MiguelAragoncillo.com

January 27, 2016January 27, 2016

One Weird Trick: Installment 5 – Fix Your Overhead Squat

Introducing the Tall Kneeling Position, and How It Can Fix Your Overhead Squat

Watch this video to make sure you do the tall kneeling position correctly, and read below to learn how this drill can fix your overhead squat movement!

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I’ve been blessed to have shared the company of several really smart physical therapists, personal trainers, and strength coaches of all types of backgrounds. I love how we can all see one specific issue, and come up with several different solutions for that same problem.

One of the things that has puzzled many of my colleagues is the inclusion of a tall kneeling position in an exercise program. First, what is the tall kneeling position? And should I include it in my exercise program?

Essentially, the tall kneeling position involves assuming a bilateral stance on your knees.

Next, programming it in your program depends on if you need it or not from an assessment point of view.

Whenever I program a tall kneeling position into a program, more often than not that individual presented lack of control with their overhead squat.

At its simplest, the overhead squat is a bilateral stance movement pattern. In the squat pattern, you are learning to change levels. And by levels, I mean starting tall, and ending up in a lowered stance.

In your beginning stance, you are theoretically in full hip extension while in an upright and standing position.

As you descend and change levels, you are eccentrically loading the posterior chain musculature, maintaining a static torso position, along with going into hip flexion.

In the tall kneeling pattern, you are simply challenging the hip extension movement pattern. There is no deep excursion into hip flexion (although, you can always go into a slight hip flexion pattern by sitting your butt to your heels).

So while an overhead squat can be limited for many reasons – lack of hip mobility, lack of hip control, lack of ankle mobility/stability, which are mainly lower body problems – there are also other reasons that an overhead squat can exhibit a dysfunctional pattern in an individual, namely torso and upper body related problems.

I highlighted and bolded the phrase “maintaining a static torso position” above because, from my point of view, the tall kneeling pattern’s main purpose is to maintain a static torso position while moving in various manners.

When to Use the Tall Kneeling Position

Well, an easy way to see if a drill is right for you is to see if you fit a specific type of criteria. I can’t diagnose from the internet, but I can provide better ways to move about based on your movement, such as during your overhead squat.

Perform an Overhead Squat.
If you have issues maintaining an upright torso, or you tend to dive forward immediately in your squat, elevate your heels.
Perform the overhead squat again.
If the position is not improved, then the tall kneeling position may be appropriate for a few of your drills.

Here are a list of other ways you can challenge torso stability:

… among many, many other drills and exercises!

As always,

Keep it funky.

P.S. In fact, when you think about it, the Glute Ham Raise is also an opportunity to challenge a “Tall Kneeling” position, albeit you are moving at the posterior chain!

January 25, 2016

My Favorite Exercise Combinations: Installment 12 – The Hip Bone is Connected to The Knee Bone

Before I begin, I just want to comment and mention that many individuals want to begin talking about pathoanatomy and all of the complex items that happen in the body, but not many even master the basics and fundamentals before moving onto said items!

In fact, Tony Gentilcore had a funny quip to a tweet I had ranting about this very item.

With that under your belts, let’s dive into my newest and most favoritest exercise combination!

The Hip Bone is Connected to the Knee Bone

One common theme that happens quite a bit in many populations that I come across involves the knees exhibiting genu valgus. This is a fancy schmancy word meaning the knees cave in – this could be due to a few things:

1. Increased q-angle, in which a line is drawn from the anterior superior iliac spine (ASIS) to the center of the patella, and another line is drawn from the center of the patella to the middle of the femur.

2. Over-pronation of the medial arch of the foot, in which the arch of the foot is rolled inwards. If the foot collapses, the tibias could lose integrity and also fall in height as well, thus causing the patellas to fall towards one another.

3. Lack of hip internal rotation, which could be due to several factors, such as:

Lack of abdominal contribution in controlling the motion of the pelvis during gait
Lack of strength in glute medius
Lack of space in the posterior portion of your hip capsule due to congenital (or you were born with it) reasons
The individual does not know how to control the range of motion given to them

…among many others such as contact and non-contact injuries.

Look here for more information on hip internal rotation.

Observations vs Pragmatic Actions

So the mere observation of said information does not help us, rather we (you and I) can intervene in a few ways:

Perform rehab like exercises in order to improve what we are looking at.
Improve gait patterns (over-pronation, reduce postural swinging during gait, etc.)
Improve the individual’s ability to control their body during athletic movements

Today I’ll be going over how to improve option three, in which I introduce the single leg hop where the landing is “stuck,” paired with a single leg squat, or bowler squat, with a subsequent medial band pull.

The single leg hop is a great regression or even beginning assessment tool to see how an individual interprets how to accelerate away from the ground, along with how they decelerate and negotiate gravity.

When an individual lands, a few incorrect items may occur:

Lack of sticking landing (hopping instead of absorbing force)
Overpronation
Knee collapse
Landing too “tall” or high, as opposed to a lowered position

Long story short, I am looking for alignment of the foot, knee, and hip.

Knee Alignment - Sagittal — *Left: Good alignment when landing from a vertical hop. Right: Bad alignment when landing from a single leg vertical hop*

Further, starting and ending with a lowered position allows an individual to react appropriately with respect to athletic endeavors – if the athlete lands in a higher position, there is less ability to decelerate using the posterior chain/glutes, and more likelihood the person will have to lower themselves in order to get faster, which takes time they could have saved if they just landed lower to begin with.

The bowler squat with a medial band pull requires the individual to maintain all of these alignment items, along with maintaining a lowered center of gravity.

I’d also increase the demands by requiring the athlete to pause for 2 seconds at the bottom position, which will take any momentum out of the equation, and challenge their core integrity.

Note: When you have the band pulling on the leg, make sure your most outside leg has the band pulling them inwards toward the midline – otherwise you are assisting your knee in maintaining appropriate alignment. The purpose is to challenge the vestibular and nervous system by pushing the body out of alignment!

How Can I Program This?

I believe this can be a great precursor towards improving frontal plane development, or even single leg forward hops or bounds. For this reason using this as a “reminder” in the warm-ups may be the best bet.

A1. Single Leg Hop (Stick Landing) – 3×5/s

A2. Bowler Squat with Medial Band Pull with 2 Sec Pause – 3×4/s

Make sure to use a slightly less challenging band, because a very strong, or one inch or thicker band, may be too difficult and might hurt more than help!

As always,

Keep it funky.

January 21, 2016January 21, 2016

Top 4 Things I Learned in 2015

It’s roughly 21 days into 2016. Three weeks is enough time to sit, reflect on what occurred the previous year, and to see what needs to be adjusted.

If I can sum up what I’ve learned in 2015, it is to prioritizing and respecting time, think critically about what I have control over (and what I don’t have control over), owning my decisions, and not letting the crowd dictate what is right and wrong for me.

1. Re-Organize Your Thoughts

It is not always about acquiring new pieces of information. Sometimes it is best to re-arrange your current knowledge set, and then finding out what is missing. I have not had the blessing to attend to as many continuing education courses as I had wished to attend. However, I had begun to ask myself, “Why do you always need to go to a new course? For new information? What about the information you currently have? How can you best utilize that to the best of your ability?”

From here, I begun to implement a new course of thought, which is to identify how to improve how I see exercise selection, how I view exercise programming, improving the assessment process, along with continually sharpening my skill set as a strength coach and personal trainer from a motivational and interpersonal point of view.

Re-organizing my thoughts has also allowed me to prioritize how I view many things: whether it is education, time spent with others, or time spent on things outside of work. Sure, this is a lot of introspection on my end, but without understanding what is important to me, I won’t be able to act appropriately or represent myself in the best way possible.

What You Can Take Away From This

If you have any interest in mastery of any passion, learn to think critically. If you don’t have all the pieces to a puzzle in place, what can you do instead? If you do have all the pieces to a puzzle in place, what would you do if one of those pieces went missing? Stay ready so you don’t need to get ready.

Re-organizing my thoughts has allowed me to respect not only the time it takes to create something great, but also helps me to understand what is important to others, and how to respect their time as well.

2. Everyone Works Hard. Some Just Don’t Talk About It.

There is no such thing as an overnight success. Not many individuals are willing to both work hard and work smart – simply because working smart involves pattern recognition and seeing things in a more efficient manner, and working hard involves placing things into position one brick at a time.

With those combined, along with the implementation of the internet/social media, it is easy to see how people will talk about how hard they are working. Well, I can tell you that late nights and sleepless nights, traveling for hours for courses, traveling to see family (because that is a priority of mine as well) – it is not easy. No one will particularly find memorizing and synthesizing patterns of gait, or muscular patterns, or seamlessly integrating advanced exercise programming within a program to be particularly “sexy” – it is just part of the process.

I had a friend early on in my career tell me that his grandmother told him to, “Do the jobs that no one else wants to do – and you will always have work.” This resonates with me even to this day, because no job is above me, and I believe this to my core.

Working hard is literally taking out the trash every night, and sweeping the floors. Working smart is getting someone to do it for you instead. Doing both means you help them so you can both leave faster. It all comes down to intent. No one tweets about how much trash they just took out, or Snapchats them taking out the trash – it is just part of the job.

What You Can Take Away From This

Everyone assumes greatness is on the way for those who “hustle” and “grind,” or for those who are always busy. I’ll tell you what – for every Mike Tyson, or Muhammad Ali, or Michael Jordan, or Stephen Curry, there are hundreds if not thousands of failed athletes that never made it for many circumstances.

Never assume greatness, and don’t count your chickens before they hatch. Plus, if you do happen to have that secret sauce for being super special, you need to fend off those who are coming for your championship belt or ring. The work never stops, it just changes its shape or form.

3. People Will Talk

People will talk about you. People will say negative things about what they think of you. Some will have nice things to say. I hear what people are saying, and I take it all with a grain of salt. Not everyone will like you. Not everyone will agree with you. This doesn’t mean you have to stop respecting people. If you watched Michael Jordan during his prime, you know he has had his fair share of rivals. This does not mean he wasn’t respected – it just meant that he wasn’t liked sometimes.

But what matters most is what you think about yourself, and how you will react to what these people are saying. The peanut gallery is not always correct. You can choose your own path, and once you make your decision, that is that.

A professor of mine once said to me, “You make your own bed.” This was in response to seeing me breakdance in the hallways everyday after my exercise physiology classes. I was getting B’s and C’s in the class, when I could have gotten A’s. I have no regrets about those grades, because I have my own priorities.

This statement of “making my own bed” has stuck with me. I think about it every other day, because the decisions I make are ultimately my own, not anyone else’s.

Sure nuff, standing out from the crowd through my dancing has also allowed my foot to get in the door in many cases where I would not have had the same chance.

What You Can Take Away From This

Almost every day I work with high school athletes, and I hope to instill the confidence that if they were to walk into a collegiate or professional gym at any point in their careers, I instilled the most correct form, technique, and sound advice that I could have in the moment. With this said, it is tough to go against the grain if a team of people are saying you should do one thing, when you know the other action is the most correct form.

Have the confidence to stand up for yourself, and stand up for what you believe is right.

Now this tip, along with the first lesson, are biased because it is assuming that everyone wants to be great. This is something I’ve come to accept as well. Others simply would love to settle for whatever it is they currently have. That is fine.

4. All that glitters is not gold.

What this means to me is that just because something is shiny, or a low hanging fruit, does not mean it is the most correct or best decision to make. You need to prioritize what is important to you, and then figure out whether or not this specific shiny item is meant for you or not.

Your shiny object could be ice cream. It is a low hanging fruit, and it is easy to buy on the way home from work, and it is an awesome tasting treat. I’ve driven out to get specifically just this item many times late at night. For some people it is a beer, others it is candy.

Your decision to invest time, attention, and energy on that shiny object may come at a cost of a specific emotional, physical, or financial investment that you did not have the foresight to see during the heat of the moment of that decision of “Yes” or “No.” The cost of doing business has far greater implications than originally planned.

Should you go out to party? Maybe – you might meet your future wife at this party.

Should you stay at home? Maybe not! You might miss out on a great time that will solidify years of friendship down the line.

We all make decisions daily – not many think about what the cost of these small, minute decisions has on our day to day life, or our year to year life.

What You Can Take Away From This

Let me tell you a quick story:

I had met Tony Bonvechio at a seminar in early 2012, and he caught wind that I was applying for an internship at the then Cressey Performance. Fast forward a few months, and I was in the middle of my internship at Cressey Sports Performance. I previously just made a “jump” from New Jersey to Massachusetts, and in fact, I didn’t know a single soul in the area – it was fairly uncomfortable for me to live in an area where I didn’t know anyone!

Later on in 2012, I remember Tony buying me lunch (we had pizza) and we talked shop for a little bit after a seminar. He was on the fence about applying for this internship in 2012. I had no other advice but to “jump” and do it.

Two years later, and I end up getting hired at CSP at the same time he begins his internship in the fall of 2014. We didn’t know that we would be working together because we had different paths, and eventually his brilliance shines through, so we end up working together – and the rest is history as they say.

“The first step, before anybody else in the world believes it is you have to believe it. There’s no reason to have a plan B because it distracts from plan A.” -Will Smith

Tony prioritized, made a jump, worked hard (and didn’t tweet about his hustle), and ended up benefiting greatly as a cause of committing 110% to what he believed in – he ended up getting hired in 2014.

Prioritize what is important to you, and just decide.

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My 2015 can be summarized in these few lessons. Crazy to think that almost 365 days out of the year can be summarized in just four short lessons, but these are some things that I’ve reflected on. I hope to improve upon my decision making process, along with prioritizing the things that are important to me as the rest of 2016 unfolds.

As always,

Keep it funky.