Sunday, March 23, 2014

Supple Sunday - “START WHERE YOU WANT TO FINISH”


Centurions, we'll continue today's Supple Sunday with our focus on the back. Today we are going to talk about how to get organized prior to moving or lifting heavy things.

Your spine is best loaded in a low strain (legs or ribcage not already pulling your spine into a rounded or over extended position) environment, like when you are NOT already under the bar. Poor pre-lift positioning is like lost potential. When it comes to your spine, we want to organize and brace that thing first, then load your hips and hammies. Probably the best example in the world of this is World Record Smasher Donnie Thompson. Heck watch any of the best strength athletes in the world take load off the ground or out of the rack and you will always see them prioritize spinal position first, then load the primary engines (shoulders and hips) next. Welcome to the concept of “load ordering”. If you have to fight to reclaim your neutral spine during a set up, you are not using your trunk musculature to brace, you are using it to triage a poor position. Good luck with that.

Get Organized when there are few external tissue strains on your positioning AND when you are not yet under load or movement demands. I like what Louis Simmons says; “Start where you finish”. If you want to finish in a crap position, start in a crap position.

Mission: 2 min each anterior hip mob/hip extension mob. Click for video




Test/retest: How hard you can squeeze your butt and lock yourself into your finishing position.

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