So, Adam, I like your thinking, but let me give you an alternative explanation for this, because I think that the way you described it hints at something that is really, really common and a very, very common misunderstanding as to what's actually happening during the squat. So let's talk about what would normally occur as we descend into the squat. So we talk about the way that the hip is oriented and the pelvis is oriented as we move through space. And so this early phase of hip flexion, so as you're descending in the squat, this early phase would be external rotation. We pass through internal rotation, where we get a reorientation of the acetabulum, and then we finish into this deep position. And chances are, and I'm not picking on you, brother, but chances are, if you're wide ISA and you're squatting the way you say, you're not hitting that range flexion, so we're not going to be worried about that part. But what I do want to talk about is what's potentially going on with the orientation of the pelvis and then what you're actually seeing at the hip. What you're seeing is extra rotation is actually internal rotation. So let's talk about that for a second.

Good morning. Happy Monday. I have neuro coffee in hand and it is perfect. The sun is up. It is a beautiful day. It is Monday. I'm talking with Eric Cressey tonight. This is exciting. I haven't talked to Eric in a long time, at least not directly. We've emailed and such. So I'm looking forward to that. I got a pretty good question that came through askbillhartman@gmail.com and then I had literally the exact same question come through on Instagram over the weekend so I thought I got to answer this one because obviously people have a curiosity. And it's also one of my favorite topics to talk about because it makes people really uncomfortable because it kind of bucks the status quo a little bit. But I think that once I get through with the explanation, you'll understand why I have an opinion of such and then hopefully it will be useful for you as far as your thought process and make your life just a little bit simpler. So the question that came through asked Bill Hartman at Gmail is from Alex and Alex says I watched your upload of the 6 a.m. Coach's conference call from this morning It was the first time I personally heard you discuss in depth the concept of there's no such thing as sagittal plane. Playing with regards to the example we were talking about calcaneus and talus and tibial relationships and how they cancel out rotations to produce this forward apparently imaginary sagittal motion. I'm unsure as to whether you went into more depth with the call itself, but I'd be incredibly interested in whether you could address this fully in a Q&A, aha, today, and how it applies to perceived motion in both the sagittal and the frontal planes. Alex, thank you for the question. Thank you for this opportunity to explain this. Typically, the way I would do this would be to whiteboard it. So I don't have the whiteboard in the home office as I do today. So I'm going to use a visual aid. I made this just for you. Not very skilled in that manner, but it'll work. I also brought in a skeleton to give you a nice visual representation. First thing I want to talk about is a little bit of geometry. So the Cartesian plane concept of the X, Y, and Z axis still applies. We visually, we perceive this three-dimensional, actually four-dimensional. I like that there's space time in there. but this three-dimensional world of the x, y, and z axes. And so that's what we see. And so when we started talking about anatomy, they decided that, okay, we move in three planes, therefore there must be three planes. And I would offer that visually, we see the representation in space of this three planes, but we don't actually produce movement in three planes. What we do is we cancel out rotations to create direction. And so let's talk about that.

So we're going to see it show up in the foot a lot. And so if we look at the way that the foot moves through space, we've talked about the heel rocker, ankle rocker, toe rocker thing. So as we hit with the heel rock and the foot goes to flat, we've got this supinated position at the sub-tail joint. So we have no relative motion between the talus and the calcaneus. They're moving together as one. As we move through this middle propulsive phase, this is where we start to see the relative motion. So that would be typically described as closed chain pronation. So we have the talus and the calcaneus moving in relative motions in opposite directions. And then as we move through the late propulsive strategy, we get the calcaneus and telus moving again together with no relative motion. So typically when we have knee pain, either like a medial compartment load or a lateral compartment load on the knee that results in pain, we have this loss of this middle propulsive phase so that we have a loss of relative motion. And then what's happening is that the lower extremity is trying to recapture some form of relative motion somewhere else. So when we talk about medial knee pain, we're going to see an early propulsive strategy in the foot. And what this is, is we look up above at the pelvis. What we have is the left side of the pelvis that's trying to get ahead of the right side. And so if we can't delay that propulsive strategy on the left side, we're going to plant or flex and we're going to try to hold ourselves in this early propulsive phase. That's going to be medial knee pain if we continue to drive the left side forward and over. So this would be typically that somebody is going to be anteriorly oriented in the pelvis and tipped up on an oblique axis. It's going to drive even harder and it's going to push us anterior and lateral over the foot. It's going to drive us towards a late propulsive strategy and that's going to result in lateral knee pain. So let's see what that looks like at the knee. So if I take a knee, I'm gonna move the patella out of the way so we can see the knee joint. So if I'm utilizing this early propulsive strategy at the foot to reduce relative motion, that's gonna result in a tibial femoral ER representation. If I continue this turn of the tibia into ER relative to the femur, I'm eventually gonna hit a constraint and that's gonna be a medial compartment load. So this is where we're gonna see this medial knee pain show up.

I have a Q&A from Marcus about ankles. Mark says, 'I've seen your videos. We use the foot manipulation to alter ankle and hip range of motion with great interest, but I'm a strength coach, so manipulation is off the table. I have a client with limited right ankle mobility and plantar flexion. He also has limited hip external rotation on both sides, the left more than the right side, and a history of Achilles problems, but those are resolved after wearing a heel lift in his right shoe. Can you offer some strategy to help recapture this plantar flexion?' Okay, so we have a couple of things that are in play here, especially with this history of wearing the heel lift. So let's talk a little bit about how this foot behaves first and foremost, and then we'll superimpose the strategies on top of this. So I do have my foot in hand and I do have a surface to put the foot on. Okay, so the simplified version of the foot: three rockers. Heel rocker, ankle rocker, toe rocker. As I come down to the ground, the foot is in this supinated position. So I'm going to modify this just a little bit to exaggerate it. And so we're going to have tibial external rotation. We're going to have a talus that's resting over the calcaneus as we come down to the ground, which is going to help maintain this arch position now. Here's the little problem that you're running into. So they put this heel lift in your guy's shoe to try to take some tension off of the Achilles. In doing so, they kept him in this early propulsive phase of gait. And so what you didn't get is the normal tibial translation over top of the foot. So he had a heel rocker, but he didn't have all this ankle rocker. So chances are what you didn't get is this normal mid-propulsive foot. So what we should see is subtalar pronation in the closed chain version, if you will, which is going to allow that tibia to move over top of the foot. So if the arch is maintained, I won't be able to get the ankle rocker component of normal gait. And so what we're going to have to do is sort of recreate this gradually. So we've got to think about graded load over this foot to recapture this. So here's something a little counterintuitive.

Good morning. Happy Monday. I have neuro coffee in hand and it is perfect as usual. Okay. Very solid Monday. Sun is out. It's going to get warm. Business is looking good. Things are coming back slowly. So that's exciting too. So let's dig into a Q and A. So we're going to talk about breathing, which is a shocker and a surprise, right? Which I don't know, breathing's become kind of popular for some reason. But I think a lot of the information is getting misinterpreted. And so let's try to clarify a few things by playing off of a question that I got from Adam. And Adam wants to know if his abdominal muscle should be contracted or completely relaxed at rest. So this gives us an opportunity to kind of talk a little bit about what's really happening during resting breathing and then how we're going to apply this in certain types of exercises when we're trying to restore movement capabilities or when we're trying to reinforced performance. So under resting circumstances you probably shouldn't have to think about your breathing very much. At least I would hope that you wouldn't. In most cases of resting breathing the inhalation has some measure of effort associated with it. It's primarily the diaphragm that's creating the negative pressure inside the body that allows you to breathe in. And then it's an elastic recoil of the thorax, the lung tissue actually recoils. You have the eccentric orientation of the diaphragm creating a positive pressure and then you exhale. So there's a slight little tweak of abdominal activity at the end of an exhalation that's almost non-existent. In fact, for a long time they said that there wasn't any, and then there's a little bit of research that says that there is. But point being is that most of our resting breathing should be relaxed and comfortable and not require any thought. Now, when I started talking about the two archetypes, I'm going to start talking about wide ISA's and narrow ISA's and classifying them in regards to their tendencies, we started to talk about using different ways of breathing to reinforce a change just to get someone to the opposite end of this. It appears to be this dichotomy of inhalation/exhalation. They're actually occurring at the same time, so it's not really a true dichotomy. But because the diaphragm does not descend uniformly in the two archetypes, it requires that there's two different types of breathing when we're trying to restore movement capability. So with the narrow ISA's, because of the way that they trap air in the thorax, if we use a high pressure strategy, all we do is reinforce the compensatory strategy. We continue to trap air and we don't make the changes that we've been attempting to change.

So I got an email from David who's having some shoulder pain with bench presses. He's doing a lot of ITY exercises, face pulls, rubber band exercises for rotator cuff strengthening, and he's still having a lot of shoulder pain. So I thought it'd be a good idea to come into the purple room, get a bigger representative model of what's going on in the rib cage, in the shoulder, in the scapula. So we have enlisted the assistance of Alfred here, and we'll talk our way through what may be going on. A lot of times shoulder pain is the result of a loss of range of motion that's associated with the inability to change the shape of the ribcage or change the position of the scapula as the arm moves through its arc of range of motion. So especially with compressive exercises like pressing, the exercise itself is going to promote a restriction in ranges of motion. If this is the case, then we need to make sure that we're doing enough work to maintain our ability to expand the thorax in the appropriate manner to allow us to maintain as much shoulder range motion as possible so we avoid the painful ranges of motion. So let's talk about how the shoulder actually moves through its range of motion and where we would expect to see this expansion and compressive strategy that allows us to move the arm through space. In the initial phase of raising my arm up away from my side, I need to make sure that I get expansion in this posterior lower aspect of the rib cage. This prevents the scapula from compressing against the rib cage too soon or moving too soon and I immediately lose range of motion under those circumstances. So maintaining this expansion of the posterior lower rib cage makes sure that I start from a good position. As I move the arm through this middle range of motion from about plus or minus 30 degrees from the horizontal, this is where the scapula actually moves the most. So this is what most people would term upward rotation, the scapula. And this promotes a compressive strategy in the upper back. This also pushes air forward and promotes an upward pump handle position of the sternum as I move the arm through this middle arc of range of motion. As I get to the top of an overhead reach, I need to expand again on this posterior aspect of the upper part of the rib cage. And if I can't do that, then I immediately have a deficit in my overhead reach. So what David's doing is a number of exercises that promote a lot of compressive strategy on the upper back, which is perfectly fine if that's what is needed.

Good morning. Happy Monday. I have neuro coffee in hand. And it is perfect. Monday, big week coming up. And the Q&A for today is going to be very philosophical, so I'll give you a warning that if you don't want to understand the philosophy behind the model, you're not concerned about that, then don't watch it. Go watch something else. Go watch somebody working out on video or something like that. This will probably get all of maybe five or six views on YouTube as well. But I think it's a really, really good question because it's from my buddy Ed in Germany. And Ed asks really good questions. And I think that if you are interested in how the model evolves, then it might be a little bit useful for your discussion later on with other folks that are having trouble absorbing it. So let's dive right into this question. So Ed says, the model of inhalation exhalation works, and it is to your credit to show simple solutions to put the human body into positions and facilitate the desired outcome and to restore normal breathing mechanics and movement options. But I think we have to acknowledge that it's not only a body or body part position that influences the mechanics of movement posture, but also neurological in and output. And then he goes on to sort of express a number of ways that we can manipulate senses and gain movement related changes and finishes with, shouldn't we incorporate neurology of sensing and the effect of autonomic states into your model? And so Ed, I would offer that the model actually does take all of those things into consideration. They're just not always expressed for various reasons. So let's get into that. The goal of the model, first and foremost, is to be coherent. And so rather than coming up with explanations that may be overly complex, what we want to do is we want to be coherent with the rules and laws of the physical world or we can even talk about the universe. So when we talk about movement in general, you have expressed that you think the model is about inhalation and exhalation and I would offer that this is a gradient based model. So when we talk about any movement in the universe, it requires a gradient to move. So whether we're talking about planets moving through space or rockets moving through the air or human movement or cellular processes, all of these things require a gradient. So if there's no gradient, there's no movement. So let me give you, for instance, so I have a pen here. This pen is affected by gravity. If I hold the pen here, it has a certain amount of energy. If I raise it up higher, I've increased the potential energy that this pen now has. So what gravity is, is an energy gradient.

Good morning. Happy Monday. I have neuro coffee in hand and it is perfect. Okay, so kind of an odd day. This is a holiday. Please take into consideration those people that are our most important. And those are the people that we celebrate, the people that have done things for us, given everything and continue to do so. And so I appreciate all of you very much and I hope that everyone else does as well. Okay, I'm going to dive right into a Q&A here from Michael or Mike. Mike says, I came across your YouTube video on the Camperini deadlift as a hip mobility drill prior to squats. Can you explain what's happening at the pelvis and sacrum on the backside leg and the front side leg? Are you regaining push to your expansion on the back leg just above the pelvis? So really good question. And I think that you're already kind of on track there, Mike, as far as what your thought process is. But let's go ahead and let's break this down just a little bit more as to what's going on prior to why we would select this activity, and then a little bit on the execution as far as the mechanics are concerned. If you have any questions about how it's executed, just go to the YouTube channel and check out that variation of the staggered stance deadlift. But so if we look at pelvis mechanics, and we'll just pick on the left side because it's easy. So if I have a posterior compressive strategy here that closes this space and pushes the pelvis into an orientation where it's going to be turning to the right, so I've got a lot of concentric orientation here. What I'm going to see from a measurement standpoint is I'll see a limited traditional hip internal rotation measure. I'll also see limited hip flexion and straight leg raise in many of those cases. And so what I need to do is recapture some eccentric orientation here and I need to reorient the pelvis into a left turn to allow me to capture full movement options. And so that's when we would select something like the Camperini deadlift because of the hip position. So we're going to approximate a 90 degree position of the pelvis in this forward position at the bottom of the camperini deadlift. So what we're actually doing is we're trying to create that eccentric orientation in this lower posterior aspect. Now because of the way we hold the weight and because of the position of the weight, we're also creating expansion above the pelvis, so we're talking about below the level of the scapula and the posterior rib cage, so we also need to expand that as well because I've got that iterative effect of this area of the pelvis being analogous to that area of the thorax.

Good morning. Happy Monday. I have neuro coffee in hand. And it is perfect. Okay. It's a rainy, rainy Monday. So if you're right in the background, that would be why you might hear a little bit of buzz. But we do have a Q&A for Monday. And this is a really cool question because it's one of those things that a lot of people don't think about. And it involves working with the younger folk, with the young athletes and the little kids. And so Nate comes with a question. Says I work a lot with athletes in the age group of 11 to 25 and I was curious if you think ISA compensations take time to manifest and therefore harder to detect in younger or prepubescent people. No. So here's the deal. So the rules don't change, right? Structure dictates what their capabilities will be. With the younger athlete though, what you have is an individual that is probably a little bit more adaptable as a general rule. So not always, but a lot of the times. And so you have this broad spectrum of capabilities. And then you have this broad capacity for adaptability which means that their performances aren't spectacular at either end of the spectrum, but that also makes them more adaptable. And so they're a little bit more changeable, and so they may not rely on a singular strategy for performance. If you look at this thing as a normal curve situation though you do have some extremes and so these are the kids that tend to perform really really well under certain circumstances and they do use they do use compensatory strategies and that's one of the reasons why they stand out so if you have a kid that runs faster than everybody else jumps higher than everybody else throws harder than everybody else he is using some form of strategy that allows him that high level of force production now because of his age he might be a little bit more adaptable and so while he performs exceptionally well he may be a little less adaptable in other things and so this might be one of the reasons why we see some of the injuries like we see in youth sports is you take a kid that is somewhat biased towards being really, really good at something. So let's pick on baseball pitching because it's really easy to do in youth pitching especially. So he's really good at force production. He has lesser adaptability overall than everyone else in comparison that allows him to stand out as a thrower and then you superimpose a bunch of training on top of that. So lots and lots of throwing, lots and lots of specificity and then you slowly take away all the other adaptability that he does have and then bango you get an injury because now he's no longer adaptable so that's what the excessive throwing would do.

Good morning. Happy Monday. I have neuro coffee in hand and it is perfect as usual. It is a beautiful Monday. The sun is starting to come up. It's still cold. I'm wearing a hoodie. I'm a little disappointed in that considering that it's a big month. But let's go ahead and dive right into the Q&A because I got a question from Zhang who is very, very prolific in the Q&A section. He's got a question about female clients with narrow ISA. He says, I notice in my female clients, mostly with narrow ISA, that a lot of them have an anterior pelvic orientation. One way I use to promote the posterior pelvic orientation is by using the heel ramp and queuing them to tuck. So he's talking about with a squatting activity, I believe. But I see very little improvement. Is this a good strategy for a narrow ISA? Will it promote further inhalation bias which defeats the purpose of creating the posterior orientation? Okay, so first thing we wanna do is we wanna deconstruct this and we wanna identify what we're really looking at to begin with. Let me grab the pelvis. It is way over here. Here we go. All right, so I'm gonna turn this around so you can see from behind. So, Zhang, what you're dealing with primarily is the fact that when you have this narrowing of the ISA, you're gonna have a posterior compressive strategy near the apex of the sacrum, so the lower part of the sacrum, right from the get-go. So this is the difference between the wides and the narrows, is that the wide is gonna have this space open to start, the narrows are gonna have this space compressed. Then you're gonna see a later compensatory strategy where you're gonna get the posterior compression farther up, which is near the base of the sacrum, and then that's gonna start to drive this anterior orientation. Here's the dealio with some of your narrows. When you try to get a posterior orientation, especially with the heel's elevated squat pattern, what you're going to see is you're going to see even more closure. They're going to actually compress this. These are your little butt squeezers. These are the people that I say that they're hiding $100 billion here and you're never going to get it back. It may not be the best cue, but you do have a strategy that that may work. So one of the things that you have to recognize about the posterior compressive strategy at the base of the sacrum is that this musculature picks up IR moment, an internal rotation moment as it pushes the pelvis forward. So under these circumstances, if you want to use the heel's elevated squat variation, what you're going to want to do is you're going to want to put a band around their knees. Now this is not the push the knees out into the band kind of a strategy. This is maintaining a parallel orientation of the femurs in line with the knees in line with the feet as they're squatting so what you're doing is you're holding position against the resistance of the band and what that does is it allows this musculature at the base of the sacrum to eccentrically orient. Now you're going to start to see the ability to counter-nutate normally as you would see with an inhaled bias of the axial skeleton. Because what your narrows with this posterior compression have is they can't get the sacrum to move under those normal circumstances. So the band becomes very, very useful under those circumstances. You have alternative strategies as well. So in some cases, in some cases, body weight is just too much load for some people to manage through these dynamic movements. And so you have to unweight them. And so this is where we start to use alternative positions like quadruped, prone inversion activities work really, really well. Something as simple as a child's pose in yoga can be the solution here. Once you recapture enough hip extension, then move them to half kneeling progressions and you'll see a pretty monster change at that point. But you've got to get them from this position where they've got this anterior orientation first. And like I said, one of the easier strategies is just simply to add the banded squat rather than just using the heel's elevation as the only influence there. So hopefully, Jeng, that answers your question there. We have to do a quick Q&A because I got a bunch of mentorship calls today. Looking forward to this week. If you have any questions, send them to askbillhardman at gmail.com, askbillhardman at gmail.com, and I'll see you guys tomorrow.

When we're talking about reducing the compressive strategy on the sternum, we need to identify that a compressive strategy results in reduced shoulder internal rotation. This happens because compressing the sternum positions the scapula such that you get concentric orientation on the posterior side of the shoulder, leading to a loss of internal rotation. You can't reach across your body or behind your back, and you won't have normal internal rotation that people would measure in table tests. To address this, we need to bring the pump handle up. If we were to take a dent out of a car fender, we wouldn't bang on the outside trying to make it pop back out; we have to go from the inside out. Therefore, to bring the pump handle up, we need to push volume into that anterior chest wall to lift the sternum. Since we have left and right pump handles, we can play with that scenario, but for now, let's stick with the concept of pushing air forward. To push air forward, we need to create a compressive strategy on the posterior aspect that opposes the sternum. In the dorsal rostral thorax, we need to create concentric orientation. Any position where the scapula moves towards the traditional upward rotation creates that concentric orientation and pushes the volume of air forward. This puts us in a general range of a reach forward or quadruped position, which would be ideal. The primary strategy to get the pump handle up is forward reaches and positions like a bear crawl or bear position. The second place to capture this is by positioning the arm at your side, where internal rotation begins. Activities like crab walking, from good old fashioned gym class, work really well here. You can also do propulsive activities with your arm at your side, such as triceps activities. Tricep kickbacks, as mentioned in a previous video, are a really good exercise to help recapture internal rotation of the shoulder. Anything in these two ranges will be of the greatest benefit to bring the pump handle up.

The thing that I would offer you, Jake, is that normal breathing should just be basic, quiet, nasal breathing under most circumstances. I don't try to make people breathe any particular way other than during some form of rehabilitative situation, homework or training-based type breathing, where we're working on sequence and strategy and such. Breathing behaviors are learned behaviors. And so what we want to do is we have to do enough work to make the changes that are desired, but to become obsessive about trying to be breathing in a very specific way all the time is much like trying to capture whatever good posture may be because it's ill-defined. What we're actually trying to do is restore the adaptability. So I should be able to breathe in many different ways under many different circumstances. And in most cases, people are arrested in one direction or the other. So if we look at the representations of the two archetypes in the axial skeleton, so if I'm biased towards an exhalation strategy with a compensatory inhalation, or I'm biased towards an inhalation strategy with a compensatory exhalation, I'm just biased at one end of this breathing spectrum. If I can capture the opposing strategy, then I typically have everything that falls in between. And so that's ultimately the goal. And so we need to do enough work on a regular basis where we restore that capability of the full excursion of breathing. Beyond that, maybe an occasional reinforcement periodically, especially if you're one of those people that has to assume a static position all day. So if I'm a desk worker or if I had to stand in a certain position, then my movement is limited throughout the day. Or if I've superimposed compensatory strategies on there from a performance standpoint, and I'm trying to maintain some element of health, then maybe I need to reinforce it periodically. But in general, Jake, what you want to do is you want to do enough work that you get the outcome that you desire. And so again, we're in the gray with this answer. It's not an absolute thing, but typically, when you're at rest, it's just normal quiet nasal breathing. You should be able to access that without the compensatory strategies. If you have to, then that might be an answer as to why maybe you're having a performance related issue or dealing with some sort of movement limitation.

So let's dig in. This is from Michael. And Michael says, I heard you say that you would side plank a wide, infraternal angle client. Can you go into details to why and what effect it has on the ribcage? Absolutely, I can. In fact, let me go get my homemade ribcage. So spine, somewhere around. the fifth rib sternum first rib just to give you a frame of reference but when we're looking at a wide ISA we're looking at that shape right there so they are wider side to side than they are deep and so if I was to do a a typical plank under those circumstances where I'm looking down the line in that respect because of the way that the diaphragm descends with a wide ISA if I lay them or if I put them in prone and I put them in symmetrical I can actually reinforce the width position so they're already wide side to side and if I put them in prone under those circumstances I don't really affect a favorable change in thoracic shape. Now, if I take you to your side, so if I start you in a wide position here and I take you to your side, all of the internal organs will fall because of gravity towards the downside. And so that gives me an enhancement in an anterior posterior direction right away. I also create a compressive strategy on the downside and so that means I'm going to create an expansive strategy on the upside. And so now I get a situation where it looks kind of like that. So I actually teach the thorax to expand on one side. And then when I flip them over and I do the other side, I teach expansion on that side. And that's usually the best way to make the shape change in a favorable direction when you have somebody that's in a wide infrastructure angle that I want to increase their anterior, posterior diameter. It's much easier to do on one side versus the other. And so that's why we would choose a side plank versus something in prone. As far as you ask for progressions and regressions, it's beyond the scope of this type of interaction.

Good morning. Happy Monday. I have neuro coffee in hand as usual, and it is perfect, ladies and gentlemen. Okay, Huge Monster Monday. So if you're on the mentorship list, you're going to get an email, and chances are you've already gotten it. If you're watching this, that Mike Robertson and I are doing a Q&A at 3pm for the people that are on the iFastU list. So you're going to get notified for that. Very exciting. This is at no charge to you for today, and then it's going to be 100 people max, so it's going to be first come first serve, so hopefully we'll see you there for that, 3 p.m. Eastern time, me and my buddy Mike Robertson. Okay, so we got a bunch of Q&A backups to get through. So we're going to knock a couple out this morning if it's okay by you. First one comes from Austin. Austin says, I have a question about a video you posted a couple months ago on improving hip and trombotation with the toe touch video. You mentioned that using door deflection to achieve sacral nutation and maintain mid-to-max propulsion. You also mentioned plant inflection. Putting the individual in early propulsive phase. Can you talk me through how dorsiflexion and plant inflection influences sacral position? Absolutely. So I'm going to bring in a special guest. This is my classic Air Jordan that I got from my good buddy Jim Fierce. Got him in the shield colors as everybody should anyway. So we're going to use this as a representation of the foot as it moves through the gait cycle. And so when we look at the foot in its approach position, it's going to land in a supinated position heel first, so first heel contact is going to be lateral. So I've got a supinated foot position which is actually external rotation, so external rotation is inhalation expansion which puts the sacrum in a counter-nutated position just prior to ground contact. As I make contact, I have to start propelling, otherwise I'd collapse into the ground. But this is early propulsion, so now as the foot comes to flat, the body is still behind the foot. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to be a leg for a second, okay? So as I land, I hit the heel, I go into plantar flexion, but the body is still back and behind. So this is counter-nutation, this is inhalation, this is ER. As I move towards pronation, so I'm bringing the medial heel into contact with the ground so I can pronate, that's where I'm going to start to reach my mid and max propulsive strategies. So as I hit the ground and I come over top of the foot, and as the body comes over the foot I have to create a stable pelvic orientation above the foot. So now let's grab the pelvis and now we can actually see so as I land on here, as I'm stepping over, I bring the hip towards zero degrees of what we would call hip extension but this is where I'm going to get a concentric orientation of the pelvic diaphragm and so that's going to create the nutated position of the sacrum so now I have pronation down below, I've got intrarotation at the hip, I've got a concentric pelvic diaphragm, and I got a nutated sacrum. So that's how we can relate the plantar flexion and dorsal flexion to this sacral position. So when I'm plantar flexed, which is actually supination ER inhalation, I'm going to be counter-nutated. As I'm pronated, I'm going to be IR'd, concentric pelvic diaphragm, nutation of the sacrum. So hopefully that will answer your question Austin, and if it doesn't, please ask me another one. Okay, question number two from Matt. Matt asks, I know you have to work on knee valgus in athletes, and to what degree is it not something to worry about because it potentially helps produce power? I was wondering where you could find more input to read about it. I'm not sure that you're going to read a whole lot about using the valgus if you will, as far as like when it's beneficial, how much to use, and how you're going to make that judgment as to whether you're being effective with it. But let's just talk through what knee valgus really is because it doesn't really exist. There is no frontal plane. Frontal plane is a visual representation for you and I to have a discussion. What the reality is is what we're looking at. I'm going to bring this up close. What we're looking at with a knee valgus, this is actually a rotation in the knee, right? So what we have is we have a femur and a tibia that are in relative rotation. So this will be defined by the tibia under most circumstances. So it would be tibiofemoral external rotation. And so what we have is an internally rotated femur on top of the tibia. And what that does is that produces what people will typically identify as the appearance of a frontal plane position of valgus. Now, under certain circumstances, that's going to be very, very useful. So you are absolutely correct that when we are producing power, when we are at maximum propulsion, we're probably going to be approximating that position to some degree because it is an element of propulsion. However, there's people that walk around like that because of their physical structures, and because of their idiosyncratic physics, and the way that they deal with gravity, they actually live in that position. And so what happens is that they'll eventually give up the opposing rotation. So we have tibial femoral ER, we have tibial femoral IR. And what we want to make sure is that our athletes have access to both of those, because that would represent our ability to move through a full excursion of knee range of motion. Perform a traditional knee extension activity, you'll get tibial femoral ER as you perform the traditional knee flexion, you would get tibial femoral IR. And so to have full knee excursion, we have to have those rotations available to us. And so Matt, what I would say is you want to make sure that you can identify whether your athlete has given up one of those elements of tibia femoral rotation. That would be something I would say that would put you at risk because it does compromise the full excursion of knee range of motion. That would be my first priority. Secondly, once again, as they move through their maximum propulsive phase, are they capturing this knee position and then can they reverse it as they push out of it? So at early and late propulsive phases, I want to recapture the tibial femoral position of ER. And as I move through that maximum propulsive phase, I want to make sure I got tibial femoral IR available to me. So once again, hopefully that's helpful. If it's not, then again, please ask another question.

Good morning. Happy Wednesday. I have neuro coffee in hand as usual and it is perfect. Okay. Big day. If you're on the mentorship list, a little FYI. I'm going to be sending an email today with a huge monster announcement for you. Something we've been working on for a little while that actually includes my business partner, Mike Robertson. So you're going to be wanting to look for that because there's going to be something that's very, very special for you guys that are on the mentorship list. So if you're not on that list, I would suggest you get signed up very, very quickly. Also, it is Wednesday, which means that tomorrow is Thursday, so tomorrow is Chips and Souls today. So I'm really looking forward to that. Now, two, the Q&A. Today's gonna be all about the wide ISA, if that's okay with you because I got a question from a couple people that have gone through the intensive, Monica and Justin, and they had a question about some wide ISA strategies. And so I wanted to go through a few things that I think might be helpful for you, from like a self-diagnosis standpoint and from a training standpoint. And so first and foremost though, let's kind of look at what we're up against here with the wide ISAs. And so I got out my little thorax thingy here that I'm going to show you down the line. So what we're typically looking at with the wide ISA is the expansion from the medial to lateral. And then so we're narrower from anterior to posterior. And so under these circumstances, we don't get a lot of turn. We'll see a lot of compressive strategies. The initial bias with the Y is towards increased internal rotation and a loss of external rotation. But Justin and Monica had questions about what about when you lose the internal rotation. So let me grab the pelvis here and I'll show you. like a nice little representation of the pelvis. So under most circumstances with the wide ISAs, and if they don't have full breathing excursion, then I'm going to be looking at a situation like that where I'm going to have the nutated sacrum, the IR ilium, and that would normally point the acetabulum forward and into an anterior position of the acetabulum, which gives you lots of IR. However, if I'm losing that IR, that means I've got a compressive strategy anteriorly. So the front of the pelvis is getting pushed backwards, much like the sternum getting pushed down, so the pump handle would probably be down as well. So that means I'm going to start to lose shoulder internal rotation, and I'm going to start to lose this hip internal rotation. And so when we think about lines and we think about training strategies and such, We want to consider this shape first and foremost.

This is an awesome and a monstrous question. But let me do my best here in a short period of time. Let's look at this from two perspectives. So let's look at the coach therapist perspective first and then we'll look at the client. So we all have our circle of competence where we are effective, confident and useful. And I don't think it's necessary that we try to go beyond that because when we do it increases the risk of failure and you can also potentially put a client at risk as well as your reputation, which we have to have some measure of to be successful as a professional. The thing that we need to understand is that we also don't want to be satisfied with our current circle of competence. So the way that we start to work within this level of complexity is through our mentorship and apprenticeship models. And that's a safe place for younger trainers to be exposed to this level of complexity. For instance, I've been doing this for 30 years. And so when I'm faced with something like this, I think I'm a little bit more competent and a little bit more comfortable in working with this level of complexity where somebody with only 30 days of experience may not. So again, I think we stay in our wheelhouse as to where we feel most effective or where we've demonstrated our effectiveness. And so again, when we talk about competence, let's try to stay within that. Just don't be satisfied and keep working to expand your knowledge, your understanding, and then your competence will obviously grow. So now let's look at this from the client perspective. I think most clients probably recognize to a certain degree based on the information available that their behaviors are not necessarily ideal, but what they're having trouble with is the behavioral change that's associated with that. Because I don't think there's a smoker alive that doesn't know that they've increased their risk of cancer by smoking. So again, information is not the decision-making factor here. What is the decision making factor is their beliefs and their emotions. So people will make decisions based on those beliefs and emotions and then they will superimpose the logic or information on top of that that would support that. Well, this is why I do this because I can't or whatever. So their belief system becomes a limiting factor. So how do we alter those beliefs? Well, number one, if we can integrate them into our culture. So we look at our behaviors and we're fit, we exercise, we eat well, and we didn't make those changes all in a day so we can't expect our clients to do the same. And so we integrate them into our culture with our gym culture or the environment to provide them with the social proof that, yes, this is possible. So now we're starting to impact some beliefs in that because they see other people that we associate them with. And so people become like the people that they associate with. And so that's a very important part of this whole process is to provide them with the social proof. So it's not just showing people testimonials and things. It's literally integrating them into the culture so they start to associate. Secondly, if we want to look at behavioral change, people only have so much energy and so many resources to contribute towards a change of behavior because it is uncomfortable. It does take energy. And so what we want to look at is where can we make the smallest change with the least amount of effort. They start to recognize that they can change and so they can alter their identity. One of the easiest ways for, say, a smoker to quit smoking is to recognize the fact that I am no longer a smoker. I am a non-smoker. How does a non-smoker believe? Non-smokers don't buy cigarettes. They don't carry a lighter. They don't associate with other smokers, etc. And that's an extreme example. But what we want to start to look at is, okay, so what's the smallest change that you can make that takes the least amount of effort, which might be, hey, just show up to the gym twice a week. All I need you to do is get here. Right? Start with that. Just show up. Maybe just put on your workout clothes at home and change into those, right? Maybe that's the smallest adjustment that you make. And again, that's sort of like an extreme example, but that is also a potential reality. It's like, what is the least that you could do that is different and doesn't take much effort and is not painful and allows you to recognize that change is possible. We can go as far as asking people certain questions. So what would happen to you if you did make this favorable change? How do you perceive your life to be? And then they start to recognize themselves that, hey, if I make this favorable change, then I'm more likely to be happy, healthy, and successful. We can also reverse gears and we can ask a much more painful question. So if you decide not to make this change, how do you foresee your life to move forward? And again, it's a little bit more painful, but it does provide them a recognition of how their beliefs and their behaviors do influence an outcome. So I think we try to integrate them into a process. Everybody wants to create this lofty goal or these extreme behaviors or make these massive changes. And I think we have to do this incrementally. And so we look saying, where can I make the impact first and foremost on any level? The simplest change to allow them to recognize and change the beliefs that are actually limiting them and promoting the behaviors that are interfering with their progress. So I hope this initiates at least an element of this. I think it's a fabulous question. I think it's one of the biggest issues that we deal with. It's beyond programming. It's beyond the execution of the interaction in the gym. This is actually probably the biggest issue for everyone that's trying to make a favorable change in their behavior. So Charlie, I appreciate you asking it. I hope there's questions that come off of this because it is it is the the elephant in the room so to speak. It's one of the biggest issues that we deal with. So I hope this gets it started. Work to increase your circle of competence. For those of you out there who are coaches and trainers, and then, again, looking for small victories and a change in beliefs, we have to reach people on an emotional level versus, you know, pummeling them with information because it's not the information that's going to make the impact. Have a great Wednesday.

Greetings, hope you got your neuro coffee in hand, I got mine. And that is perfect as usual. All right, I got a Q and A question that I was pretty excited about because it's referencing the terminology that we use to describe a lot of the things on my videos. And so I think there's a little bit of confusion in regard to those terms that we use to describe position and strategy and such because many of them are synonymous, but it requires a little bit of perspective to understand them. So we're going to try to clarify that in this video. And the question comes from Andrew. And Andrew says, one thing that would help me better understand and apply some of the concepts you reference in your videos is aligning more precisely on terminology. Specifically, some of the terms and concepts you frequently use feel synonymous even though they're not. So what Andrew is talking about are things like an exhalation strategy, compression strategy, and concentric orientation. They're all related. And they can be superimposed and therefore they can all occur at the same time under certain circumstances. But in certain contexts, maybe one is more influential or we're speaking specifically more about one aspect of it. And so that element stands out a little bit more. And so that's why we need to use a specific terminology. But let's go through these and clarify. So he's got a list of terms that he just asked me to clarify. And so let's knock him out one at a time. So his first one is flexion extension. I tend to not use flexion extension all that much other than to describe the traditional planar movements so we can have a conversation because flexion extension really doesn't exist in our movement capabilities that it was a planar movement to describe an observable movement, but because we only have one plane in which we move, which would be transverse plane, basically. And I even question whether that one exists when we talk about space and such, but those are just traditional movements. Afflection obviously is an external rotation movement. Extension is obviously an internal rotation movement. So please keep that in mind as we go through those types of discussions. That's just so we can communicate. It's just like talking in 3D when the real world is in 4D. Again, that's another discussion. We'll just set that one aside. Now we want to start looking at more of the broad scope or global strategies. And so when we talk about movement, there's only two strategies available to us. And that would be to expand or to compress. The easiest way to look at this is to look at a worm and how they move through space. So a worm is essentially just a tube full of fluid, and the worm shifts the fluid.

When Dr. Mike created neural coffee and said that we had a coffee that was better for your brain, I started drinking coffee when I was 50. And then I've added some stuff to that to make it even better for my brain. So check that out. Also this past week on billhartmanpt.com I posted a new blog on how to explain things to clients. I hope it's useful for you so please check that out. On YouTube we have last week's Q&A and then I threw up a video about individualization of exercise programming. I'm not a big fan of the whole generic 'this exercise is good for everything' kind of a concept. And so I speak a little bit about how to individualize or why we need to individualize. So check that. Also on Instagram, I talked about finding a solution for your pain. So again, another concept of individualization for you. The value of teaching to learn. So the padawan is gone. We're going to have another padawan coming in in January. So I'm a big fan of teaching but more importantly for the teachers to understand that every time you teach something you learn something and so kind of a big deal I think it's essential for us to become teachers to become the best at what we do. There's also a segment from the iFAST podcast discussing the evolution of continuing education. So how you might want to look at this depending on where you are in your career and what type of continuing education you might want to seek out at this point. So that was of interest. And of course, get the videos for the 16%. But now let's dig into this week's questions. So my first question comes from Andrew. And Andrew asks, could you explain what's going on with the floor when someone is doing a goblet squat in the rack with the band attached to the J-hook? So when they squat down, it's almost as if they're bouncing off of the band. I'm curious as to the intent behind it, when it's appropriate and why. So Andrew, this is in reference to a video that Eric Huddleston posted. I believe, I'm gonna say it's eph.24 is his handle on Instagram. so if you want to check that out and so what this was was a female athlete that Eric's been working with that had been doing a box squat variation to help her control the eccentric element of her pelvic diaphragm and so so when she initially came in she was having a bit of difficulty capturing the concentric orientation pelvic diaphragm and making the return up out of the squat and so what Eric did brilliantly was actually started on a couple of box squat variations but now she's going to learn how to control that concentric orientation still yield so she can squat or so she can execute a counter movement if you would in some form of jumping activity and so what she's doing now is she's squatting to the band so the band is actually just representing a target for her so she knows how deep she was and so the the target would be representative of where the box was and so now she squats to the band so she's now learning how to control and execute concentric orientation with pelvic diaphragm, but still capture enough yielding to allow her to move. And then she's able to recapture that concentric orientation as she comes up out of the squat. So it's just a simple progression from the box squat. But now, like I said, it's just an element of control that she now needs to learn how to manage herself without the use of the box. And then eventually the band gets taken away as well. And then she progresses to more dynamic activities of higher rates of speed and then greater levels of challenge. So nothing magical. She's not bouncing off the band. She's just using that as a target. And like I said, it's just a transition from something that was a little bit more stable, a little bit more limiting, like the box squat.

Good morning. Happy Sunday. It is time for this week's Q&A. Ugly sweater edition. If you think that's funny, look at this. I got two. And I still don't know who sent these things to me, but let's dig into this week's Q&A. Got my neural coffee. I'm ready to rock. So, quick review of this week on YouTube. If you haven't seen last week's Q and A, it is up there on YouTube. Also, the iFast podcast number seven, this might be interesting to many of you because we talk about continuing education as to what we think are the what's, the how's, and the why's. I talk a little bit about the intensive as well, so you might find that of interest. Also, through up this week, video concerning the influence of orientations. We're talking about orientation of the thorax and the pelvis in regard to how it influences your range of motion measures. So you might find that interesting as well. Up on Instagram, I threw up a couple clips from the iFast podcast and also the influence of orientation videos that were on YouTube, so I put some segments of that on Instagram. In addition, I threw up a segment from the cutting mechanics video, which you might find interesting as to how the public diaphragm behaves during those cutting mechanics. We introduced Cartoon Bell this week. It was just kind of funny, just a little thing that I did that turned out to get a lot of attention. And then we had a Terry project update. So if you haven't seen that, it's been pretty fascinating to see how Terry has changed over time and showing his level of commitment to making some changes to his posturing. Terry's a dancer and so posturing is very important to him. And then of course the videos for the 16%. So now let's dig into this week's Q&A.

When squatting, what do you believe the risk-reward is for old shoes and some sort of heel lift? I know the obvious benefits and risks, but in your opinion, which outweighs the other? Does it put that much more stress on the knees? Does it allow you to stack your pelvis better? I'm assuming he's asking me, does it acquire more hip IR? I think people are looking for some sort of black and white answer when they ask questions like this, but the reality is that nothing that we do is ever black and white. And so what we have to do is we have to consider the n equals one concept. It's like, who are we talking about? And so does a heel elevated squat alter the way that load is distributed throughout the system. Absolutely. And so if we elevate the heel, is there the chance that load is being shifted towards the knee? Absolutely. Does the compressive force on the anterior part of the knee increase as you squat deep? Absolutely. So again, we have to consider who we're talking about. Are we talking about an adaptive Olympic weightlifter? Are we talking about my 86 year old mother? Are we talking about a four year old accountant that sits behind a desk? We have to take all of these things into consideration. For instance, if I have somebody that has a tibial femoral external rotation problem at the knee, then I know that I have a situation here that could limit knee flexion. And so in that case, I may not choose this strategy unless I can recover that full knee flexion. And so again, you have to take these things into consideration. If we understand the elements of what a heel lift provides in a favorable way, and if we understand the potential detrimental effects of a heel elevated squat, then we can apply it to the individual. We always have to apply these things to the individual. So, Taylor, I'm sure this is not the answer that you wanted based on the way that you've asked it, but I hope you understand that we have to look at the multifactorial nature of all of these things. And so expanding our viewpoint, expanding our understanding of what these heel elevated squats can and cannot do and what they may do from a detrimental aspect, I think that that allows us to make an informed decision. And then again, we always provide our safe to fail experimental environment whenever we're introducing anything new. So that's how we decide whether this is a good thing or not so good thing. So thank you for that question.

It is December 8th. I've got my neuro copy. I hope you've got yours. Let's dive into this week's Q&A. So I posted a bunch of stuff up on YouTube this week, so if you haven't checked out last week's Q&A, that's up there. Podcast number five with Mike Robinson and I, the iFast podcast talking about how we train the pros was kind of interesting. I threw up a simple self-test for your breathing, some lower cervical mechanics video as well. And then as of today, I threw up a video on power output and how you generate that from the inside out, as well as some terminology concepts that we'll touch on today in today's Q&A. If you haven't been on Instagram, please check out the Instagram, Bill Hartman P.T. on Instagram. We've got a lot of topics that went up there, some short topics, couple of Instagram TV videos, and of course your 16% videos as usual. So please check those out as well. Now let's dive into the Q&A.

And so, yes, you probably are looking at someone that is making their right turn. This is based on the expansion and compressive strategy that you're using. If you're observing this through the thorax, you're also going to see it in the pelvis, but it's a little bit easier to see in the thorax. So let me grab my typical little thorax model so we can see this. So Eli what you're looking at if you're looking up inside the thorax, so again my stick is always representative of the spine and I'm going to stabilize this sternum for you. What you're looking at is a shape change that looks like that. As they turn, so they're there. So this is a right turn, so you can see the shape change in the thorax. And so then your goal is to reestablish their ability to do that as well. And so really if you look at it from a strategy standpoint, you're going to pass through that middle range anyway, and so really what you're not looking to do is to create the uniform expansion; you're just trying to get them all the way to the other end of the turn so they can turn in both directions, although there's always going to be the bias of being a human from the asymmetrical forces standpoint that we all deal with on the inside. And so again, I think your perception of what you should be doing, since you asked this question, is yes, you do need to get them to be able to reorient their thorax, alter the compressive and expansive strategies to allow them to turn fully in the opposite direction. So I think your perception is correct, young man. So keep working on that.

Happy Sunday. I hope you get your neuro coffee because this is this week's Q&A. We have a lot of ground to cover, so this is going to be a fun one. Let's get ready. Alright, so a little neuro coffee to get started. I've had a lot of stuff going on, so I feel like I haven't done this in a long time because we had the intensive recently. I couldn't do the Q&A that weekend because, one, I didn't have time, and two, I had no energy whatsoever. So I'm still in a bit of a recovery mode, and we had a lot of stuff accumulate over the week. I have a fair amount of stuff to share with you in regards to what I posted. If we go to the YouTube, we have the IFAST Podcast 2 and 3. We talked about internships and then about hiring and firing. If that's of interest to you, and you're a business person, those are really good discussions with Mike Robertson and myself. We then transitioned into assessments, breathing, and training. That was a fun one and got a lot of good feedback and interest. In fact, we got a question in the Q&A about that, so stay tuned for that. I also posted about a better way to measure shoulder flexion. We did the hip flexion video a while back, and I thought it would be interesting to show the difference in how you need to measure shoulder flexion. That's a particular way to measure shoulder flexion for consistency purposes and to actually get an accurate measurement. Rather than thinking in straight planes, we have to start thinking in rotations because everything is all about the turning. I posted how to measure the infersternal angle. That got a lot of attention too because I think a lot of people have some difficulty with that and they weight certain things too heavily or maybe just grossly misunderstand how to utilize that measure. Rather than looking at things as absolutes, we have to look at them from an idiosyncratic standpoint. Again, there's a question in the Q&A regarding the ISA, so we'll get to talk about that as well. Last but not least, this morning I posted a video on how to mobilize an ankle to increase propulsion, which is a big deal, especially with people who have perceived ankle weakness or ankle instabilities, people that just don't have confidence, especially after an injury. This is a position that needs to be recaptured. I included some manual therapy and then a little bit of an exercise recommendation in regards to how you're going to recapture that propulsive position. Check those out. On the Instagram from the past couple of weeks, we talked about mixed-grip deadlifts and body orientation, and how that influences body orientation. We talked about synovial joints and how one would develop arthritis over time based on the behavior of how synovial joints work. We also talked about training to isolation early propulsion. Again, that was a nice little topic of interest. And of course, then you have your daily 16% videos for a little bit of personal motivation and just reminders about how to behave and how to think. So there you go. A little heads up. I talked with Drew Keele this week on the Quarterback Ducks podcast. That's going to be out. He said it probably in three or four weeks, but he did send me the video from that call. I'm going to throw up some snippets of that if I can get to it maybe today and we'll throw some of those up this week. It's sort of a little preview, but to give Drew a heads up, they're doing some really good work. So check them out. And that's about it for the review, so let's dig into the Q&A. I'm going to start with a discussion about pelvic orientations and its relationship to the ISA. This is going to be a combination of questions from Tim and Katie. Basically, what they wanted to know is what kind of a chessboard presentation we would be looking at that would result in a significant loss of hip external rotation and a significant gain in hip internal rotation. Katie wanted to bias this discussion towards the narrow ISA presentation. The narrow ISA, if you recall, is an inhaled axial skeleton with a compensatory exhalation strategy. It will present with certain orientations based on this compensatory strategy, but to get to where they want this discussion to go, we're going to have to go through a sequence of compensatory strategies that are superimposed on top of this first exhalation compensatory strategy. So let me grab my pelvis and we're going to talk through this in sequence. First and foremost, let's be clear that this is not a real pelvis. It does not move like a real pelvis. It does not bend and twist like a real pelvis because all bones bend, twist, elongate and compress. We have to have that understanding because what's going to happen to create this orientation is we're going to have shape change involved. This shape change is very, very easy to see in the thorax because the constraints in the thorax are just a little bit less, and it's a little bit easier to bend ribs and move scapulae as opposed to moving ileum and creating compression here. I just want to throw that out ahead of time so everybody has an understanding that this model is just not representative of what's really happening, but we'll talk through it.

So Brian writes really long questions. Thank you, Brian, for your contributions. Don't change the thing. I like what you're doing because it makes for a great setup. Just hang in here as I read through this. So with a client with an inhalation axial skeleton archetype, which would be typically a narrow infraternal angle for those of you following along, I want to use an exhalation strategy with my client because they are biased towards an eccentric pelvic diaphragm. So I use a box squat. So he's making reference to the box squat video that's up on YouTube. I would use a box squat at 90 degrees and coach them to explode off the box with a strong exhalation concentric strategy for an exhalation axial skeleton archetype with a wide ISA. I would promote an inhalation strategy with my client. Use a deeper box squat, promote more yielding and descending pelvic diaphragm. So thanks, Brian. In general, yes, but the first thing we have to do is we have to decide what the goal is. And so if my goal is to maximize the variability within the system using my movement system as my proxy measure, then your assumption is correct with a few caveats. So I could bias someone with a high box squat towards an inhalation strategy as well because through that middle range, somewhere around the sticking point is where you're going to be biased towards a more nutated position, a more concentric pelvic diaphragm. So your understanding of where to place this person that needs a more concentric pelvic diaphragm strategy or an exhalation based strategy is correct about that 90 degree angle. But remember, we can bias them above or below depending on the needs because there are some people when we do put them on a low box, from a technical standpoint, they're using a spinal flexion-based strategy, which is what we do not want to reinforce. What we're looking for in the lower box squat is the ability to counter-nutate, which is not the same thing. And so I don't want to create that kind of confusion because I think a lot of people don't distinguish between spinal flexion in a counter-nutated position because the lumbar spine does move backwards. It reduces its lordosis when you counter-nutate versus the spinal flexion above the pelvis, which we do not want to utilize because it does put excessive load on those posterior spinal structures whereas the counter-nutation really doesn't do that to any great degree. So Brian, I think you are on track with that. I think your understanding is correct, which is awesome. Now, so Brian asks a second question. And again, bear with me here, Brian likes to write a little bit. Is a compensatory inhalation strategy a strategy someone uses when they are biased towards exhalation and compression? Absolutely. And so we'll talk about here in just a second. Let me finish what you wrote here.

Thank you. And so, John, I want to go through one of your cases because I think the perspective we talk about between ourselves and with the group that's been through the intensive is quite different from what we would consider a traditional viewpoint. The way we try to influence the system is somewhat different as well. I know you've got a couple of interesting cases, so I'd like you to pick one and go through and describe what you were seeing, why you made some of the choices you did, and then some of the surprising outcomes, especially with these difficult cases. You and I are very similar in that we just don't get the easy people up the street like a lot of people do. We don't see the acute angles like everybody else does. We see the ones who have a really long history of this and this and this and this and this. They've seen six practitioners that do all these things, they've been told these many things, and now they're at a point of frustration, confusion, and really at an impasse as far as their progress goes. So go ahead and offer up one of your cases for me, if you would.

Five, four, three, two, one. So this is our very first official iFAST podcast. It's been eleven years. We decided we're going to actually have a conversation between the two of us. People probably think that we spend all of our time together, but we don't. We were like two ships passing in the night because of our schedules, but I was literally thinking that same phrase at the same time. It is kind of funny. And obviously we talk and communicate, but I think that eleven years in we've obviously made a lot of mistakes and we've done some really good things, and we can bring value to other people. That was my intent with putting this together. We start with our story because a lot of people have a misperception as to how you would start a business like this. They see where we are eleven years into it and have no idea. Nobody knew who we were. People knew who you were. You had a very big following at T-Nation for a really long time. You got associated with Eric, then you put out Magnificent Mobility. Then I came along into this foray. When did you move down?

Happy Sunday. It is time for the weekly Q&A, a little bit of review, but first and foremost, got my neuro coffee, as always. So let me get a little sip of that. All right, got a lot of stuff going on this week. I'm in the midst of mentorship calls, so I got to bust through this as effectively as we can. But a couple things, just a little review of what happened this week. So last week's Q&A is up on YouTube, also on YouTube, the how, when, and why of how to do a suboccipital release. So check that out if you're a manual therapist. There's a really good reasoning behind that. And then the two strategies on how to perform that. So if you haven't seen that yet, please check that out. How to perform the scapular decompression. So this is a money move for a lot of people that lack that dorsal rostral expansion to allow you to get that last little bit of overhead flexion and some extra rotation measures. So that's very useful. There's a pad of one lesson that went up that I got a lot of good feedback on. It started off with looking at cutting mechanics and then it turned into more of a baseball related post. So if you're a baseball person, please check that out. Got a lot of feedback on that. And then yesterday posted a little bit of an exercise related video in regards to how to use a kind of an arm bar to restore internal and external rotation of the shoulder using the breathing mechanics and the movement. So check that out. Instagram, of course, we put up the 16% video every day. We try to keep up with that. There's also one on squatting versus hinging and the use of the specific adaptations to impose demands principles. So check that out. How to delay propulsion using your pushers and your pull. So there's a couple of exercise examples on Instagram there. Should you have surgery for meniscus injury was on Instagram TV. So laid that out a little bit. That was a great question that came in through email. And then let's see, what else do we have? Narrow, infrapubic angle and squatting. So that was a really good question. So we covered that. Also, I believe on Instagram TV. And again, I put the kettlebell arm bar activity on Instagram as well. So please check those things out, as always. If you have any questions, you can post them on Instagram. I do that every Friday. I'll post that up to let you know when it's time to submit your questions or during the week, just throw them up at askbillhartman at gmail.com, askbillhartman at gmail.com. And then don't forget to put in the subject line, ask Bill Hartman question so I don't delete it because if it comes in with anything else, I'll just delete it.

I also threw up on Instagram some propulsive strategies, some late propulsive strategies, using an old classic, I think it was Charles Poliquin that probably made it popular at one point, using the Peterson step up and also a low box rear foot elevated step up. So check that out. And then I threw up a Instagram story this week on a bunch of activities that I've been doing to reestablish some eccentric orientation with load. So that's an interesting little twist on that video. So check those out. And let's dive into this week's Q&A. I got a ton of questions. I tried to narrow it down as much as I could. So just remember that askbillhartman at gmail.com. And then put in the subject line, ask Bill Hartman question. So I know that you're really asking me a question and not trying to sell me something. So let's get started with those. So this is TS training systems. Bill, can you give a quick overview about the propulsion phases? Yes, I can. So you didn't ask me an open-ended question. So there's the answer. Kidding, of course. So when we talk about the propulsive phase, let's first of all talk about the difference between load and propulsion. So load is what pre-exists based on gravity, the internal forces that you produce yourself, and then the external forces applied to you based on all the physics that are around you. So if I put a barbell on your back, I've just altered the loading parameters. If I move laterally, I've altered the loading parameters. So those are all those three things combined. The propulsive strategy is what I use against those to produce the desired intent or movement. So when we talk about propulsive phases, we can break these down to make it a little bit simpler into something we would consider an early propulsive phase, sort of a mid or maximal propulsive phase, and then an end propulsion. So at either ends of the propulsive spectrum, we're moving through a compressive internally rotated pronated strategy towards a more supinated. So I land in supination, I move through my propulsive phases as I move to internal rotation, pronation, exhalation. And then at the end of that phase, I resupinate, I move back towards external rotation and inhalation. And so the two ends of the propulsive spectrum kind of look the same, but they're not the same. While one's moving from a more inhaled to an exhaled, the other one's moving from more of an exhaled to an inhaled strategy, They end up looking similar, but the orientation of the pelvis is just slightly different. As we go through the mid propulsive phase, that is where the maximum concentric strategy would be as I move against all of the external forces that are applied to me and the internal forces that I produce. And so, again, if we use gate, we're landing in supination. We'll move towards pronation, which is my propulsive phase. And I will resupinate the foot at end range. So I will have activities and exercises and elements of performance that will emphasize one of these phases or another. So if I can identify where the limiting factor is in performance, I can then select the appropriate activities with the appropriate positions to emphasize each of those propulsive phases. And so we have this endless array of exercises. And once we can identify where these limitations are in our propulsive capabilities, the exercise programs kind of write themselves. And so this is a really huge topic that we cover at the intensive, especially during the practical component, because a lot of people think that there's some sort of standardized exercise progressions when the reality is, is the progression needs to be individualized towards the client or the athlete that we're working with in regards to what do they do well, what do they not do well, and then what is our intent? Are we trying to emphasize something that they're already good at, or are we trying to work on a weakness or a limitation? And so again, as we look at this from the beginning of the propulsion to the end of the propulsion, there's definitely things that we need to emphasize. But just to wrap that up, Remember that early propulsion is moving from an inhaled state towards an exhaled state. The maximum propulsion is where I am maximally pronated through ground contact and I move again towards the inhaled state towards the end and I can again self-select the activities that would be most appropriate for each of those phases. So hopefully that gives you a little taste of what we're talking about and I'd be happy to expand on those if you have a very specific question on that. from looks like kina mac d can you explain eccentric and concentric orientation once again that's yes you got to ask me an open-ended question my friend Is it different than short or long? I don't really care if you use short or long. I just think you need to understand what's really going on. So traditionally, we've talked about eccentric and concentric contractions, and I don't think it's a very good descriptor. And so when I use eccentric or concentric orientation, so orientation makes reference to position. So if I have a muscle that is positioned at length greater than its perceived midline, wherever that may be, and we can use that sort of as our imaginary middle point. If it's positioned eccentrically, then it would be positioned in the long position, and if it's positioned concentrically, the big position is short. The reason I use eccentric and concentric orientation because there's certain properties that are associated with those positions. So if I am concentrically oriented, it is much easier for me to recruit that muscle during activity. If I'm eccentrically oriented, it is much more difficult. So there are properties within the muscle itself in regards to how I sense that position and then how I am able to recruit that muscle that I think makes the eccentric and concentric orientation better descriptors. I also don't particularly like the fact that concentric and eccentric contractions are kind of vague. And so I tend to use an overcoming contraction versus a yielding contraction rather than calling them concentric or eccentric contractions. Because again, I just think it's a better descriptor. So for instance, I could have a muscle that is eccentrically oriented, so it's longer than its midline, and it could be using an overcoming contraction. what someone might recognize as they might actually call that an eccentric contraction, even though the force is going in the opposite direction of the lengthening of the muscle. And so again, I think there's some vagueness to the way we've used those terms in the past. So what I'm trying to do is clarify what's really going on in regards to position, concentric or eccentric orientation, and to contraction with an overcoming contraction or yielding contraction, just because I think they're better descriptors. And maybe I'm wrong. I'm willing to be wrong on that because I'm not a big fan of useless jargon. But again, as we've had discussions at IFAST and through the intensive, these terms have evolved into something that has become a lot more useful. The next question, rather, comes from Tanner Batten. How do you approach rehabbing a core muscle injury or sports hernia? So this brings up an interesting concept. I'm not a big fan of treating by diagnoses. So I don't think it really influences me all that much other than maybe having to provide an element of protection to certain tissues that may actually have a change in their constraint. So we do have an area that may be affected in the lower abdomen or the groin area by its diagnoses. But as far as the treatment goes, I treat the human being in regards to its ability to recapture this spectrum of breathing capabilities, full movement from external rotation to internal rotation. the loading and propulsive strategy. So that's how I look at things from this global perspective. So whether we call it a sports hernia or whether we had a shoulder injury or a toe injury or whatever it may be, that just simply guides me into an element where I might need to protect something, but I wouldn't change my treatment strategy all that much in regards to any specific diagnosis. So I know you're looking for something specific here. As far as what exercises I would do, I have no idea. until I would evaluate this person. Other than, like I said, this might just guide you in an element of protection. So we don't want to negatively influence this by allowing a great deal of discomfort to be associated with the treatment itself.

So let me tell you a quick story. In 1990, a buddy of mine and I went on our last spring break. We had a hundred bucks each. I drove and we had friends scattered all over Florida. We went from friend to friend and crashed where we could, sleeping in the car one night. But we did stop at Ponce De Leon Park in Florida. And that's where the fountain of youth is. We did drink from the fountain of youth. I think that's my secret—I have somehow taken advantage of the magical waters of Ponce De Leon Park. It has prevented me from getting gray hair.

Good morning. Happy Tuesday. I have neuro coffee in hand and it is perfect. All right. A busy Tuesday coming up. We're going to dig straight into this Q&A. This is with Brian. Brian works with a lot of golfers in this discussion, which sort of revolved around capturing very specific positions through the golf swing and then the influence of pressing activity specifically overhead pressing with golfers as potential interference to these positions. And so this just lends itself to the fact that we have to understand the secondary consequences of the exercises that we select and how we program as to whether we're enhancing the capabilities that we're trying to influence or whether we're interfering with them. In many cases, too much force production for too long a period of time can be interference in some of these activities that require the demonstration of velocity. Or if we prolong a position, we then create potential interference to that velocity. So gains in force production are not always favorable. So thank you, Brian, for asking such a good question. Probably going to be useful for a lot of people. Everybody have an outstanding Tuesday and I will see you tomorrow.