WHAT IS VIRTUAL MOBILITY COACH?
The Ready State Virtual Mobility Coach is like having a virtual Kelly Starrett in your pocket.
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Katie HemphillParticipantHey Connor,
Speaking generally, in sitting your hip flexors (iliacus, psoas, TFL) are shortened and your glutes are lengthened.That doesn’t paint a full picture. Some of it will depend on how you sit, too. For example, if you sit with your knees splayed out wide you’ll probably find that your hip external rotators (glute med, etc.) become short and stiff, which could go hand in hand with your internal rotation deficit.According to this article by Donald Neumann (2010), hip flexion is when the muscles that generate hip internal rotation work their best. These would be the anterior fibres of the glute med and glute min and the TFL.Katie HemphillParticipantHey, Cessig32. There is also the possibility that you have true tibial torsion (meaning the skeletal structure of your right lower leg is a little twisted).
It’s probably more likely that it’s a mobility / movement habit thing, but if your efforts to unwind this turned-out foot from the hip don’t go so well you might consider having a PT (or other professional) check it for you.
Katie HemphillParticipantHey Lo,
Let’s talk about #1.You’re getting impingement in the front of your ankle. That means stuff is getting pinched in the joint space when you try to close it. This is often a result of your shin bone (tibia) not sliding forward as it rolls over the ankle bone (talus).The mobility wod at-home solution to this would be banded dorsiflexion with the band pulling FORWARD towards your toes. This will encourage the tibia to glide forward as you bend your ankle.If this is still painful, it could mean a few things:1) You might be jamming your ankle a little too far into end range. Back off and move up to (but not into) the painful range when mobilizing.2) If you’ve been doing this and getting the pinching for a while, those tissues getting pinched might be a little irritated. Stop pissing them off for a while and you might find they are less painful when you go into end range.3) Your ankle joint might be fixated. That means the bones are a little bit stuck, so that sliding movement is really jammed up. If the banded mob’s fail to work after a few weeks, you might consider finding a therapist who can manipulate the joint (at their discretion, and following a proper assessment, of course).Good luuuuuuck!Katie HemphillParticipantHey Zane,
I think you’re on the right track there. You need to mobilize the joint in ways that don’t provoke the bad pain. You’ll probably be able to identify the ranges that irritate or impinge the tear, and it’s not going to be productive to provoke that. But if you back off the range in the same direction of movement (to a point that doesn’t provoke pain), you might find you’re still able to improve your mobility in that direction.Just be less aggressive, and become and expert on what your hips like and don’t like.Katie HemphillParticipantHey Ghazi,
What structure you injured exactly is very difficult to identify over the internet, but I don’t think it will wildly change your approach to managing the problem.1) Don’t do stuff that makes it hurt. Don’t do stuff that makes it hurt LATER. If you’ve injured a muscle, you have to really baby that sucker for the first few days if you want it to heal. New muscle tissue being laid down is really vulnerable. I would honestly play it pretty chill for a week, then start experimenting with re-implementing training and seeing what you can do that doesn’t irritate it. Use the painful movements you are currently aware of as clues.2) Get your front rack on point before you resume working on power cleans. If you don’t have the position to perform the movement, it’s nothing but a liability to you. You’re likely just going to keep stressing the soft tissues of your hand and wrist until you do. Mobility WOD has a ton of content available on how to earn this position.Do not let your impatience to train trick you into pushing your luck. If you do not treat the injury well now, it’s just going to turn into a long-term battle for you. A week or two of training is a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of your life.03/22/2016 at 12:14 pm in reply to: Pain in Hip Capsule when squatting or performing lateral movement #76331Katie HemphillParticipantI have a couple questions, levibeckett:
1) You keep saying that your hip capsule is what is causing pain. Why do you specify that as the source?2) Have you considered refraining from the activities that are provoking your pain until the tissue becomes less iritable?Katie HemphillParticipantHey there,
Two things would be useful in order to take a good crack at your problem:1) A detailed breakdown of exactly what you’re doing for ankle mobility right now (including how much and how often you’re doing it)2) Footage of you squatting from the front, side, and back with a full-body view.03/22/2016 at 12:05 pm in reply to: Dynamic warmup vs Mobility specifics. Knowledgable input greatly appreciated. #76329Katie HemphillParticipantHey Aaron,
So the idea would be that mobility work represents a component of your warm-up. You work it into the routine when you know your inability to get into certain positions is going to negatively impact your training.Generally speaking, warm-ups for sports follow a model of having a general warm-up, which consists of some sort of rhythmic exercise to get hot and sweaty, followed by a specific warm-up which includes dynamic drills more specific to your athletic activity.Now, I’m not a typical athlete. My general warm-up usually looks like a basic barbell complex rather than cycling, running, or jump rope. But it still works in terms of getting a full-body jump start. Then in the specific warm-up I start working in basic progressions and mobility work for the movements I plan on training.So, for example, yesterday I was doing a squat workout, so I included ankle mobility in my specific warm-up. Since I was already warm, my tissues were better primed to respond to the mobilizations, but I didn’t replace my warm-up with the mobility work.Consider mobility a tool to make your specific movement preparation more productive; something to be included in a complete warm-up versus being a warm-up all on its own.
I hope that helps.Katie HemphillParticipantI would agree with that, Joshua. Similarly, I think it easier to teach people bilateral strength and conditioning movements, in many cases, before their unilateral counterparts for the very reason that the rotational demand is diminished.
Katie HemphillParticipantNaudi Aguilar of Functional Patterns is actually highly critical of the lack of transverse plane training in CrossFit style programming and much of modern strength and conditioning. He argues that real human movement has a large rotational component, and training exclusively in the sagittal plane neglects this movement requirement. However, most of the rotation-specific training you’ll see in typical strength and conditioning doesn’t train rotation, per se, but the ability to nullify rotation. We train to not rotate at the spine when forces would otherwise force rotation.
I think the sweet spot is probably somewhere in the middle. I don’t think we can completely neglect the need for controlled dynamic rotation in human movement. There are just too many disciplines that require it. As David said, much of the rotation we perceive is actually occurring through the lower extremity, but unless the hips and shoulders remain perfectly squared off, spine rotation has occurred. Training for anti-rotation is a start, much like building a plank will help a beginner learn the push-up, but it is incomplete.
I think rotation of the spine is allowable and important, but it has to be recognized that there is a finite physiological limit to the ability of the segments to rotate on one another. This means that an important feature of training the rotational athlete (read: human) is teaching them to recognize and control rotation within safe biomechanical ranges. On top of that skill component, training needs to enhance their ability to manage eccentric forces through the supporting musculature (the coiling part) as well as their ability to quickly change direction once the rotation has been slowed (the uncoiling part).
Now, discs have been mentioned, but the disc is really going to be at risk if rotation is combined with sagittal or frontal plane movements of the spine (flexion, extension, lateral flexion), as this sort of “unwinds” the connective tissue surrounding the disc. If the rotation is pure(ish), then you really only have to worry about the physiological end ranges of the facet joints, which have a varying rotational capacity across the spine. The lumbar spine allows very limitted rotation, while the cervical spine allows the most. The thoracic spine allows enough and, as was mentioned, is where much of the rotation in sporting activities comes from, since we like to keep our eyes on the prize.
Okay, long-winded, but hopefully somewhat enlightening. Don’t demonize rotation, just respect it and train it progressively and properly.
Katie HemphillParticipantHey RossGers,
I think you’re basically just feeling your TFL freak out as you put it into it’s shortened position. Think about it like this: you’ve been lacking hip internal rotation for a while now, right? Your TFL is a major internal rotator muscle, and it lives in that little “flexor wad” corner on the front-outside of your hip (in the pocket zone). So now, when you try to actively go into internal rotation (especially with the hip flexed), you’re putting that muscle into a shortened position that it hasn’t had to work in for a loooooong time.
The same kind of thing happens when you’re trying to learn something like an L-sit. Early on, the front of your thigh will cramp up and freak out because you’re putting your rec fem in a way shortened position that it usually doesn’t perform in. It’s just a matter of letting the muscle get used to working in the new shape.
Basically, if you keep working on it actively that feeling of cramping should improve with time. Just give it a little ball love when you’re done the active stuff to release the tension (you don’t have to be TOO aggressive) and chill it back out again.
Katie HemphillParticipantHey Chris,
I feel like what you end up paying for is their unique waveform (the specific parameters of the current).I’m a physiotherapy student, and shortly after I got my Marc Pro device we started learning about electrotherapy modalities in school. My opinion now is that, while the Marc Pro is a quality device, someone with an understanding of electrotherapy and knowledge of the parameters used by the Marc Pro device could achieve a similar effect with a much more affordable unit.My major qualm with the Marc Pro is that it doesn’t offer the option of modifying the parameters, which makes it exclusively useful for the specific purpose it was designed for (recovery, etc). It can’t be modified to act as a TENS device (which is more applicable to pain relief) or muscle stim. For the hefty price tag, I think it would have been good to provide some flexibility there, even just as a secondary option. Also, I find that the maximum stimulation intensity is pretty low compared to other some other devices.That said, I don’t know if the Marc Pro parameters are public knowledge, and it is a well-made unit that is user-friendly for someone not equipped with the skill to utilize a more general NMES device. I would recommend it for its recovery features, but not necessary for pain relief. You could probably get that effect with a <$100 TENS machine.Katie HemphillParticipantI would be concerned about skin integrity. Older individuals often have more fragile skin, and the surface forces of voodoo bands could be hazardous if great caution isn’t taken in application.
Katie HemphillParticipantHey Ross,
I would say it’s typical, if not normal. What you’re probably experiencing is a high amount of tension being focused in those areas because of the stiffness in the system. In order to get a stretching sensation, or maybe even just to get into the position for the stretch, you have to put a significant amount of strain through that anterior musculature and the associated tissues.Kelly actually did an interesting pro episode a while back about using the couch mob as a diagnostic for mobility issues in the front of the hip and leg. It can give you some insight on where in the system you’re really locked up, and therefore where you can target some soft tissue work (balls, foam roller). If you’re experiencing that much discomfort (not to mention numbness), I would just use small doses (15-30sec) of the stretch interspersed with soft-tissue work for the front of the hip, thigh, and/or shin meat. Use the couch mob as your “test/retest” to see how much working on one of those areas improves your position.As you soften up those stiff tissues, you might (and hopefully will) find that the couch mob becomes more comfortable and accessible for you.Katie HemphillParticipantAlso, any radiating pain away from the main site? Any positions that make it worse or better? History of disc bulge or herniation?
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