Good morning. Happy Monday. I have neural coffee in hand and it is perfect. All right. Digging into a very busy Monday. Quick housekeeping item. IFast University members, we have a call at 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. So if you're not a member of IFast University, go to ifastuniversity.com. Get yourself signed up there and join us at 1 p.m. today for that call. Going into the Q&A, this is with Ian. Ian had a quick question about the difference between a fake medicine ball throw and one where there is a release. And basically we're relying on Isaac Newton here for a lot of this. With the fake throws, the connective tissue behavior becomes that of a yielding action, which actually dampens the forces involved. So we're actually spreading the force out amongst the connective tissues. And with the release, we're actually getting the overcoming action at the end of the throw. So that's the distinguishing characteristic between the two. And we discussed that in a little bit more detail in the call. So for those of you that like to use fake throws and think you're doing something, let's pay very close attention to actually what you're doing. Very useful in a rehab situation with the fake throws. I'll give full credit to my buddy Lee Taft for bringing those to light for many of the coaches and trainers. They're following Lee. He's an awesome guy and a great coach. If you would like to participate in a 15-minute consultation, please go to askbillhartman at gmail.com. Please put 15-minute consultation in the subject line so I don't have to leave it. Please include your question in the email, and we will arrange that at our mutual convenience. Everybody have an outstanding Monday, and I will see you tomorrow. Ian.

I went through your videos of the 13 exercises for mid propulsion with the athlete. I would like to go through the terminology when you were doing the staggered stance, a fake chop with the medicine ball. I cannot visualize the dampen yield versus just the yield. I would like to go through that. Is it because as I see it, if I fake chop and not throw the ball, I would have to yield more than if I release the ball? Would that be because the weight has come? Because I have to stop the force.

Okay. If you do the fake throw, do you know when you're going to stop? But you know you're not going to let go. The difference between the two is I start slowing down sooner. So if I'm going to release, I don't have to slow down at all. If I know I'm not going to release, I start slowing the ball down sooner. So the duration of the yield is extended, but the force of the yield is lessened.

Not really. Yeah. Really? You don't? Oh, yeah, you do. You do. It depends on how hard you, you, yeah.

But you know, you know, you're not going to let go. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So the difference between the two is I start slowing down sooner. So if I'm going to release, I don't have to slow down at all. If I know I'm not going to release, I start slowing the ball down sooner. So the duration of the yield is extended, but the force of the yield is lessened. So that's the deal.

Good. Got it.

It's like, okay. Would you rather get punched in the face at high velocity or have somebody go really, really fast and then slow down and then just kind of go like the, which one would be, which one's dampened, right? Yeah. Okay, so like I said, because you already know, you have that anticipatory deceleration of that. That's why those are useful because they increase the duration of the yield very useful and they dampen the force of the yield very useful.

All right. Yeah, for sure. And the next one, when you actually release the ball, yes, sir. Could you say the magnitude decreases as you release the ball so you're actually decreasing the magnitude of the, let's say my right leg is back, left leg is forward. And as I release the ball, I'm actually creating force into the ball which unweights me on the... Yes, you're going in opposite direction. All right, all right.

Technically, you're going in the opposite direction.

Yeah. So OK, this is the difference between the force application and then the demonstration of velocity in any kind of a throw. So if we were talking about a javelin, we were talking about a baseball, we were talking about, I don't know what else does anybody throw here. The point is there's a point of max P. That's the maximum force that propagates the energy into the implement and then there's the release. So there's no more force application like the force application is reduced. Right. That's why so if you were just walking across the ground. At the point of max P, your force is maximum when you're in the most, and when you still have ground contact and your foot is in the latest representation of late, right? They're still forced into the ground. It's a heck of a lot less than what it was at max P and the velocity is higher. You see? That's what we're talking about. So force would be reduced. You would go in the opposite direction, technically speaking. Opposing.

So this is the difference between force application and the demonstration of velocity in any kind of throw. If we were talking about a javelin, baseball, or anything else people throw, the point is there's a point of maximum force that propagates energy into the implement, and then there's the release. After release, there's no more force application; the force application is reduced. When walking across the ground, at the point of maximum force, your force is maximum when you're in the most loaded position with ground contact. As you push off, the force is much less than at maximum force, and velocity is higher. So force would be reduced, and you would go in the opposite direction, technically speaking.

direction. All right.

Good morning. Happy Tuesday. I have neuro coffee in hand and it is perfect as usual. All right. A very busy Tuesday coming up. I'm going to dig straight into today's Q&A. This is with Alex. Alex had some great questions about some of the appearance of the rear foot in helping us determine where somebody may be in space, what kind of an orientation that we're dealing with with the foot. The calcaneus is a really interesting bone. It does bend, it does twist, which is going to throw off some of your so-called eversion/inversion measures. We've got a lot of soft tissue that's attached to it. We've got a fat pad. We've got the Achilles tendon. All of those things will change shape depending on where the center of gravity may be resting on the foot. So for instance, if we're very heel heavy, we're going to see an expansion of the width of the rear foot. We may see a width change in the Achilles tendon as well. And we can make a comparison between two sides as to which side may be more loaded, which side may be more anterior. So for instance, if we were to lift the heel off the ground, now we have a reduction in that width of the rear foot. We're going to see an increase in tension in the Achilles tendon. And so again, whenever we're trying to diagnose or just determine where somebody may be in space, we're going to use every detail that we possibly can. So yes, we're going to rely on our assessment a great deal, but we can also look at these rear foot comparisons to help us determine how we're going to initiate our intervention. So Alex, great question. If you would like to participate in a 15 minute consultation, please go to askbillhartman at gmail.com. Please put 15 minute consultation in the subject line so we don't delete it. We'll arrange that at our mutual convenience. Don't forget to include your question in the email. Everybody have an outstanding Tuesday, and I'll see you tomorrow.

Because there is a degree of genetic variance and morphology that affects this, but I feel like I've seen people who are very expanded below the level of the scapula, who have really thick, wide heels. And I've seen some people with really strong anterior orientations that have very skinny heels. So I was hoping you could shed some light on what exactly might be going on there.

OK. So the morphology of the calcaneus is actually kind of cool. And some of it's actually been associated with things like gastric belly length. You get people with longer gastric bellies where that part right there, how far behind the foot it extends, has a bit of influence on some of the morphology. The degree of external rotation in the foot also plays a role in it where it will tilt it down, right? So it tilts this way a little bit more. But as far as the width of it, like its appearance from behind, are you talking about that?

I'd say so, yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Some of that could just be the element of turn that you're seeing, right? So if I take this and you can just kind of see that it's twisted, but if I turn it like that, you're going to see a little more of like a broader representation of the rear foot. Okay. And so more than, than just like true bony width, um, I would lean in the direction that you're probably seeing an element of that.

Okay.

Yeah. Go ahead.

Go ahead. A couple of people who are crazy compressed PR, um, using a record strategy and their very ERD would have that representation.

Yes, yes, yes. You do have other elements of this, such as the width of the Achilles, the amount of tension on the Achilles. You can see the asymmetry in somebody that would be more ERD on one side, where the center of gravity is further forward and there's less weight on the calcaneus on that side and you'll see the increased tension through the Achilles which will give the appearance of a narrow wing, right, because as you pull the Achilles long it will narrow and therefore its attachment on the calcaneus will narrow as well. So that's also in play. And so if you had somebody that is maybe not as far forward, they've got a little bit more of the anterior orientation of the entire foot where the arch is really, really low, but they're not fully loading the forefoot like some people do. You'll see a wider representation as well. So there's a lot of stuff that can give you a visual representation of that. The position of the fat pad plays into this as well. You get somebody that is very, very ERD, not a lot of weight on the heel, the fat pad's not going to spread out nearly as much. And so you've got a lot of stuff going on there that can give you the appearance. The cool thing about the calcaneus is that you can grab it and you can compress the soft tissue around it. And so you can actually feel some of the turn, especially when you get somebody that's got the really hard ER twist. The foot's so ERD they've got a lot of concentric muscle activity in the bottom of the foot, so the arch is very, very high. You can feel the turn when you grab the calcaneus. So there's nothing wrong with doing that back in the olden days when we used to draw lines on the calcaneus and then try to draw a line on the midline of the calf.

Yeah. So what they used to do, they say, grab the tibia and fibula, like mid-shaft, compress the soft tissue, find the midline there, and you would compress the calcaneus and draw the midline there. And that would be your determinant of the degrees of varus and valgus, a very frontal plane representation, if you will. Not terribly useful, um, in the real world, but like I said, that's how we used to do it back before you were born. And, uh, um, but, but like I said, you can grab the calcaneus and, and get it just for its orientation. And that might help you like differentiate a little more.

OK. So what they used to do is grab the tibia and fibula, like mid-shaft, compress the soft tissue, find the midline there, and you would compress the calcaneus and draw the midline there. And that would be your determinant of the degrees of varus and valgus, a very frontal plane representation if you will. Not terribly useful, um, in the real world, but like I said, that's how we used to do it back before you were born. And, uh, um, but, but like I said, you can grab the calcaneus and, and get it just for its orientation. And that might help you like differentiate a little bit more.

If someone's stuck in a conditioning representative of a certain phase of the gait cycle, would it be possible that there's more fluid and part of it affecting visually what I would see? And would I, is it like visually obvious?

Sometimes. So let me break up the foot. Let's do it this way. So when you think about where the expansions and compressions have to occur, as you go from an early representation through middle, so you've got a transition of expansion. So as you land in an early representation, the expansion is in that anterior compartment dorsum of the foot. And then as you translate across, I have to compress that space, and therefore the expansion would be towards the plantar aspect and posterior. So when you think about what is moving the slowest in this entire circumstance, it's like the tippy starts translating over the foot. So it's got to be going faster than the foot. So this is the slowest place that you're going to see, which means that two cool things. Volume of expansion is going to go in this direction. Turbulence is going to go in that direction as well. So when you think about fluid shifting and stuff like that, it's getting smushed back towards the heel because I have to slow that down the most. Turbulence will slow it down. Say again turbulence will slow it down absolutely it does right yeah because laminar flow would be would be a little easier a little bit smoother and so it does become turbulent and it's a little harder to picture because we're dealing with a lot of solids what appears to be solid stuff right but but that that is the reality is that when we talk about the the fluid within the tissues themselves. So they're getting squeezed back in that direction to slow the heel down.

Yeah. Someone, you get a narrow stance that goes into a sway back positioning. Again, the center of gravity pushed backwards a little bit. You see fluid start to collect more posteriorly. I'm just relating this back to my question about the heel pad, or the heel in general, can you see fluid, or can you see like the thickness of the calcaneus has changed?

I don't think that you would under most circumstances. I think what you're gonna, probably what you're gonna do is you're gonna end up making like a comparison, so like a within subject comparison. You will see rear foot shape change associated with center of gravity orientation of the calcaneus as the foot changes its shape. You will see that. I would say that you would do that within the subject, though. Don't I wouldn't try to make the leap of, you know, between between two patients or two clients.

Okay, cool. Very helpful.

Good morning. Happy Wednesday. I have neural coffee in hand and it is perfect. All right. It is Wednesday. That means that tomorrow is Thursday, which means tomorrow morning at 6 AM, as usual, the Coffee and Coaches conference call. Great Q&A, great people. Grab yourself a cup of coffee and please join us for that. There is no cost. You just have to get up early, apparently, Eastern Standard Time at 6 AM. We'll see you tomorrow for that Q&A. Dig into today's Q&A. This is with Dale, a power lifter working on some shape change associated with sled dragging. We talk about how this actually works because we can be selective as to how we're driving the shape change either towards the pelvis or away from the pelvis. For instance, if we were to utilize the belt and strapping system that we actually talked about during this call, we can apply pressure to the ischial tuberosities and the ilium to promote a shape change approximately in the pelvis that's going to allow us to drive internal rotation proximal to distal into the ground. If we were to apply the pressure to the trochanter, we're going to drive internal rotation from the hip itself into the pelvis, we're going to drive an earlier representation of internal rotation. And so again, we can be selective as to how we do this, depending on the needs of the individual. So Dale's doing some really good stuff with these sled drags, but we'll break that explanation down for you in this Q&A. So thank you, Dale. If you would like to participate in a 15-minute consultation, please go to askbillhartmanedgmail.com. Please put '15-minute consultation' in the subject line so I don't delete it. Include your question in the email. Everybody have an outstanding Wednesday. I will see you tomorrow morning, Thursday, at 6 AM for the Coffee and Coaches Conference call. See ya.

All right, so I know for a couple of weeks now we've talked about some of my old school stuff that we used to do, like box squats, and how it's affected in your model. Now one of the things we used to do a lot of sled dragging, and I've seen a lot of your videos on sled dragging, and I'm trying to understand the influence of what we do to your model. So let me give you an example. So obviously I train with a lot of wide stances, just the nature of the beast, right? So we use like a three-inch nylon toe strap to pull with. We do a lot of backwards sled pulling with where we put the nylon strap, let's say around the trochanter, right, where it's a trochanter. We use a load light enough that we can breathe really well. We internally rotate the femurs about five degrees, put the foot pressure all in the arches, I mean in the medial part of the arches, and drive back. Yeah. Is that creating a shape change for the wide stances that are out wide because of the two parts because of the compression that we're putting on the sides?