For the purpose of this blog I’d like to talk about how I believe every exercise to be a test, and every corrective to just simply be an exercise. My thought lies on the simple premise that everyone is at a different level with their training and their ability, and that one corrective exercise which I may not need to perform, could be a challenging exercise for you. I often see people who are misinformed with exercise technique, and either perform the exercise wrong or try and find a way to make it simpler. This blog will talk about identifying the weak or missing links in a training program and aiming to take a corrective approach to addressing these issues rather than allowing for compensation.
Exercises commonly performed poorly:
Whilst this list could be a mile long, I will stick with the big 3. Firstly, the squat. In order to perform a squat correctly, the hips need to flex, the knees need to flex and the ankles need to dorsiflex all during the eccentric phase. The reverse needs to happen, often known as “triple extension” in order for a squat to then be performed concentrically. If what I just said doesn’t make sense to you, just think about what has to happen to sit down and then stand back up. If we have poor mobility, weakness or a restriction somewhere throughout this chain of events, we have a compensation and therefore a poorly performed squat. The dead lift and bench press often fall prey to poor technique much like the squat, where in some way there is a deviation from the correct technique. Why I am highlighting these three exercises, is because they are the same exercises which people will develop a list of excuses as to why they either cannot do them or “they are not for me”. I have heard absurd statements such as “my femurs are too long to squat” or “I’m too tall to dead lift”. These statements could not be further from the truth and should read “my mobility is too poor at the moment to squat, and my technique is too underdeveloped to dead lift”. It takes a simple observation of an exercise to understand where somebody is falling apart with it, and is why I consider every exercise to be a test.
How to break it down:
I like to use a bottom up or top down approach with every exercise. To put it simply, setting something up either starts from the top and works down, or from the bottom up. I’ll use the squat again, because to me it is a top down set up. Firstly, the bar must be placed correctly on the shoulders, the hands must be at a comfortable width and the bar must be pulled down tight. The breathe must be drawn in and the rib cage centered with the hips positioned and glutes contracted. The femurs are then externally rotated with slightly turned out feet and the individual sits back and down. As you can read, a top down approach to this particular exercise. In contrast, a half kneeling shoulder press could be mentioned, where this is a bottom up approach to set up. The toes on the back foot are tucked, the hip are tucked, rib cage aligned neutrally with a good breath and then the dumbbell is pressed over head. By simply having a look at an exercise from either the top down or the bottom up, and knowing how it is meant to look versus what you are seeing in front of you, you have conducted your “test”. Where is this person failing? Do they even realise? Have they given you one excuse, but when observed you have noticed something different which could be the real downfall? What happens next?
Correctives are exercises too:
If I noticed that somebody was raising their heels at the bottom of a squat, do I immediately think that a squat isn’t for them? Or that their femur length must be too long to allow them to sit nice and deep? Absolutely not. This person has poor ankle range of motion and needs some time put into stretching their calves. It can be as simple as doing some work on the incline board, raising their toes and allowing for a good stretch in this problem area. This sort of thing could be programmed before a session or as a superset with another exercise. We could turn it into an abdominal drill by making it into a Jefferson curl in reverse. We could do dumbbell rows or cable presses all within this stretched position. Options are endless, you just have to be creative. This takes away from the often boring idea of simply stretching, and makes better use of yours and your athletes time. The same could be said for a poor bench press set up, where by there is a massive arch in the back and no retraction of the scapulars with subsequent shoulder pain. Incorporating abdominal exercises isometrically, such as a crunch or roll out can really be of benefit here and potentially address abdominal weakness and poor shoulder stability all at once. I could honestly list hundreds of examples of how a program full of correctives can still be a program that challenges and educates a client long term.
How to build your knowledge base:
This is a tough one, but to me the best way I learned to assess exercise, create correctives to address issues and still keep a program fun and challenging was through a few of the following. I learned from people more experienced than me, I asked a lot of questions, I observed how people move in the gym and I gave this sort of thing the time it needs. You cannot turn every person into the perfect specimen within the gym, it just isn’t possible. You can definitely improve exercise technique and address the real issues though, and that is a skill and a craft that takes time. A lot of people are unhappy with being injured or unable to do things, but they don’t like to admit that the fix could be as simple as a few stretches. How could it be that easy? How could we train a different exercise and end up better at a squat or dead lift? My answer would be to lift without bias or ego and see how you go. Take the time to work on the foundation and build the house from there. You wouldn’t put the Sydney harbour bridge across a sand dune in Lancelin so why would you squat 140kg on ankles that have the flexibility of a French bread stick? Find and fix the weak or missing links in the chain and watch the rest fall into place. One step backwards will lead to two steps forwards.