I might need to start him in a very, very short staggered stance before we can actually induce a normal width stance for him because he just can't control the velocity. He can't access the ranges of motion.

The component is moving as a single unit. You get this solid representation of the ilium. And everybody sees this and they go, well, if the ilium moves, then this moves in opposition. So again, this is a faulty model that misguides decision making. Because if you look at the iterations, that's why it's so important to look at them. I love that expression you always give me, the eye roll and the head tilt. That's the best—oh, I recognize what's going on—because you need to have this compressive expansion trait. But now think about this: if we compare a bone to a muscle, and then think about if I were to construct these two things but make them rubber bands, it would be really hard to deform the bony rubber band versus the Velcro rubber band. But if I could deform it, the amount of energy that it would release relative to the muscle rubber band would be huge. And it is. When you run and you bounce across the ground, that's your skeleton. Your skeleton's producing a heck of a lot of that force.

Right. So again, this is me going backwards, which would be like what most folks will call a hinge if I exaggerate that. And again, I don't want to fall backwards. So I need something to push me forward, and so I have to do that.

Okay, so that would be kind of extreme. So that's an orientation. So then it's probably the passive position of the foot that's the result then. You got somebody that is probably later in the propulsive phase.

So, let's strategize this thing from the get-go. Okay, so Thomas, you've got a lot of training under your belt clearly. You've used a lot of compressive type activities. The number one strategy in these circumstances when you're trying to make a change is don't do something that interferes with your intention, okay? So, excuse me. So here's what you gotta start with. You have to eliminate the activities that are actually increasing this compressive strategy or reinforcing the compressive strategy. So these would be anything that is maximal effort, high level effort, high level hypertrophy, strong exhalation strategies, et cetera, et cetera. So this is the hardest part to eliminate for most people because everybody wants to train hard and they're used to training hard. Excuse me. And they're used to drinking hard. And so it becomes very, very difficult for them to eliminate the things that are actually getting in the way. Hang on a second here. Hang on. Neuro coffee to the rescue. There we go. Okay. So. No barbells. If there's a barbell on your hands, you're going to increase your compressive strategy handstand. Anything that's bilateral symmetrical. So both arms and legs are doing the same thing at the same time. So a squat, deadlift, a press, a row, a chin up, et cetera, et cetera. All will increase your compressive strategies. So let's keep that in mind. So what we're going to start to do is start training one side of the body at a time. So we have a compression on one side, we can have expansion on the other. So that's the way you want to start to think about structuring your strength training, but you're also going to have to reduce your intensity level because again, anytime you use that exhalation strategy, you're going to be reinforcing the superficial musculature as exhalers. Side-lying activities to start to reeducate your ability to breathe without the compensatory exhalation strategies. So this is a kinder, gentler kind of a thing. It's really boring for most people because it's no fun. It's not lifting heavy things. It's not driven towards any type of performance other than to find the other end of the performance spectrum. So this is gentle rolling techniques, gentle rotations. Anything that falls under the axial skeletal PNF patterns is a great way to do this, but it's gotta be kinder and gentler. It's gotta be very, very low effort, and it's gotta be very, very quiet, relaxed type breathing. You have to actually learn to reduce your concentric orientations. So again, we have to use this low compressive style of breathing, especially with axillations. Um, manual therapies are actually very, very good under these circumstances. So you have a lot of stiffness that you're dealing with. And this is not just muscular activity. So this is not just concentrated orientation. This is skeletal stiffness. So we're going to start looking at manual therapies as an adjunct to helping you find a way to create these expansions. So this is where, um, I will send people off to our, our, our favorite human being is regard to them. massage world. Jenny Owens here in the IFAS world. She's awesome. She works with a lot of high level athletes and we get great responses from that. So that type of soft tissue actually promotes shape change at the muscular level so we can actually reduce some of this concentric orientation and then you follow it with your activities to actually reduce the concentric orientation as well and we get a nice low effect there. Rib manipulations and mobilizations under these circumstances is actually very, very helpful. We have to restore some of the mobility to the ribs themselves because they get compressed. They become stiffer in their behavior because they, again, they're just part of the compressive strategy. So we have to start thinking along those lines. And again, follow that type of manual therapy with activities to help you reduce concentric orientation and promote the mobility through the thorax. Tractioning activities reduce concentric orientation. So again, you can use banded tractions. You can use light, light suitcase carries and such to help you promote some of this eccentric orientation that you're missing. You're somewhat correct when you're talking about a bottom-up strategy. Inversion strategies under these circumstances are going to be very, very helpful because they're going to flip-flop the airflow as far as the way that the lungs are going to fill. We want to expand this upper part of the thorax If I flip the upside down, it's a little bit easier to get that upper part of the lung to fill up. I would start with a supine inversion, since you're a wide ISA because of the shape of the diaphragm, you're gonna get a better posterior expansion under those circumstances, because you're gonna have to build the expansion. Chances are from below the level of scapula first, then worry about dorsal rostrum, then you can flip yourself over and go face down inversions to recapture that. I would also encourage you, since it's kind of summery now and hopefully you've got access to a pool, is just get in the pool and hang out. Get the water level up to your neck, move around, start working on your turning capabilities. Again, gentle inhales and exhales and just start to move in a lower gravity situation so you can actually relearn to expand yourself. So there's a lot of things that you can do. But this is not something that you typically can force your way through. So working harder is usually not the best case scenario. You typically need some additional assistance through the manual therapies. So I think if you put a combination of factors together here, Thomas, I think you've got a shot at this. But again, I would say that if you're going to try to force your way out of this, probably not going to work. You're going to have to go kinder and gentler. a little bit and you're going to have to modify what you're doing. Take away some of the intensive activities to allow this expansion to occur. Keep me posted on this Thomas because I think that a lot of people are struggling with these kind of situations because they're trying to work too hard to get their way out of it and it just doesn't work. So I hope everybody has a great Friday. It's beautiful day today. I'm going to be outside a little bit today. So I'm excited about that. And have a great weekend and happy 4th of July tomorrow for those of you in the United States of America. And I will see you

So yes, actually. I have them in a certain position. And then when they cough, a couple of cool things happen. What it does is it reduces some of the positional constraints and then restores some motion where I need it. I have a bunch of tricks like that. That's what I consider them—tricks. It's sort of like creating a window of opportunity. So, you know, sometimes you do a minute and now you have motion where you didn't have motion before, and then you can ask that and they can teach you something. I had about 10 minutes to look at this person. I had to do something really fast and dirty. I did a little trick and it instantly restored a lot of motion where I didn't think I was going to get any. Right away, the light bulb goes off: okay, we have something we can work with here.

Yes.

When we talk about movement capabilities, we can monitor that. As you get to know someone over time, it's important to observe them. You'll see if they can get into certain positions and what their ground contact is like. During dynamic warmup activities, you expect certain people to move very well across the ground. Watch them when they walk in the door. We use two big ratings: a rating of technique and a rating of perceived exertion. You monitor your client's technique and notice if they're not doing well today, so you back it off. Or they're at 70% of their perceived maximum but say it feels like a nine out of ten, so you adjust to make it feel like a seven out of ten as intended.

Well, that's what I'm wondering is, is, yeah, this, you know, you, that maybe you're doing things now and you're like, wait a second, like we, we should just do this all the time.

Give me another layer of thought process. What else is happening?

Right, right. So now everything's getting reinforced, which again, this is great to see the coordination and the fact that the trainer did come in. And so now his perspective is different in regards to how he's going to not only work with her, but probably as other clients as well. So you're doing good things.

Right. And so I think our initial financial outlay was very, very small because we literally just moved all the equipment out of my house, moved all the equipment out of your garage, and then literally opened the doors.

100%.

By structure, but it doesn't mean that they will expand because the longer they spend time on earth, the more compressed that they're going to be. The more active they are, the greater the compressive strategy that they will learn. And so they still have to learn how to manage their capability so they can maintain their expansion. They still have the same muscles on the outside of their body. They're still going to create the compressive strategies to move.

No.

Well, you have to bend the spine if you're pulling the sternum down, because you don't have relative motions there. This brings up why I sometimes talk in a convoluted way. I understand the planar thinking approach, but then it becomes problematic: is bending the spine without relative motion flexion, or is the relative segmental motion of one segment moving on another what defines flexion? They're not the same. If I press two segments together and bend them in the same direction as forward flexion, which is it? The definition is unclear. It's messy and incoherent, leading to confusion because people associate relative motion positions and movements with non-relative motion positions and movements. They're not the same, so the solutions and resolutions aren't the same.

Yeah, yeah.

It has to change shape, right? To be able to come to a stop because at the point, at the dead center transition point, where you're no longer going in, you're about to come out, what would be the position of the puzzle?

Right.

Hello, Bill. I have a small question about breathing. How do you cue someone who is compressing the upper thorax to breathe without using the neck muscles, especially muscles of the breathing. I mean, even if they sense that they do this, how would you make it for them more accessible to really stay without the muscles here?

I was literally going to say that. I was going to say, if we turn them into a sprinter, we might have a little, we would see a similar orientation. However, to make him a great deadlifter versus a sprinter, we might have to actually orient him a little bit more than we want as a sprinter because of the way that he applies the force into the ground is much briefer. And so we might have a little bit of an issue there in regards to the ability of the hamstrings to tolerate the forces, right? But I'm with you, man. I'm totally with you on this, again, they don't have a great measure. There's not a great clinical measure other than some of your table tests. So we know that if I don't have late IR, I'm going to have a really strong orientation involved there. But it doesn't mean that the muscle itself, the capability of the muscle itself is not weak. It's just in a position where it doesn't produce as much force in the context that you're testing it in. Again, in a deadlift, he's probably plenty strong. But don't ask him to do something else that would require a different position. Again, if he needs more late IR, he might not have it. But that's a systemic representation. It's not a muscle thing. That's a very reduction in perspective, which is why a lot of situations fail. I have to get the relative motions back through the entire foot. Once you get that rotation back, now you capture foot contact. Now you get a tibia that will actually turn into internal rotation and allow the knee to bend.

Yeah, not much, but yeah.

Like arc is the wrong word.

Yes. OK. So I have a narrow pitcher who I feel like we're at a point where I want to start using that time constraint. I had him hop on a force plate, did that, and we got the number. And I guess I just ran into this scenario where when I did the math out, it seemed like an impossibly fast impulse. Like if we had to put them back on a box squat, for example, or something like that to hit that number or you know, even think about improving that number, we would, I feel like, just be using like an empty bar at that point. And I'm like, okay, maybe we should just do jumps.

I'm talking about like abduction.

Get them to control it first before doing something more.

Good eye. How you going, Bill?

It looks like a lot of other narrow hips we'll see is they'll often end up in that situation as well.

I see.

Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's just something where I've had a lot of people, and I think maybe I was just using the split squat to mitigate some of the axial orientation, but I would coach it with more of a hinge starting point to recapture some of the movement.