Good morning. Happy Wednesday. I have neural coffee in hand and it is perfect.

Then that right side will begin to yield.

That barbell's going down.

Okay, so they're not going to be the same. It looks like the same on the outside, but think about foot orientation and then the helical angle that you're going to be performing the chops on. For a narrow representation, they have a steeper helical angle. So your foot orientation is going to be different. The angle of pull is going to be different. But we're using it to capture, in both cases, we're going to try to capture the early representation. So again, what I'm using that for is not the archetype per se. It is to capture the early representation of propulsion, because both archetypes can have that limitation. So I'm using the exercise to capture that. But now think about how you would orient it a little bit differently, where with the wide representation, I might have a foot spacing that looks like that. And for the narrow, I might look like that, right? Because it's going to be a steeper helical angle. And then I have a cable now that I have to create the representation of, it's like what angle am I gonna pull on? So for my wide ISA, my angle might be a little bit flatter. And for my narrow ISA, it might be a little bit steeper. So yes, it's the same exercise by name, but not the same representation in the execution. Do you see the difference?

I'll have to think about that for a little bit.

So velocity, mass of the ball, position, all of these things, all of these things matter. Good morning. Happy Tuesday. I have no coffee in hand and it is perfect. So. I'm pretty pumped up. As you can see, I have a new hoodie on today, thanks to my brother Jim Ferris. So this is affectionately termed the Batman Begins version of the Jim Ferris sweatshirt shield included in black and gray. as the Batman would prefer. So thank you so much for this. I will treasure it and I will wear it constantly. Even in the heat I will wear this thing because it is it's an awesome awesome little sweatshirt. Anyway, so let's dive right into today's Q&A. We are short on time. So today's Q&A is with Misha and we covered some serious ground in regards to medicine ball training. So he had a series of questions that were perfect questions like how do we identify what exercises are best for which phase of propulsion? Why does the weight of the ball matter? How do we use fake throws? And so we broke this thing down with respect to my model, covered a lot of ground. Like I said, I think you're gonna really, really enjoy today's Q&A. If you would like to participate in a Q&A, please go to askbillhartmanedgmail.com, askbillhartmanedgmail.com, put 15 minute consultation in the subject line so I don't delete it, and we will arrange a call at our mutual convenience. Don't forget to subscribe to the YouTube channel as well, so you get all those videos first hand. Have a great Tuesday and I will see you all tomorrow.

For fitness professionals like you and me and everyone at IFAS to be able to use it and to get into the technicalities of it. I'm also aware that because there's such a strong element of that it will become more and more disseminated in good and bad ways, I'm sure, as time goes on. And I think to myself, there are a lot of people out there who are just trying to work on general fitness and trying to work on understanding what to do in the gym, rather than trying to set inhumane goals on the field or in the gym. For people like that, oftentimes rules of thumb are much more useful than like what's going on at the base of the sacrum or which turn is my body stuck in right now. So I've been thinking a lot about kind of rules of thumb that aren't true but they're useful and they need to be qualified in a real and precise way. So my question is: would it be a useful rule of thumb that a program that is based in trying to restore general movement capabilities and in trying to maintain or promote health should include lower body exercises? Lower body exercises and overhead exercises are the most direct classes of exercises where you're going against gravity. You're literally just going upwards. It might be up and back. It might be up and forwards. But so many people don't. And to me, it may underlie why a lot of people end up with just poor degree of success, like among many other factors. So the question is, is that a good rule of thumb or is it not even nuanced enough? I just want to hear from you because you know much more than I do.

No, that was the main thing.

Which one's faster?

So it's like, I get to the point where, when that's pushing hard, I really have to get the left side of the pelvis to come back and I have to get the anterior pelvic floor to come up at that level of forward.

Right.

Yep.

However you want to define that is okay by me. I would say that they're trying to produce force downward to hold position for whatever reason it may be.

Yes.

So we load the right side, which is going to make it easier for us to maintain the external rotation on the right side, which is going to keep the pelvis turned to the left as we descend into the split squat. Another strategy that I really like that becomes a very strong challenge for this is to use the 3D strap. It'll shove you hard into this late propulsive strategy. And so now we're creating a tremendous amount of resistance. And now we have a very strong effort to keep this pelvis turned to the left as we descend into the split squat. So again, we're just raising the level of challenge here to help us resist the overcoming strategy. So that late propulsive strategy on the left side. So as a wrap up, So there's a lot of possibilities here. There's a lot of ways to address this. This is just one of many. But the first thing I would say is you're in a late-propulsive strategy on the left side. You want to go early to start to address this to achieve this pain-free situation. Next, make sure you can capture exhalation, internal rotation, and pressure management strategies internally, because you're going to need that concentric orientation of the pelvic diaphragm. You're going to need the internally rotated position of the pelvis at the bottom of the split squat to make sure that we have eliminated this concentric orientation on the anterior aspect of the hip and the thigh, and then challenge them to hold this position to resist this late propulsive strategy, the split squat.

to the calcaneus, not just the aponeurosis of the plantar fascia and the thinner medial and lateral plantar fascia. So I think that there's not a specific foot type per se that's going to result in these situations, but I do think there might be a little bit of a bias in one direction. And I think that this has to do with the way that the connective tissues behave in regards to overcoming and yielding because we do have a situation when we're moving through propulsion where we have yielding actions versus overcoming actions. And I think that those people that are predisposed to a prolonged or maintained overcoming action are those that are probably going to be more predisposed towards the symptoms that are typically thrown into the diagnosis of plantar fasciitis. It's this reason that I think that some of these stretching protocols may accidentally help because if we can create any yielding action at all through some form of tension, then maybe you do get some relief. But I think in many situations, because this is not just a foot problem, this is a center of gravity issue, as you'll see here in a minute, I don't think that it's necessarily going to be a great solution. So let's quickly go through our phases of the propulsive foot. So we get an idea of what we're talking about here. So as you recall, we're going to have three rockers. We have our ankle rocker, which is heel contact to where that first metatarsal head comes down to the surface. I've got a tibia that's behind the ankle, that's an external rotation. This is going to translate over the foot. And so this is going to be our middle propulsive phase. And this is where we're going to see the reduction of the arch. So we see the supinated foot with the arch. We're going to move towards traditional pronation, which is the lowering of the arch. And then I'm going to see the resupination of the foot and the re-external rotation under those situations. Now, I think that those that are going to be more predisposed towards this diagnosis are going to be those that are going to be in the later stages of middle propulsion or they're going to be trying to acquire this early propulsive strategy at the end of middle propulsion where we're going to hit that maximum propulsion. So this is maximum pronation right at the point where that heel starts to break off the ground. I have to create this overcoming situation. And so this is the connective tissue behavior. So the tissues are behaving very, very stiff at this point. I think that this is where we're going to see most of our people that are dealing with the heel pain situations because this is the overcoming. And so I'd rate this very high rate of loading into the connective tissues. They become very, very stiff.

Yeah, pick up your left knee to hip bend to 90 degrees. Okay. Now do this. So what I want you to do, boss, is I want you to crank that leg as far into rotation as you possibly can, and let your body just kind of follow where it wants to go. Keep going. Keep going. You feel your back arch? Now go the other way. So now rotate into the ear, and I'm gonna make you make a right hand turn, or left hand turns—it's your left leg, right? You see how the spine turns as you move it?

Well, that's a really tough question.

Internal rotation of the pelvis.

Yeah, I would just do the lockouts and see what happens.

Well, I don't try to talk to everybody. I just don't. Why do you think I start those asinine videos for the 16%? Everybody thinks they're in the 16%, but they're not. But the reality is, that's why I prefaced those videos, because I recognize the fact that there's 84% of the people that don't give a rat's patuity about it. So number one is I only speak to certain audiences, which is good. That way I don't have to change me too much. I do alter communication styles a little bit because you do have to adapt to the people that you're talking to. But typically what I don't do anymore is I don't censor myself. I don't try to talk down as much. Because mostly I don't care, because if you don't understand me or you don't want to understand me, go somewhere else. I'm fine with that. But generally speaking, it's like, don't try to talk to everybody and then it gets a whole lot easier. The language that I just started using my language from my model. And then people have sort of, they either hop on the bandwagon, they go, tell me more about this, or they just go, I think that the biceps is a class two lever. Is that right? Is the biceps supposed to be a class two lever? I can't remember it was in school. It was like 400 years ago for me. But anyway. So that's the simple answer, Alex. It's like just decide who you're going to be talking to, and then that determines the language that you will use or the method that you will use.

But what we're going to do is going to be very particular about what stance they're performing these in. And so again, we get to reinforce what we're chasing with this concentric eccentric orientation in the posterior lower aspect, while they get to do fun stuff, if you will. As you start to gain hip motion, obviously now we can move into split stance activities. And ultimately what we want to be able to do is move into a deeper side split stance. This would be indicative of the fact that we've got plenty of eccentric orientation at this point. And then eventually what you may want to be able to do then is move to some form of toe touching, some kind of progression in that manner and then ultimately that might be what you use as a maintenance strategy. So again, this is a really, really difficult scenario because of the degree of concentric orientation and the compressive strategy that goes on. Take your time. Be patient. You have to be very, very patient in these scenarios. But again, work with what you have. Work within the constraints. Don't force. Don't drive compensatory strategies too hard because it just becomes a point of frustration.

Right.

Gotcha.

Okay. Makes sense.

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. 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 I will send people off to 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.

Actually, that brings up a pretty decent question. And I think it's been floated around, but just considerations for kids when they come back. I think most of us have our answers and stuff. But what are things that I guess that maybe I'm not thinking about in terms of just returning back to training and kind of getting things back into order? I mean, because we're starting to see some, which is crazy in the South where I think we've seen a couple already where kids are back with their certified coaches and you know, I think one, I thought I saw on Twitter, they threw them through a Murph workout and this was a football team. I think I saw death already in Georgia. You know, it's like one of these things where I think we're having the discussion and a lot more people are aware, but we still have coaches out there that are just, you know, they're trying to make their point and they're trying to put them through things where they shouldn't be going through.

Okay. Would you immediately make an assumption that because your butt is hurting and you're sitting on the hard chair that you have butt weakness?

Isn't there a value in the subjectivity of asking clients about their readiness level? For example, you could ask them when they come in or have them fill out a brief three-question form: What's your readiness level? What are you feeling? How'd you sleep last night? This approach, while not extensively documented in the literature, has shown strong correlations with objective findings like GPS data in high-performance settings.

So I think it's going to be, because I think the first week back, people are going to be very going back to their emotional attachments of what they thought worked. But it's like, are we measuring things right now for when they get back and be like, look, like here's your vertical jump. Like you lost nothing.