So this question is all in the rest. Well, sort of. Good morning. Happy Monday. I have narrow coffee in hand and it is perfect. Man, had a really good weekend. Looking forward to a solid week. Let's go ahead and just dive straight into the Q and A. This one comes from the Brain Physio, kind of an odd name, but we'll go with it. So the Brain Physio says, hi Bill, hi Brain Physio. Any chance you could speak about why some people get an on the styloid process sticking out when the form is in pronation? It seems like the carpals are supinated in relation to the radius. How would you relate this to your model best regards? on the sideline, okay, prominence there and brain physio, I think you are absolutely on point. I think what you are looking at is you're looking at, if we could just say a hand that is supinated relative to the distal form, so primarily the radius where we've got that relationship. And so what we want to recognize is how do we know what we're really looking at? Because this is going to be an issue. If we can't identify the orientation, we're not going to know what we need to do to restore best movement options. And so what we want to recognize is that when we're talking about the internal rotation of the system, so we've got forum pronation. The hand actually pronates as well. And traditionally speaking, if we look at the ranges of motion of the wrist, wrist extension and ulnar deviation would be associated with that internal rotation. And so if we are looking at a hand that is supinated relatively to the distal forearm, then what we're going to have is a reduction in that internal rotation. So this is kind of like having an early propulsive foot in the in the hand because what what we would lack in the foot we would lack dorsiflection and and some of that eversion that we would typically see during during that maximum uh pronation moment during middle propulsion and so we've got somebody that can't get to middle propulsion basically through the upper extremity. Now, how can we confirm this? Well, so I came up with a little test called the Apple test and it has nothing to do with the fruit. It has everything to do with abductor policies longest. So APL, Apple test. And so the Apple test is basically executed as such. So pay attention. So we do the Boy Scout sign. So we oppose the thumb and the pinky. We're going to extend the rest and then we're going to maximally on our deviate. Now, As I break opposition, if I can pick up more extension and only deviation, then I know I've got a concentrically oriented APL. And so that would be indicative of a hand that is actually supinated relative to the rest. Now, if it was a negative test, what would happen is I would have already maxed out my extension and my own deviation. There would be no change when I break the opposition. So then you know you've got a hand that is actually capable of pronation. And so there is the difference. So that Apple test is going to be very, very useful for you to confirm your suspicions that you've got a hand that's supinated relative to the form. Now, if we can understand this, then we understand that the solutions are gonna be really, really fun because this is where we actually get to use arm training exercises, traditional arm training exercises that people do for whatever biceps and triceps and the brachialis and brachioradialis, et cetera. So go back to 1985, pick up Reflex Magazine and look at the latest arm training article. And what you'll see is a lot of solutions for your shoulder, elbow, and wrist problems. So what we want to understand though is when we're looking for these solutions is that the shoulder is pretty easy to identify. Our traditional shoulder ER and iron measures are very, very useful in this circumstance to know where our starting position is in regards to the thorax and the shoulder girdle. Elbow position can get a little hairy because the long bones can actually twist and that creates some ER and IR differences proximal and distal. The thing I want you to keep in mind here, brain physio, is that when we're talking about end range elbow flexion, so that is an ER in position, so that's your inhaled position, so I need dorsal rostrum expansion, I need ER at the shoulder, and I need supination at the forearm at the wrist to get that full end range elbow flexion. For elbow extension, it's the opposing strategies. Obviously, it's going to be an up pump handle. It's going to be internal rotation. It's going to be maximum pronation through the forearm and through the hand. Again, you get to pick your arm exercises. You just have to be able to identify where you are in space. Using your confirming test at the wrist is going to help you identify the wrist. If you know where the shoulder is, the elbow can be the resolution of those two. Now if you see something that looks like elbow hyperextension, don't make the assumption that you've got an appropriate orientation and this is just an exaggeration. What you actually do have here is a twist. So you actually have supination at the proximal elbow that is creating this scenario. So under these circumstances, you're going to have to use some form of elbow extension activity in pronation to resolve it so it's going to look like that. So keep that in mind when you're looking at the elbow orientation relative to the wrist. You can still use your confirming apple test to identify whether you've got a hand that can pronate or whether it's supinated. And then you make your solutions from there. So Brayden Fiscio, I hope that answers your question. If it doesn't, please go to askbillharmonetgmail.com, askbillharmonetgmail.com, and I will see you guys tomorrow.

Now, if it was a negative test, what would happen is I would have already maxed out my extension and my ulnar deviation. There would be no change when I break the opposition. So then you know you've got a hand that is actually capable of pronation. And so there is the difference. So that Apple test is going to be very, very useful for you to confirm your suspicions that you've got a hand that's supinated relative to the forearm. Now, if we can understand this, then we understand that the solutions are going to be really, really fun because this is where we actually get to use arm training exercises, traditional arm training exercises that people do for whatever biceps and triceps and the brachialis and brachioradialis, et cetera. So go back to 1985, pick up Flex Magazine and look at the latest arm training article. And what you'll see is a lot of solutions for your shoulder, elbow, and wrist problems. So what we want to understand though is when we're looking for these solutions is that the shoulder is pretty easy to identify. Our traditional shoulder ER and IR measures are very, very useful in this circumstance to know where our starting position is in regards to the thorax and the shoulder girdle. Elbow position can get a little hairy because the long bones can actually twist and that creates some ER and IR differences proximal and distal. The thing I want you to keep in mind here, brain physio, is that when we're talking about end range elbow flexion, so that is an ER position, so that's your inhalation position, so I need dorsal rib cage expansion, I need ER at the shoulder, and I need supination at the forearm at the wrist to get that full end range elbow flexion. For elbow extension, it's the opposing strategies. Obviously, it's going to be an up pump handle. It's going to be internal rotation. It's going to be maximum pronation through the forearm and through the hand. Again, you get to pick your arm exercises. You just have to be able to identify where you are in space. Using your confirming test at the wrist is going to help you identify the wrist. If you know where the shoulder is, the elbow can be the resolution of those two. Now if you see something that looks like elbow hyperextension, don't make the assumption that you've got an appropriate orientation and this is just an exaggeration. What you actually do have here is a twist. So you actually have supination at the proximal elbow that is creating this scenario. So under these circumstances, you're going to have to use some form of elbow extension activity in pronation to resolve it so it's going to look something like that. So keep that in mind when you're looking at the elbow orientation relative to the wrist.

You can still use your confirming apple test to identify whether you've got a hand that can pronate or whether it's supinated. And then you make your solutions from there. So Brayden Fiscio, I hope that answers your question. If it doesn't, please go to askbillharmonetgmail.com, askbillharmonetgmail.com, and I will see you guys tomorrow. Good morning. Happy Tuesday. I have neuro coffee in hand and it is perfect. I'm in a great mood. I got to talk to somebody yesterday that I haven't talked to in what seems like forever. Picked up right where we left off. It was a great conversation. So I'm thrilled. You know who you are. I was thrilled to see you. And I'm looking forward to the next call. We are going to make sure that we follow up. So if you've got a friend that you haven't talked to in a while and that you miss and you just haven't talked to them, go ahead and give them a call. Man, that was fun. Anyway. Let's dig into Tuesday's Q&A. We've got to get rolling here. This one comes from Brian and Brian says, would one always want to try to buy us more mid four foot and big toe loading versus outer heel loading during the entire range of motion during a split squat if the goal is to promote improved hip and pelvic external rotation. And then he follows up with a second. we always want to use an Ipsilaro load as well to achieve the same goal. So Brian, this is a really good question because we're going to be talking about biases, which you know that I am. I'm a big fan of, but let's go through some of the foot mechanics stuff just as a quickie review. and then we'll kind of show why we probably want to combo up with a little bit different strategy than what you're offering, okay? So if we look at the foot, okay, remember we got our three rockers as is commonly described. So we've got a heel rocker and that gets us from ground contact to this early position. We've got ankle rocker which takes us from this ER position to IR position so the arch comes down and then we've got a late propulsive strategy which is the toe rocker which brings us back to this ER position okay so we go ER IR ER as is commonly found in almost every motion that that we talk about What you brought up was queuing lateral heel contact throughout the split squat. I understand where you're going with this, but there's a couple things that we have to understand about these split mechanics as we come into this early propulsive strategy. We've got tibial ER, we've got traditionally a supinated foot, so we've got ER through the system. We've got first and fifth met heads down. We've got a calcaneus on the ground in this early position. One of the things we want to understand is that the deep posterior compartment of the calf, so the Tom Dick and Harry, so we've got tibialis posterior, we've got flexor houses longest, and then we've got flexor digitorum longest. Posteriorly comes down around the medial ankle, so that muscle, that group of muscles is going to be concentrically oriented, but it's also going to be using an overcoming strategy at heel contact, but then this becomes a yielding strategy as the foot comes down to the ground. The reason we want a yielding strategy is because we want to distribute load through the tissue. So we have to create a yielding strategy so we have energy storage for the energy release. And so the yielding strategy is going to be through the bone, through the connective tissues, and through the musculature itself, where the connective tissues lie. And if we don't have that, then something's going to have to sort of take up the slack. So if I cue lateral heel throughout, what I'm going to do is I'm going to promote a strategy that maintains a concentric overcoming action throughout the excursion of the exercise. Maybe there's a circumstance that you might want that, but under most circumstances we don't want that. So here's where that shows up in the real world. When you get your runner that comes in with a posterior tibial stress syndrome or chin spritz or whatever you want to call it, they're typically using a concentric overcoming strategy. as they run. And so the bone then becomes the the only source where we're getting any significant yielding strategy. And so that's why you get tibial stress. This is what the end game is your your tibial stress fractures. And so what we want to do is we want to teach people to distribute those loads for energy storage and release in a much more efficient manner. So Brian what I would do is I would take your little heel wedge or something like that, and I would be working the front foot in this heel's elevated position because what this does, it's gonna bias us towards that early propulsive strategy without altering the foot mechanics, and so we can still get our concentric yielding strategy. We're just biasing ourselves back towards that extra rotation element of the full propulsive excursion. So now let's move to the pelvis. Let's talk about the pelvis orientation because we can create that bias as well. And so I'm going to hold the pelvis in this orientation so you can kind of see this. So real quick. So remember early phase ER bias, middle phase IR bias. So when we're talking about a split squat, we're moving through rather ER to IR and then back to ER. And if we're talking about the lead foot. So what we can do though is we can bias this lead foot towards more extirotation, more entirotation. we're gonna go ER to IR under every circumstance. But again, we can create a little bit of a bias. And so what I can do is I can position the ilium in the sacrum in a little bit more of a bias. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna create this yielding strategy at the base of the sacrum here and I'm gonna be ERing this ilium. And so what this would look like would be to project the knee forward In this split squat so before I even lower myself into the split squat I'm going to create a stronger bias towards ER and then as I descend I'm going to get less IR as I go down through that that middle range excursion towards what we would consider 90 degrees of hip flexion So right away I get to bias it if I wanted to do the opposite what I would do is I would shift backwards and I would create a a little bit more of a bias towards internal rotation. And then as I go down into the excursion, I get more internal rotation as I approach 90 degrees of hip flexion. So this is just your typical hip shifting kind of a bias that you would be using. But the cool thing about this is the load position now that you mentioned is also an influence. So what I can do is I can take the contralateral loading and I can I can bias it towards internal rotation. So I create those same hip mechanics that I just showed you to bias towards internal rotation to lower myself into the split squat. If I use the ipsilateral load, I create the hip bias towards extra rotation. Now here's the question mark. It's like, what are you trying to achieve? Are you trying to improve my ability to maintain extra rotation? So under those circumstances, I create the hip mechanics that are biased towards extra rotation, and I use the epsilon load. It makes it easier to acquire those range of motion mechanics. However at some point in time what I may want to do is challenge that and actually produce force into extra rotation under those circumstances. I'll bias it towards the internal rotation mechanics so I have to push myself up and out of those internal rotation mechanics to create more external rotation. So Brian this is a great question, very very useful. Just keep in mind that All we're doing is creating biases. Internal external rotation are superimposed. And so, again, it's like how we start is going to influence how we move through that middle excursion and then how we end. Thanks again, Brian, for the question. If you have any more questions, go to askbillhartman at gmail.com, askbillhartman at gmail.com, and I will see you guys tomorrow. Tennis elbow is not just for tennis players. Good morning. Happy Wednesday. I have neuro-coffee in hand and it is perfect. All right. Great Wednesday, gonna be busy. We gotta dig right into today's Q&A. And it is from Jared2Rs10. Jared says, hi Bill. Hi Jared. Thanks for all the information you post. Most welcome. I saw the video you posted about risk positions and was wondering if you have any solutions for something like tennis elbow. It seems like elbow position would be something to be concerned about asking for a friend. Well Jared, let's see if we can help your friend a little bit. The first thing we want to ask when we're talking about lateral elbow pain, so unfortunately it gets branded as tennis elbow for some reason, not really sure where that came from, other than the fact that tennis players do experience this, but anybody can. You'll see it in the weight room quite a bit as well. But ultimately what we're dealing with is a situation where we have too much pressure or attention in one place and then that's going to result in a pain experience. So it is an elbow result. It's typically not an elbow problem, although you can identify changes there that sort of take the blame a lot of times for why we do have pain. But we want to think about orientation of the elbow as a possible influencer and then as also as a possible solution. So we think like shoulder bones connect to the arm bone, arm bones connect to the elbow bone kind of a thing, but all of that is attached to the axial skeleton as well. And so we want to make sure that we have full adaptability through the axial skeleton, then we have full adaptability at the shoulder, elbow, hand, wrist, etc. And so if we don't have that full adaptability, approximately, then we're going to have to create some sort of compensatory strategy distally now. Let's talk about this elbow a little more specifically as far as why we might see this lateral elbow situation. If we think about any activity that's going to drive shoulder extra rotation and elbow extension at the same time. I think one of the reasons why we can brand this as a tennis elbow thing is because if you're hitting a backhand, I need a pretty strong elbow extension and I'm driving shoulder extra rotation at the same time. A little thing to remember about triceps. Triceps is branded as this elbow extender, which it is technically speaking, but it's a twister. Remember, everything moves on a helical angle. The elbow joint moves on a helical angle. Triceps is a twister. The cool thing about triceps is that it can actually assist with that shoulder extra rotation. If I'm driving anything with a strong shoulder extra rotation and elbow extension at the same time, what I'm going to do is I'm going to get a medial Post-ear, medial, compressive strategy above the elbows.

One of the things we want to understand is that the deep posterior compartment of the calf, so the tibialis posterior, we've got flexor hallucis longus, and then we've got flexor digitorum longus. Posteriorly comes down around the medial ankle, so that muscle, that group of muscles is going to be concentrically oriented, but it's also going to be using an overcoming strategy at heel contact, but then this becomes a yielding strategy as the foot comes down to the ground. The reason we want a yielding strategy is because we want to distribute load through the tissue. So we have to create a yielding strategy so we have energy storage for the energy release. And so the yielding strategy is going to be through the bone, through the connective tissues, and through the musculature itself, where the connective tissues lie. And if we don't have that, then something's going to have to sort of take up the slack. So if I cue lateral heel throughout, what I'm going to do is I'm going to promote a strategy that maintains a concentric overcoming action throughout the excursion of the exercise. Maybe there's a circumstance that you might want that, but under most circumstances we don't want that.

We're going to go ER to IR under every circumstance. But again, we can create a little bit of a bias. And so what I can do is I can position the ilium in the sacrum in a little bit more of a bias. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna create this yielding strategy at the base of the sacrum here and I'm gonna be ERing this ilium. And so what this would look like would be to project the knee forward in this split squat. So before I even lower myself into the split squat, I'm going to create a stronger bias towards ER and then as I descend, I'm going to get less IR as I go down through that middle range excursion towards what we would consider 90 degrees of hip flexion. So right away, I get to bias it. If I wanted to do the opposite, what I would do is I would shift backwards and I would create a little bit more of a bias towards internal rotation. And then as I go down into the excursion, I get more internal rotation as I approach 90 degrees of hip flexion. So this is just your typical hip shifting kind of bias that you would be using. But the cool thing about this is the load position now that you mentioned is also an influence. So what I can do is I can take the contralateral loading and I can bias it towards internal rotation. So I create those same hip mechanics that I just showed you to bias towards internal rotation to lower myself into the split squat. If I use the ipsilateral load, I create the hip bias towards external rotation. Now here's the question mark. It's like, what are you trying to achieve? Are you trying to improve my ability to maintain external rotation? So under those circumstances, I create the hip mechanics that are biased towards external rotation, and I use the ipsilateral load. It makes it easier to acquire those range of motion mechanics. However, at some point in time what I may want to do is challenge that and actually produce force into external rotation under those circumstances. I'll bias it towards the internal rotation mechanics so I have to push myself up and out of those internal rotation mechanics to create more external rotation. So Brian this is a great question, very very useful. Just keep in mind that all we're doing is creating biases. Internal, external rotation are superimposed. And so, again, it's like how we start is going to influence how we move through that middle excursion and then how we end.

All right. Great Wednesday, going to be busy. We have to dig right into today's Q&A. It is from Jared2Rs10. Jared says, hi Bill. Hi Jared. Thanks for all the information you post. Most welcome. I saw the video you posted about risk positions and was wondering if you have any solutions for something like tennis elbow. It seems like elbow position would be something to be concerned about for a friend. Well Jared, let's see if we can help your friend a little bit. The first thing we want to ask when we're talking about lateral elbow pain, so unfortunately it gets branded as tennis elbow for some reason, not really sure where that came from, other than the fact that tennis players do experience this, but anybody can. You'll see it in the weight room quite a bit as well. But ultimately what we're dealing with is a situation where we have too much pressure or tension in one place and that's going to result in a pain experience. So it is an elbow result. It's typically not an elbow problem, although you can identify changes there that sort of take the blame a lot of times for why we do have pain. But we want to think about orientation of the elbow as a possible influencer and then as also as a possible solution. So we think like shoulder bones connect to the arm bone, arm bones connect to the elbow bone kind of a thing, but all of that is attached to the axial skeleton as well. And so we want to make sure that we have full adaptability through the axial skeleton, then we have full adaptability at the shoulder, elbow, hand, wrist, etc. And so if we don't have that full adaptability, approximately, then we're going to have to create some sort of compensatory strategy distally. Now let's talk about this elbow a little more specifically as far as why we might see this lateral elbow situation. If we think about any activity that's going to drive shoulder external rotation and elbow extension at the same time. I think one of the reasons why we can brand this as a tennis elbow thing is because if you're hitting a backhand, I need a pretty strong elbow extension and I'm driving shoulder external rotation at the same time. A little thing to remember about triceps. Triceps is branded as this elbow extender, which it is technically speaking, but it's a twister. Remember, everything moves on a helical angle. The elbow joint moves on a helical angle. Triceps is a twister. The cool thing about triceps is that it can actually assist with that shoulder external rotation. If I'm driving anything with a strong shoulder external rotation and elbow extension at the same time, what I'm going to do is I'm going to get a medial posterior, medial, compressive strategy above the elbow. So think about all the fibers that are medial to the line of the humerus that would be triceps compressing that space. Now, if that happens, that creates external rotation in the shoulder, which is really, really nice and handy. But the big problem that we end up with is that we have a situation where the lateral aspect of triceps is now eccentrically oriented. So if we looked at the elbow capsule, we get a compression on that posterior medial aspect of the capsule. We're going to expansion on the posterior lateral aspect. And now I don't have a really good elbow extension mechanism, like I normally would if both aspects of the triceps were intact. And so now I have a substitution problem. So anything that can potentially extend the elbow is going to try to help along. So now I got anconeus. It's a tiny little thing that's going to try to extend the elbow. Supinator is going to try to extend the elbow. Anything that's attached to the common extensor tendon is going to try to extend the elbow. And so now I have muscles that were not well designed to produce this force, trying to produce this force. And so I get a lot of pressure and tension at the lateral elbow. And so what I want to do is I want to show you a way to test this which is kind of counterintuitive. We're actually going to use elbow flexion as our assessment because if you think about if I create a posterior medial compression on the inside of the elbow. I'm also gonna then have a resultant expansion on the anterior medial aspect of the elbow. And so what happens is as I try to flex the elbow, because of the medial aspect being full of fluid, I can't compress there. So as I flex my elbow to end range, I'm gonna do it in a slightly pronated position. So the test that I'm looking for here, is supinated elbow flexion with full compression at end range. And so I took Eric into the purple room because I kind of figured that he would have a little bit of a deficit that we could actually show you in real time. So we'll show you the change. So the first thing I did is I put him up on the table there and we flexed the elbow fully in a supinated position. You can kind of see where the end range stops. But then I took him out of supination. I put him in a little bit of pronation. You can see I can compress the elbow more fully. Now we're going to go over to the left side as a comparison and right away we see that we do have this fully compressible supinated elbow flexion as our comparison. So basically Eric is showing us this elbow orientation that we're talking about. So here's the fix, if you will. What we're going to do is we're going to drive external rotation through the entire system on that right side. So we're going to start. We're going to do a dumbbell curl. We're going to cheat the hand over to the inside edge of the dumbbell. That's going to promote supination right away. Now Eric is pressing his thumb onto the inside of that dumbbell. And so that is ER of the hand. So we're driving external orientation from the hand up. Then if you look at his body orientation, we have the thorax, the shoulder, the humerus, and everything is ER'd as he does this dumbbell curl. And so it's really, really simple. We're just driving external rotation through the entire system. And what we're going to get is we're going to get a reduction of that concentric orientation of the medial aspect of triceps. We're going to restore the orientation of the elbow. And now when we put Eric back up on the table and we check our supinated elbow flexion, now we get this fully compressed look. And so again, it's just a matter of understanding the orientation at the elbow, and now what we should have then is a normal extensor mechanism on the backside of that elbow so we don't have to substitute with our tiny little muscles like anconeus, supinator, and the common extensor compartment. And so hopefully Jared, that gives you an idea of what you're looking at with this lateral elbow stuff and provides you a little bit of a solution. Keep in mind it is a solution, it's not the solution. There are other things that can be going on, but this is a really, really common one. So I hope it's useful. If you have any other questions, please go to Ask Bill Hartman at gmail.com.

So think about all the fibers that are medial to the line of the humerus that would be triceps compressing that space. Now, if that happens, that creates extra rotation in the shoulder, which is really, really nice and handy. But the big problem that we end up with is that we have a situation where the lateral aspect of triceps is now eccentrically oriented. So if we looked at the elbow capsule, we get a compression on that, that posterior medial aspect of the capsule. We're going to expansion on the posterior lateral aspect. And now I don't have a really good elbow extension mechanism, like I normally would if both aspects of the triceps were intact. And so now I have a substitution problem. So anything that can potentially extend the elbow is going to try to help along. So now I got anconeus. It's a tiny little thing that's going to try to extend the elbow. Supinator is going to try to extend the elbow. Anything that's attached to the common extensor tendon is going to try to extend the elbow. And so now I have muscles that were not well designed to produce this force, trying to produce this force. And so I get a lot of pressure and tension at the lateral elbow. And so what I want to do is I want to show you a way to test this which is kind of counterintuitive. We're actually going to use elbow flexion as our assessment because if you think about if I create a posterior medial compression on the inside of the elbow. I'm also gonna then have a resultant expansion on the anterior medial aspect of the elbow. And so what happens is as I try to flex the elbow, because of the medial aspect being full of fluid, I can't compress there. So as I flex my elbow to end range, I'm gonna do it in a slightly pronated position. So the test that I'm looking for here, is supinated elbow flexion with full compression at end range. And so I took Eric into the purple room because I kind of figured that he would have a little bit of a deficit that we could actually show you in real time. So we'll show you the change. So the first thing I did is I put him up on the table there and we flexed the elbow fully in a supinated position. You can kind of see where the end range stops. But then I took him out of supination. I put him in a little bit of pronation. You can see I can compress the elbow more fully. Now we're going to go over to the left side as a comparison and right away we see that we do have this fully compressible supinated elbow flexion as our comparison. So basically Eric is showing us this elbow orientation that we're talking about. So here's the fix, if you will.

What we're going to do is we're going to drive external rotation through the entire system on that right side. So we're going to start. We're going to do a dumbbell curl. We're going to cheat the hand over to the inside edge of the dumbbell. That's going to promote supination right away. Now Eric is pressing his thumb onto the inside of that dumbbell. And so that is ER of the hand. So we're driving external orientation from the hand up. Then if you look at his body orientation, we have the thorax, the shoulder, the humerus, and everything is ER'd as he does this dumbbell curl. And so it's really, really simple. We're just driving external rotation through the entire system. And what we're going to get is we're going to get a reduction of that concentric orientation of the medial aspect of triceps. We're going to restore the orientation of the elbow. And now when we put Eric back up on the table and we check our supinated elbow flexion, now we get this fully compressed look. And so again, it's just a matter of understanding the orientation at the elbow, and now what we should have then is a normal extensor mechanism on the backside of that elbow so we don't have to substitute with our tiny little muscles like anconeus, supinator, and the common extensor compartment. And so hopefully Jared, that gives you an idea of what you're looking at with this lateral elbow stuff and provides you a little bit of a solution. Keep in mind it is a solution, it's not the solution. There are other things that can be going on, but this is a really, really common one. So I hope it's useful. If you have any other questions, please go to Ask Bill Hartman at gmail.com. Ask Bill Hartman at gmail.com. Tomorrow morning, we got coffee and coach's conference call. So please don't forget that. We'll see you at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning. Have a great day.

It's like the same question over and over again.

I know. You see how simple this is? That's why I get on here. It's like I just answer the same question every day, right? Good morning. Happy Thursday. I have neuro coffee in hand and it is perfect.

Okay, so I was wondering how a good morning squat fits into your model. For example, what happens when somebody can go down straight, but when they come up, their butt raises and their shoulders rise?

Where he goes back?

It goes up.

Yeah.

Yeah, it goes back and up.

They kick back first. Yeah, yeah.

So this is assuming that they can go down, they can bring the bar down vertically.

Are you asking me if it's intentional or if it's a compensatory strategy?

Oh, totally compensatory.

Okay. Right. So, let's think about this for a second. Under normal circumstances, I have to be able to push up against gravity coming up out of the squat, which requires that I'm capable of producing enough internal pressure to overcome all of the forces involved. I have internal forces that are created inside of me that help me actually get into the squat. If I eccentrically orient the pelvic outlet, the musculature there has to essentially orient for me to go in the downward direction; otherwise, you can't go down. Now I'm going to superimpose—let's just say I put 400 pounds on your shoulders as well. Now I have that additional force downward, which means that I have to squeeze myself even tighter. So, intrathoracic pressure and intra-abdominal pressure to create this incompressible body so I can push up against the load. But as I squeeze myself, I also push the pelvic diaphragm down even harder because I am compressing the amount of space that I have available. Take any water balloon, smush it between your hands, and pay attention to the part that's at the bottom—that's what you're creating as you go down into the squat because I'm going in that direction. I have to have expansion in the downward direction or you cannot go there; it's virtually impossible. If I push that down and expand in that direction to go in that direction, if I want to go back up, I have to be able to push that back up. The pelvic outlet musculature that has descended or expanded or eccentrically oriented in the downward direction has to now become concentric and it has to be able to push upward. What if I can't do that? You have a couple of options: you push up as far as you can, you stop, you don't go anywhere. I try to push up, I can't, and I keep going down. Or I kick my butt back, unweight the pelvic diaphragm by creating posterior outlet expansion. It allows me to move backwards a little bit, unweight the anterior pelvic diaphragm, and now I can lift it up against lesser downward force. I'm just redirecting the expansion so I can lift up with the anterior pelvic diaphragm, but my butt has to go back to do that because it's going to follow the direction of the expansion. Do you understand?

Yeah, because you're expanding the posterior pelvis.

Correct. I'm pushing into the apex of the sacrum, if you will. So the apex of the sacrum moves backwards, that expands the posterior outlet of the pelvis versus the anterior outlet and so that's why my butt has to go back and so that's that's just it's just like any other any other sort of a hinge motion if you will like an RDL or even like a good like an intentional good morning or whatever it might be it's like that my hips will go in the direction of the expansion. But the key element here is that I actually unweight that anterior pelvic diaphragm that I need to push upward. So if I unweight it, now I can push it up, now I capture a position that allows me to pressurize. And then I can stand up. So it provides me a mechanical advantage against the downward pressure that I have to create to push up. That's why you see, wherever somebody's hips go, that's where you're getting expansion. Like it's a really nice simple rule, if you will. And again, it's a universally applied rule. So you will always move in the direction of expansion.

Then the next question for that becomes about the fight over, is it tight quads? Is it weak glutes? Is it strong back? Like what, where do you stand on that? Or like identifying the source of it?

I don't.

Okay.

I don't.

Because that's what makes Instagram coaches, you know, is trying to identify the weak muscle or the source of it.

It'll be really nice. So I can take any muscle, which is so ill-defined, it's not funny. I can take any muscle in your body and I can position you as such to make it appear that it cannot produce force. And then in return, I can also position you to where it can. That's typically why therapists on here, it's like any old school manual muscle tests that you do, they're still useful in the fact that it will help you confirm positions. So let's just say that you were testing hip extension or you were testing glute max. So the traditional manual muscle test would be a prone hip extension kind of a thing where you're testing glute max, right? And I believe they would bend the knee to try to eliminate hamstrings as you would. But the reason that that would test weak is because you lack the ability to capture the traditional hip extension position because the fluid volume in the synovial joint is too far posterior you can't compress it therefore you cannot move into that space and therefore you cannot produce force there. And so again it's like there's nothing wrong with the muscle tissue itself. The muscle tissue produces force. What the concern is is where are you in space and can you even access that space to produce force? If you can't get there you can't produce force there. That's all. It's real simple.

Right.

And then in return, I can also position you to where it can. That's typically why therapists on here, it's like any old school manual muscle tests that you do, they're still useful in the fact that it will help you confirm positions. So let's just say that you were testing hip extension or you were testing glute max. So the traditional manual muscle test would be a prone hip extension kind of a thing where you're testing glute max, right? And I believe they would bend the knee to try to eliminate hamstrings as you would. But the reason that that would test weak is because you lack the ability to capture the traditional hip extension position because the fluid volume in the synovial joint is too far posterior you can't compress it therefore you cannot move into that space and therefore you cannot produce force there. And so again it's like there's nothing wrong with the muscle tissue itself. The muscle tissue produces force. What the concern is is where are you in space and can you even access that space to produce force? If you can't get there you can't produce force there. That's all. It's real simple.