But is that really what’s going on? I would argue not.

Let’s look at it from a problem solving perspective. The body does not make mistakes, it is always trying to solve for a specific problem or stressor in order to maintain homeostasis.

A muscle does not become “tight” randomly, it’s trying to solve a movement problem, usually by compensating for work it wasn’t designed to do. For example, a muscle may become concentrically oriented to maintain the body’s center of gravity over the base of support or because heavy lifting taught it to behave that way.

Stretching that muscle won’t fix the issue. Stretching simply increases your ability to tolerate a stretch, rarely are you actually influencing muscle behavior.

In order to get a muscle to eccentrically orient or “turn off”, you need to solve the original movement problem. For example, if someones hamstrings are “tight”, the most likely culprit is because their center of mass is shifted forward. The hamstrings along with other posterior musculature concentrically orient to prevent you from falling on your face.

Simply stretching the hamstrings will not “turn them off”. If you are a trainer or clinician, clients will often tell you they have a chronically tight muscle(s), no matter how much they stretch it. Or when they do stretch them, they get temporary relief, then an hour later go back to how they felt before.

The same applies to the “weak muscle” narrative. Labeling a muscle weak based on isolated muscle tests or posture (e.g. upper cross syndrome) tells you almost nothing about how someone actually moves or compensates in real time. Isolated tests have value in acute injury or post-surgical cases, but they’re largely useless for chronic pain.

Stretching and isolated strengthening are Band-Aids. The real fix is addressing foundational movement patterns: repositioning the center of mass within the base of support, managing intra-abdominal pressure, and creating shapes that efficiently produce and absorb force.

You don’t need fancy exercises—just smarter cues and progression. I use a simple “bottom-up” approach inspired by Gray Cook and DNS principles:

1. Start on the ground (supine, prone, side-lying, all-fours) to reduce gravitational load, re-activate developmental patterns, and teach muscles when to relax.

2. Progress to standing bodyweight movements (squats, split squats, hinges, carries) with relaxed nasal breathing and precise joint positioning.

3. Add light load only once they demonstrate control and proper pressure management.

4. Finally, introduce velocity and higher loads (plyometrics, heavier lifting) while preserving those strategies.

This progression restores natural movement efficiency instead of layering compensation on top of compensation. Customize it to the individual, track objective KPIs, and you’ll get chronic-pain clients moving pain-free again—without endlessly chasing “tight” or “weak” muscles.

The body isn’t broken; it’s adapting. Stop treating symptoms in isolation and start solving the movement problem.

The infrasternal angle is the angle that is formed by the lower ribs at the most inferior point of the sternum, known as the “xiphoid process”.

In my experience in upper level education and working in several gyms and clinics, this is not a structure that most coaches and clinicians consider. This is likely because they don’t understand what it actually tell’s you about someones body structure and movement strategies.

I was introduced to the concept’s of utilizing the infrasternal angle as a proxy by Bill Hartman, who was speaking about it well over 5 years ago. Since then, it has changed the way I view human movement and made me realize the importance of an individuals structure in training and rehab.

The most common classification of overall body structures is typically the ectomorph, mesomorph, and endomorph archetypes. When we were taught these body types, the explanation that came was typically each being predisposed to a certain type of body composition. For example, endomorphs being more predisposed to higher body fat percentages, and ectomorphs typically having lesser body fat percentage. While this may be useful for body composition goals, it doesn’t really have much utility in terms of explaining the physics and movement strategies of each person.

This is where the concept of the infrasternal angle comes in. The infrasternal angle is useful because it describes the pressure strategy that an individual is biased toward. This in turn will allow you to determine which movements an individual might be good at and which ones they might tend to struggle with. Now, I want to preface, these are not absolutes and they’re are unlimited representations of structure throughout the population, but this will give you a framework to start with. Let’s start with the two different infrasternal angle archetypes, wide and narrow.

A wide infrasternal angle archetype describes an infrasternal angle that measures > 90 degrees, making a more obtuse angle.

A narrow infrasternal angle archetype describes an infrasternal angle that measures < 90 degrees, making a more acute angle.

The wide ISA has a rib cage that is biased toward exhalation and compression. In order to take a breath in, the lower ribs compensate by flaring out and up, creating the wider angle. Don’t confuse this with being an inhaled rib cage, the rib cage is actually biased toward exhalation, the inhalation is just a compensatory strategy to get air in. This individual will usually present with better internal rotation, extension, and adduction measures if no secondary compensations are present. This individual typically performs better at higher force, lower velocity activities because they can generate higher pressures in their axial skeleton.

The narrow ISA has a rib cage that is more biased toward inhalation and expansion. In order to get air out, their lower ribs compensate and squeeze inward to produce an exhale. Again, this individual is not presenting with an exhaled rib cage, that is just the compensatory strategy at the lower ribs to get air out. This individual will usually present with greater external rotation, flexion, and abduction if they have no secondary compensations present. This individual typically performs better at higher velocity, lower force activities because they can generate higher pressures in their axial skeleton.

These physical qualities biases each archetype toward being good at certain activities. The wide ISA is Generally, these are what each individual will perform best in with the least compensations.

When you think Wide ISA, think:

• Long durations of force application

• Activities: Heavy, bilateral weight lifting, standing jumps

• Athletes: Lineman/linebackers in football, power lifters

When you think Narrow ISA, think:

• High velocity, shorter force application activities

• Activities: Sprinting, approach jumping, fast rotations

• Athletes: Pitchers, high jumpers, wide receivers

It is important to consider someones body structure as a clinician or trainer, because it will help you understand what activities to prescribe to someone during the training or rehab process.

Too many times I’ve seen trainers stick a narrow ISA on a bench press and blame their poor performance on them being “weak”. The actual reason is because their structure is not able to generate that much pressure in the thorax to push the weight off of them because they are biased toward inhalation. Then they put them on a 12 week bench press program and take away all of their mobility and velocity capabilities.

Or the opposite scenario being a wide ISA who has lost their mobility and rotation capabilities from compressive activities, thinking they can fix it by cranking on muscles through stretching and mobility drills. Rather than reducing the compression on the ribcage/pelvis and restoring relative motion and expansion.

This doesn’t mean that narrow ISA’s can’t deadlift or that Wide ISA’s can’t throw a baseball fast, in fact many still do, it’s just that the strategies they use to perform these activities will likely look different and may feel easier to a specific archetype.

Now, let me give you some practical applications in the weight room for each archetype so you can begin to implement this into your own coaching or training:

For narrow infrasternal angles, they will perform better with higher velocity activities, shorter force durations, and more vertical, squatty lifts.

Narrow ISA athlete example program:

• Rotational med ball throws (light-medium ball)

• Single leg hops

• Heels elevated goblet squat

• Single arm overhead press or landmine press

For wide infrasternal angles, they will typically perform better with higher force activities, longer force durations, and more horizontal, hingey lifts.

Wide ISA athlete example program:

• Standing broad or box jump

• Power/hang cleans

• Trap-bar deadlifts

• DB/BB Flat Bench press

Of course, you should not just copy these workouts for your athletes, rather these are just examples of exercises that should lead you in a direction of thinking of what activities to prescribe for these individuals. It all comes down to goals and what the client wants and needs.

Reminder, you don’t need to always prescribe your narrow ISA’s high velocity movements and wide ISA’s high force, sometimes it can be valuable to sprinkle in some of the activities they aren’t that great at to try and attack some of those weak points. The key is understanding that those should not be the focal point of the program, and that we should always emphasize their strengths (aka superpowers).

There is much more information regarding the concepts of these archetypes, if you are interested I suggest you go straight to the source, Bill Hartman. He has a YouTube page with tons of videos and a podcast that does a pretty good job at breaking these concepts down into real world contexts.

I hope this helped your understanding of the infrasternal angle and how we can apply it in training and rehab scenarios. It may seem complex at first, but once you start to understand it, it is actually fairly simple. It is the most coherent model of movement I have used to date and have used it with hundreds of individuals including myself with great results, so I suggest you begin learning it. Once you do, all the other jargon and systems that are in the industry start to become less and less useful, principles > systems.

Traditionally, most movement is taught and though of in “planes”. Specifically the three cardinal planes, these being the sagittal, frontal, and transverse planes. Then we are taught that muscles pull on bones to generate these movement’s in these planes and that is how we move.

While the concept of planes can be useful in discussion, in my opinion it’s not an accurate representation of how we move in space.

We are living in the physical world so we must abide to the laws of physics. The physics that most kinesiology schools use to teach are classical or newtonian physics. While that school of thought has it’s place, we have come to realize the physical world is more complex than that. While I am not going to pretend to be a physics expert at all, I respect the fact that quantum physics and relativity exists.

Before I bore you to death, I just want to appreciate that there are ways the physical world behaves that is more than just forces and pulleys.

If you look at the body, we are full of tubes. Blood vessels, digestive tract, airways, etc. Even if you look at the arm or the leg in isolation, it is essentially in the shape of a tube. Now, I am not saying there are not shapes other than tubes present in the body, but it’s a common theme in the body.

If you look at the two options of motion that a tube has, it can either expand (get bigger) or contract (get smaller). Our body uses the same two strategies to move.

If you think about the physiology of movement, there it is a series of contractions and expansions. Muscle’s either contract (compress) or relax (expand). Breathing is also another representation of expansion and compression in the thorax and lungs.

If we are defining movement based on these two principles, we have two options in movement, to either expand or compress. Our strategies to create these are external rotation (expansion) and internal rotation (compression).

Essentially every movement is a representation of either one of these strategies, just to varying degrees and durations. We move into a space using external rotation, then we produce force in that space in internal rotation. That’s it, really simple.

If you look at all movements, it follows that order, ER→IR→ER. It may be more obvious in some movements more than others, but it is a general principle. There is always IR & ER occurring at the same time, but the degree to which each one is occurring determines the overall strategy being used.

When we discuss movement compensations, all of them stem from the inability to do one of those things, acquire space or produce force.

To acquire space and produce force, our bodies must create certain shapes in joints to determine where energy travels and manage pressure in our bodies.

If we cannot create these shapes, forces will be placed upon structures that were not designed to handle them, and this is where we begin to feel pain. Pain is more complex than this because there is a psychological component as well, but this gives a general understanding on why we may feel pain in certain movements or activities.

Now, some of these concepts may be new to you, but I hope they are starting to make sense. As with all information, if you cannot apply it to real life then it is relatively useless. So I will try to explain these concepts in different contexts and how you can begin to apply it to training and rehab.

First let’s take a look at a squat. We can break it down into three phases:

1. Descent phase (ER/expansion bias)

2. Redirection (IR/compression)

3. Ascent phase (ER/expansion bias)

During the descent phase, we are yielding to gravity allowing ourselves to drop toward the ground. There is not much muscle activity during this, and our pelvis is biased toward an ER shape. This allows you to enter the space below your body.

During the descent phase, we expect to see a more upright torso and the hips

As we begin to redirect our momentum upward, we need to produce force INTO the ground. This is where we begin to utilize a higher pressure strategy at the pelvis so we can push into the ground against gravity.

During this phase is where we might see compensation’s such as the hips shooting back or the torso leaning forward. These are not always things we should try and correct, but depending on the patient/client we may want to try and use some constraints or cues to minimize this. Ideally we would see 90/90 degrees at the hips and the knees but again, it is depending on the person and the type of squat that is being performed.

During the ascent phase, we are now beginning to re-expand at the pelvis as we are beginning to move upward and utilize momentum again. We are still producing force into the ground, but to a lesser degree.

A lot of coaches during this phase cue “squeeze your glutes”. I am generally not a fan of this, because at the top of the squat the glutes actually don’t have great leverage. Your glutes have the best leverage during the redirection phase or middle of the squat.

So that is a very general overview of the phases of the squat and you can view them in terms of expansion and compression. Now, these can drastically change depending on the type of squat being performed, if there is load being used, where the load placed, and many other things.

For example, as soon as we introduce load the degree of IR increases due to increased force demands. This may take away the ER space depending on the individual and their structure and strength levels. I will go deeper into these elements on a different post but I will wrap it up here for today.

Overall, the goal of this post is to encourage people to think differently about how we view movement. Instead of thinking in terms of muscles creating movement, I believe there are different ways to think about it that may create more utility and better outcomes in your patients. Just try to apply the simple concepts of expansion and compression in your practice and see if it helps you simplify movements and exercise interventions.

Hope this is useful and please drop any questions in the comments! Going to be doing more of these longer form videos since there is enough short form content brain rot out there hopefully this provides more value.

Then they go to play pick up basketball or softball with their buddies and wonder why they have lost a step, or their knees ache after…

Even if someone is a regular gym goer, it is very rare someone is doing “athletic” movements in the gym. Squats, bench press, and running on a treadmill at a constant speed, will not challenge your athletic abilities. It’s hard for me to even consider box jumps as athletic, but it is a start. All of these things are performed in a straight line. There is no rotation, change of direction, or unilateral components to them.

I love this graphic from Clifton Harski that describes the spectrum of athletic demands of different activities

As you can see, lifting weights is on the lower end of the “athletic demands spectrum”. This is because lifting weights only trains your strength. Meanwhile the activities on the other end are mostly sports. This is because sports contain the aspect of unpredictability and requires qualities such as coordination, speed, change of direction, rotation, reaction, and more.

As you can see, arguably the best way to get more athletic is to play a sport. Most of you probably already knew this, but finding time or a place to play sports is not always easy. Some have busy lives or are unable to find people to play the sports they love with.

That’s why I’m writing this article. I am here to provide you with alternative solutions to playing sports to develop and train athletic qualities. I am going to try and give you activities that you can do in most typical gyms or fields with minimal equipment.

#1 Sprinting

Speed is probably the gold standard of measuring someones athletic abilities, being faster will never hurt you in a sport. “Speed kills.”

Sprinting is possibly the most rewarding activity in terms of physical adaptations that you can perform. It will make you better, faster, and stronger. It doesn’t matter how fast you are, you can always sprint. That’s the beauty of it, as long as you are giving your all out effort you will reap the same benefits of sprinting that someone else would.

With that said, sprinting is also very demanding on your nervous system and muscle tissues. If you haven’t sprinted in a long time, I would not recommend just going into an all out sprint right away.

First, you should perform a thorough warm up. You can look up any dynamic warm up online but I would recommend that it includes: jogging, dynamic stretching, and skipping/hopping.

I would start with session where you gradually build up intensity. If you are first starting out, I would recommend to cap it at 80% of your max intent. Do that for a few weeks then bump to 90%. Then only after you’ve sprinted a handful of times and conditioned your body, you can try an all out sprint.

I would recommend only starting with 2-3 sprints the first time you go. Then each session you can add one on top. Although, I don’t think there is any sense in doing any more than 10 sprints in a given session.

If you are sprinting to get faster, doing reps when you are fatigued will not assist that goal. If you are doing true, high intensity sprints. You should feel very fatigued after a few of them. This depends on distance and rest, but under most circumstances you will.

Keys to starting sprinting:

1. Warm up properly

2. Start slow if you are a beginner

3. Increase volume (reps) and intensity over time

#2 Jumping

I don’t think I need to explain what jumping is but I will explain the different types and how to apply it into your training. Typically jumping is implemented in training via plyometric exercises.

A plyometric exercise just describes anything with a rapid ground contact time (where you touch and leave the ground quickly). Technically sprinting is even a plyometric but for now we will put that in it’s own separate category.

Plyometric exercises can improve your tendon stiffness, rate of force development, and even your bone density.

Here are some examples of very basic, beginner friendly plyometrics to incorporate into your training:

• Box jumps

• Broad jumps

• Jumping rope

• Skater jumps

As with sprinting, these have the ability to make you sore due to the high eccentric forces, so start slowly. I recommend 1-2 sets and 5 reps. Do them at the beginning of your workout to avoid injury.

#3 Change of direction

Change of direction if probably the least commonly performed type of exercise you will see out of any average gym goer.

These drills are exactly what they sound like, you change the direction in which you are moving. Change of direction occurs all of the time in sports because a lot of the time you are reacting to an external object such as a ball or another person.

A good example of this is the 3 cone drill or the L drill. These are usually used as tests of change of direction ability in the NBA or NFL.

There is pretty much unlimited ways to train change of direction it really just depends on how creative you can be. A good place to start is moving from backward to forward (vise versa) and moving side to side. Simple things like backpedaling to sprinting. Or shuffling side to side between two objects.

As you start to practice them more, you should be able to get more creative with the drills. You can always go on YouTube and look up ideas for more drills.

Wrapping up

These are are a few ways you can start incorporating athleticism into your training. Everyone should be training like an athlete. Whether your goal is gaining muscle or losing fat, training like an athlete will aid in both of these endeavors. If scaled appropriately, these movements can benefit anyone, regardless of experience level.

Unlike sitting on a leg-press machine, this prepares you for real-life circumstances and challenges. The more qualities you train, the stronger, more resilient, and adaptable you will become — train them all.

Yeah, that’s what happens when you hammer bench presses like a meathead and skip the mobility work.

Do you ever see professional bodybuilders try to do anything semi-athletic? Most of them look pretty ridiculous. They move around like a refrigerator, no fluidity in their movement. And you want to train exactly like them? Have at it bro.

When you train for strength or hypertrophy, you are creating large amounts of muscle tension and compression, which WILL steal mobility and range of motion. That’s just the reality of it. While some may experience more negative effects than others, it will catch up to everyone at some point.

Let me be clear here, I am a full supporter of strength training for ALL individuals. But in order for it to be successful, I believe it must be programmed specifically to that individual. Not everyone can just blindly be placed on a random bodybuilding program they found off of the internet. Every body is built different and may not respond well to that type of training.

An important factor to consider is the individuals goals, if their goal is to get as big and strong as possible with no concern as to how much mobility and range of motion they may lose? Then go ahead and hammer the strength training, full go.

Although, most individuals want the best of both worlds. Arms like Popeye with the mobility of a gymnast (highly unlikely). But you can still find ways to integrate the two so you see progress in both. This is part of becoming a resilient human being, being able to train multiple qualities simultaneously.

Now the question is, how can we mitigate or minimize how much mobility is lost from strength training?

This is where most people go wrong. Many think they can just stretch and that will take care of all of their problems.

How do I know this? I’ve tried it myself.

I tried every stretch in the book. Pecs, hip flexors, traps, glutes. Sometimes I would get temporary relief but it never stuck. No matter how much I stretched, it never made a difference. I still always felt tight.

The reality is, you can’t continue to do high intensity strength training and expect that you can overcome the adaptations you created by just stretching. It’s a very short-sighted and reductionist approach.

It wasn’t until I actually started to modify my training routine that I began to see real differences in my movement fluidity and range of motion. I now began to actually look forward to the gym because I wouldn’t be leaving in pain. And you can do the same.

With the strategies below, you can build strength without becoming a creaky mess.

#1: Reduce volume

The more strength training you do, the more you will engrain those patterns of tension and compression into your movement library.

One of the easiest ways to minimize the negative effects that strength training has on your mobility, is simply dialing back your training volume.

Let’s say you are currently doing heavy strength training 4x/week. Try and dial it back to 2 or 3 times per week and see how your body responds.

Or if you are currently doing 10 total sets of exercises for your chest, maybe dial it back to 3 sets of bench press and prioritize increasing the weight.

You need to find a happy medium where you train enough to stimulate strength and hypertrophy adaptations, but not too much to where it steals range of motion. It will take some time to master this. I suggest starting with the bare minimum, until you see a halt in your strength progress, then start adding more.

#2: Cycle Strength & Movement Phases

Another strategy I like to use is cycle strength and movement phases.

In a perfect world, you would combine your strength and movement quality into one program. Although, I enjoy this approach because my goals change over time and it gives me a chance to switch up my training.

During your “strength” phase, your sole focus will be to increase strength and put on muscle. This will obviously consist of heavy strength training. You might lose some range of motion during this phase but that should be expected. You can gain it back once you move into your “movement” phase.

Length of this phase depends on your goal but usually to make any real, long-term strength adaptations you will want to focus on it for at least 6-8 weeks.

During your “movement” phase, your focus is improving movement quality and mobility. This phase would consist of activities that are lower load, bodyweight-oriented, and moving yourself through space (i.e. running)

You will still do strength training during this movement phase, but it will be higher rep and less weight. For example, perform push ups instead of benching. Or goblet squats instead of barbell back squats.

#3 Do unilateral exercises

This is one of my favorite ways to build strength that is very underutilized by many. And that is unilateral exercises.

Unilateral means anything performed on a single arm or single leg.

Almost every exercise can be performed unilaterally in some fashion.

So just take your strength exercises and perform them one side at a time. This will challenge your core stability and add some rotational components as well.

Unilateral exercises don’t tend to steal as much range of motion since you are not compressing both sides of the body at once. During these exercises, compress one side of the body, you get reciprocal expansion on the other side of the body.

Some of my favorites are:

• SA push press

• Split squats (I consider these unilateral)

• SA cable pulldown

• SL Romanian deadlift

To wrap up, everyone should be strength training, being stronger is never a bad thing, but we must address the secondary consequences that come with strength training and try mitigate them as best as possible. I gave you a few options in this article, although it is not limited to those. Be as creative as you can be when it comes to training, in the end it will only benefit you.

Train every quality, become a resilient human being.

Until next time.

Tons of people wonder why their gains have stalled but then you find out they have been doing the same exercises and rep schemes for the past year.

Disclaimer, I am a believer that to get better at something you need to practice that one thing, and this applies to lifting as well. You’re not going to get stronger in a back squat if you don’t back squat. But adding in variation from time to time will not hurt it either, rather it will likely improve it.

I’m also not advocating for people to hop program to program, but if you keep doing the same shit over and over again, your body will no longer adapt. You aren’t giving it any reason to.

Then some will say: “BuT I Am aDdiNg wEiGhT OvEr TiME”

Okay, adding 20lbs to your bench over a year isn’t anything to boast about, sorry to break it to you. There is more to training then just adding weight on the bar.

If the goal of your training is to make yourself more resilient, you must be exposing your body to different positions, speeds, directions, etc.

Even if your goal is adding muscle or getting stronger, adding in variety will be only to your benefit.

Just look at Louis Simmons, founder of Westside Barbell, undoubtedly the best powerlifting gym in history. Whenever one of his lifters progress stalled, he would switch up their training. Move lighter weight faster. Add chains or bands. Start on a box.

When you expose your body to different tasks and demands, you stimulate new adaptations that you can’t do with just adding weight.

You also improve other important qualities such as tendon health, muscle firing patterns, RFD, and the list goes on. You make your body more resilient and adaptive.

Not only is there physical benefits to adding variety, but psychological ones as well.

Many people’s motivation for training dwindles simply because they are bored. When you add variety to your training, it makes it more fun and you actually look forward to each session.

If you’re a trainer, this is especially key because it keeps your clients engaged and on their toes.

Now that you understand why I believe training variety is key, let me show you how to implement it into your own training:

#1 Change your split

I recommend this to start because most people have used the same training split their whole lives, not understanding how much that can limit their gains.

Changing your split can provide new stimuli to your muscles by:

• Increase or decrease total workload on your system

• Hit certain muscles more or less frequently

• Providing a different workout structure

I’m not going to go through all of the possible workout splits but rather provide alternatives to the norm. The most common I see performed among average gym goers are body-part splits and PPL.

I’m just going to be honest when I say I believe these are both trash splits for the average individual. Some may see good results on them but for the majority of the population they are more times than not ineffective.

Why?

• You only train each muscle 1x/week

• Volume (sets) per muscle/session is way too high

Only people that should even consider these splits are pro bodybuilders.

If you are currently on one of these, I please ask you to just TRY an upper/lower or full body split.

Why?

• The pumps are awesome (think of a bicep pump but your whole upper body)

• You leave the gym actually feeling fatigued

• You get to train each muscle 2-3x per week

If you’re going to do upper/lower, I would structure it like

Day 1: Upper

Day 2: Lower

Day 3: Rest/cardio

Day 4: Upper

Day 5: Lower

If you’re going to do full-body, I prefer this:

Day 1: Full body

Day 2: Rest/cardio

Day 3: Full body

Day 4: Rest/cardio

Day 5: Full body

I think you get the point, just switch it up from the bro split please. (Don’t worry, you can still do your bench presses and bicep curls)

#2 Switch your tempo

“Control the eccentric, explode on the concentric” -Every S&C coach ever

Tempo describes the speed at which you perform an exercise.

Average gym goers perform majority of their movements at relatively slow speeds.

While I believe there is a time and place for slow and controlled, especially for beginners. Although the body is more than equipped to handle fast and explosive.

When starting to implement this type of training, use light weights to get a feel for the movement before adding load.

There is literally unlimited variation to this and you can apply it to pretty much any exercise. But here is a simple framework for how to start applying it to your training.

1. Pick an exercise

2. Pick the eccentric or concentric portion of the exercise (lowering or upward portion)

3. Perform it fast or slow (your choice)

There, you have now successfully altered the tempo of an exercise.

It may feel weird or scary at first, which is why you should start with light weights that you can handle comfortably. Once you do it successfully with one exercise, you’ll begin to see how you can apply it to others.

This should add some new feeling and challenge to the exercise, don’t be surprised if you’re more sore than usual the next day.

#3 Do athletic things

Jump. Sprint. Throw.

These are activities most people never do again after they finish their last high school sport game. These movements are so fundamental to our structure and biology, yet most people avoid them like the plague.

Luckily, you can do them anywhere. Ideally your gym has a track or some boxes you can jump on. But if not, you can go to any park near you and do them for free. Another option is just to go play a sport that you love. Grab some friends or go join a rec league, there’s no excuse.

Start slow with these, don’t go into an all out sprint after not sprinting for 5 years. Warm up and stretch properly, then go from a jog into a slightly faster speed. Don’t do 10 sprints your first session, unless you don’t want to be able to walk the next day. Start with 1 or 2, then build up from there. They are easy to overdue because they are fun, so be careful.

I will definitely be releasing a more in-depth post on how to incorporate athleticism into your training, so stay tuned.

That wraps this post up guys and gals. I hope you found some of these concepts useful and begin to incorporate some variety into your training. Remember, good training is NOT boring.

Are these preventable? This is a difficult question to answer.

In sport, injury is likely not preventable. Sport is very random and chaotic so your joints/ligaments are exposed to many positions and forces.

But let’s say for example, someone injured their back picking their kid up from the ground. Could this have been preventable?

If they spent less time sitting in a desk or a couch at their office job and actually practiced picking up moderately heavy things from the ground from time to time. Possibly.

Now, let’s distinguish between injury and chronic pain.

Injury: tissue injury attributable to an activity or movement that happened at a specific point in time

Chronic pain: pain in an area that has been on going for several weeks, months, years

They have their similarities and it is not uncommon that an injury leads to chronic pain due to altered motor patterns or tissue alteration.

Although both of these things should be addressed with different approaches and considerations.

If you experienced an injury recently, it will likely heal on it’s own if you give it time. Most doctors and people are still operating on the notion of rest/ice/heat and don’t move at all, although this won’t hurt you, it is definitely not speeding up the healing process.

DISCLAIMER: this is NOT medical advice. Go see a doctor to get anything malignant cleared. This is simply a guide for someone who was seen a doctor or therapist and didn’t get relief or just wants to get back into training after a minor injury.

Step #1: Remove activities that provoke the pain

This might be pretty obvious but something people sometimes overlook.

If you injured your back deadlifting, you probably shouldn’t continue to deadlift.

Eventually, the goal should be to get back to doing that activity pain free, but for now, eliminate it.

You should also aim to reduce any activities that promote high levels of compression.

These are any activities where you are producing high amounts of force and muscle activity. Think maximal sprinting, heavy lifting, and other high effort activities.

While I am an favor of the prescription of these movements for a healthy individual, someone dealing with back pain should avoid them until it subsides.

Step #2: Reducing compression and muscle tension

In my last post, I explained what “compression” is in the sense of movement and exercise and how it can interfere with fluid movement.

Now the question is, how do we go about reducing this compression?

Reducing compression can be difficult because you’re trying to tone down someone’s system and muscular output. So it actually requires the opposite of effort, which people aren’t typically used to doing.

What I find very useful for reducing compression is positional breathing drills

These are very simple, here are the steps:

• Find a position on the ground that is comfortable for you (on your back, side, or stomach)

• Take deep, relaxed breaths

• Try to feel your body melt into the floor and relax

What this will do is help tune down motor output, reduce demands of gravity, and allow re-expansion of your rib cage.

Once you reduce this compression, you can now start reintroducing other activities to regain movement variability.

Step #3: Increase movement variability

Movement variability is a term that describes your ability to access different joint positions and movements

Someone with low movement variability will have:

• Limited range of motion at joints

• Discomfort at in certain positions (overhead, in a deep squat)

• Perceived “tightness”

Compression and muscle tension will limit your movement variability by decreasing space at your joints.

Now the solution for this is not to stretch muscles or put your joints through extreme ranges of motion. As most individuals dealing with pain can’t even access those spaces.

I think the best way to increase movement variability is through activities that:

• move your body through space

• have reciprocation of arms and legs

• fluctuate in force demands (high—>low)

• have an dynamic, external task

Some examples of this are (but not limited to):

• Arm swings/leg swings

• Trunk rotations

• Hopping/skipping

• Jogging

• Swimming

• Sports

Wrapping up

With all of that said, pain is very complex and I do not claim to have the solution to pain. Rather, I am simply providing a framework based upon principles I have learned through studying exercise science and The Unified Health and Performance Model by Bill Hartman. This framework helped me get out of chronic pain that was preventing me from exercise and activities.

Compression isn’t a buzz word, rather a phenomenon of physics. It’s definition in physics is:

• A reduction in the bulk volume of a material as a result of the removal of gas by applied pressure

Now, what does compression mean in movement?

Essentially we are one big bag of water. Muscles create the compression that move’s this bag of water around.

When a muscle contracts, it alters volume of the muscle to achieve the desired joint action. Now this is not a good or a bad thing, rather just a strategy your body uses to move and produce force. Although, it may become undesirable if the compression is to a great enough degree and interferes with joint motions.

The traditional model of movement portrays all movement being controlled by muscles. When in reality, to produce movement you need this beautiful symphony of muscular contraction, relaxation and yield to gravity. If you aren’t able to relax (eccentrically orient) the muscle then you may see issues with your movement.

Can’t reach behind your back?

Hurts when you turn your neck to check your blind spot?

Can’t get into the top of your backswing?

It’s probably compression that is interfering with these things.

Movement’s that would typically be affected by high levels of compression are hip/shoulder external rotation, rotation in the spine, and abduction of the shoulder and hip. Overall, your movement will generally feel a lot more sticky and less fluid.

What causes compression that can interfere with fluid movement?

Anything that causes high levels of muscular activity and non-rotational activities. An example of this is any bilateral or heavy weight lifting.

It’s not to say these things are inherently bad, but if your goal is to preserve rotation and joint range of motion (which is necessary for most athletes/sports). Then it may be interfering with your goals.

How do we reduce compression and restore rotation/fluid movement?

Step one is reduce interference. Eliminate any bilateral/heavy lifting for the time being or at least reduce volume/frequency. If you keep imposing stimulus and demands for high compression it will be impossible to resolve it.

Step two is choose exercises that reduce demands of gravity.

The best place to start is on the ground. Supine, hooklying, quadruped. If your client is really compressed have them just try and relax into these positions without doing any actual movement or exercise, just breathing. Then start to reintroduce movement of the limbs. (Deadbugs, bear crawls, etc.)

Step three is to reintroduce activities that have more load/demands of gravity

There are many activities that work here but some of my favorite are:

• Front foot elevated split squats

• Goblet squats

• Chop variations

• Single arm cable presses and pulls

Now this is just a framework. The human body doesn’t operate in a step by step fashion but this framework is to set you up for success. Some people may be able to hop straight into step 3 exercises, or see results from just eliminating/limiting compressive activities. Either way, as long as the correct stimulus is applied you should see results.

Another under appreciated tool for increasing movement options is Non-deliberate movement. I learned the term/concept from Seth Oberst. These are essentially activities where movement has more flow and no pre-determined script. Many sports fall under this category and things such as dancing. This allows you to express your movement in a creative fashion and gives you a sense of freedom. Which has validity knowing the affect the mind has on the body. This has helped me a lot in my journey toward healthy and pain-free movement.

How do you know you are getting results?

• The measurements I mentioned above will improve

• You have less pain in your everyday movements such as picking something up off the ground or reaching behind in your car to grab something

• Less sticky and more fluid movement

Overall there are tons of different proxys you can track but you must find the ones that are most important for you.