Many of us started yoga for reasons other than handstands. But as we progressed, handstands became something to work towards. As I’ve gotten stronger physically, the less scared I’ve become, which has made my handstands easier. Building the head-to-toe strength you need to support yourself while upside down is empowering. Your shoulders must be strong and stable enough to hold your body weight. Your core must be able to keep the spine straight and adjust for the small movements needed when finding balance.

The moment you find that sweet spot where balancing on your hands feels easy, is the moment you’ve found the space between strength and ease. Strength can be cultivated through training and practice. Ease is about letting go of the fear of being upside down.

We don’t spend a lot of time upside down, which is why it can be scary and intimidating when you start playing around with handstands. But being upside down is a great practice. It calms the nervous system, stimulates circulation throughout our body, and continues to make us stronger. It’s worth working towards.

Here are 5 points of performance to get into the handstand:

• Start in downward facing dog. Walk your feet forward and lift one leg into the air.
• Press your palms down and extend through your shoulders. Press away from the ground and lift up.
• Draw your belly in towards the spine. Bend the leg that is on the ground and keep the lifted leg straight. Then press your foot into the ground to help you lift your hips up into a handstand.
• Once you’re upside down, squeeze your legs and engage your glutes.
• Keep pressing through your palms and reaching your feet towards the ceiling.

Three Workouts to Build Better Balance

The following workouts provide a few different approaches to the handstand. Some use the wall, some don’t. Although the wall is a fantastic resource to help you understand the feeling of being fully inverted, it can become a crutch.

The best way to not use the wall is to not use the wall. If you’re scared of falling, learn how to bail out of the handstand and fall safely. Use the grass or a mattress, or go to a gymnastics class.

Here is how to incorporate handstands into your weekly yoga routine. You can do these workouts at home or before your practice.

Warm Up:

• 10 sun salutations
• 30 second plank
• 30 second forearm plank

Workout #1

Total time needed: About 50 minutes

5 rounds

• 5 donkey kicks
• 10 handstand shoulder touches (5 each side)
• 1 wall walk up
• 6 handstand switch kicks

then

• 3 mile run at 80%

Workout #2

Total time needed: About 10 minutes

• 10 handstand switch kicks
• 10 donkey kicks
• 10 handstand shoulder touches
• 10 donkey kicks
• 10 handstand shoulder touches
• 10 donkey kicks
• 10 handstand switch kicks

Workout #3

Total time needed: About 25 minutes

5 Rounds – 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off 

• V-ups
• Jumping lunge
• Mountain climber

3 Rounds – Rest 2 minutes between each round

• 30 second handstand hold at the wall
• 20 handstand switch kicks
• 2 wall walks
• 30 second handstand hold at the wall

More Ways to Make Your Yoga Strong:

• Strength Training for Yogis: Static Holds for Muscular Endurance
• Strength Training for Yogis: Push Ups for a Powerful Chaturanga
• Strength Training for Yogis: Dips for Upper Body Stability
• New on Breaking Muscle Today

Teaser photo courtesy of Shutterstock

The post Strength Training for Yogis: Handstands for Strength and Balance appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

You may be suffering from the same fate and not even realize you have a problem. Let me explain.

Many people are deficient at two fundamental skills essential to being a human – basic movement and breathing. This sounds hard to believe, but I assure you, it is true.

You may be suffering from the same fate and not even realize you have a problem. Let me explain.

Regaining Lost Movement

Early in my career, I had the honor of working with individuals suffering from massive neurological impairments. Strokes, brain tumors, and a host of other medical maladies wreaked havoc on their brain’s ability to coordinate movement with the rest of the musculoskeletal system.

As a neurology-based therapist, one thing I always recognized when it came to working with these clients was the value of training primitive movements patterns like rolling, crawling, and balancing as precursors to “normal” human locomotion. 

My clients spent endless hours training these natural movements to regain motor skill lost from neurological trauma. Inspiration was in no short supply as I watched them progressing through these patterns to regain their mobility and ability to interact with the world around them.

RELATED: 10 Scientifically Proven Ways Exercise Is Good for Your Brain

The Importance of Diaphragmatic Breathing

Impaired breathing and poor diaphragmatic excursion were also common findings in these clients. The diaphragm is fully integrated with the muscles of the abdomen and core through attachments to the ribs, sternum, lumbar spine, and hip (through the psoas)¹.

Thus, efficient breathing requires coordination between the diaphragm and muscle of the trunk.

“But there are some common threads in my clients now. Many sit behind a desk all day and have racked up numerous injuries over the years.”

Through EMG studies, researchers have confirmed the diaphragm has a role in postural and core stability.²

Because large swaths of postural trunk muscles were often affected by neurological injuries in my clients, diaphragm function was also impacted. This happened whether the actual innervation to the diaphragm was damaged or not. Integrating diaphragm training was an essential component in the restoration of their movement.

RELATED:How to Breathe for Efficiency, Longevity, and Stress Relief

Applications to the General Client

Fast forward nearly two decades and most of my clients are still in a similar predicament. They lack the ability to perform efficient movement patterns and they suck at breathing.

Here is the rub, though – most of the clients I see now don’t have massive neurological impairments. They are considered healthy by all outside appearances. The same people you see at the gym, running marathons, or carrying on with their daily lives are the people I see.

They just have some nagging injury or performance deficit that doesn’t seem to improve.

“[W]hen we train proper movement for repetition and quality, we actually make proper movement more reflexive.”

But there are some common threads in my clients now. Many sit behind a desk all day and have racked up numerous minor injuries over the years.

Most of them exercise (some even work with professional trainers), but they still find themselves in a downward spiral of function and living in general.

These individuals have developed a level of strength, endurance, and performance over a base of poor movement and poor breathing.

The result is inefficient compensatory movement patterns that, while they may lack the severity of those I dealt with early in my career, are still devastating in their own right. These compensations usually go unnoticed for extended periods.

RELATED: Sitting at Your Desk Is Eating Your Muscles

The Science of Proprioception

The body moves inefficiently until there is some obvious and immutable evidence of damage.

By training motor skills through natural movement and efficient breathing, we can perhaps avoid these pitfalls. Research offers ample support for this idea. The type of training is important, though, and I believe MovNat has distinct advantages in this arena.

When researchers studied the brains of rats given unlimited access to a running wheel they found that thirty days of unlimited access did nothing to alter the development of motor maps within the motor cortex.³

Researchers also mapped the movement representation of the motor cortex of the brain when rats were trained for ten days on a skilled and more complex movement task. The motor cortex maps in this second scenario showed significant reorganization of movement representations.⁴

This type of remapping would be consistent with improved motor skill.

Scientific evidence has further demonstrated that when reflexive motor skill is developed it is encoded in the deeper regions of the brain (basal ganglia) that are responsible for automatic movements like eye function.⁴

So, when we train proper movement for repetition and quality, we actually make proper movement more reflexive.

Functional MRI studies have revealed the motor cortex of professional athletes demonstrates more focused activation patterns with imagery than untrained individuals.⁵

RELATED: A System for Maximizing the Movement Potential of Every Person

Legendary research based on proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) techniques for training is also rooted in the idea that the brain does not activate individual muscles – it coordinates movement.⁶

So by training primitive movement patterns and specific movement skills in a natural and developmental way, we are training motor skill in a way that develops our brain’s ability.

Improving Core Activation

Impaired activation of the “core” muscles has been demonstrated in studies involving those classified as failing movement screens (also known as poor movers).

Altered abdominal muscle activation as well as altered function of the diaphragm have also been demonstrated in those with low back pain.⁷

“[M]ost of my clients are still in a similar predicament. They lack the ability to perform efficient movement patterns and they suck at breathing.”

The diaphragm and deep abdominal muscles appose each other to maintain proper intra-abdominal pressure and support normal breathing. So normal function of both muscles should be required for efficient pain-free movement.

The take-home here is if you improve diaphragm function, you will indirectly influence intra-abdominal muscle activation. Taken together, these factors improve core stability and efficient pain-free movement.

Incorporate Basic Drills Into Your Routine

MovNat drills are the perfect addition to any program because training fundamental movement is the cornerstone of every aspect. The training mimics natural patterns of developmental movement acquisition for the motor system, as well as the diaphragm-core complex.

MovNat is a systematic path to better movement and functional ability as a human. 

Start with some basic crawling and diaphragmatic breathing activities. Crawling is a fairly complex exploratory movement that requires the coordination of the left and right side of the brain, as well as reciprocal movement of the limbs.

Crawling also requires the ability to stabilize and mobilize joints in an extremely beneficial manner, and it is a significant building block for other movement skills.

Diaphragmatic breathing can be performed in a variety of ways, as well. Here are two great fundamental crawling exercises from MovNat and a great breathing exercise from the Postural Restoration Institute.

RELATED: Why MovNat Benefits Athletes in All Sports

Knee Hand Crawl

My biggest advice with this one is to be mindful of activating all of the muscles involved with the movement and to stabilize your core.

Foot Hand Crawl

This is a progression of the knee foot crawl. Both should be drilled for repetition and quality.

90/90 Breathing With a Balloon

This is perhaps my favorite breathing exercise of all time. Visit the Postural Restoration Institute for more details, but here are some general instructions and a video demonstration:

1. Lie on your back with your hips and knees flexed to ninety degrees and your heels placed on the seat of a chair or box.
2. Breathe in deeply through your nose while focusing on expanding your abdomen and rib cage laterally.
3. Breathe out forcefully through your mouth, focusing on depressing your ribs inferiorly and expelling all of the air in your lungs.
4. Following the end of the first exhalation, slightly posteriorly tilt your pelvis by driving your heels into the chair, lifting your butt about two inches off the ground.
5. Hold the posterior tilted position for the remainder of the exercise and complete four more breath cycles. Following the fourth breath, relax, drop your hips, and repeat the drill one to two more times.

LEARN MORE: The Roots of MovNat With Coach Erwan Le Corre

The challenge is to train these movements for quality, endurance, repetition, and performance.

This series of exercises alone will make a difference in your general movement and athletic performance.

References:

1. Hodges PW, Richardson CA, Inefficient muscular stabilization of the lumbar spine associated with low back pain: a motor control evaluation of transversus abdominis. Spine. 1996;21:2640–50.

2. Kleim J, Cooper NR, Vandenberg PM, Exercise induces angiogenesis but does not alter movement representations within rat motor cortex. Brain Research. 2002: 934(1); 1-6.

3. Kleim JA, Barbey S, Nudo RJ, Functional reorganization of rat motor cortex following motor skill learning. Jour of Neurophysiology. 1998: 80(6); 3321-3325. 

4. Wei G, Luo J, Sport expert’s motor imagery: Functional imaging of professional motor skills and simple motor skills. Brain Research. 2010:1341; 52-62.

5. Brown P, Roediger H, Mcdaniel MA, Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning. Cambridge. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 2014.

6. Voss DE, Ionta MK, Myers BJ, Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation: Patterns and Techniques. Philadelphia, Harper & Row Publishers, 1985.

7. Kolar P, Sulc J, Martin K, Sanda J Cakrt O, Andel R, Kumagal K, Kobesova A, Postural function of the diaphragm in persons with and without chronic low back pain. JOSPT. 2012; 42(4): 352-361.

Photos 1, 2 and 3 courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post 3 Basic Drills to Improve Your Strength and Movement appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Touted as a way to improve your core stability this technique, known as abdominal hollowing, has been a universally accepted, go-to exercise for physical therapists (PTs) and fitness coaches for the last decade. In fact, following any sort of low back injury, abdominal hollowing is usually the number one exercise physical therapists teach clients during rehabilitation. The therapists themselves are taught the technique in school, and it has been long accepted as the standard exercise for spinal stability.

But let me ask you something: just because something has always been done a certain way, does that make it the best way?

Some exercises become universal, but not because they are great, or even effective. People fall into a trap of teaching and doing what was taught to them. They rarely pause to question the movement, the anatomy, or the biomechanics. And this is exactly why abdominal hollowing has been taught all of these years.

Even with that being said, however, exactly how the entire PT community bought into this technique is beyond me. Unfortunately, not only is there a complete lack of evidence to support its use, but it has also been shown that the technique in no way leads to a stable spine. In fact, abdominal hollowing does precisely the opposite and effectively ruins our spinal stability.

So, why was it ever thought to be a good idea?

The Background

The abdominal hollowing technique comes from a group of Australian researchers, including physiotherapist Paul Hodges, who published a study in 1999 that indicated that in healthy individuals the deep muscles of the core – specifically the transversus abdominis (TrA) – would activate a fraction of a second before any movement was performed.³ In other words, before participants would perform a movement, their TrA would fire.

When they tested individuals with low back pain, however, they found the TrA had a delayed reaction. This lead to trying to isolate the TrA in order to fix the altered motor pattern, and here is where abdominal hollowing was born.

The technique was meant to engage the deeper core muscles, including the TrA and multifidis, without causing the more superficial abdominal muscles (internal and external obliques and rectus abdominis) to contract. The problem with this is that focusing on single muscles actually creates dysfunction in spines and is highly problematic.

Let’s Review Some Anatomy

Speaking very basically, we have three layers of abdominal muscles. The outer layer is our rectus abdominis (think six-pack muscle), which runs vertically from our ribcage to our pelvis. In the middle, we have our external and internal obliques, which run diagonally from our lower ribcage to our pelvis. And finally we have the TrA, which runs horizontally beneath the other layers.

This little anatomy review will prove helpful as I go though abdominal hollowing and bracing a bit more.

Back to Abdominal Hollowing

Though it is true that studies have shown there are perturbed motor patterns in the TrA in individuals with back pain, more recent studies have shown that perturbed patterns of activation are actually found in virtually all muscles in those with back pain.^4,5 You see, our muscles work as teams to not only create joint torque, but to also (and more importantly) maintain core stability. There is no single muscle responsible for this.

So instead of training muscles as a team and as they function in real life, hollowing aims to instead activate a single muscle in isolation. Now, research does show that hollowing will in fact produce increased activity in the TrA, but at what cost? Yes, you are getting a greater TrA activation, but you are also causing a weakening of the external and internal oblique muscles, as they must essentially be inactive in order for hollowing to occur. This actually leads to a less stable spine, meaning a greater chance of injury – the exact opposite effect from what we want.

Enter Abdominal Bracing

Think about what you would do if you were to prepare yourself for someone to punch you in the gut. You would immediately tense and stiffen you core to brace for the impact. This is exactly what abdominal bracing is, a term first coined by Dr. Stuart McGill of Canada, a leading expert in spine mechanics.

In abdominal bracing, you are simultaneously co-activating all layers of core muscles (remember the anatomy lesson?), in addition to activating your lats, quadratus lumborum, and back extensors. This means the entire abdominal wall is activated from all angles, sides, and directions, causing the three layers of the muscles to actually physically bind together.

This binding enhances the stiffness and stability of the core to a much greater degree than what would otherwise be produced by the sum of each individual part. This is what McGill refers to as superstiffness. It is this stiffness that provides us with 360 degrees of spinal stability, making us injury resilient and helping us achieve optimal performance.

You see, stiffness is actually key for spinal stability and spine health. Having a stiff core eliminates micro-movements in the joints that lead to spine and tissue degeneration. Without stiffness, these micro-movements would gradually gnaw away on our nerves, eventually causing pain and even disability. Stiffness braces these micro-movements and takes away the pain, essentially building a spinal armor.

To visualize this a bit better, McGill gives the great example of a guy-wire system (like a ship mast). Think of the obliques and the rectus abdominis as the supporting guy wires of the spine. They will be more effective at stabilizing the spine when the have a wider base, as they do when the core is braced. On the other hand, when the abdomen is drawn in, or hollowed, there is a much narrower base of support leading to significantly less stability.

Are Bracing and Hollowing Mutually Exclusive?

Some therapists and coaches will argue that abdominal bracing and hollowing do not need to be mutually exclusive exercises. They say each technique is good and their use depends on what you’re doing. For example, I’ve spoken to therapists who say abdominal hollowing is ideal for a Pilates class, during a physiotherapy session, or during day-to-day tasks, while bracing is ideal for more complex movements such as lifting weights.

This is flawed thinking. Why would we teach our body two completely different motor patterns? If we teach abdominal hollowing for everyday tasks, we are essentially encouraging our rectus abdominis and oblique muscles to weaken and remain inactive. Furthermore, we are not allowing our core to maintain its stiffness, which means one unexpected bump, fall, or movement and we could be dealing with a significant back injury. Our bodies do not work in isolation, and we should not be training them as if they do.

In Conclusion

When it comes to spinal stability all of our muscles work together and play an important role. These muscles must be balanced in order to be able to withstand large loads placed upon them to keep us injury free. Training single muscles leads to the exact opposite effect, instead causing an unstable, injury prone spine. This is why when training core stability, whether immediately following an injury or during athletic performance training, we should never focus on isolating a single muscle. Instead, bracing and the activation of our entire abdominal wall should be practiced.

People, it’s time we stop getting this wrong. Stop drawing in your belly button, and start working on improving your core stiffness. Your body will thank you for it!

References

1. J Vera-Garcia, J Elvira, S Brown, S McGill. “Effects of abdominal stabilization manoeuvres on the control of spine motion and stability against sudden trunk perturbations.” Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology 17 (2007) 556-567.

2. PW Hodges and CA Richardshon. “Ineffecient muscular stabilization of the lumbar spine associated with low back pain: a motor control evaluation of transversus abdominis.” Spine 21 (1996): 2640-2650.

3. PW Hodges and CA Richardson. “Altered trunk muscle recruitment in people with low back pain with upper limb movement at different speeds.” Archives of physical medicine and rehabilitation 80 (1999): 1005-1012.

4. Stuart McGill, “Laying the Foundation – Why we need a different approach,” Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance, ed. Stuart McGill, 9-27. Canada: Wabuno Publishers, Backfitpro Inc, 2004.

5. Stuart McGill, “Enhancing Lumbar Spine Stability,” Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance, ed. Stuart McGill, 109-122 Canada: Wabuno Publishers, Backfitpro Inc, 2004.

6. Stuart McGill. Painful Backs: Cause, Corrective Exercises and Progressions to Performance. Perform Better Functional Training Summit. Perform Better. Providence, Rhode Island, US. June 13, 2014.

7. Stuart McGill. Mechanisms and Training Techniques Used for Elite Performance. Perform Better Functional Training Summit. Perform Better. Providence, Rhode Island, US. June 14, 2014.

“Illu trunk muscles“. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Other photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post How Are We Still Getting It Wrong: Abdominal Hollowing vs. Bracing appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

People are frequently given the cue to intentionally and constantly contract their butts to find better core support or stability.¹ That said, let’s first talk about stability and support as it pertains to the human body more broadly before I get all snarky about butt clenching in particular. (Spoiler alert! I’m not a fan.)

We are designed to be supported from the inside out. Sometimes I give the analogy of a suspension bridge, which, although simplistic, gives an idea of what I mean.² If you picture the Golden Gate Bridge, you want to drive over that bridge because all of its cables are doing their correct job. If some of those cables were too short and some were too long, you wouldn’t want to drive over that bridge.

In an ideal world – one where we are never injured, sick, or stressed out – we are like the fully functioning Golden Gate Bridge. All of our cables are doing their proper job and we are happily supported, or suspended, from the inside out. We are springy, bouncy, secure, and mobile in all in the right places as we move through life.

Let’s now enter the real world where injury, stress, and dysfunction happen. Now we have a suspension bridge with some cables that are too long and others that are too short. Our bridge is not accepting loads properly. It has lost spring in important places, and its stability has being worn away in important secure places. This bridge is no longer safe to drive on and is not going to last long at this rate. There need to be some repairs, so how should we repair it?

Two Ways to Repair Your Suspension Bridge

Option one says we can repair our bridge by accepting that these cables are not doing their proper job and instead of repairing the cables to their original supportive and springy positions, we decide to bolster the bridge by building support structures underneath it, next to it, on top of it – anywhere it seems to need new, extra stuff. This approach is basically propping up the dysfunction by adding on more material anywhere that seems weak.

The problem with the add-on approach is that it’s difficult to predict the impact of these new structures, as you have now completely altered the original engineering of the bridge. The reason you don’t see the “keep propping it up” approach in architecture and engineering is because it doesn’t work long term. These new structures are going to add new and often surprising problems to the whole.

Option two says we can go back to the blueprint and repair the cables to their original design, thus restoring the optimal structural integrity to the bridge based on how it was engineered to function best. This is the less risky (long term) and less clumsy, or random, approach.

Butt Clenching Your Bridge

Butt clenching for support is, you guessed it, a bolster-the-dysfunction tactic. Just to clarify: I’m not talking about never activating your gluteals or deep lateral rotators. Clearly they are meant to work. In particular, I would want them to work when I am lifting heavy things, getting up and down, and when I am walking (not clenching while walking – give that a try and see how fun it is – I just mean the activation needed for normal leg extension in walking). They work plenty in normal, natural movements, so they really don’t need to be perma-clenched.

Perma-clenching is often an unconscious habit created by deep core weakness, pelvic misalignment, pelvic floor weakness, and lumbar instability. Ironically, though people are often trying to gain more support by butt-clenching, the long-term results of it can include increased wear on the lumbar discs and the sacroiliac joints, hip pain, decreased core support, and a too-tight pelvic floor (which isn’t as much fun as it sounds).

If you find that you are the person who is gripping when simply standing in line at the grocery store, or washing the dishes, or even when trying to walk down the street (which will also cause your legs to externally rotate giving you a duck waddle), you’ll need to replace it with things that get you back to your original supportive architecture.

Rebuilding Your Architecture

First, see if your pelvis is habitually forward of your ankles. If you usually feel most of your weight in your forefoot, this is almost certainly the case. Try backing your pelvis up so it is supported right over your ankles. Stop when you have more weight toward your heel, but before you need to contract your quads to keep from falling backwards.

This should be an effortless position – no clenching is required anywhere – so don’t trade quad clenching for butt clenching. Also note that I am not talking about tilt – this is not a tuck your butt or arch your back exercise. Please skip out on doing either of those things and just let your lumbar curve be in its natural shape.

Next, see if you also live in a perma-corset. This means your abdomen is always rigid and your extrinsic muscles, in particular the rectus abdominus of six-pack abs fame, are overly developed. It also means you will have lost not only some breath fluency and capacity, but will also have a harder time getting the deeper core musculature, in particular the transversus abdominus of Pilates fame, to be active. Try some of the Coregeous self-massage that I demonstrate from the Yoga Tune Up world in the video below, and also back off of any regimen you have that is overtraining your more superficial abdominal musculature.

Sometimes these bolstering habits that we develop can be challenging to let go of as at some point our nervous systems decide that they are our normal. Other systems that can help you to find your way back to your innate support, or “blueprint”, are Rolfing or other forms of Structural Integration, Alexander Technique, and Feldenkrais.

Unraveling compensatory patterns may be more complex than the quick-fix of just clenching a muscle group (just as going back to the drawing board and reestablishing support in the bridge’s cables would be more complex than simply propping it up). But taking the more complex path in this case is a solid investment in the health of your bones and soft tissue for the rest of your life.

1. “Butt” is hardly an anatomical term, so what I am referring to are the gluteals and deep lateral hip rotators, though the tensor fascia latae can get involved as well.

2. We’re actually built more like geodesic domes, or tensegrity suspension structures. The Kurilpa Bridge in Australia is a good example.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post To Clench or Not to Clench (Your Butt), That Is the Question appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

However, this effect might be different for prime movers. A prime mover is a muscle that actually performs the mechanical work of an exercise. Some of our muscles are less suited for stabilizing and more suited for moving weight around. The results of the study on core muscles makes us wonder what the best way to work a legitimate prime mover is. In a study this month in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning, researchers examined how stability affects the prime movers.

Let’s be clear about the kind of stability we are talking about here. Unstable surface training has long been in vogue, but we Breaking Muscle readers know it to be nonsense. To that end, the researchers in this study acknowledged that most real life activities occur on a stable surface, but with unstable implements.

I’ve long believed that more stability is better for muscle. Stability allows you to lift more, and lifting more is better for strength. Strength is good for everything. A simple argument, but there it is. That argument, however, might not always be true. In this study, the researchers looked at the overhead press in the following variations:

• Seated barbell presses
• Seated dumbbell presses
• Standing barbell presses
• Standing dumbbell presses

Their theory was that from sitting to standing and from bar to dumbbell, the stability decreased. As stability decreases, prime movers tend to work harder to move the weight, but the potential load also tends to be lower. It seems like a bit of a balancing act.

In this case, the anterior and medial deltoids, a major prime mover in the overhead press, were worked more as stability decreased. That means they were worked the most when standing with dumbbells. This trend didn’t hold true for the other prime movers that play a lesser role in the overhead press, such as the biceps or the triceps. Using a barbell allows you to “spread the bar” and get more out of engaging the triceps.

There are two things to note that aren’t mentioned in the article. First, I strongly suspect that as you familiarize yourself with a dumbbell lift, the effect on the deltoids will partly diminish. Being in the groove means more stability, but still less weight. Second, the idea that unstable implements increase muscle activity is not a universal rule. Take a squat for example. Dumbbells reduce the weight lifted in a squat to such a degree that it would be impossible to achieve the same muscle activity that you can with a barbell.

So there it is, and it’s mostly food for thought. The dynamics of lifting are such that the stability or lack thereof of the implements you use mind can make or break your results. Test each option, but don’t swallow any dogma whole. Different positions and implements will always have advantages and disadvantages.

References:

1. Atle Saeterbakken, et. al., “Effects of Body Position and Loading Modality on Muscle Activity and Strength in Shoulder Presses,” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 27 (7), 2013.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post To Stabilize or Not to Stabilize? appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Back in the 70s and 80s bodybuilding ruled the roost. It wasn’t unusual to see guys with ripped six-packs doing hundreds of reps per day to keep their abs sharp. The problems came when sports teams adopted the same training methods the bodybuilders were using in the mistaken idea that looking tough was the same as playing tough. And while the Eastern Bloc countries forged ahead with traditional strength and sports training models, the West got lost in a fog of machines, high reps, and isolation training in an effort to make our athletes look the part.

I’ve seen guys who look like action figures who couldn’t hurt a fly with a punch and I’ve seen plenty of guys who look like tubby weaklings who can throw down with the best of them. So what’s the thing that causes this difference?

It’s the core.

The role of the core is to stabilize the spine. That’s it. The moment you go into flexion or rotation you’ve lost core control and are operating sub optimally. This is why good coaches will go on about training posture so much – when you learn to perform with good posture your spine is stable. The problem with this is that every step, every arm swing, and every turn of the head is actively seeking to perturb your core. The harder and faster you expect to perform an action, the stronger and stiffer your core needs to be to maintain posture.

What Is the Core?

That may seem like a fairly simple thing to create, this development of midsection tension during an action, but when you start breaking down what is involved you’ll see just how far ranging the “core” can be. From a fighting stance, as you throw a punch, everything that prevents you from twisting or turning can be considered a core muscle.

The lower leg needs to be braced and strong to prevent the foot rolling in, which will cause the knee to cave in upstream. Likewise the hips need to be strong to prevent the exact same thing. The muscles that surround the spine – from multifidus to quadratus to the latssismus dorsi – all act to stiffen and stabilize the spine during such actions. Of course there is also abdominal involvement, too. So pretty much the core can be thought of as all the muscles below head height.

The Problem With Isolation

And that’s where we all went wrong with isolated training. One of the keys to performance is that muscles learn to work together and deliberately training them to be used individually leads to problems when you ask someone to take that gym built strength and turn it into sports performance.

This is one of the main reasons that people often report the mysterious “what the heck” effect when beginning with kettlebells. Most people begin with a single kettlebell. Imagine what is going in inside your body when you hold a kettlebell in the rack position or overhead only on one side? The opposing side of your body is going through a tremendous amount of work to keep your spine stable. Research on the one arm swing shows that as much as 180% MVC (maximum voluntary contraction) occurs on the opposing side (through external obliques and glute medius) to keep the spine stable. And when it comes time to take the playing field that strength gained from all the hidden core work you’re doing will pay off.

Ways to Develop a Strong Core

Isometric Holds – To develop a strong core, I would start with isometric holds such as the plank and side bridge. Both teach the essential elements necessary for good core stability in a very controlled manner. Remember – if you can’t do it in an easy progression, you’re certainly not going to manage it under a heavy bar or while trying to throw someone in a fight.

Crawling – The next step would be adding in some crawling. Crawling is still fairly controlled and has the added benefit of gravity acting on the midsection, so you can feel whether or not you’re doing the right thing. We also have action with both the arms and the legs that needs to be counteracted.

Single-Sided Training – I would then move to single-sided training. This can be a kettlebell or dumbbell, and exercises like the suitcase deadlift or even single-leg deadlifts. I would also add in movements like the front or back lever as well as all strength work on rings or TRX. Speed of movement here is still very deliberate and methodical, as we won’t introduce speed until the next stage.

Throwing – The final step would be the integration of speed and power into this progression which could be in the form of throwing, such as with medicine balls, or by simply practicing specific sports skills.

The main thing to remember is that the early stages of training – with static, isometric holds and then crawling – are break-in stages and merely a stop on the way to developing real core strength. Don’t neglect spending time there though, or even returning to it yearly during transition phases, as the gains made will serve you well long term.

Don’t fall into the trap of neglecting your core work – athletes have known it’s the hidden secret of performance for many years and it’s time the rest of us stopped skipping it altogether and then wondering why our own performance suffers.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

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