Right?

I don't.

Lots of really cool mentorship calls. Kind of had like once again the perfect storm of questions that came through this week. And there was a whole series of foot related stuff that came through some mentorship calls and some of the Q&A's. And so I thought I would just wrap up Friday with a little bit of perspective on the performance-related foot because I think it's still a little bit of a challenge for people because of some of the biases that have been created over time and some of the perspectives as to what constitutes a good performance foot versus one that is interference. And so I want us to look at this thing differently. Now, let me preface everything that I'm about to say is that performance is multifactorial. There are so many potential influences here. It's not just a foot thing. The foot is one part, but we're gonna talk about it in isolation to give you a little bit of perspective. So the things that you also probably need to consider is like, okay, what kind of an archetype are we dealing with? What are some of the proportional issues in physical structure? So the size of your thorax relative to the size of your pelvis is an influence in performance. Your proportions as far as you know the length of your actual skeleton to the length of the appendicular skeleton is an influence. Your force to weight ratio, etc., etc. So again, let's keep this in perspective, okay? The first thing we want to do then is we want to review a little bit about the simplified foot model. So we're going to go through the phases of this foot position. So our traditional heel rocker would represent this early propulsive phase. So as I bring the medial calcaneus to the ground and I get the forefoot to the ground and the toes are extending, the tibia is still behind the foot. So this is an ER position. So I still have an arch and I've got an ER tibia relative to the foot. And so that's my early propulsive foot. As I move through middle, this is where the arch is going to move down towards the ground. So this is your traditional pronation. This is tibial interrotation. So this is a lower arch. Now, here's the key element of this that I want you to understand is that the maximum force into the ground is that maximum pronation. And where that is, max propulsion is just as that medial calcaneus has re-bared from the ground. And so this is actually a low position of the arch because right after that I'm going to get a bunch of concentric orientation on the plantar aspect of the foot. This is what they traditionally call that windlass effect and I'm going to crank that sucker back into an externally rotated position, right?

Because I'm wondering if he'll then kind of reach a threshold at this point with this limitation and no access to that IR shape on the left.

Yes. I don't perform well on the spot.

They're expanding straight down, right? So the pelvic diaphragm is most likely eccentrically oriented. And so they're going to follow where the expansion goes. So more often than not, when you see that acceleration, it's somebody that cannot produce enough concentric orientation to resist or reverse directions. So if anybody, since we went over everybody's PR deadlift, let's put a PR squat on your back for a second. If you've ever had a scenario where you sat down into a very, very heavy squat and you started to come up and you went right back down, that's the same scenario. It's not that you don't have concentric orientation. You just can't produce enough pressure to overcome the downward forces that are associated with the external load and the internal pressures at the same time. So it's literally the same scenario. So what would you do under those circumstances to raise your ability to come up out of that deep squat with a very, very heavy load? It's the same strategy that you're going to use for anybody else. So do they have to back squat? Is there a reason that they would have to back squat? If there isn't, then what I would do is establish some element of control in a position that you can be successful first and foremost. So if I want to make a pretty squat first, which is probably under most circumstances what your goal is going to be, it stands to reason that I don't want to create another force downward that they're going to have to manage when they can't manage the first one. So it might be that you take any external load away.

And do you have a standardized way of measuring it?

I'm taking my own advice here in that when I was in my early to mid 20s, one of the things I was able to leverage to get more experience was graduate school, and then I managed a chemistry lab for a year. There's a lot of sitting around in science. When you do science, you sit around a ton. You wait for humans, you wait for centrifuging, you wait for rotobapping. And I use that time to get the reps. As you get all those reps, you get exposed to what you like, what you don't like, what resonates with people, what doesn't resonate with people, who are the people you like resonating with, and then that allows you to kind of further hone in what you want to get after.

Yeah, no, but it again, you don't have to take an acting class per se, but it does help to gain that level of interaction. So you think about like an internship is a lot like that. All you gotta do is have an intern around for like three or four months and then you see the evolution of their behavior where the personality is totally hidden. They're very, very quiet. Unless they've had coaching experience in the past or they have this gigantic personality that walks in the door, you're gonna see this evolution where they're slowly sort of, as they say, come out of their shell. Good morning. Happy Friday. I have no more coffee in hand and it is perfect. Okay. It's been a great week. Today's Friday, we're going to wrap up the week with a really good Q&A from Phillip. Phillip with an F. Phillip says, hope you're doing well. I was wondering if excessive, whatever that means, neck training can lead to difficulties in nose breathing. I've found that to be the case with myself. I took up wrestling again a couple months ago and we started doing weighted neck flexions and extensions. Keep up the Q&A please. It is gold. Well, thank you Phillip for that. I think there might be some stuff here that we can unpack for you that may be useful. So let's dig into this and see what comes up. A couple of things under any circumstance when we're talking about increasing force production, no matter what we're doing from a strength training standpoint, we're going to be using an exhalation strategy so that's how we produce high force and so under those circumstances we're going to trap air we're going to squeeze it and we're going to use some form of compressive strategy and so neck training is no different. Couple things that we need to understand about the pressure management in the neck is that the influence of the pressures from the thorax influence the pressures that are going to be in the upper airway. So the upper airway is gonna change shape just like the thorax does. And so breathing rates and flow mechanics are gonna be influenced here because of that shape change. And so just by changing your breathing rate the volume of air that you're bringing in through your nose can alter the flow mechanics. So we have laminar flow, which is sort of like the smooth type of flow where it's easily flowing through the airway. And then we have turbulent flow, which can actually increase the sensation of nasal resistance. And so the way that I would compare this, if you just took a nice quiet breath in that you couldn't hear and then compared that to an aggressive sniff, as if you were trying to smell something, so the reason that the turbulence increases when you sniff is because we want to actually smell we want to actually try to get a sense of what the odor is and the turbulent flow actually allows us to maintain the air in the airway where we do sense the smell. But when you think about aggressive activities like wrestling or weight training, we're probably using turbulent flow mechanics quite a bit. And so maybe you're a little bit more sensitive in that regard. And so you get that sense of nasal resistance. When you take your neck through flexion and extension, there's also a shape change that takes place in the pharynx. And so that's the airway behind the nasal passage, behind the oral passage and down into the throat. And so there's sort of a sweet spot where that airway is open the most. And so if I go into an extreme in range extension, I will end up compressing the airway as I bring my head through. And while I'm still extended, then the airway is gonna stay open. And then as I go into the extreme flexion, I'm actually going to compress the airway so again it depends on your neck position that you're using as well. There's also a cranial shape change that we might need to consider here. Again, strong exhalation strategies, strong compressive strategies will actually alter the cranial shape into an exhalation position, which can reduce the anterior-posterior diameter of the cranium. And so maybe that narrows your nasopharynx and increases this turbulent airflow like we were talking about before. When we talk about the throat position, we talk a lot about the hyoid and the tongue because it's a great way to identify what strategy people are using in the neck. When we have an elevated hyoid position, the suprahyoid muscles are concentrically oriented. What this does is it pulls the mandible back, which brings the tongue along with it. Then we actually compress that oropharyngeal space. And again, this creates resistance to air flow. And so we always have these consequences that are associated with position. And some of them are actually results of training. So if you're doing a lot of neck training, you're using a lot of compressive strategy. You're increasing, most likely, a lot of concentric orientation above the hyoid. You're gonna elevate that hyoid. And then you're gonna create an airway that compresses from this nice round airway to a nice flat AP airway, which is great for resistance and stability, but probably not so great for breathing mechanics. A couple things that I would say that you probably wanna monitor to make sure that you're not losing this adaptability in your airway shape and mobility is in range shoulder flexion. So in range shoulder flexion is associated with the ability of the lower cervical spine to rotate. So if you lose in range shoulder flexion, you're gonna lose some of that adaptability in the lower cervical spine. So that would be something that you wanna monitor as far as an activity that you might wanna use to sort of offset some of the secondary consequences of the neck strengthening is what I call just lazy rotations. If you lay on your side with your head supported on a pillow and you're just turning your head from side to side with normal quiet nasal breathing, just learning how to turn your head with the lowest energy possible. You can actually reduce some of this concentric orientation and that might help you restore some element of airway adaptability. Worst case scenarios, you may have an oropharyngeal coordination problem that might be resolved with some myofunctional therapy solutions. And some of those activities are very useful as far as tongue positioning, maybe concern. Again, another worst case scenario, maybe you have a palate shaped problem that does not allow you to position your tongue appropriately. So that's something that might be looked at by your dentist to determine whether that's causal in any effect and then also go see your ENT to make sure that you have all structural issues taken care of. So Phillip, I hope that gives you a couple of things to think about and a little bit of understanding about what might be going on. If it doesn't, then please ask me another question at askbillhartmanatgmail.com. Everybody have a great weekend. Enjoy the rest of your Friday. I'll see you guys next week.

Symmetrical pulling activities, especially things like face pulls, eyes, T's and Y's. Because if it's already compressed, we don't want to emphasize more concentric orientation to drive more compression there. So when we go into the gym and start to train these people, we're going to think about for our wides, we're going to use like a high low cable press. So we're going to play in this angle that would emphasize the inhalation capabilities, as well as maybe some say chopping activities to again promote this posterior expansion. Once we can recapture that posterior expansion, now we can start to work on a little bit more of our reaching activities at 90 degrees and start to emphasize that anterior expansion. For the narrows, we're just going to reverse the process. We're going to start somewhere in this 90 degree shoulder flexion reaching activities, and then try to expand that posterior aspect of the thorax. Adrian, I hope this gives you some ideas to work with. You've got a couple of tests that you can follow. You've got some strategy as well as a representation of probably what you're looking at. So if you have any other questions, please let me know at askbillhartman at gmail.com. Have a great Friday. Have an outstanding weekend. I'll see you next week.

Sure, I see it now.

Because I may talk about baseball, pitching and stuff because I know throwing pitching mechanics, there's definitely some similarities there with Serbs. I guess I was just curious if that's something you work with ever frequently. kind of how that relates.

Sure.

Yeah. This is actually really cool. I'm going to pin my screen because I want it to be big on video. Can everybody see my foot? You've got three feet to worry about. You've got early propulsive foot. So the early propulsive foot is what people would consider this supinated looking foot. The tippy toes are behind the ankle. I've got the big arch. My big toe kind of wants to touch the ground, but it's probably not really good at touching the ground. I might have to plantar flex it a little bit to get it to the ground. So that's an early propulsive foot. Under these circumstances, I've got a talus and a calcaneus that are moving together. As that heel breaks the ground, I'm producing the maximum amount of force into the ground. Then the tibia keeps going forward and it lifts up my heel and I go up over the foot. And that is again no relative motion between the calcaneus and the talus.

I never thought of that with pain before. So basically, like we were talking with weight loss, I talked about it as action goals versus outcome goals. But I never thought about it from a pain perspective, which is really clever.

OK.

It's going to come back to intensity of effort. One of the simplest ways to potentially measure how much effort you're using is whether you can breathe through the activity. So if I'm pulling and there's a pause where I'm using an exhalation-based strategy to pull, that's something people do all the time but don't think about. As they're pulling, they hold their breath and breathe hard in between during the recovery element. Again, intensity is going to matter under those circumstances where you're trying to potentially reduce the concentric orientation. This is also another one of those circumstances where it may be a unilateral type of activity versus bilateral. So when we're talking about thoracic shape change versus cellular adaptation, I can create compression on one side and get expansion on the other. Exercise selection might matter, intensity might matter, breathing strategy will matter. But I think that you hit on a really good point that we always need to consider. When you start reading about mitochondria, you realize mitochondria is really kind of good for everything—from brain health to cellular regeneration to shape change at all levels, from cellular to macro. If you're not aerobically fit, you're going to use more concentric orientation, which means you're going to use more short-term energy systems. If you use more short-term energy systems, you're more concentric oriented and you can't move well.

Right. Like she's been trying to get help for years and years and years.

Thank you.

What muscles would you want to check that would be useful to have an understanding of?

So when would it be advantageous for me to pull the trigger on trying to program something that's going to take a very long time to create that adaptation without any way of me knowing directly if that adaptation is actually necessary and is occurring as I think it's going to occur.

And so, we haven't been doing any travel, but there's actually been some other really stressful things happening in his life currently, but the weight is gone. It was interesting to see how there could be an intense life stressor, but not this physical travel stressor where there's extreme time zone change on a consistent basis—how the body is responding to different kinds of stress. It's been really interesting. So yeah, Nick, I think you're right. Like, people are experiencing, not that everybody's living a stress-free life, but they're experiencing different kinds of stress, maybe. And it's interesting for me to see the kinds of stresses that are permissive for weight loss and not permissive for weight loss.

It's a yes or no question, but let's take a step back for just a second. Totally unable to answer. Yes or no question.

I was looking at this and thinking if I can restore shoulder internal rotation, shoulder flexion, hip abduction, get a more dynamic Zone of Apposition, then I'll be good and we'll be on the right path.

Yeah. I remember March of 2008. We were sitting in your office upstairs above the best gym in Westfield and just knew, like, look, I was tired of driving around. I still love the content creation piece and I wanted to keep that, but I also knew like this was not a sustainable lifestyle for me and I don't think it was for you either. And I just clearly remember us thinking to ourselves like, yeah, maybe we're wrong, but like, I feel like we're pretty good at this and we could be successful working together. Right? And so yeah, I think about a week later we found somebody and started looking around.

The muscles don't know how you get the stimulus in there. They're just responding to the stimulus, right? Now, the things that you always have to consider are like, okay, what are the secondary consequences? There are certain elements of compressive strategy associated with some of those activities. So if I skew too far in one direction, I am placing focal loads in certain places because I don't have to use the same control elements if I'm sitting down on something. But from a hypertrophy standpoint, it's very, very rational to do those things because again, all the muscle is doing is responding to the stimulus. If you're doing a knee extension, a seated knee extension, or you're doing a front squat, it's like the quads don't know where the stimulus is coming from. They're just responding to what you're forcing this muscle to do. And it says, hey, quit killing me. I'm going to make myself more resilient and more adaptable. Or if we borrow from my uncle and the same, it's like we make ourselves more antifractal, right? So then I have hypertrophy. So hypertrophy doesn't care. Now, but again, just understand what the secondary consequences are. It's like maybe I'm putting some focal load and some stress in some places. So maybe if I'm predisposed to being sensitive with knee loads, then I got to be careful with some of that stuff. But as a supplement, it's like how? If you do one set of knee extensions, is your body going to explode? Is your knee going to be destroyed? Probably not. But if I do it for 30 years, maybe there's some stress-related load there that I need to monitor. But again, it's just a monitoring process. It's like, what am I giving up in return? And I don't think there's so many rights and wrongs as there are what is, is. And then, but what people don't do is they don't have a performance measure other than putting more weight on the bar or other than getting the tape measure out and measuring limbs for circumference or body composition or whatever. When we're talking about adaptability and movement-based health, we do give stuff up. But I'll offer you this. We get shoulder motion and neck motion back from people doing curls. You just have to know what you're doing when you're doing the curls, right? It's not this blind execution of overload. It's about execution with position and control. And then it's remarkable to see these things. And so again, people still get to train, they get to train very, very hard, but we also establish constraints as to how they execute to make sure that we're actually reinforcing what we want as a secondary consequence versus allowing a negative secondary consequence to occur.

I have some general questions about the yielding representation. Since we live in a culture that promotes more concentric and faster movements, more contractions in the body, I feel I'm losing my yielding capability. I wanted to ask how to promote this quality of yielding in movement, or to be more accurate, how to pinpoint the resistance in the body that blocks the ability to yield. In relationship to this question, I also wanted to ask if the yielding representation is always against a support, and if this support has to be the ground or gravity, or if it can be yielding against other areas in the body, like against other tissues or the skeleton.

How many times do you want to get punched in the face?

They say thoracic flexion because the entire portion of the upper back is.

So, if you look at the fan-shaped representation that they always do of the gluteus medius, then as the hip moves, there's more of the gluteus medius that becomes an internal rotator of the femur.