I was watching your video on the cross connect yesterday. That's one of my resets, but I have both feet on the ground when I do it instead of one foot on the wall. You're doing the hook line. Can you explain the difference between those two and what's going on there?

Okay, so the hook line version is typically used when we need to put you in a position that's available to you. If you have any degree of anterior orientation from your weightlifting background, you'll have a certain degree of anterior orientation that limits how much hip internal rotation you can have. You need enough internal rotation to put your foot on the wall, which is an extended representation. It's still an early propulsive representation but much closer to middle. If you don't have enough, we use the hook line version because that's a space you now have available. It's an earlier representation of the extremity all the way up. If you took the long leg version and stood it up, then took the hook line version and stood it up, you'd see more bend in your hip. That would be the most significant difference between the two. It mostly has to do with where you have space available to you. We start a lot of people in a hook lying position because they just don't have the range of motion available. We capture that range of motion by giving you an early representation, so you can start to superimpose more internal rotation on top of your externally rotated representation. In many cases, we can take that hook line position first to get the range of motion and then go right into the supine cross connect with the foot on the wall. It just depends on how much internal rotation you have available.

Can't help it.

It's not a bad thing. It's just, it's a matter of recognition and understanding your superpowers. So when you understand your superpowers, it just guides you as to what you need to protect yourself.

Zach. Morning. Great. So actually Monica's questions will be a good segue into mine. I think it's going to be very similar. So exercise selection based off the chess board, going off what you said that the initial chess board is there to show you the space that you have available to you in that present moment. And then also to kind of get an idea of where you are in space. So like where you want to drive the expansion, the overcoming strategies, is the goal with the setup to be like as close to the border or like your available end range so that, let's say we're doing just like a static breathing, is the goal to be as close to that end range of what you can do without orienting as possible so that any subsequent breaths kind of like drive like a wave of expansion and are basically expanding the joints right on that limit of what you have. Or I'm trying to figure out the mechanics of the breath and influencing the change that you're getting to then unlock your potential for the next exercise.

Morning.

Great.

So Monica's questions will be a good segue into mine. I think they'll be very similar. The question is about exercise selection based on the chess board. Given that the initial chess board shows you the space available to you in that present moment and gives you an idea of where you are in space, the goal with the setup is to position yourself as close to your available end range as possible without orienting. For example, when doing static breathing, the goal is to be at the limit of what you can do without compensating so that subsequent breaths drive a wave of expansion, effectively expanding the joints at that boundary. This is to understand the mechanics of breath and how it influences change to unlock potential for the next exercise.

OK, so step one. I'm going to speak in old terms. You have a patient that's minus 30 degrees of hip extension. Then they've got 75 degrees of hip flexion. That means they have a very limited space that you can actually access. If you do any exercise outside of that range, you have to assume a compensatory strategy to get there. So I have to select an activity that is in that space. When I take an effective breath, not a compensatory breath, that's going to promote the expansive strategy throughout the axial skeleton and into the extremity based on the contact of the distal aspect of that extremity. So I'm putting them in a space where they can expand, where they do have, they don't have to use a compensation to find ER. So it's just giving them, they have the ability to expand there because there's no superficial compensatory strategy layered on top.

Got that yesterday.

Okay. And then you're measuring hip deflection and they've got 75 degrees of hip flexion. Okay. That means they have a very limited space that you can actually access. If you do any exercise outside of that range, you have to assume a compensatory strategy to get there. So I have to select an activity that is in that space. When I take an effective breath, not a compensatory breath, that's going to promote the expansive strategy throughout the axial skeleton and into the extremity based on the contact of the distal aspect of that extremity. Okay, so I'm putting them in a space where they can expand, where they do have relative motion, because they don't have to use a compensation to find ER.

So it's just giving them the ability to expand there because there's no compensatory strategy layered on top.

Right. If I don't use a compensation to get there, I am in a space of relative motion. It's not full relative motion, because I know they don't have full relative motion, because my assessment told me so. But it did tell me where they do have some.

So then, just speaking specifically to the inhale, we're like, that's what's going to be driving the expansion. Is that literally just you've put them in a position where they have relative motion available, and the breath just makes them bigger in that area, like it pushes on the bones and the joints.

Okay, so you're doing that, right? Relative motion allows a wave to propagate through the system. My breath is making a wave. To the extent that I have space, as long as I stay in a relative position, the expansion will be allowed. You have to kind of look at it—it's like I'm not putting myself into a space where I'm squeezing myself. I don't have to squeeze. And then if you've ever noticed like when you have somebody doing something static and then you're driving the breathing on top of it, it's like the first set kind of not great. They have to learn that they're in a safe space to allow this to happen. The system has to behave differently because it's been using a strategy and you're just teaching it that it no longer needs that strategy because you're in a space where it can move. Assuming constraints are intact and you have access to normal relative motions.

Gotcha.

It's a feedback.

I'm trying to decide if I feel like this asks this, but I'm just not sure if I got the answer. So the breath is giving you expansive capabilities within the range that you have it, and the cyclical motion of the wave is going to expand and compress and move.

But understand that that's a sensation. So that sensation moves through the system and then it feeds back. So you're taking in the sensory input. And then that sensory input is processed and then that tunes the behavior, right? So the muscle says, oh, I don't need to be creating so much tension, the muscle starts to let go of the tension. The connected tissues start to behave appropriately relative to that degree of muscle tension. That's why this is a learning process. You're not increasing strength. You're not increasing flexibility by traditional definitions, but you will have a resultant that would produce more force and allow more motion to occur. Because again, it's a cycle. The system recognizes a sensory input and then behaves appropriately under the circumstances. So you're creating a context that allows the system to make a change.

Thank you.

In this conversation. For those of you that are looking for examples, I would guide you to my YouTube channel where you'll get all different representations of rolling activities there. So put that to good use. And then as always, if you have questions, go to askbillhardman at gmail.com. If you would like to participate in a 15 minute consultation with me, please go to askbillhardman at gmail.com and put 15 minute consultation in the subject line so I don't delete it. Please include your question in the email. Everybody have an outstanding Tuesday and I will see you tomorrow.

So one thing that I've seen a lot and is getting really popular on the internet, I think much in thanks to you is rolling patterns. And that's something we use in the gym all the time. They're really successful and they get some really good outcomes. I was just wondering if you guys, if you could give us an overview for what these rolling patterns kind of are and when you would choose maybe an upper versus a lower body roll.

As much as I would take credit for influence, it's been around since the beginning of humankind, my friends. So let's not give too much credit here. It's one of the reasons that babies do this so early because it's necessary. When I talk about movement, I talk about shape change and propulsion. Rolling is a representation of propulsion, which requires shape change. In fact, it's this exact same shape change we would use for any form of propulsion—moving across the ground in a forward direction. If we're talking about crawling, walking, or running, all of those things are very similar in their representations regarding the necessary shapes and force production. Again, one of the reasons babies evolve this skill is because they have to learn how to change shapes to eventually be capable of walking with proficiency. If you go back into scoliosis literature from the 1920s, you'll see rolling behaviors; in stroke rehab, you'll see rolling behaviors; in PNF from the 1940s, you'll see rolling behavior. This is nothing new. The advantage is looking at it from the perspective of shape change and propulsion, which gives us an opportunity to promote the changes necessary for people to move through space more effectively and efficiently. I see a broad spectrum—from fitness clients to professional athletes to those with pain-related issues. When people are incapable of moving effectively, efficiently, or without discomfort, we see limitations in their ability to change shapes. These people often need sensory input, pressure, and shape change. When you lay on the ground, you spread out against the ground, providing compression from the ground and expansion of your body over it. We're promoting shape change that will be useful for acquiring the appropriate shape to do something else, hopefully without discomfort, using an effective strategy that allows us to be efficient, effective, and forceful when needed. The advantage here is that as a coach—not a hands-on therapist—you can understand the principles of shape change and select appropriate rolling behaviors. Manual therapy is essentially applied sensory input, and many manual therapy strategies are compressive or expansive. By understanding how these strategies are applied—using the ground, gravity, and the body's ability to change shapes—you can influence shape. Rolling is an adjunct to what I already do. If manual therapy creates a window of opportunity for changing movement behaviors, I can use rolling to produce the input a client might struggle with on their own, creating their own window of opportunity to make other activities more effective. This accelerates the process and alleviates the limitations of isolated treatment. Clients can take this home with a similar strategy. The next step is identifying the needed behavior to determine the type of rolling—forward rolls, shoulder rolls, backward rolls, partial rolls, movements from middle propulsion outward, or from early to late.

Okay, so how do you do manual therapy? I don't. Okay, but you can, if you understand the principles associated with, okay, how do I need to change shape, what shapes do I need, and then you can actually select a rolling behavior because, again, all manual therapy is an applied sensory input. And so in many cases, many of the strategies that would use from a manual therapy perspective are just compressive or expansive. And so there you go, guess what? Now you have a way that you can actually influence the shape of somebody to allow them to move more effectively. Again, understanding how these strategies are applied, use the ground and use gravity and you use the mushy stuff that people are made out of that allows them to change shapes. So now you do have a way to influence this. So again, it's an adjunct to what I already do. So if I'm applying a manual therapy to someone that is useful and successful and buys us a window of opportunity for us to change their movement behaviors in a favorable way, I can't follow them home. I suppose I could, but it'd be kind of weird. But so I need a way for them to produce this input that they would have maybe difficulty with on their own. And I can use a rolling behavior to influence that favorably, have them create their own window of opportunity, and then maybe make another activity or exercise even more effective in this process. And so we can accelerate this thing. So again, it alleviates me of some of the limitations that are associated with this isolated treatment that I might do in the treatment room, and then they can take this home. And then, like I said, they have a similar strategy. What we're going to do then is we're going to have to identify what this behavior needs to be. And this is going to determine what type of rolling we're going to do. And so this could be like forward rolls, shoulder rolls, backward rolls, partial rolls, movements from middle propulsion outward, movements from early, movements from late. And so again, each one of these strategies can be applied based on the patient or the client's needs under those circumstances. So you want to distinguish between upper and lower?

Yeah, like keeping it relatively basic, like if you were to start with an upper or lower body.

One of the easiest ways to see this is to start directly on your side. So let's say that you could be perfectly positioned on your side, which is virtually impossible. But let's just say for the sake of argument. You're on your right side, so your body mass is going to push down into the ground because gravity works, and it's going to compress you front to back. So right away, the people that we talk about that have a lot of superficial muscle activity and get compressed front to back immediately gain expansion anterior to posterior by putting somebody on their side. And we know this; there's literature that supports all of this. Then gravity pushes down, which gives us a mushy spot on the ground, and that allows us to promote shape change. What we have to decide is what shape change we want. So let's say that we were trying to move somebody into a late propulsive strategy. A late propulsive strategy would be an externally rotated representation with superimposition of internal rotation that goes from the top down. This is like somebody that's pushing off the ground. If you're standing on your left foot, you'd be in middle propulsion. If you step forward with your right foot, the left foot would be in a late propulsive representation. So that's what we're trying to promote. If we're trying to do that from this ideal sideline representation, I would want to lead with the upper body because the top-down mechanics will be represented. So this would be moving into an external rotation representation with internal rotation superimposed from the top down. So again, it matches the mechanical representation of an element of propulsion. So that's the shape we want. We want a little more compression on the backside, a little more expansion on the front side, and this is what allows us to move forward. So that's step one. That's your upper body rolling behavior. Now let's go back to this perfect imagined sideline representation. Now let's say that I'm trying to create a delayed representation. This would be if you're standing on both feet, you took a step forward with your left foot and landed on your left foot. So now the forces are actually coming up from the ground into the body. So I need to absorb that internal rotation and I need to have an expansive externally rotated representation to superimpose that internal rotation on. Internal and external rotation are always superimposed until they become the same thing, but that's a different story. So we're now creating a delay strategy. Here's the cool thing. When I was laying on my right side and I initiated that late representation with the left side of my body, the right side was actually in a delay strategy. So right away I've got a delay and a late strategy. But for consistency purposes, if I'm trying to emphasize a delay strategy on the left side, I'm going to initiate that with the lower body because again, that represents the internally rotated mechanics coming from the lower part of the body upward. So again, the mechanics would match. So now I can roll in both directions, but I might have to roll differently. I might have to initiate it differently. If I split the body down into right and left halves, and I say I always want a late strategy on this side and an early strategy on this side, now I know how to initiate my rolls. That allows the client to understand: you get to roll in both directions, that's fine. But when you roll this way, I want you to do the upper body lead. When you roll this way, I want you to do the lower body lead. That's why there's no interference with the intended outcome, because most problems arise because we create our own interference. If we don't understand the mechanical influences that are going into a movement, we tend to do a lot of things that we just get in our own way. So again, this is a great way for us to understand how to not do that. It's just a matter of understanding a little bit about the shape change, a little bit about the propulsive behaviors, and then matching the activities to those behaviors.

They're always superimposed until they become the same thing, but that's a different story.

And that's the delay.

So we're now creating a delay strategy. Okay, now here's the cool thing. When I was laying on my right side and I initiated that late representation with the left side of my body, the right side was actually in a delay strategy. So right away I've got a delay and I've got an overcome but for consistency purposes. So if I'm trying to emphasize a delay strategy, let's just say on the left side this time, I'm going to initiate that with the lower body because again, that represents the internally rotated mechanics coming from the lower part of the body upward. So again, the mechanics would match. So now I can roll in both directions, but I might have to roll differently. I might have to initiate it differently because if I split the body down into right and left halves, and I say, I always want a late strategy on this side, and I always wanted an early strategy on this side, now I know how to initiate my rolls. And that allows the client to understand it's like, okay, you get to roll in both directions, that's fine. But when you roll this way, I want you to do the upper body lead. When you roll this way, I want you to do the lower body lead. That's why there's no interference with the intended outcome because most problems arise because we create our own interference. If we don't understand the mechanical influences that are going into a movement, we tend to do a lot of things that, like I said, we just get in our own way. And so again, this is a great way for us to understand how to not do that. And so again, it's just a matter of understanding a little bit about the shape change, a little bit about the propulsive behaviors, and then matching the activities to those behaviors.

It's really interesting how similar it is to walking. It is walking.