sense now.

Well, okay. So think about it. If I can't create the delay strategy of the pelvis as I'm bending forward, if I can't create the delay, the bottom of a toe touch is early because I need a strategy at the bottom for me to touch my toes. If I can't create a delay strategy of any kind, that means I can't create the posterior expansion and I try to bend forward. What would happen if I try to go forward?

Yeah.

Because I need a strategy at the bottom for me to touch my toes. Okay. If I can't create a delay strategy of any kind. That means I can't create the posterior expansion and I try to bend forward. What would happen if I try to go forward?

I would fall on, I would break my nose.

Right. I would bend forward and I would break my nose. I'd be on my face. That's why people stop.

Okay.