Strive to maintain the normal lordosis of the lumbar spine during lifting.

Doing so assures that the angle of pull of the erector spinae create a posterior shear force on the lumbar vertebrae, thus reducing the high anterior shear forces that are associated with back injuries.  You also avoid the repetitive strain on the posterior aspect of the lumbar discs that can result in herniation.

This may require that you reduce the depth of your squats or pull your deadlifts from a box until you’ve developed sufficient mobility in your hips.

Bill

Research and empirical evidence suggests that addressing issues of movement pattern balance, i.e., balancing pushes with pulls, is a great way to prevent muscle imbalances that lead to joint injury.

In the upper extremity, more specifically the shoulder, it may be a little too simplistic to say that a horizontal pull like a barbell row will balance a bench press because they look like opposing movements.

Muscle balance in the shoulder is strongly associated with movement of the scapulae and the muscles that control the scapulae in the three cardinal planes.  Therefore, it’s important to identify how the scapulae are moving (or not moving) during the performance of a primary exercise before you determine a movement to balance scapular function.

Bill

I think it’s important to distinguish between whether a muscle is short or if it is stiff when determining a corrective plan.  Treat each case the same and only half of your clients will improve.

A short muscle lacks length.  It may be that the muscle is positioned in a shortened position frequently and the muscle fibers have dropped sarcomeres in series or the connective tissues have adaptively shortened. 

If you actively and/or passively stabilize the proximal attachment of the muscle and move the joint into a position to stretch the muscle, the proximal attachment will move well before reaching the end range of motion of the joint.

A stiff muscle has greater resistance to stretch.  This may be due to hypertrophy or a greater quantity of connective tissues.  Think of two rubber bands made of the same material, but one rubber band is wider than the other.  The materials would have equal extensibility but because one has greater width, it take more force to stretch it the same length as a thinner band. 

In the case of a stiff muscle, if you actively and/or passively stabilize the proximal attachment and move the joint into a position to stretch the muscle, The joint will move through it’s full range of motion without movement at the proximal attachment assuming enough force is applied to stretch the muscle.

Short muscles require repetitive, prolonged stretching to encourage creep of connective tissues and the addition of sarcomeres in series to add length.

Stiff muscles can be corrected by balancing the stiffness across a joint by strengthening their antagonists and by holding the antagonists in a shortened position as they may have been adaptively lengthened over time.

Bill

Closing the kinetic chain by putting your hand on the floor promotes co-contraction of the rotator cuff.  This can improve glenohumeral stabilization.

Because the scapula is free to move, you must rely on active stabilization of the scapula.  The greater your scapular stability, the greater your potential glenhumeral stability.

The push-up requires active stabilization of the trunk.  Weak trunk musculature is a common reason why some have difficulty completing an effective push-up.

There’s no equipment required…contrary to what some commercials may say.

They’re easy to unload for those lacking sufficient strength to do them on the floor.  Simply “raise the floor” by placing the hands on a sturdy bench, a barbell secured in a rack, or even a wall for deconditioned exercisers.

There are infinite variations that can be done isometrically, explosively, loaded with weighted vests, chains, bands, off-set hands, narrow hand spacing, one hand, on a medicine ball, on two medicine balls….you get the point.

Bill

P.S.  You can now get NSCA CEU credits for your purchase of Inside-Out: The Ultimate Upper Body Warm-up.  Contact Mike Robertson at info@robertsontrainingsystems.com