Latest / SOTA Personal Training Podcast / Why Your Posture Stinks... and How to Fix It (Ep. 18)

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Why Your Posture Stinks... and How to Fix It (Ep. 18) · SOTA Personal Training Podcast

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In order to have good posture, we want to maintain that
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position for a long time, and doing those things from a
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workout perspective will help free up that joint space so you
0:08
can get a safer, better workout by increasing mobility.
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More repetition throughout the day to train it the right way.
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Soda Personal Training Podcast.
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We help busy adults get strong and fit and stay that way for a
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really long time. I'm Coach Shawn here with coach
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Rowan and Coach Phil. What's up guys?
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Had a good day today. Yeah, it's a good day.
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Saturday's always a good day in here.
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Weekends are fun, it's a good vibe.
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Yeah, this is Coach Rowan's first podcast.
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She's a new coach here, so we're going to intro her a little bit
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for for the family, Yeah. Rowan's from New Hampshire and
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just got here. So you like you got here.
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What was it just a week or two ago you got?
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Here. Yeah, I think on Tuesday.
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OK. Yeah, yeah.
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Well over a week. How is Minnesota treating you to
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this point? The weather's been great.
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Everyone says I'm glad you moved at this time and not in the
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middle of winter. So it's been really fun going to
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the lake today and there you go every other day.
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OK, heck, I know it's a good time for it and it's well, how
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did you? OK.
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So like you're originally from New Hampshire, I guess tell for
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the listeners, you know, a little bit more just about your
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background, how you got into personal training.
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Yeah, yeah. I grew up in New Hampshire and I
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found CrossFit at a young age, which was functional fitness.
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And I, you know, started coaching at CrossFit and decided
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I wanted to pursue exercise science and went to Simmons
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University in Boston, got my exercise science degree.
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And yeah, the rest is history. I've done some personal
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training, group training, all different gyms and had some
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great experiences. But I'm really excited to be
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here at SODA and really, yeah, focus on honing my skills as a
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coach and learning new things. Heck yeah.
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Working with a great team. Yeah, yeah, no.
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And we're pumped to have you too because like I've already seen,
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you know, like this is one of the first things that I noticed
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like right away with you is like, you know, like, you know a
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lot about just like, I guess movement patterns, you know, and
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like really, really good with like the exercise technique
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stuff. And that's going to be a big
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thing we're going to touch on today.
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We're going to talk in this episode about posture.
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You know why so many of us in the modern world have poor
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posture. And there goes We're sitting in
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chairs, slouched in chairs, hunched over posture as we
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speak. But yeah, I mean, do we want to
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intro anything else before we just like jump into the topic or
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what are we thinking here? No, I mean, Rowan, we're really
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excited to have you in and one thing that spoke to us, we've
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been looking for a coach for, I don't know, a year.
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Like it takes a really long time, a lot of applications.
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But something that spoke to me reading it from the first time
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was your wide variety of exposure, different fitness
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modalities, right? You spent time at like a rowing
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studio, You learned how to do that.
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So you've got a, a very wide experience range.
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That's really important when we're working with people in
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that like 3540 plus population, different things need to be
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employed to to stay active, stay safe and to fix your posture.
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And did I Did I tell you the story of how I found your job
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posting for soda? I don't think so.
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So I had applied to a few gyms in Minnesota through Indeed and
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LinkedIn, and I was getting to a point where I just wasn't
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inspired. I literally looked up fun or fun
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jobs in Minnesota. Google knew I was looking for a
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personal training job, and the first thing that pops up is
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soda. What?
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And I read the bio and I'm like, oh, this is perfect.
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Yeah. So fun jobs is what?
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You know what? You got to search.
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It's so interesting. I wonder if it has to do with
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like our Google reviews people mention like things about the
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studio and I don't think I have the word fun more than once or
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twice on our website. So anyway, oh, that's great.
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It's on there, but no more. Than there somewhere.
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Yeah, it is fun. So it is.
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It's very. Fun so far.
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Yeah, it's yeah. It's more fun than an average
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gym, I can tell you that. It's funny because I have some
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clients who like, you know, they, they know that you'll work
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that into like your sales pitch of like, oh, this is a fun gym.
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There's a lot of fun in here. You know what I'm like, all
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right, Yeah, it's fun on the one hand, but we also got to get a
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little uncomfortable with some of the exercises we do to make
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good progress. Yeah.
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I think here we have a good blend of like the fun, you know,
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the community based like atmosphere with good coaching as
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well challenging workouts. A mix of that.
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It's like, you know, like a little bit of the, you know,
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giving each other crap. We run on that.
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But also like, OK, cool, like let's get let's get to work
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here, right? So no, excellent.
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I think we should jump right in. Yeah, let's get to work on the
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topic. So yeah, we're going to talk
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about poor posture. And this is something that we
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see all the time. Posture, especially for someone
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who works at a desk, is really, really hard.
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You know, we have a tendency to be kind of hunched over, you
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know, and this is, you know, upper back, back, tight in his
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shoulders. We're also probably going to
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talk about low back and knees a little bit in this as well.
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But posture is a really hard thing in the modern world.
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And I guess let's start off. I want to talk about literally
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the posture that I'm in right now.
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It's that kind of hunched forward posture.
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So like, why do we see this so often?
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And you know what to do about it, you know?
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Yeah, take it away going. Upper back, sure.
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So we, yeah, we're going to definitely go over the upper
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cross to start. So this is a position that we've
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all kind of adopted in the modern age with sitting at
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desks, working at desks. We're no longer working outside
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for 8 to 10 hours. So we see a lot of tight
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pectorals and then we're seeing really weak kind of upper neck,
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upper trap muscles. And then in, you know,
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contradicting contradiction to that, we have really kind of, I
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guess lengthened deep neck, Yep, muscles and we're seeing cuz.
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We're doing this. Yes, yeah, if.
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You're watching. I just crunch forward like a
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shrimp with my chin up. Right.
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Yeah. Yeah, yeah, the absolute
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muscles. Are tight and then Yep.
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Those low traps too. And like is the answer cuz like
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we hear all this all the time, you know, like OK, you got
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really tight, tight and weak if I'm saying it right, you know,
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traps and upper back and things like that.
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Like is the answer in general like just to strengthen, you
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know, to strengthen the upper back the traps?
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Like what do you you know, either you guys can speak to
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this, but. Yeah, I would say yes.
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Yeah, it is, but maybe not for the reason I think people
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expect. So in here we're really big fans
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of strengthening the opposing muscle group to something.
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So yes, it makes sense. We have stronger back muscles.
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It's going to naturally pull us back, but only if we're mindful
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of it. A lot of the research around
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posture says it has a lot more to do with our mood and like,
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than anything else, like there's not really like textbook bad
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posture. A lot of times it's attached to
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weakness. And like, just think about when
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we're having a crummy day at work in that chair, right?
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We're here in front of a computer.
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There's no reason we can't get back in that position.
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But we're distracted and we're just not mindful of it as much.
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But and then if you look at someone, you know, think of
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someone who's like proud or they're doing something you're
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confident with, if you look and measure their posture, it is
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better because of that environment and their energy.
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It goes without saying that we still want to strengthen the
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backside. And I think something I want to
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head on today at some point, if not now, is like we need to
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strengthen the posterior chain throughout our entire body.
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So everything from the back of our neck to behind our knees and
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even our calves, because we're so interior focused, everything
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we do is in front of us and the muscles and back, as we said in
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the other podcast about pain, is it just gets weak and that
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muscle atrophies because we're just not using it contributes to
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a lot of knee pain, shoulder pain, neck pain for that reason.
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Yeah, yeah, leave it to Phil to bring in, to make it
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psychological rather. I did it again.
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He did it again. Yeah.
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He's a psychology major, in case you didn't know.
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But he it's always, OK, we can maybe come back to that because
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I have like some questions about like, wow, OK.
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Like, so. But then if somebody is, you
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know, just, I don't know if they're in a bad mood and have
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bad posture, but if that's like their natural posture, I don't
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know. But anyway, like so like OK,
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like Rowan in the past, if you've worked with people that
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have this, you know, upper cross syndrome when they're hunched
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forward, what would be the go to is in terms of like exercises
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you would do? Yeah, I mean, my favorite to
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start out is those YTW's. So this can be done in like a
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hinged position or laying on a bench or on the ground.
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And it's a good one to teach people because they can bring it
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home and do it on their own. This has been a huge pain
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reliever for me in my own work, and I think that the clients
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that I've used this with have found reduced kind of like
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hunching, but also like, you know, after they do this
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exercise, but also just reduce neck pain and back pain because
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you're strengthening a little bit of the upper, middle and
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lower trap. So just for people who don't
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know that YTW, you're laying on the bench, your hands are in AY
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position, so kind of reaching straight over and then T's out
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to the side W goal post arms and just squeezing the back muscles
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together to kind of lift the arms upward.
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Yep. And you hit on something
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because, like you said, it's something they can do at home.
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This is like another question I was going to ask is like, you
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know, the frequency and intensity of such exercises,
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right? Like, OK, we're trying to do
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exercises to strengthen the posterior chain and if I can say
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it this way, to improve the posture of like the upper back.
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Like do you think we should just be doing those exercises with
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like, you know, lightweight or no weight like almost every day
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or multiple times throughout the day?
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Or like should we focus like, OK, come into the gym and lift
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heavy, like a heavy, you know, maybe upper back focused row?
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Or is it like kind of a combination of all that?
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I would say that it's that's a good warm up and cool down.
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So we have like our muscular endurance.
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I would say this kind of falls into that muscular endurance
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where we're not loading AYTW with £50 on each side.
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We're going to do 2 and a halfs to maybe 10 lbs for most people.
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So it's good to kind of warm up and then this puts you in a good
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or better position to do compound lifts that also
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strengthen that upper back. So we've got like even seated
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rows I would say are pretty good for working on that mid trap,
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low trap and deadlift, same thing.
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You're going to be engaging those same back muscles in the
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deadlift, even in the squat, especially if you're kind of low
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bar there. Yeah, you're gonna be engaging
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those back muscles. So just starting with muscular
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endurance, 15 to 20 reps with Ytws would be a good
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recommendation for most people. Yeah, I think that hits on
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something really important to understand muscular endurance.
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We want in order to have good posture, we want to maintain
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that position for a long time. So we should train not for a
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hard, short, heavy set because that's not the function of that
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exercise. On the same note, when we hold
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posture for a long time, some people will overdo it.
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Like they're like, I need good posture and they're like,
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they're like, pull them back all the time.
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And that's not going to be good for anyone either.
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So I think some people overemphasize they're like on
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your shoulders, up, down, back. We always.
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Joke Katie and I, because I'm like, well, like this, but we
11:51
want the natural posture to be better and doing those things
11:55
from a workout perspective will help free up that joint space so
11:58
you can get a safer, better workout by increasing mobility.
12:02
But yeah, give it more like more repetition throughout the day to
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shrink the right way so. I think that's a good segue into
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lower cross too, because we do see with extension in the upper
12:16
back, often times that leads to kind of, yeah, kind of more
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flexion in the lower back. So we see the anterior pelvic
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tilt where you think of your, you know, pelvis as a bucket,
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it's dumping the water forward. So I think having good posture
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is not just about like constantly correcting, it is
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about strengthening, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
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And like I see that it's funny 'cause like that term anterior
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pelvic tilt, like it's something I really didn't even learn much
12:44
about until recently, you know what I mean?
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I always kind of joke like with the other coaches in here that
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I'm probably like the least knowledgeable from like a
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technical perspective, you know, So like this anterior pelvic
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tilt stuff to me is like, I don't know, wait a minute, think
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about that. The pelvis is going as, I don't
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know, but like, but it's a, it's a very common 1 though.
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Like, you see all the time, right when you really like learn
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how to to look for it, you know, and OK, so like what usually is
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going to happen if someone has that anterior pelvic tilt and
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they're like overarching the low back, what's that going to lead
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to like, pain like, Yeah. Well, that's just indicating
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that they have like that weak core and weak glutes which is
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common in lower cross. So I know we've been seeing a
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lot in the hip thrust. When somebody is hip thrusting,
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a common thing that they say is, oh, I don't feel my glutes, I
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feel my quads. So they're dumping the hips and
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using mostly quad and low back to get that weight up.
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So by strengthening the glutes and the core, we can kind of get
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into that better alignment, which will help in squat,
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deadlift, hip thrusts, all those good exercises.
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It has to, yeah, do with that. Let's just anterior posterior
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piece, right? Both of these have to do with
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stronger posterior, like upper back, right?
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I think in the backs of our body, pulling the shoulder
14:00
blades back and the lower body like this is something I
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struggled with is I naturally like, we're not all going to
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have totally flat hips. If everyone tries to do that,
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they're going to look, it's going to look funny.
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But if you grab your pelvis for people who are listening or
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watching and you can dump them forward and back, you just want
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to make sure you have control there.
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I have a lot of extra curvature in my spine.
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Like naturally they said I had Schuler's disease when I went to
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a chiropractor one time and I was like, Oh no, a disease.
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So I have almost a little kyphosis, which is more rounded
14:33
upper back and what's correlated with that is more curved lower
14:36
back. And until I started the front of
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my core, which pulls my pelvis into that neutral position,
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that's that's one piece. And it's correlated with, yeah,
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weak core, more low back curve and then the hip stump forward.
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And that can definitely put you at risk for hurting yourself on
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many exercises. Anything heavy lower body it'll
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put you at risk of. And then we've, yeah, we've got
15:00
the like tight ileosoas too. So it opens up a whole new
15:04
plethora of possible hip injuries with that and strain.
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So it's, yeah, glute training is really important.
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That's what Ron's saying. We need stronger butts.
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We need really strong. So go back to the previous
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episode. No, Anyway, yeah.
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So OK, you guys kind of answered one of my questions, but like
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Rowan, because you talked about, you know, just the weak glutes
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and weak core combo, right? So then if, OK, if we're going
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to try to train the core right, to help prevent some of that
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anterior pelvic tilt, are we talking about training mostly
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just the ABS themselves, you know, like the the six back
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muscles, if I can call them that right?
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Are we talking about just the front of the core or also like
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the deep core, the obliques like?
15:43
Yeah, that transfers, yeah, the whole whole core I think is
15:47
important. And then also training in
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different, I mean we do this here, but anti rotation and
15:54
rotation is really important to incorporate.
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So I don't know if you can speak a little bit about kind of
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training the whole core and. Yeah.
16:03
Well, I think one thing, maybe we've mentioned it before on on
16:07
the show, but essentially like your core, rectus abdominis, the
16:11
front muscles, the six pack muscles, I believe those are the
16:13
closest to our skin. Then we have internal external
16:16
obliques and then the deepest of which is that transverse
16:18
abdominis and it wraps around. It's commonly thought of like a
16:21
belt that goes all the way around, but it doesn't, It stops
16:26
right where it meets like your low back about, you know, almost
16:29
all the way around. And so most people think chord
16:32
training, I got to strengthen my back, my back problems.
16:34
They just do the front over and over might help with pelvic tilt
16:38
maybe, but they're still not hitting those small spinal
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erectors that run up the entire length of your spine.
16:44
So that's why in here we do a lot of like isometric training
16:47
for low back where we're engaging the glutes so the spine
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and hips are in a neutral position, getting comfortable
16:54
with that, building some capacity, and then we can start
16:57
doing hip hinges and actually adding movement and weight to
17:00
it. Most people have a need to
17:04
strengthen hamstrings, glutes, low back, those key areas.
17:07
Everyone will benefit from a stronger button posterior chain.
17:11
And is that, I mean my kind of thought on that is it's because
17:15
we're sitting all the time. Would you agree?
17:17
Yeah, we're sitting in that length and position, which we
17:19
know is not great. And then we get up after
17:22
sitting. And because we've been sitting
17:23
in the shortened position, right, I've got 90° in my in my
17:27
hips right now. When I stand up, they're going
17:30
to feel tight. So we're going to get up and
17:31
walk in that more anterior pelvic tilt position.
17:37
Like five years ago, before I was a little more PCI.
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Call it stripper booty because you're like sitting out.
17:42
It'll make your butt look bigger, but not the risk of
17:45
hurting your back. So people are sitting for 8
17:48
hours and then they go, they race to the gym.
17:51
Some people will come in here and they're like, I'm warmed up.
17:53
I'm warmed up just because you've been moving quickly.
17:56
Yeah, Yeah. And then they go, and they go a
17:59
little too quick, like they might not be mobilized properly
18:03
for specifically lower body work.
18:05
Yeah. What do you guys think?
18:06
What do you guys think is the best warm up for someone who has
18:09
that, you know, is the best warm up?
18:11
Like I'm talking like doing glute bridges.
18:13
Like how do you like to warm someone up for?
18:17
No. Anything.
18:18
Yeah. I am a huge contender of the
18:21
glute medius and defender, I guess.
18:24
And I think that glute medius warmups are very important for
18:30
any style of training. So that's going to impact kind
18:33
of the knees and ankles as well. So that impacts the tracking of
18:38
the knee, which can impact then ankle structure as well.
18:44
So I think doing like a glute medius bridge is a really smart
18:49
warm up and strengthening tool and you can add weight to that.
18:53
And then, yeah, also just glute, you know, regular glute bridges
18:57
are great for strengthening and warming up that whole glute.
19:02
Yeah, there's a plethora of glute exercises that we could
19:06
get into. But to keep it simple, I would
19:09
say, yeah, that glute medius bridge, glute bridge and then
19:12
maybe some banded kind of exercises there.
19:15
So I saw you doing something the other day.
19:17
It was when we were working in a in a group together.
19:19
And this is going to be like a super technical question that
19:22
maybe doesn't even benefit the listeners that much, but
19:24
benefits me, OK. Because like, somebody was doing
19:28
some banded sidesteps, which, you know, we'll consider a glute
19:30
medius exercise, right? Shopping side to side with the
19:33
band, right? And you were doing some like
19:34
technical corrections, you know, and I'm just like watching
19:36
there. And I'm like, I don't know, I
19:38
got, it's one of those exercises.
19:39
I'm like, I don't do this in my own training.
19:41
It's a band put. The band on and freaking stand
19:43
side to side and wave your arms in there.
19:45
I don't really care and do whatever you want for 30
19:47
seconds, you know? So like, OK, when you like, if
19:49
someone is doing a banded sidestep, what is the best way
19:53
to do it? To work the glute, Mead, or
19:55
whatever other muscles we're targeting as much as possible.
19:57
Yeah, the, I mean, the biggest thing I look for is making sure
20:00
the step is not huge because usually what ends up happening
20:04
is if that step is too big, we don't have the muscle there to
20:08
continue to pull that knee out and your knee is just going to
20:11
cave in. And then we get that valgus
20:13
knee, which means, you know, your knee's kind of inward and
20:16
and that doesn't help anyone. So just keeping the steps
20:21
smaller usually helps with. Keeping the glute activated the
20:25
whole time and and we don't need to go much bigger.
20:28
Otherwise they start teeter tottering over.
20:30
And yeah, yeah. And do you like to do it with
20:33
the band, like right around the knees?
20:34
That's like above, yeah, yeah, yeah.
20:36
If it's above the knee, it's it's a little easier when you
20:39
get to your ankles, makes it harder.
20:40
And then toes, yeah, that's where you really feel.
20:43
Like extend the the fulcrum, right the yeah that you're
20:46
trying to. Yeah, exactly.
20:48
We joke in here like when we do those for warm up or more
20:50
importantly in a circuit and like try to break that band as
20:53
long as they can track their knee over their butt.
20:55
Yes. Call it strong booty clubs.
20:57
It means you can really now we're like nice job.
21:00
Like that's not easy to do. Cuz once people feel it, they're
21:03
like, yeah, OK, I know like pushing my knee out a little bit
21:07
helps activate that boot medius. And yeah, it's a, it's
21:11
definitely a great exercise doing it correctly and.
21:14
Is that what you mean when you say glute?
21:16
Like a a glute or glute medius bridge is just pushing the knees
21:19
out? More like a glute bridge but
21:21
pushing the knees out. Glute medius bridge.
21:23
Think of a side plank but pushing like it's almost like a
21:27
hip extension. So you're in a side plank on
21:29
your knee, and then when you push up into the side plank,
21:33
you're also extending the hip forward.
21:36
It's like a clamshell, Sean, in our playbook, I call it called a
21:39
super clamshell. But you extend up and out with
21:42
the knee off the floor. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's a good
21:44
one. OK, Yeah, these are type of
21:45
exercises. You try it.
21:47
Yeah, I know that a meathead like me and be like, I ain't
21:48
doing that. You made a squat bar, you know.
21:50
But like, yeah, it's probably a very, probably a very good
21:52
exercise. But maybe even for prep, you see
21:55
a lot of weight lifters doing that before they're like
21:57
squatting their heavy heavy. Sets, if they're smart, yeah, If
22:00
they're smart, if they're like me, they're probably like Nah,
22:02
just get under the bar, I'm good, £300, just go.
22:06
Load it, yeah. Load it up.
22:08
All right. Yeah.
22:09
Well, OK. So we talked about low back, we
22:11
talked about upper cross. I mean, should we, should we
22:14
jump just to the knees now or is there more to talk?
22:17
Well, we're going to talk more about the posterior chain in
22:19
general, but is there more to discuss in like lower upper back
22:22
posture? Yeah, I think just one thing to
22:25
piggyback off of, Rowan said. Which is like activating the
22:27
glutes, which is great. And whether it's prepping for a
22:30
workout or just increasing mobility and stretching like the
22:34
front of our body is to use what's called reciprocal
22:37
inhibition, which is, I know, right, big words.
22:41
So this is a fancy way of saying you want to activate the muscle
22:45
opposite of what you want to stretch because when you, for
22:47
example, engage your upper back muscles, it forces the muscles
22:52
in the front of your body to relax.
22:53
You can't like do both. So if you're doing like a
22:57
doorway stretch for your chest and shoulders, if you can hold
23:00
the stretch and then like squeeze your upper back muscles,
23:03
it's you're going to feel a much deeper stretch.
23:06
And same with the the glutes. So we talk about pelvic tilt and
23:09
posture. If you can engage the glutes
23:11
again, you know you're in a neutral pelvis and you might
23:14
even feel a stretch. If you do like the couch
23:16
stretch, we have a back foot up on a bench and your knee down.
23:20
If you can engage your glutes, it's gonna like you're gonna get
23:23
a stretch to your upper quad and hip flexor like you've probably
23:26
never gotten before. So we have to sometimes moderate
23:29
that. But yeah, it all falls in line.
23:32
And then talking about our knees, right, glued media, so we
23:34
know has helped stabilize the knee and when it's weak, that
23:37
knee tends to get a valgus when we squat.
23:39
Yes. So again, this is all connected
23:41
in this kinetic chain we're talking about.
23:43
But yeah, Ron, why don't you take that away as far as that
23:47
function and knee health in general?
23:49
Yeah. So I got to my senior year, I
23:52
got to write a kind of systematic review of different
23:56
research papers from I think it was like 2019 to 2022-2023 in
24:02
there. And the research had found that,
24:05
yeah, glute medius strengthening helped reduce what we usually
24:10
call runner's knee or patellofemoral pain syndrome.
24:13
So that's pain kind of just in the front of that kneecap.
24:17
We've probably all dealt with it.
24:19
If you're a runner or do high impact sports, it's it is pretty
24:24
common in the general population.
24:27
So it is all about glute medius training, glute strengthening.
24:33
And then, you know, with runners, that's not a
24:37
consideration for a lot of runners.
24:39
It's just jump right into it, do your leg swings, do your lunges
24:43
and hit the road. OK.
24:45
And yeah, so we talked about knee valgus too, where you get
24:47
like, you like knocking heat or the knees are turning in, right?
24:50
Because I see people like this all the time and I'm still in
24:51
like, what's the best way to train, you know, to like, what
24:54
do you think is the best thing to do?
24:56
If someone has like it's and it's very obvious, you know,
24:58
that whether it's when they're squatting or just standing there
25:01
that their knees are pointing in, you know, valgus knee.
25:05
What are the best ways to train or things to do?
25:07
Yeah, I found in the research it was the glute medias bridge,
25:11
lateral step down and step up are good.
25:15
And with that, you can kind of work tracking on like work on
25:18
positioning. And that made a big difference
25:22
in how patients recovered with PFPS because if you just throw
25:29
an exercise at somebody and they do it as fast as they can, you
25:32
know, it's not going to really be beneficial versus helping
25:35
them stay in that right position.
25:38
You know, giving them maybe PVC pipe to balance and having them
25:42
step down. Try not to drop that outside hip
25:46
and work on keeping the glute medius engaged while keeping the
25:51
knee tracking. So it's a lot of like little
25:54
moving parts, but banded exercises were also good.
25:58
So it really is about, you know, some quad training in there.
26:03
But overall, working on the posterior chain was the kind of
26:08
biggest fix for PFPS and and knee pain.
26:12
Yeah, yeah, I wanna hold that thought for a SEC because I have
26:16
another highly technical question related to lateral step
26:19
UPS here. And like I said, I know these
26:21
questions, the audience is probably like Jesus, just make
26:23
it simple for us. But like, this is really
26:25
beneficial for me as a coach, you know, because a lot of times
26:28
as coaches, we'll just start doing exercises with people
26:31
without even being that concerned with what the best
26:33
technique is, you know? And so like a lateral step up,
26:36
let's say you're having someone do a lateral step up.
26:38
What in your opinion is the best way to do it in terms of like,
26:42
if they're doing it with weight, where should we hold the weight?
26:44
Should it be here, here? How high should the step be?
26:48
Should we keep the foot up the entire time or bring the foot
26:52
down and then step back up? Like what's your what's your
26:55
perfect lateral step up? So that's kind of, it's an
26:58
interesting question because from the research I've seen, it
27:02
was actually the step down that made more of a difference.
27:06
So I think the step up we're really using more of that quad
27:09
muscle, right. If you think of the position
27:10
you're doing a lateral step up, you're not really hinged over.
27:15
If you're doing a step down, you can kind of change whether or
27:19
not you want it to be quad dominant or glute and hamstring
27:23
dominant. So if you think about a step up,
27:25
we're just kind of going straight up versus step down.
27:29
Think of like that RDL where you're hinging back and that
27:33
back foot should almost drop behind, like straight leg but
27:38
drop behind that foot that's on the box.
27:41
OK, Yep. While that foot's dropping down,
27:44
you're trying not to get like have the person lean over and
27:49
just lose that glute engagement on the standing leg.
27:52
So I would say for glute medius and knee tracking, having a
27:57
really controlled slow step down, which is hard to program
28:02
and make it fun is the best option and in the step up world.
28:08
But doing a lateral step up, we can really work on knee tracking
28:12
still and just more of the quad dominance.
28:15
Yeah. And when you say the step down,
28:16
you mean just keeping the one leg up and going down with the
28:19
other and bringing it? Up, yes, and tapping.
28:21
So yeah, not releasing at the bottom, it's just a slight.
28:24
Tap. A lot of people push off that
28:26
back toe all the time. I'm step up, so it's too quick.
28:29
And yeah, this is eccentric loading, which we know is better
28:31
for pain too. Yes, we're stronger in the
28:34
lowering phase. So that load on the knee is less
28:37
a shearing force, more time to think about alignment.
28:39
So you're training the body how it should look when you do go
28:42
back up because sort of the, I think it's a Peloquin, Peloquin.
28:45
Step. Step down step where they
28:48
basically you step super short and you intentionally let that
28:51
knee go forward over the toe. This is the idea of great
28:56
exposure where like look, the knee hurts when you bend OR do a
28:59
step up. OK, lower the box or like really
29:02
lower the exposure, but repeat where it's painful.
29:05
Like stairs are a big one for people.
29:07
Commonly it's when they're going down, not up because their knee
29:11
is forward or upright. But instead of just saying,
29:16
well, I should never do that, we want to expose ourselves to it
29:19
at a very low level. And that incorporates glute
29:23
training too. But that's the knees over toes
29:25
guys is blown up for this reason.
29:28
Oh, the Sissy squats too, I know we were talking about.
29:31
Those the other day, backwards walking, everyone's walking
29:33
backwards now. It's always go, but we have the
29:35
tank for that does the same thing where your heels off, so
29:37
you get some calves, your knee is well over your toe, which is
29:40
usually a higher shearing force and sometimes a no no.
29:44
But that one we're not actually fighting gravity.
29:46
It's we're fighting the. Resistance of a sled Yeah, this
29:49
brings up a question for me. Have you seen anything about,
29:53
you know, training the spine and extension and flexion?
29:57
And. Jefferson curls and things like
29:59
that go. Yeah, I mean, this is a whole
30:02
related posture, especially this one.
30:04
Like there's people who have back pain who will not move
30:07
their back. They will never.
30:08
They're like, I can't bend and rotate ever.
30:10
Yes. Problem is your spine was
30:12
designed to bend and rotate a little bit, like otherwise it
30:16
would be a straight bone. Yeah, But because the low back
30:20
is so weak, every winter, right, there's someone shovels and
30:23
they're doing a bunch of bend and twist without having done it
30:26
all year long. And they throw out their back.
30:29
And so we want to train eventually for some of that
30:33
spinal like flexion and extension.
30:36
So like our 45° bench, right? We eventually we say, no, I want
30:40
you around your back. Not a crazy amount.
30:42
You're just doing a little bit. That solved 95% of my back
30:46
issues when it worked up to doing like a super heavy Med
30:50
ball, like a rounded back basically good morning, but I
30:54
intentionally rounded my back. You have to work up to it, but a
30:58
lot of people, they'll see a Jefferson curl in line with the
30:59
barbell. They'll just round their back
31:02
over and you could hurt yourself with body weight doing that if
31:05
you're not used to it. That all has place in training
31:09
at a specific point depending on their goals I think.
31:12
What's the best way to work up to it?
31:14
Either you can answer this so someone has, you know, weak, you
31:17
know, low back, low back pain, whatever.
31:19
And we want to work them up to strengthening it.
31:21
That way we can gradually round the lower back and use those
31:24
muscles under load. What's step one to working up to
31:27
it? Is working on the hip hinge like
31:29
doing it with a straight back, teaching and getting that
31:32
biofeedback where you send your hips back with weight in the
31:35
heels. You feel a hamstring stretch,
31:37
you come up, squeeze your butt, you know the right things are
31:40
working. And then eventually you play
31:42
around a little bit with like toe touches where you come down,
31:45
you let your background a little bit and you're not doing 50.
31:49
You're doing like, you know, 10 to 20 at a time, then make sure
31:53
it feels good and then from there you can start to work more
31:56
and more into it. Yeah.
31:57
Cuz in here we'll use like one of those dead balls that filled
31:59
with sand. Yeah.
32:01
Yeah. I've had several clients do it
32:02
that have had low back pain. Once they're comfortable with
32:05
the idea of it. Yeah.
32:06
That's why isometric's always good.
32:07
They're like, OK, I can work this area and it feels OK.
32:11
I was really afraid to because then they're the kind of person
32:14
with posture all day. They're like, I got to go back
32:16
straight. And that actually can cause more
32:18
harm than good. They're thinking about it.
32:20
Those muscles are engaged all the time and they might not be
32:23
ready for that. Due to the isometric just on the
32:25
45° thing, just have them like sit there and kind of hold.
32:28
I like that one because it's super adjustable and they have
32:30
their foot pads where you can like pull your heel up.
32:33
OK, ma'am. Because the, the hinge is kind
32:35
of like it's, it's like a pulling exercise, right?
32:37
You're pulling your hamstrings as you extend your hips so we
32:40
can connect to our feet. We're gonna help engage
32:43
hamstrings and glutes before low back.
32:46
Yeah, like deadlifts. People are always like, I gotta
32:48
pull the bar off. But it's it's not, Yeah.
32:51
But it's like you're pulling with your feet, which is really
32:53
hard to think about. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
32:55
You gotta drive those feet into the floor.
32:57
Focus on your butt. Like don't get your hands.
32:59
Keep your chest, your arms are just levers or ropes or yeah,
33:02
it's it's hard to for people to connect that.
33:05
Yeah, exactly. I used that one this morning,
33:07
like, you know, but anyway, yeah, it's this is hard.
33:10
And sometimes if this seems totally foreign, like this is
33:12
where a coach comes in. It's like, what are you guys
33:15
talking about? Ropes and pirate hook hands and
33:17
all this, this idea of proprioception of like really
33:20
getting inside your body to pay attention to what's working.
33:23
Because when you can, you're safer, you get better results,
33:26
you everything is just better. But it can be tough to to figure
33:30
out. Yeah.
33:30
I mean, Long story short, what we need to do is when you have,
33:33
you know, low back pain as a common one, we need to
33:36
strengthen those muscles. Basically, we need to use them
33:39
and strengthen them in the appropriate dose gradually.
33:43
Rowan, do you have any other like, you know, really good like
33:47
exercises or techniques you want to throw into the mix for like
33:49
how to strengthen the low back or just anything posterior chain
33:53
related? Yeah.
33:54
I mean, we're talking about kind of from the base of the neck all
33:59
the way down to your low back, the erector spinae.
34:02
So back extensions definitely on the 45° bench are really good.
34:09
And we can also work in glutes with that.
34:12
I think I would say they go pretty much hand in hand.
34:14
If you're strengthening your glutes, you don't want to
34:18
neglect your low, your erector spinae muscles because you could
34:24
still have like I think you could still experience pain in
34:27
the low back even if we're strengthening glutes.
34:31
But yeah, doing any sort of like Superman's are really good to
34:35
start. That's a really easy, again, an
34:38
exercise you can do at home and isometric holds with those
34:42
'cause once again, we're standing up all day and using
34:46
our core and our back muscles all day.
34:50
So anything that's muscular endurance related is really good
34:54
for for training those back muscles.
34:56
Yeah, 100%. And like most of this, I mean,
34:58
this whole episode is basically about the posterior chain, the
35:01
muscles on the backside of the body that are often really weak.
35:03
And this is, I mean, it's, you know, for for everybody out
35:06
there, but especially, like a lot of times you'll get guys to
35:08
come into the gym and all they've been doing, if they've
35:10
been lifting weights, bench, bench, bench, bench, Yeah, man,
35:13
we got 315 one time. And it's like, dude, hold on.
35:15
You can barely even lift your arms anymore and like.
35:18
You got a little back the overhead.
35:20
And like, and they'll still want to come into the gym and some
35:22
clients are going to listen to this and they know who they are
35:24
and I'm talking about them and they better laugh with me about
35:26
this. Like they'll come into the gym
35:27
and like 30 years ago, they'll have benched 300 lbs and now
35:31
they're coming to the gym and work out with me and they're
35:32
broken down everywhere. They got low back problems, knee
35:34
back problems, upper cross syndrome, whatever.
35:36
We'll do a session and be like, Sean, we didn't bench press
35:38
today. When are we going to bench
35:39
press? I'm like, bro, you don't need to
35:41
bench press right now. Yeah.
35:42
But anyway, Long story short, like we need to strengthen the
35:45
posterior chain. And as I've said on this podcast
35:48
before, if we want a good bench press, we need some strong lats
35:51
and some strong upper back and posterior chain muscles.
35:53
Too And glutes. I mean, I see so much about.
35:57
Like you don't. Power lift, Bench pressing,
35:58
Yeah. Glutes.
35:59
If you look at power lifters when they're doing a heavy
36:01
bench, they have what's called glue drive where they have a
36:03
planet heel down there using their glutes to stabilize.
36:06
So here's a little hack, if you like.
36:08
I want to hit chest, Yeah, juicy pecks, but I also need to
36:11
strengthen my poster chain. You can do a glute bridge press.
36:14
We go off of the bench, get your dumbbells and you're squeezing
36:17
and getting that glute position, and then you do your chest press
36:20
so you're hitting both areas. There you go.
36:23
If anything, you can take that one.
36:25
So now you're going to use that for the clients that you spoke
36:28
about previously and they'll know.
36:31
Build that booty to bench press more, gentlemen.
36:33
All comes back to the booty. Yep.
36:36
And like you know, with this posterior chain stuff, we do
36:39
like to talk. One thing that you said to me,
36:40
you know, early on when I started here, Phil, was a lot of
36:43
times we like to do like a a 2 to one ratio of posterior to
36:46
anterior exercises, you know, just meaning muscles that are
36:50
exercises that target the back musculature, the glutes, the
36:53
hamstring, everything. Because as we've mentioned this
36:55
podcast already, like so many people are quote UN quote quad
36:59
dominant. You know, their quads work
37:00
pretty well, but have weak glutes and hamstrings.
37:03
You know, for guys in particular, a lot of times it's
37:05
kind of strong chest and shoulders, really weak back
37:07
muscles, you know, things like that.
37:10
And we need more of it. And I would argue even from like
37:13
an aesthetics perspective, you know, if you're someone's others
37:15
like, yeah, I just. Want to be like big or whatever
37:17
like. I think that aesthetically, like
37:20
a strong back for both men, women is like is where it's at,
37:24
you know, it's. Yeah, it all comes back to
37:26
posture, right. If you got big chest shoulders,
37:29
but they're dumped forward. Yeah, it it doesn't look good.
37:32
And like posture is what makes us look good in AT shirt is like
37:36
that confident posture look and that requires balance of those
37:40
back and and chest and shoulder muscles.
37:42
Yep. So yeah, absolutely.
37:45
What do you guys think it like? Any big wrap up here?
37:49
Wrap up notes? Any big takeaways Ron, you want
37:52
to share? Booty.
37:54
That's one word that's succinct. It's really a shame that Rowan
37:58
wasn't officially part of the team yet when we recorded the
38:01
booty. Builder episode.
38:02
We put it on so much more with it.
38:03
You know, like we're going to keep having to talk about this
38:05
one for a long time for repetition.
38:07
No in in all seriousness, it is like the posterior chain in
38:12
today's world. We we got to work on it.
38:13
We got to work on our spinal erectors and we got to work on
38:17
the glutes. And that's, yeah, kind of end of
38:20
story, I think. Full stuff.
38:22
Hip thrust. You good, Sean.
38:24
Big, big key takeaways. I probably don't have anything
38:28
intelligent to add at this point.
38:30
I think it's been, no, it's been good.
38:33
Actually. I'm trying to think at this
38:34
point if there's any other like, questions that I was going to
38:36
ask that I didn't, you know, because we're just talking.
38:38
The main thing is how do we improve our poor posture?
38:41
And I think we hit on it. You know, we hit on, OK, you
38:43
know, do little activation drills and note your memory card
38:47
ran out of space over there or something.
38:49
I told Rowan that this would happen for the listeners.
38:51
You know this podcast. So it's not recording.
38:53
Yeah, something is. We're being recorded somewhere,
38:57
OK. We have two more cameras.
38:58
This is also a nice way we're gonna pull proof that hopefully
39:01
that one's still good. We have.
39:02
We better. Wrap it up. 4 recording devices
39:04
here and Phil's potentially dangerous Wi-Fi 5G apparatus.
39:08
Around. That's right.
39:09
But yeah, so improve your posture, people, and come train
39:13
with us here at Total Personal Training, yeah.
39:16
Yeah, yeah, stuff can be tricky. So, you know, you can look
39:19
online for video tutorials on how to do Superman variations at
39:22
home. Yeah, like education and
39:25
information is the first step and then it's implementation.
39:28
So that's where we'll help actually get that consistency to
39:31
get the right traction. Excellent.
39:34
Well, yeah, thank you guys. This is really good ones.
39:37
Yeah, thank you. This is my first podcast.
39:39
I I really enjoyed myself. This is fun.
39:41
It's. Gonna be a good one.
39:41
We're gonna break the Internet, so it's fine.
39:43
Thanks. We're going fine.
39:44
Thanks Rowan. So, yeah, thank you for
39:46
listening, everybody. Yeah.
39:48
Thank you. We'll.
39:49
See you on the next one. Bye bye.
39:51
Bye.