Happy Sunday. It is time for the weekly Q&A, a little bit of review, but first and foremost, got my neuro coffee, as always. So let me get a little sip of that. All right, got a lot of stuff going on this week. I'm in the midst of mentorship calls, so I got to bust through this as effectively as we can. But a couple things, just a little review of what happened this week. So last week's Q&A is up on YouTube, also on YouTube, the how, when, and why of how to do a suboccipital release. So check that out if you're a manual therapist. There's a really good reasoning behind that. And then the two strategies on how to perform that. So if you haven't seen that yet, please check that out. How to perform the scapular decompression. So this is a money move for a lot of people that lack that dorsal rostral expansion to allow you to get that last little bit of overhead flexion and some extra rotation measures. So that's very useful. There's a pad of one lesson that went up that I got a lot of good feedback on. It started off with looking at cutting mechanics and then it turned into more of a baseball related post. So if you're a baseball person, please check that out. Got a lot of feedback on that. And then yesterday posted a little bit of an exercise related video in regards to how to use a kind of an arm bar to restore internal and external rotation of the shoulder using the breathing mechanics and the movement. So check that out. Instagram, of course, we put up the 16% video every day. We try to keep up with that. There's also one on squatting versus hinging and the use of the specific adaptations to impose demands principles. So check that out. How to delay propulsion using your pushers and your pull. So there's a couple of exercise examples on Instagram there. Should you have surgery for meniscus injury was on Instagram TV. So laid that out a little bit. That was a great question that came in through email. And then let's see, what else do we have? Narrow, infrapubic angle and squatting. So that was a really good question. So we covered that. Also, I believe on Instagram TV. And again, I put the kettlebell arm bar activity on Instagram as well. So please check those things out, as always. If you have any questions, you can post them on Instagram. I do that every Friday. I'll post that up to let you know when it's time to submit your questions or during the week, just throw them up at askbillhartman at gmail.com, askbillhartman at gmail.com. And then don't forget to put in the subject line, ask Bill Hartman question so I don't delete it because if it comes in with anything else, I'll just delete it.

Without further ado, let's dig into some of the questions for this week. First question comes from Tim. Tim says, would love to hear your comments on heel versus forefoot striking for distance running as it pertains to early and late propulsion. Heel striking is typically labeled as bad, but seems to be a reasonable strategy to ensure that we capture appropriate orientation of the hamstring and pelvis. Midfoot striking seems good, but may lead to an overly concentric push dominant strategy. And so there's a lot of stuff in play here. So let's kind of hash this out first and foremost. Let's sort of eliminate this whole optimal foot striking thing because I don't think it really exists. And if you look at enough of the literature, you're going to find out that there's really a lot of things in play. I think the barefoot influences have created this belief system that the forefoot strike is somehow healthier or better in some way shape or form. That's just not reality. I think there was a book that came out a while back that is probably mostly to blame for that because a lot of people just didn't have the alternative perspective. And as I always say, you want to have an earned opinion. And so when they say, well, look at all these primitive cultures that use a forefoot strike, well if you look up a study by Hatala from 2013 you will find the exact opposing strategy in a primitive culture that uses a different shoe type, etc. So what you'll find is that like I think it was seventy-some percent of the people that were evaluated were actually landing on heel first and not forefoot first. So again, that immediately eliminates a big chunk of opinion in regards to whether the forefoot is a natural predisposition under those circumstances. There's also a study by Larson from 2011, I believe, that was looking at marathon runners, and then they were looking at some of the barefoot runners in that regard because there was a fair amount of barefoot runners, and they were landing on the rear foot as well. So even in bare feet, there's a whole lot of variability in regards to what type of foot strike is ideal. I don't think there's one. I think you should have several. But when we're talking about foot striking, there's again a lot of influences. And so the type of shoe you wear, the speed that you're running, the degree of fatigue, and any number of other elements, for instance, anything above the foot in regards to your pelvic and thoracic strategy, your physical structure, your breathing capabilities, et cetera, are all going to influence these. And so I don't think that there is this one optimal. I think that from a health standpoint we want variability. From a performance standpoint though, you may be biased towards one type of heel strike or foot strike rather over another. And so when we think about some of the slower speeds, what you're probably going to see is you're going to see this almost an essential element of heel striking first just because of the speed of performance. Because as you look at faster and faster runners, you're going to see that the foot strike because the ground contact time is reduced that the foot strike is going to have to change to allow the propulsive element to continue. So the faster you go, you're probably going to see people get biased more and more towards a mid to forefoot strike. And so if we look at the extreme, I think I got a question about sprinters here. Yeah, so I'm going to kill two birds with one stone here. So this first question was from Tim, and I think that it was Alex that asked, can we talk about the propulsive phases applied to sprinting? So let's combine these two questions. So the slower I go, I'm going to heel strike, and I'm going to roll over the forefoot as you would think. So I'm going to go through all phases of early, mid, and late propulsion. With sprinting it, especially at top speed, what you're going to see because the ground contact time is so brief, I have to hit this maximum propulsive phase. The propulsive foot is actually a pronated foot. So what you're going to see in a top-level sprinter in many cases is it will appear that the heel doesn't actually make contact with the ground. So the cool thing about this is this matches up with some of the shoe research is that maximum pronation actually occurs as the heel breaks from the ground which means that maximum propulsion would be at that moment as well. So in a top speed sprinter, when the heel doesn't make physical contact with the ground, they're probably still in max propulsion. So again, I think the running speed is going to play a major role in what type of foot strike you're going to see and what is optimal under those circumstances. So Alex and Tim, I appreciate that question and hopefully I gave you enough information to satisfy your needs. I'd be happy to kind of flesh this out a little bit more, but again so to wrap it up, let's consider running speed one of those primary parameters as to what type of foot strike you're going to use, but in addition we have to consider all the things that are above, but that's a big long conversation, I think.

From a performance standpoint though, you may be biased towards one type of heel strike or foot strike rather over another. And so when we think about some of the slower speeds, what you're probably going to see is you're going to see this almost an essential element of heel striking first just because of the speed of performance because as you look at faster and faster runners you're going to see that the foot strike because the ground contact time is reduced that the foot strike is going to have to change to allow the propulsive element to continue so the faster you go you're probably going to see people get biased more and more towards a mid to forefoot strike and so if we look at the extreme I think I got a question about sprinters here. Yeah, so I'm going to kill two birds with one stone here. So this first question was from Tim, and I think that it was Alex that asked, can we talk about the propulsive phases applied to sprinting? So let's combine these two questions. So the slower I go, I'm going to heel strike, and I'm going to roll over the forefoot as you would think. So I'm going to go through all phases of early, mid, and late propulsion. With sprinting, especially at top speed, what you're going to see because the ground contact time is so brief, I have to hit this maximum propulsive phase. The propulsive foot is actually a pronated foot. So what you're going to see in a top-level sprinter in many cases is it will appear that the heel doesn't actually make contact with the ground. So the cool thing about this is this matches up with some of the shoe research is that maximum pronation actually occurs as the heel breaks from the ground, which means that maximum propulsion would be at that moment as well. So in a top speed sprinter, when the heel doesn't make physical contact with the ground, they're probably still in max propulsion. So again, I think the running speed is going to play a major role in what type of foot strike you're going to see and what is optimal under those circumstances. So Alex and Tim, I appreciate that question and hopefully I gave you enough information to satisfy your needs. I'd be happy to kind of flesh this out a little more but again, so to wrap it up let's consider running speed one of those primary parameters as to what type of foot strike you're going to use but in addition we have to consider all the things that are above, but that's a big long conversation, I think.

Okay, so I made a little call to my personal pitching coach Christian Wonder on this one to make sure that I get the pitching terminology correct. After a little bit of an explanation, what we're seeing here with the throwing strategy that Nick is talking about is we're seeing someone that would come in with an element of bilateral external rotation, which would basically be an extended posture as they're coming through the throw. So in this case, because they're using this bilateral strategy, what we want to look at is we want to look at their ability to orient one side into an internal rotation strategy and the other side into an external rotation strategy. So we can identify whether this person has the capacity to turn. Now, having said that, I think that, and I think Christian's in agreement with me here, is that there's going to be a difference between pitchers with a wide infrasternal angle and a narrow infrasternal angle. So your narrows are going to be more of a rotational type of an athlete; their capacity to turn is genetically predetermined to be a little bit better than a wide ISA. And so you're probably going to see this throwing strategy a little bit more on your wide ISA pitchers. And I don't know that you would necessarily be able to eliminate on a consistent basis because part of their strategy is to eliminate some of the rotation.

And one of the ways that they actually stay back is the ability to internally rotate and pronate the front side arm. So the lead arm as they're pronating and reaching towards home plate, that's what actually pushes them back. And so Nick, you mentioned something in your question where you said the pronation of the glove hand compresses the front of the thorax, I would offer that what that does is it actually internally rotates the shoulder and positions the scapula to allow the internal rotation to occur. But what we have is we have internal rotation at the shoulder, but we'll have an eccentric yielding contraction at the stern, which allows the pump handle to come up. Otherwise, I can't capture this position. If I can't create the expansion under the pump handle on the lead arm side, I cannot stay back over the right foot. So I can't keep myself back. So then that's going to be the guy that doesn't hold the rear foot position long enough to capture the energy. And so they're essentially, they're either going to fall out of that front leg or they're going to try to push too soon. And then again, you're going to probably see that bilateral extra rotation or the extension based strategy in the throw. So again, great questions, Nick. So again, the things that I would check in that regard would be, do I have normal internal rotation on that lead arm? So if we go back to the lefty concept, whereas we might be concerned with with arm rotation or shoulder rotation rather of the throwing side, which is the left side, we also need to make sure that we have internal rotation on that lead arm because if I don't have internal rotation of the lead shoulder for a left-handed pitcher, and because I have a natural tendency to propel off that left side early, you're going to have a picture that cannot stay back on the left side if I don't have right shoulder interrotation on a left-handed pitcher. So this is actually kind of a big deal and a great question from Nick. And so again, I love talking about this kind of stuff and I especially like talking with you high-level guys that are that are working with the higher level pitchers because you guys get the specificity experience that I don't get because the number of pitchers that I work with on a regular basis are probably four to five year where you guys are getting any number of those guys. So I like talking to you guys.

Otherwise, you're going to probably end up in a little bit of a lawsuit because that's really intrusive. You're getting into some very personal area there. So what we're going to do is we're going to make an estimation of what that IPA is by all other numbers. So now let's go to the first half of that question. Does an IPA mean a narrow ISA? In general, from a structural standpoint, yes, they will be similar, but they should move in opposition during normal breathing. And so that's what we're talking about when we're talking about making an estimation of the infrapubic angle. So if I measure the ISA, the infraternal angle, my assumption is that I actually have a narrow infrapubic angle as well. However, if I identify a limitation in extremity range of motion, that would be indicative of somebody that does not have the full breathing excursion, which means that they have a compensatory strategy. So this is where we get into the two archetypes of the inhaled axial skeleton versus the exhale axial skeleton. So if I have somebody that measures with a wide ISA with a limited breathing strategy, then I know that I have an axial skeleton that's biased towards exhalation with an inhalation compensatory strategy at the ISA or vice versa, where I have the inhaled axial skeleton with a compensatory strategy at the ISA, which would be your narrows. So structurally, yes, they would match mechanically during breathing. They should move in opposition. And under certain circumstances of compensatory strategy, they will be matched again. But this is due to the restriction of the compensatory strategy. So Josh, I hope I answered that question for you.

Alright, so you've got a wide ISA, which again that's a bias towards force production, so that's probably why you are attracted to the strength sports to begin with. Now you've got to become a turning athlete, and so a wide ISA is designed to restrict that turning. So that's where we need to start to make a change; we need to restore the dynamics to that infersternal angle. And you're right that deadlifts and bench presses would most likely help to reinforce your ability to not turn, as you would in say powerlifting. However, the other exercise that you suggested, so presses, chins, etc., are also compressive activities. So anything that is bilateral where both arms are doing the same thing at the same time—a press, a row, a chin-up, a deadlift, a squat—are all going to be somewhat restrictive in regards to you recapturing your ability to turn. So if we were to pick a squatting activity that may actually enhance our ability to turn, we're probably looking at some form of heels-elevated squatting, working towards a front squat, which would probably be the top-end squat that you would probably want to use. Zerchers are on the table in that regard if you're going to do something bilateral. When you're working from somebody with a very, very wide ISA that's been biased that way through a lot of high-performance, high-force work, you're probably going to want to emphasize some sort of reciprocal, alternating activities as your primary focus to try to restore that. I just posted an Instagram video on a sled drag that will give you another strategy to help restore the dynamics to your ISA, which will actually enhance your ability to turn. But I think that we have to all be considerate of the fact that, especially with rotational athletes, we have to be very, very careful about our exercise selection. So again, anything that is bilateral and symmetrical—presses, rows, chins, deadlifts, back squats, etc.—they're all designed to not turn, and will create compressive strategies that will reduce your ability to turn. Now, up to a certain point, however, they may be performance-enhancing because they do help you produce more. So if I have a golfer, I might do some chin-ups to allow him to increase his force output, but I would have to be very, very careful to monitor all aspects of his ability to maintain his turning capabilities. And so again, I'm looking at shoulder rotation, hip rotation, the ankle-foot to make sure that I have full excursion of pronation and supination so I can make sure that I can capture my hip positions during a golf swing, during a tennis serve, or during a throw. So all of these things are considerations. So, Josh, good luck with the recapturing the turn and the rotation.

And the rotation, if you need anything else, just throw another question there at askbillhartman at gmail.com and I'd be happy to answer that for you. Okay, Enrique! Last question of the day. Do you have info on breathing pattern for squats and deadlifts? I've been dealing with SI joint instability for about a year now. So yeah, if you look through some of the Instagram stuff and some of the YouTube stuff, you'll find things on the squats and the deadlifts. But we have to differentiate between what kind of activities that we're doing in that regard. So what type of squat? Because not all squats are created equal. Some will be biased towards more of an inhalation strategy and some will be biased towards more of an exhalation strategy. So if I was to do a power on the thing style back squat for instance, that's a very exhalation based activity because my goal is concentric force output. High pressure strategy, nutated sacrum, concentric pelvic diaphragm. So if I am trying to enhance my ability to expand, recapture range of motion, or eccentric orientation, that's probably not going to be my first choice in regards to squatting. Again, making reference to the powerlifting style squat. Deadlift's kind of the same thing. Very, very compressive, very concentric oriented. So you think about the fact that with a deadlift, there's very little eccentric orientation prior to the pull. I am concentric from the get-go. And so again, if I'm trying to increase my expansive capabilities, my ability to recapture range of motion or eccentric orientation, probably not the best choices. In regards to your SI, If you've been dealing with that type of an activity, so if I emphasize back squats, power lifting style squats, lots of deadlift variations, I would question whether you have an SI stability per se because of the compressive strategy that's required. So just because you have a pain doesn't make it an instability necessarily. Make sure you get evaluated by a competent physical therapist in that regard to give you some guidance and some strategy into how to deal with that. Also, if you have any specifics in regards to what your capabilities are, you can always throw those up into the next Q&A, and we could break you down like a case study and give you some suggestions there too. So I'm willing to do that. That's about it for the Q&A for this week. Hopefully, I was coherent. I'm a little rushed today because I got to squeeze this in between a bunch of mentorship calls. So I apologize if I rushed through this. But as always, if you have any questions, you can post them up on the Instagram videos. And then especially on Friday when I ask for questions, please post them there. You can make a comment on any of the YouTube videos. We can hash that out there as well. Or just go straight to me and ask Bill Hartman at gmail.com. I'll be posting things throughout the week. We got a box squat video that we're actually shooting today that will be coming up later this week. So stay tuned as they say, and I'll see you guys next week.

You can also go straight to me and ask Bill Hartman at gmail.com. I'll be posting things throughout the week. We have a box squat video that we're actually shooting today that will be coming up later this week. So stay tuned as they say, and I'll see you guys next week.