The whole thing would just orient over the best.

At the very bottom, yes, but it's a much lesser degree because I started with, think about it, I'm starting with the heaviest load at the top and I'm deloading at the bottom. So yes, there has to be some element of the yield. But if I was to compare it to the band tension, not even close, not even close as far as the yielding action, because like I said, that's not what the chains are designed to do. The chains are designed to create an additive load. So it's a magnitude based influence. So I'm increasing the magnitude at the point where I should be producing the hardest force. So I'm increasing that duration of force output. So I'm prolonging IR. I'm making it last a very, very long time. Okay, so I'm in that stiffer range for a very, very long time. I'm in a concentric orientation for a very, very long time. So that's why when you use bands, you tend to see a little bit more velocity than when if you use chain where you hit that load on the chain and it's like literally they're grinding through it, right? So they're not the same. They're not for the same thing and they shouldn't be used for the same thing because they don't produce the same output.

Well, it's going to come down to resistance. So again, what I'm talking about here is an intention to capture a position. It's not about how much resistance that they feel. We're not worried about force production per se. We're worried about reducing the influence of the downward force that is their body weight, a.k.a. gravity, right? If I'm pulling a band downwards, the farther I can push that band down, the more I'm unweighted. But if I can't push it down, then I'm definitely not going to capture the position that I would want if relative motion is the case. Now, if I'm trying to create a situation where the axial skeleton has reduced motion, and I want to influence the relationship between an extremity and the axial skeleton, so the true hip joint. If I'm trying to create motion at just the true hip joint, I can increase the resistance. So now we do have a lot more tension through the axial skeleton. And if I can create the turn at the true hip joint, now I'm influencing that position where I'm capturing relative motion there versus the distributed relative motion that I talk about in the axial skeleton. So we just have to decide what our intention is, and then that's going to determine what the strategy and the resistance is going to be.

To make them struggle to answer.

1,000%.

Yes.

Yup.

That was great.

Because the sacrum is turned to the right.

Got it.

Yeah. OK. So let's talk about a split squat in general first. OK. The typical weight distribution. And so there is a study that you can find on the split squat as to the weight distribution on the feet. And again, take it with a grain of salt because you can manipulate it, okay? But we're gonna speak generally. Typically what you're gonna get as far as a distribution goes is a slightly higher load on the front foot than the back foot. And so if we're gonna talk percentages, we're gonna say for the sake of discussion, it's 55% on the front foot, 45% on the back foot, okay? So it's not even, it's just a little bit of bias towards the front foot. Got it? Got it, okay. So if I pick up the back foot, And again, I think my numbers are accurate, but don't quote me here until you read the study yourself. I think that the highest load that they got on the front foot by elevating the rear foot on a bench, so like the classical bulk air in split squat level, right? I think it was like 85 front foot, 25 back foot. And so by flip-flopping the foot orientation, you're just manipulating force. You're manipulating the load that is required to overcome, okay? So when I throw the front foot up, my intention is to reduce the load on the front leg. Okay, why would I wanna do that? Because what I may have is a behavior in regards to that front foot that I do not want or I'm having trouble managing. So case in point, I have somebody that I'm trying to take from early propulsion. So I've been doing heels elevated stuff and I've got this nice posterior expansion now and now I want to transition them through middle with an element of tibial control. So if I need to reduce the forces on the front foot to teach them how to manage the tibia over the foot. So you've heard me talk about how that foot translates over or the tibia translates over the foot and how the arch influences how fast that tibia travels over the foot. If I need more control, I want to take the weight away the load on the front foot so I can teach them how to translate the tibia over with an element of control so they don't accelerate too far. So they don't hit the max P2 too soon, right? So I'm teaching them a control element. So that's a flat foot, front foot elevated split squat. So I would use that as I'm reintroducing this middle propulsive phase. All right. Now, so let's think about how would you intensify that process? So I got a guy that's got great control now with the front foot elevated.

I had a question about, I noticed in a lot of the exercises, you prioritize the foot position first before doing like the pelvis, the knees and all that stuff. So during movement, so let's just say during gait, does the, like the early propulsion, mid propulsion, late propulsion, does it begin at the foot and go up the extremity? Is that why you're prioritizing the foot position first?

OK. So starting with more of a compressive strategy from the get-go, not start.

Yes.

So I quit for a year. Actually, I quit for a year and did something else because I thought it was going to be a big thing, and it turned out to be absolutely nothing. Coming back from that was important for me to do. I recognized the fact that there are only a few things I'm good at. I always tell people to emphasize your strengths because your weaknesses will always be weaknesses. That year was a discovery period where I found out I was really good at the other thing and that's where I should spend my time. That's where my drive started to come from. Again, my curiosity was exceptionally high coming back from that year. I started asking a lot of questions and looking for answers. Then there was this thing called the internet, which was gaining popularity and provided me with more information. In the old days, we had to read books and go to libraries to get journals and articles. We used a card to make photocopies instead of downloading PDFs in seconds. I would spend hours on weekends at a medical school library downtown, downloading articles. It was a moment of recognition—I just needed to stick with what I'm good at and develop that as hard as I possibly can. I had a couple of people who gave me guidance early on from PT school, and I got to work with one of my mentors for a couple of years.

Say again?

If we looked at this from the ipsilateral perspective then, so now I'm going to have a right foot forward split squat with a right side load. What I'm going to see is I'm going to see again the inducement of a little bit more of an ER bias. It's going to enhance my ability to create the overcoming action coming up out of the split squat. So again, all we have to do is we have to look at the concepts of normal walking and then how does this ipsilateral versus contralateral load influence. And so again, if we're looking at the contralateral, we're going to enhance our ability to produce either max P or internal rotation. And if we're looking at it from an ipsilateral standpoint, we're gonna enhance the ability to ER or reduce that max propulsive phase as we're walking. So Dan, I hope that helps a little bit. If you have any other questions, please send them to askbillhartmanatgmail.com, askbillhartmanatgmail.com, and I'll see you guys next week.

Is adaptability, is that something we can gauge at all or is it we put them through?

Yeah. So think about it, Grace. There has to be a point. There has to be this one point where the force output is maximum, right? And the effort is at maximum. So everything sort of collides together and then changes. So I have this ER that's disappearing, this IR that's increasing. And then they meet at this one point in time and space. And that's where this maximum force output is, where there's almost no motion and time stops. And the highest force that's possible is being produced. And then they just kind of pass each other and then go through it. If this is the top of my squat, and everything goes like this, and this is the maximum force that I need, and then this is me going to depth in the squat, and everything spreads back out, and then as I push back out, I hit the maximum force spot again, and then it expands back out. You see it? So everything does this. Everything in the whole universe moves this way. We move from a position of expansion to compression to expansion. So there has to be a place where that happens. Can you pick it out? We have representations of it. That's why I talk about things like the sticking point. So the sticking point in a squat, if you've ever put enough weight on your back and you've done enough reps, is the spot where people come up out of the squat and then they slow down dramatically and they grind and grind and grind and then push through it and it gets easier, right? So they look at the sticking point and go, why does this happen? Because that's where this transition is occurring. So you can see it. Can you see the exact moment where it happens? No. But in every movement where we have this expansion to compression to expansion again, whether we're walking across the ground, there is a point where the maximum force is applied to the ground. Yeah, it's not your maximum force that you could tolerate or produce. It's just the maximum force in that activity, right? So walking is this. Okay? A squat is that. Right? There's a point where that force is at maximum for that activity, for the activity that we're describing.

Yeah.

I mean, because it looks like the movement.

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.

Now it is possible that we can get more internal rotation at the hip, but it is going to depend on stance width and the actual orientation of the thorax as to whether we can acquire some of that internal rotation at the hip, but it is possible. Now, if we add load to this, obviously we're going to get more compressive strategy. We're going to get more superficial concentric orientation, which is immediately going to limit what we're going to have available to us. So when it comes to trying to recapture that internal rotated position, it's going to be much more difficult to do. And so a lot of times what you're going to see is you're going to see that a much earlier ER compensatory strategy under these circumstances. So you'll see people separate their knees as they're trying to initiate their hinge or you'll see them have to make an adjustment in their stance width. So Mihail, I would refer you to the kettlebell swing diagnosis video for an example of what I'm just talking about, where we're seeing the extreme ER compensatory strategies. So basically, you can see that it's not as clean as we would like it to be, but the principles do hold. I'm moving from ER strategies to IR strategies to ER strategies under every circumstance. It's just a matter of where it's going to happen. That's going to be dependent on how much movement we're trying to acquire, how much load we're using, what's our stance, and any pre-existing compensatory strategies.

Can you show a representation of the two that you're discussing? Of the lumbar flexion versus I think, and I was gonna say, wouldn't a heel elevation change that?

I have a client who has been hip shifting out of his heavy squats, but it is only when he's on the ace end and he's shifting all the way over to the right.

Is that change permanent or relatively?

If we talk about the knee, so at the end of the femur we have hyaline cartilage. On the tibia we have hyaline cartilage. And so when the water is right next to it, it promotes the separation of the water into positively and negatively charged water. So the negative charged water is right along the hyaline cartilage on both sides. And then the positively charged water is going right through the middle of the knee. So if you took the north end of two magnets and tried to push them together, you can feel the repulsion between the two magnets. So this positively charged water is constantly trying to push its positive charges apart. And so now we've got this electromagnetic force that is now pushing the knee apart. So now we have an electromagnetic effect to create this separation. And so there's a cool study from 1980 from teriyama, it's Japanese. And they took fresh cadaver knees within synovial joints and they applied downward pressure through the joint about 220 pounds into the knee joint and they compressed and then it hit sort of like a maximum position, but the bones didn't touch. They got really, really close together, but they did not touch. And so right away, even in a joint that's not living, but it's intact and we have all the structures available to us, it still behaves similarly. So it keeps the bones apart. So again, very, very strong electromagnetic effect. How do we know? Well, in the same study, they took a hip joint that had arthritis. So on the weight-bearing surface, there was no cartilage. They did the same compressive test, and they got the subchondral bones to touch because there was no cartilage in the way to create this electromagnetic effect and keep the joints apart. So kind of a big deal. Now, synovial fluid has little protein things that are floating around. Proteins are negatively charged, and then they would attract positive charges, just like two magnets. So you take the north end of one magnet, the south end, and then they snap right together. And so we have these proteins that are surrounded by positive charge. We have more positive charges. And so now the synovial fluid itself helps us create that middle positively charged area that keeps the joints apart. So for those of you that have had arthritic changes and some wonkiness in your knees, if you will, that have had the synvisc injections, what they're doing is they're injecting you with water that has protein and it helps restore some of that mechanism, which is why you might feel better for a little while until the effect is no longer intact. So we have structure, we have mechanics, we have electromagnetic forces that keep the bones apart.

And that's a great answer. Now explain it.

I refuse to call it by the name that we're going to term it as because he'd get to.

Bill, if you had to give yourself business advice at 25 years old, what would you do? What would you say?