Anthony Gurule  00:00

Hey what’s up guys, welcome back to another episode of the Live Loud Life podcast. My name is Dr. Antonio, your host of the Live Loud Life podcast, I co-own Live Loud Chiropractic and Coaching with my wife, Dr. Nichelle, here in Lafayette, Colorado. We’ve been here for a number of years now. And our big focus and goal is to help guide you to the adventurous life that you are meant for, we believe families deserve more from their health care providers. And if we can create stronger families, we can create a stronger community at home. And that’s what we’re here hopefully, hopefully helping you to do. We see and help from a number of different issues, and ages from, you know, newborns all the way up to grandparents and older populations that are trying to get stronger, that are trying to move better, that are trying to deal with maybe some arthritic pain, so on and so forth. So if you’re wanting to move better, feel stronger, and decrease your pain, hopefully, we can help you do that.

 

Anthony Gurule  01:09

Now, that being said, today, what we’re going to talk about. we this is a spin off of one of the previous episodes, which I think will air a week or two before this. But this was a direct reflection as to a patient interaction that I just had. So you know, we’re, we’re having this conversation. And I was like, we got to talk about this, I gotta put something down about this. And this goes along with the corrective exercises and the accessory exercises that we talked about, like, as I mentioned in that previous episode, which is good, right? There’s good. There’s benefit, especially when you’re injured, or dealing with something to be able to isolate and work on some of our weaknesses and imbalances.

 

Anthony Gurule  01:53

Now, what we’re going to talk about today, though, is the analysis by paralysis of over calculating, and over emphasizing certain nuances about these exercises, and that getting you wrapped up and hung up without progressing. And, in particular, and I do this to some degree, so I’m going to give you kind of like both sides. And again, what the answer always comes down to is context, finding the right thing, for the right person, at the right time. And oftentimes, I’ll make an, you know, a clinical assess or a clinical judgment. And I’ll and I’ll suggest something and we’ll you know, you got it, see how it works, right, you gotta, you gotta actually do and see how it plays out. And sometimes I’m wrong. And, you know, other times, we just, hey, we’re like, hey, we were we were right there, we just need to, we just need to step to the side a little bit and do it this way, or something like that. As Charlie Ryan Groff calls it a lateralization, right, sometimes you just gotta move to the side. So we’re doing we’re on the right path, we’re on the right track, we just need to step sidestep and do it this way for a little bit, and then we can keep kind of going forward. And so this particular individual– racquet player, right, tennis, pickleball, you know, those types of things, and was dealing with some hip issues, which is not uncommon for those types of sports, because there’s so much decelaration in loading and rebounding that is very challenging on the hips. And that as a side note is something for because pickleball seems to be a very popular sport in kind of like my parents age, not that it is only for that but if you don’t have the conditioning to be able to do that last description of deceleration and rebounding so on so forth, it can it can be it could be potentially problematic.

 

Anthony Gurule  03:49

But anyway, so hips up, but then was also dealing with some flexion intolerant low back kind of like, you know, the classic stuff that we always see that usually is a result of kind of getting hung up on something doing too much too soon, too fast, so on and so forth. Nothing Nothing sinister by any means. But yet flexion being oftentimes demonized of hey, don’t flex when you’re doing something, was the was the over calculation or analysis paralysis that he was getting hung up on. And again, so here’s the other side, I do recommend not flexing the lower back for many patients. But normally this is when I’m seeing someone that is very acute, and flexion is something that really sets them off. So it’s one of those things like hey, affliction sets you off. Wouldn’t it be prudent and just not flex for a little bit so that we can down regulate and desensitize everything in in having the conversation about we will at some point and we need to flex is fine. But if you’re going to pick up your kid or unload the dishwasher or something like that, it might feel a little bit better if you hinge more or squat more and so that it’s more in the hips and the knees and the legs.

 

Anthony Gurule  05:05

But for this individual, I’m trying to just reestablish like new hinging patterns. The over calculation on what should be happening was getting them hung up. And he was overcorrecting. So he was feeling, he’s like when I’m just basic hip hinging, basic hip hinging, Good morning type of movement, it was eliciting back pain for him, and we’re watching it. And I was like, I really don’t quite understand what’s causing pain here. Because the typical flexion intolerant and pain stuff that he was describing, he was not flexing at all. And in turn, he was actually hyper extending. So as he was going through the motion, as he was hinging, he was being so cautious about not rounding or slumping his lower back that he was just overarching. So that was actually in turn trading a lot of compressive forces on the lower back.

 

Anthony Gurule  06:00

But also those muscles were just like, locked in. And that was more of the pain that he was experiencing, it’s just those muscle contractions were just so intense and locked in, that was actually eliciting his pain. And so ultimately, this came down to is just like he was kind of, you know, he was getting some of this, some of these exercises from a PT and was just looking for a different perspective, maybe a little bit of more manual adjustments and things like that, interestingly enough, we haven’t really done much of that, because we sidetracked to the movement issues, if you want to call it. and what we started peeling off is, you know, I understand we’re worried about flexion.

 

Anthony Gurule  06:46

But this is no longer an acute or subacute thing. And when you’re talking about chronic flexion, intolerant, lower back pain, like you got to start flexing and not being worried about that micro loading.

 

Anthony Gurule  06:58

But what we wanted to do is still establish the movement pattern. So we changed, we changed the description, or we changed the goal, better yet.

 

Anthony Gurule  07:08

The goal previously was don’t round your back. And so when he heard that, I was like, Okay, well, if I don’t, if I don’t want to round my back, I might as well just hyperextend and go the opposite way.

 

Anthony Gurule  07:17

And that was creating a lot of, again, compressive force and low back and a ton of muscle tension that was then eliciting pain because the muscles were just just rockhard locked in. And so well how do we get him to hinge then and squat and move without the overcorrection of hyperextension?

 

Anthony Gurule  07:34

Well, we had to change the description of what I wanted him to actually do, accomplish, and or in this case, feel. Because the question commonly is when they get home, even if you send a video or description is like,

 

Anthony Gurule  07:46

Well, how do I know if I’m doing it Right? Well, how does it feel? Right?

 

Anthony Gurule  07:50

Are you are you able to initiate the feeling that we’re going for? And what I always suggest, which is for any of you out here, learning a new movement or anything like that, is you do two things, you do the movement and you internalize the feeling right? What areas of my body are working?

 

Anthony Gurule  08:09

Do I feel balanced? Do I feel in control. You know, if you’re working with a great practitioner, they’re going to kind of help you with these things. But don’t chase activation, this is the second part of this that we’re going to talk about in a moment here. Don’t always choose activation.

 

Anthony Gurule  08:28

But then what I want you to do is I want you to film yourself, set your phone up, film yourself doing it. So you have now this external frame of reference, you have the Coach’s Eye.

 

Anthony Gurule  08:38

So you can then immediately look at the film or the video, replay it and look and say okay, well, this is how it felt. And this is how it looked. Right.

 

Anthony Gurule  08:51

So now you have this other piece of information that is very vital to you putting those two pieces together and formulating the best new movement pattern that you can. And that is a fantastic way of learning newer movements and practicing things to get to accelerate that process if you will.

 

Anthony Gurule  09:12

Now, the so the, so sorry, we’re gonna get to the activation. So what we were focusing on is, okay when we want a hinge, right, so how can I help you hinge better?

 

Anthony Gurule  09:24

and start to look at what we want for the hinge. And so we talked about balance. All we said was, we talked about the foot tripod, ball of your foot, the big toe ball, the foot outside ball, the foot and then the heel, right? It’s kind of like a tripod.

 

Anthony Gurule  09:41

As you’re going through this hip hinging pattern or good morning or what would be like a bodyweight deadlift, I want you to just to first and foremost, first five reps, is think about how your feet feel, right? Do you feel balanced? Are you too far on your toes? Are you too far in your heels?

 

Anthony Gurule  09:53

Are you collapsing side to side? Good. After about five reps, five or six reps everyone can tune in and usually find a pretty good balance point, right?

 

Anthony Gurule  10:03

Okay, next, we’re going to work our way up, right? What do you feel? What do you feel your hamstrings doing? Right? Okay, every time we go into a hinge, I feel my hamstrings kind of stretch like a rubber band a little bit.

 

Anthony Gurule  10:12

It’s not intense, but I feel I feel that backside of my body kind of stretching and loading, if you will. And then, you know, this would be these are just examples I’m giving for this individual person, you know, if someone’s dealing with knee pain or something like that, we would say, Hey, do you feel how that pressure gets taken off of your knees, or increases on your knees as we’re going back and forth?

 

Anthony Gurule  10:32

these are all of these things that are super helpful. And by cueing certain feelings that in turn then can help the individual when they’re at home, recreate the movement pattern that we’re looking for, especially when you’re trying to manage and monitor pain, but also trying to enhance a certain area.

 

Anthony Gurule  10:52

And this is where the kind of activation model if you will, comes in. so we’re working up, and then I had him say, you know, he’s so worried about his back. I’m like, Okay, well, do you feel your back working? And he’s like, yeah, it’s it’s really intense, like the muscles are, like, really rock hard to track.

 

Anthony Gurule  11:07

And like, well, they should be. If we’re trying to maintain relatively neutral spine and send to our hips, your lower back muscles should engage, because they’re preventing you from rounding. But that’s the difference of over contraction, and overarching, so then I’ll encourage him to do one rep, or you’re arching your back. And he’s like, Oh, that’s way more intense, okay, well then do it the other way.

 

Anthony Gurule  11:27

Okay, that’s a little bit more balanced. So now you really set the frame of reference of what like an over arching or over contraction movement looks like. So it’s kind of like, the good and the bad right away. And they can start to again, blend the pieces together and put everything together to have a better understanding about what movement we’re actually trying to look for.

 

Anthony Gurule  11:48

Now, then, and oftentimes too adding weight to some capacity can really help enhance this right, when you add a little bit of weight, you can enhance balance, you can enhance certain areas that you want to load more or increase to help them elicit that feeling to so there is benefit to adding weights.

 

Anthony Gurule  12:09

And this was part of our conversation, because his previous PT said, I only want you to do bodyweight, until you master how to do this, there’s no there’s no reason to add weight. I don’t buy that. I don’t think that’s good.

 

Anthony Gurule  12:21

I think there’s plenty of times and places in which adding weight can actually be performance enhancing for the thing that we’re actually trying to accomplish. So don’t get too hung up on not being able to add any sort of weight until you understand how to do bodyweight exercises.

 

Anthony Gurule  12:39

Now, the activation, this is the second part of this, the activation, he was so hung up on like, Well, I’m not activating the areas that I need to be activating. And while I talk about activations and you know, having to entice dormancy out of certain areas.

 

Anthony Gurule  13:02

First and foremost, what you need to understand about activation is if you’re moving through the motion, somewhat, credibly, if you will, then more than likely you’re activating right so for instance, he was talking about a glute exercise, this is your kind of classic Jane Fonda, you’re laying on your side and your your abducting are lifting one hip up towards the ceiling.

 

Anthony Gurule  13:28

He’s like, Well, I just don’t feel like my, there’s one side of my hip that’s activating, but the other side isn’t activating. And I was like, well, is your leg moving?

 

Anthony Gurule  13:36

And he’s like, Yeah, Mike, well, then it’s activating the muscles that you’re trying to, quote unquote, target or activate.

 

Anthony Gurule  13:42

If they’re not, if the leg is not moving, then you are not activating. If you are moving, then you are activating. So don’t get hung up on feeling like you have to have this burn or this intense feeling to quote unquote, activate a certain area.

 

Anthony Gurule  13:57

Now, we might want to draw attention to certain areas, because we know that they can be beneficial from a stability or force generating standpoint. 100% there’s validity to that. But what we want to encourage is like Don’t get over calculated by trying to be precise about activations in certain areas that need to be squeezed more or  engage more or not,

 

Anthony Gurule  14:26

because that was getting him again, too hung up on the precision of doing something perfectly before he can do anything else. And then in doing so, that overcorrection or precision was was limiting his box so that anytime he was outside of that box, it was pain or it was bad or it was you know, I need to go back.

 

Anthony Gurule  14:46

And so what we try to do is just get more into a movement flow state is just like hey, let’s throw out activations, calculations, over corrections, and I just want you to get more into what you are familiar with which is sport. play tennis a lot and pickleball.

 

Anthony Gurule  15:05

So it’s like, when you’re outside of, you know, maybe having some precision with the flick of your wrist or how you’re hitting and aiming, there’s precision in that calculation. But when you’re talking about drop steps and chasing the ball and deceleration, you’re not going to be as calculated on that.

 

Anthony Gurule  15:22

Now, many people will argue with this, and I do agree with their counter argument to this is, it’s one we’re talking about this is you’ve done it so much when you’re an athlete, that that calculation is running second nature, right?

 

Anthony Gurule  15:37

So yes, there is some benefits are practicing this from a calculated perspective. That’s why there’s cone drills and different things like this, where you’re running and then you see a target and you need to decelerate and turn, to calculate how to reach a ball and trajectory yet, there’s calculation right, but what we’re saying in this point in time, he is over calculated, he is over analytical, and I want him to just start getting back to play.

 

Anthony Gurule  16:02

So we were just doing some basic cosec, side lunges, side shuffles, drop step type of things, to encourage the same hip hinging patterns that we were doing, but more in real life movement, so that he cannot over calculate himself into this box of limitations, if you will.

 

Anthony Gurule  16:19

And we didn’t even talk about activation, don’t even worry about activating, all I want you to do is touch target, come back, touch target, come back, run forward, touch back, hinge here, touch back, lunge to the side, touch your inner knee, come back up, lunge to the other side, touch your inner knee, come back up.

 

Anthony Gurule  16:35

So he was able to accomplish everything that we wanted to do with minimal pain and discomfort, because we took out the over calculation and the activations. Okay. So I think that’s an important component, because too often we get wrapped up into the rehab purgatory as Dr. Craig Liebenson uses.

 

Anthony Gurule  16:53

And in, we get stuck there, because we’re worried about calculation and precision, and you need to be able to do this before this and this. Sometimes it’s beneficial to just run ahead a little bit, test the water, see what happens, create some encouragement, create some confidence, and then we can, you know, come back and re layer and back and forth.

 

Anthony Gurule  17:11

But that’s part of what the game is, is it’s just this constant back and forth of trying to find the right thing to help move the needle forward without going too much, create an injury, but then also not like having something that’s weighing you down constantly.

 

Anthony Gurule  17:25

So that was just, you know, what I thought to be a very critical sidebar in conversation that we had in his his rehab process. This is only our third time seeing.

 

Anthony Gurule  17:37

So a lot of this conversation groundwork has to be done early on, so that we’re not scrambling and playing this kind of like pickup game later on. But too many people that are just okay, we see an issue. Here’s the protocol or the program that works for most people, and you just need to do it right.

 

Anthony Gurule  17:54

If you’re not seeing results, you’re not either activating the right things correctly, or you’re not doing it enough, or you’re not doing it well enough. Well enough. And so, you know, they they almost feel guilty about their own progress, not happening because they can’t seem to activate and get things going. Right.

 

Anthony Gurule  18:18

Where in my mind, it’s not there’s not enough of a goal, or there’s not enough enticement for the body to even want to do the thing. Because we’re not challenging it, there’s no novelty, that would elicit an activation pattern that we would even want and the isolated principle, while good from maybe a post surgical and very acute setting, It’s not as beneficial when you’re trying to get back to a sport. isolation is still fine, right?

 

Anthony Gurule  18:48

When often we see isolation oftentimes with bodybuilding and you can still even isolate as a corrective or an accessory as we were talking about, if you need something to kind of pick up then it’s slightly deficient compared to everything else. 100%. But that cannot be the foundation of a rehab approach.

 

Anthony Gurule  19:06

And one last note, before we wrap up here I want to talk about for the activations is understanding like, what, what we really even mean by activation, right? Activation again means the muscle is activated or contracting.

 

Anthony Gurule  19:22

Thus, in turn, moving the body part. As we already said, I don’t think I don’t think this is activating, okay, well, like do the movement. okay, your leg moves to the muscle has to be activated otherwise, you will not have been able to complete the movement. Fair enough, right?

 

Anthony Gurule  19:38

But when you’re looking at discrepancies, he was basically like, well, this side is burning all the time. So it must be over activated and the other side is not burning, so it must be under activated. And in my opinion, at least in this situation.

 

Anthony Gurule  19:56

The reverse is actually true. The burning side is the difficient side. the burning side is the side that is getting overworked from these basic leg lift exercises, that that means it is it doesn’t have the capacity or the endurance to do all the reps.

 

Anthony Gurule  20:13

So it’s overworked. It’s not that it’s not activated, it actually is activated, it’s just not strong enough. However you want to say it, to be able to do all that in that in turn while it’s burning, and then the other side, that’s fine, that side is fine.

 

Anthony Gurule  20:28

So I would actually say, the side that’s burning more, needs a little bit more time and attention. And that’s sometime is the downside of these isolated exercises is you’re doing something that’s too isolated for the muscle’s ability, whereas when you’re doing these side lunges, I’m still working the same hip components, it’s just not isolated.

 

Anthony Gurule  20:48

So I have the surrounding help of all the other muscles, connective tissue, so on and so forth, to help build the strength along with it. So that’s kind of a just additional side thing we should be considering when we’re talking about activations.

 

Anthony Gurule  21:01

So to recap, what we need to understand is sometimes being too precise, being too calculated being too focused on certain individual regions and body parts and or movements before you can do more, could actually be detrimental to the overall progress of what you’re trying to accomplish. Right, we have to keep the goal in mind.

 

Anthony Gurule  21:27

While it might not begood to say, Hey, if you want to end up playing tennis, let’s just start playing tennis and kind of just like, you know, tinker around as we go. No, that’s that’s going from zero to 100.

 

Anthony Gurule  21:39

Right, we need to build more stepping stones. But at the same time, if you want to get back to tennis, and yet you’re just doing clam shells, or isolated hip exercises, because your hips hurt at some point in time. Or you need to learn how to hinge because that’s really important for hips and lower back.

 

Anthony Gurule  21:56

That’s going to be a very, very long road to recovery. Now, again, because there will be someone who says it well, what about this, this, and this? Yes, context, it might be important at the same time, but as we were saying, you cannot depend on that from a long term perspective.

 

Anthony Gurule  22:13

And you have to be able to integrate that into the whole thing. And if it’s in in making sure that it’s not slowing down, or holding back at the progress of your patient or client.

 

Anthony Gurule  22:24

So keep moving, hips are important, I ain’t gonna lie, spine neutrality, hip hinging, important to a certain degree of context, it’s okay to flex the spine. If it hurt in the past, flexing forward is okay. And actually doing it more could encourage more spinal flexion and familiarity with flexion and create some resiliency and comfort and flexion.

 

Anthony Gurule  22:47

But if you’re going out in gardening for two hours, it might be prudent to hinge a little bit more so that it’s not on your lower back. You see what we’re getting at here. Explore, understand your body, start getting to a movement in a flow state and understanding that we’re looking for balance and feeling to elicit–so sorry–to complete the task at hand, change the task, make it more complex, add something novel, right. all of these things are going to help you understand your body better, how to move better, how to encourage more movement and ultimately, feel better, feel stronger, and move better. Thanks for tuning in, guys. Live loud.

Anthony Gurule  00:00

Hey what’s up guys, welcome back to another episode of the Live Loud Life Podcast. I’m Antonio, I’m your host of the Live Loud Life podcast. Today we’re going to be talking about some training principles here. And we’re just gonna dive right into it, we don’t have a lot of housekeeping or anything like that.

 

Anthony Gurule  00:26

Oh, just a small note, has nothing to do with training. But we do have a short mini course out for those of you who are pregnant right now, or if your partner’s pregnant, we have a little mini course on teaching you how to not suck at giving your pregnant partner a massage. We believe heavily on being able to offer some body work at home, to help with the aches and pains that your partner might be having. But not only that, like it really helps you guys increase your relationship and your bond during this time, which sometimes things can feel a little weird or a little odd being pregnant. But not only that, it helps with the birth preparation process. So having additional hands on care in between our sessions, or if you’re not even seeing a chiropractor and acupuncturist or prenatal massage, having that hands on care really helps with the the preparation of labor and delivery. So if you are interested in that, if you’re pregnant now and you want your partner to not suck, you can get this for them and say, “Hey, watch this, it’ll literally tell you what to do.”

 

Anthony Gurule  01:30

If you want to be proactive and your partner is pregnant, you want to be able to facilitate and help out with that, then that’d be awesome thing for you to just get on your own and follow through. It’s short, it’s a two hour course we go through some anatomical landmarks that teach you, you know where to press how to press what to do, you know how to be safe and effective, so on and so forth. So if you’re curious about that, we’ll throw a link in the show notes for that. And we will also be will also put it up on our website, which is liveloudlife.com. And we have it spread across all of our social media accounts as well. We’re most active on Instagram, handle is @live.loud.life. And then obviously on Facebook, you can find us pretty easily as well.

 

Anthony Gurule  02:11

But today, what we’re gonna be talking about is accessory exercise. And so oftentimes, we get into this some referred to as like the rehab purgatory, or corrective exercise purgatory, so on and so forth. Meaning we over emphasize the importance of needing to be able to do basic things before you can do complex things now, in theory, and just from surface face value, that makes sense, right? That makes sense, we need to be able to handle a lighter load before heavier load or simple things before more complex things. But what we wanted to walk through today is, you know, how do you apply these accessory exercises, corrective exercises, and when should you be advancing these, and when should you be continuously, including them and kind of just more like the philosophical foundation as to like why we do a lot of these things.

 

Anthony Gurule  03:15

Now. As always, context is most important, right? When you’re talking about these exercises, being able to apply them at the right time, in the right place, with the right load, with the right intensity is what makes things really hard, right. And for many coaches or, or rehab professionals, that’s kind of the art behind it, of understanding the individual and where they’re at, so on and so forth. And so when you’re talking about applying it to yourself, it gets a little bit more not confusing, per se, but just a little bit more difficult, not having someone to kind of like have that external view of knowing what might be best for you. But as you start to learn your body more and more, you’ll start to understand where your deficits are and where your strengths are, and where we need to spend a little bit more time attention. But what we’re trying to provide here, if you will, is in giving these corrective exercises or these accessory movements.

 

Anthony Gurule  04:11

Often times we’re trying to enhance and improve the proprioceptive awareness that we have for our body. Now what is proprioception? Proprioception is essentially your body’s understanding of where it is in time and place. So for instance, right now, I, my body understands that I’m sitting on a bench. And right now I’m trying to be mindful of my posture. Not only because it’s a little bit more comfortable, but it also looks a little bit more pleasant than me just slumping in front of a microphone, right? So my body has this awareness of like kind of how I feel and what my posture and position is.

 

Anthony Gurule  04:51

Another example would be my shoulders down by my side, my shoulders up above overhead. Now, because I’ve done a good amount of shoulder rehab and strength, and, you know, focus and intention, I know that my range of motion outside of me hitting these massive earphones is pretty much at full flexion or AB duction where my biceps are pretty much at my ear. For a lot of us who don’t do that a lot, when we go through these range of motion exercises, and I say lift your hands up overhead, and they get to here. And you know, I might ask like, Hey, do you feel like your arms are reaching towards the ceiling, or as far up as they can? Or at full range of motion? You know, whatever the question might be. And they’ll say, Yeah, and I’m like, well, you’re actually only at about 100, and maybe 50 or 160 degrees, we want to be at 180. And so you show him that difference of 30 degrees of what they thought they actually had. And they they get very perplexed, you’re confused, because Oh, my gosh, I thought I thought my arm was straight up overhead, right?

 

Anthony Gurule  05:43

So we see that there’s a lack of understanding and proprioceptive awareness about their shoulder complex, at least in that context of moving the arm up overhead. So that’s, that’s just an example. Now, other ways we could think of proprioception is like a balancing exercise, right? doing like a single leg balance, we’ve taken off a point of contact. So now it’s more challenging for your body to balance  on a stable surface, such as the ground, which is one foot, so your body’s proprioceptive awareness feels itself tipping forward, backwards, and side to side. And it’s making these micro adjustments and corrections, to keep you balanced.

 

Anthony Gurule  06:23

Now, this is a really important concept, because oftentimes, these corrective exercises and accessory movements fall into this category, not just balance in general, but the greater concept of proprioception of how to fine tune our motor control to elicit the output that we want, right, because when we’re talking about fitness, or exercise, or working out or training room and sport, you are intentionally trying to do something, you’re intentionally trying to create a movement, you’re intentionally trying to push, pull, squat, you know, whatever as an outcome, right. So there is a motor control component to this. And the way in which we do that (control being the key word here) dictates efficiency, dictates strength, dictates power, dictates elegance, poise, whatever that might be, if you’re talking to you about something like dancing, right. And so the more repetitions you do, obviously, your ability to fine tune that motor control enhances. Now, if we’re at a deficit for whatever reason, let’s say easist example that you had an injury, right? The motor control component of that region in could, even globally, diminishes slightly, because you now have a broken kind of link in the chain, if you will. So when we’re talking about gross motor movement, gross, meaning like full body movements, and this goes beyond the thing that I get oftentimes irritated because it’s overused, it does make sense, but it is overused in the context of it is, everything’s connected to everything right, like, if your pinky toe’s broken, it’s going to affect the way that your left shoulder moves or something like that, you can make a strong argument for that.

 

Anthony Gurule  08:19

But what we what we mean realistically, though, is just like our body feeds off of other regions, right, so an example would be, if I’m going to kick a soccer ball, I’m running. So both feet are running so you know, classic movement that everyone does. But as I come to approach the ball based on the target, so now I have visual acuity problems here, like I have to fine tune and focus on something. So I now have to look at the ball and look at my target. And I have to know where the ball is while the ball is moving. And I have to be able to place my foot in the position that I wanted to hit based on where I want it to go against the target all of while, I have to be able to plant the opposite foot in a position that allows me to be stabilized so that I can torque about my stance leg, my hip, and then my torso pivots around. So you can see there’s a lot of moving parts when you’re talking about these kind of complex movements.

 

Anthony Gurule  09:17

And if I had an ankle sprain on either side, more importantly, if it was on my plant side, which is where I’m going to be absorbing all of my force, as I’m decelerating from running. That’s going to affect how all of this stuff comes into play. So when you have an injury, or we revert back oftentimes to these quote unquote, corrective exercises or accessory movements, to regain what was lost as a result of the injury. Now, it doesn’t always have to be an injury. It could be compliancy, right? I go through based on the season of life, I do a lot of the same things over and over because it’s effective for what I need right now. There’s a lot of holes in gaps within that, because I don’t do a lot of extra accessory correctives, I kind of do, you know, main compound lifts to suffice for what I need right now based on time, you know, goals on and so forth, or maintenance. And now, when, because of that compliancy of doing the same thing over and over, which is not wrong, right, there’s no wrong or right here, I will develop tightness in certain areas, because I may be sitting down filming more content or editing content, I might develop, you know, hyper mobility in some areas, because I’m doing the same thing over and over. And I get compliant with the movement and not having as much intention into it. This is just, you know, kind of rough examples, if you will. And so we see, oftentimes, we get this like creep of situations coming in, whether it’s hypermobility, or tightness or something like that. And thus, then we need to address those.

 

Anthony Gurule  10:59

So oftentimes, that’s what we see in our office. And oftentimes, because these aren’t really like overuse injuries, although they can be, we see someone come into our office with these like kind of dull aches and pains, it’s nothing really significant, that would elicit like, hey, we have significant tissue damage or an injury. But because of the compliance of what we’ve been doing, more times than not really, it’s tension, we’ve developed tension in certain areas, and then that tension affects how we’re able to move with the activities that we like to do. Thus, we create altered movement patterns that allow us to still achieve the task. But now we’re kind of taking shortcuts, whereas what we were able to do is very efficient, and very congruent with how maybe that movement should have been done. And now taking that shortcut, we’re trying to just work around the stiffness rather than dealing with it. And now we’re creating potentially even more issues down the road. So you got to kind of really re scrape everything down, and kind of build that back up.

 

Anthony Gurule  11:57

So that’s where these accessories or corrective exercises can come back into play. But what happens is, we oftentimes focus on the need to be correct in order for you to then progress to the next level. And in my mind, while that is true and beneficial, we do need to go to that next level, I think sooner than we think, to give the body context of to why the corrective, or the exercise, or the accessories are important and how it’s how it’s building that path or that step stone to the thing that you actually want to do. And so very often, and that’s where we look at progressions and regressions within, you know, movement patterns. So, you know, as an example, we could say, Hey, someone wanted to get back to, you know, Olympic lifting and doing like a barbell snatch, well, there’s an overhead squat component, there’s obviously an element of being able to be stable with your arm overhead, while you’re descending into overhead squat, which means that barbell is going to be shifting and your center mass is gonna be changing. So obviously, there’s a lot of complex things in that. And if you’ve suffered a shoulder injury, and that’s what you want to get back to, we have to find some ways in which the corrective exercises are going to help build you up to that. So, you know, it might not be overhead snatching right away, but a landmine press might feel fantastic and not elicit any pain. And that is similar to us being able to have a locked out overhead shoulder position, and I can transition my body into in a way in which I my arm feels like it’s more overhead, creating that compressive stability through the shoulder, and we can add that with, you know, a half lunge position or something like that. So it’s not the same, right? It’s not the same, but this can be considered an accessory or a corrective exercise leading up then to overhead squats and snatches and things like that, right. So the the nomenclature of accessories and corrective exercises doesn’t simply just mean, you know, foam rolling or, you know, isolated banded exercises or things like that, while that is a component of it and good, those could almost be more considered as like,  warm up exercises where we’re priming the nervous system, we’re releasing tension within certain areas so that the joints can move to the range of motion that we want to then perform the exercises that we need. Right. So and I don’t want people to get caught up in the you know, this, the semantics of like, what we’re trying to name these things, right, because I think that gets confusing.

 

Anthony Gurule  14:42

What I want you to moreso focus on is what were the real deficits that you that you need, and can we build right like a ladder or stepping stones to help you rebuild from that. And it is a constant game of going up and down.  I use the concept is like the game Chutes and Ladders, commonly you’re going to climb up and then you’re going to come down, because you’re always trying to find out, like where that next threshold is of being able of your capabilities. And when you when you’re knocking on that door, there’s gonna be a few times where you backslide a little bit, and you’ll get a little bit of aches and pains or, or, you know, whatever that is, and, and that’s okay, because then you know, okay, well, that path got me there fairly quickly. So I can recreate that path. Again, go back to the corrective exercises, the lifting patterns, the intensity, the sets and reps, things that I did. And then you just need a micro adjust whatever possibly causes you go down. And that could just be simply recovery or something like that, doesn’t mean you did necessarily anything wrong from a lifting or training perspective, might just been a recovery perspective.

 

Anthony Gurule  15:45

But I think adding these accessories and corrective exercises consistently throughout is beneficial, because the compliance factor that we had indicated before, and all of this, again, comes back down to goals, right? What are the goals that you want to be able to do? What are the pain points that you actually have, and if there’s things that are limiting you from being able to progress to those goals, and so on, and so forth, then yeah, those are the things you need to address.

 

Anthony Gurule  16:13

But from a timing perspective, you know, corrective exercises might be the thing that you need to focus on the most. Right, when you’re dealing with a certain season of life, in a certain area, and you’re having more pain or discomfort, or whatever that is, but yet you need quote, unquote, you need to train, and we hear this a lot, which is, which is there’s nothing wrong with it. Like, for my mental sanity, I need to go train. That is great. But we have to also, you know, take into consideration what training really is, right. training from a, from a global scheme involves a lot of things, it’s not just, you know, rubber hitting the road and pounding it, right, that is an element. And it’s great to do intense workouts and push yourself to the edge. But there might be a time and a place where you need to focus a little bit more on the collective and the accessories to help clean up some of the gaps or the limitations or some of the sticky spots, that’s then not allowing your rubber to the road training to be as effective. Right?

 

Anthony Gurule  17:20

And what is it going to be? Well, I mean, you could go on Google or YouTube and type in “accessory exercises for the shoulder” or “corrective exercises for the back of the hip, and you will get bombarded with a ton of exercises and information. That might be an awesome place to start. I mean, we post that same content on YouTube, to hopefully help someone find a little piece of nugget of information out there that could make all the difference wonderful, saves you a ton of time, money from going in. But that might not always be the case, right? Like we throw that out there just like hey, you know, this is something to try. But if you’re really, at this breakpoint, have mentally struggling with what to do or anything like that, it really helps having someone just go through an evaluation and realistically the the cost and the time that it takes to get that pinpoint evaluation, and then the exact information that you need to make the change really saves you a lot of time and money in the end as well. So you know, it really just kind of depends on the person like I am, I am guilty to a fault of being a DIY er and trying to tell I just run my head into a wall. And then I’m like, Okay, I can’t do it, I need to reach out to professional, right. Nothing wrong with that. And if you want to try that with your body, I love that like exploring, and trying to figure it out that again, comes back to the whole concept of proprioception, and awareness, the more you can explore your own body’s range of motion, strength capabilities, proprioceptive, balance, you know, all those things, the more input you’re going to have, and the more general awareness you’re going to have. So that when something is awry, you know, well, I can fix this or I can’t fix this or I know what to at least try and know, like kind of what avenue to at least go down so that when you then hit up a professional if you need it, you can say Hey, this is what’s going on. And I know what’s going on because of this, this, this and this and like that makes my life awesome. That makes my life so much easier, and that’s awesome, I get a sweet, I see where you’re at. Let me see if there’s anything else that you might have missed from just like, you know, because I can do more motion palpation and trying to figure out like specific joint range of motion limitation, so on and so forth if you’re in the office, and then we just kind of combine all that information together. But I’m a huge fan of that. And that’s that’s, you know, half the reason why we’re having this exact same conversation again, coming back to the awareness, the proprioception model, and using correctives or accessories to help facilitate that.

 

Anthony Gurule  19:52

now, again, very broad examples, but let’s use some examples here of or philosophy principles or philosophies, zero, but let’s use some specific examples to see if that helps kind of clear things up. So the shoulder, right, one of the more obviously, complex joints out there. So what would some accessory or corrections look like? Well, traditionally, we see, and this gets demonized, so I apologize, because I’m going to then kind of do that again. But banded exercises where we’re simply just doing like external rotation with a band pulling like this internal rotation point like this. And then it might be there, those are really good actually. Right, they can be fantastic for priming, the nervous system that’s activating the rotator cuff.

 

Anthony Gurule  20:41

It creates torsion and some compressive load, depending on the angle, and distractive load in the shoulder complex, which can help build up the resiliency of the tendons in the connective tissue, which again, fantastic, but it cannot be like the only thing, it needs to be expanded upon. So for instance, we can take that same concept, and crossover cemetery, or just wall mounted bands, or cable machines are great, because now I can do more complex movements where I might be doing like a face pull. So I’m grabbing cables that might be crossed, and I’m going to pull them up kind of towards my face. So I’m creating external rotation as I’m coming into AB duction and a little bit of flexion on my shoulder. So that’s a really good way to take that same concept and then add on to another level.

 

Anthony Gurule  21:28

Now going above and beyond that is how do we again, continue to strengthen the rotator cuff? Well, the rotator cuff is expanded upon and strengthened through compressive and distractive load. So we can then take that same concept and then maybe add it to like a TRX, where I’m using my body weight, and that body weight is trying to traction my arm. So I’m strengthening the rotator cuff through that. And I can do a face pole there. So I’m taking a higher load from the cables or the bands, and doing it more complex because now I’m adding a dynamic plank as I’m holding my body, you know, still, and I’m pulling that up through from their compressive loads, right? Why don’t need to go through an external rotation per se, but I can then add a crawling movement where I’m going through translation as I’m crawling against the ground, and I’m going to be having a compressive force. And as I’m crawling one hand has to go through kind of flexion and AB duction as I go above my head. And then it’s going to pull down using a little bit more lats than the upper back per se. But it’s going to be activating the rotator cuff to maintain good shoulder centration as I translate and pivot over my body over my shoulder, right? So it’s a completely different type of movement. Now this would all be indicative of like, well, what would I need something like this for? Well, it would depend very much on the sport. These are very common things that we do for bootcamp goers, CrossFitters, so on and so forth. Even just weekend warriors, as you’re talking about activities that you might be doing outdoors, right, like rock climbing, or mountain biking or anything like that. These are great just proprioceptive movements that can be used as accessories and/or correctives to enhance your awareness and capabilities around the shoulders, then of course, we would want to strengthen the shoulders through you know, push ups or TRX rows or pull ups or military press so on and so forth. But we sprinkled some of these in, to make it challenging, but to again, just put your body in a position in which it does not have a choice but to get that information and enhance upon it proprioception and again, awareness coming back to that same thing. So oftentimes, when we’re programming or giving these, they’re kind of just sometimes they seem silly, but they’re sometimes they’re just fun. But again, they’re they’re intended to be kind of challenging and novel, because that’s where you’re going to be getting new information. that compliancy coming back to that when you do the same thing over that information comes back to your head. And your body’s like, oh, yeah, I’ve seen that before. This is all good. I know what to do. Which is great. Because when you get to that subconscious level, when you’re looking at like the learning model, you don’t know what you don’t know, you now know that you don’t know you’re making intentional decisions to change that. And then it becomes subconscious, where you the changes that you were trying to elicit now are just done automatically.

 

Anthony Gurule  24:08

So yeah, there’s a certain element of skill and knowledge that you’ve just done it so many times. But it’s good to change the system, right? It’s good to shock the system and just give it a little bit of novel information, so that it becomes new, and then your body actually has to pay attention and process it. And that’s really what we’re looking at and what we’re trying to do. So if you’re adding corrective exercises or accessories in this manner, that’s fantastic. Keep going mix it up.

 

Anthony Gurule  24:34

If you’re not, this episode is again more for you. I think it’s a great thing to add. And again, if you don’t know what to do, you can start with Google. You can start with YouTube, you can start with a consult with someone and they can give you better suited movements for you, your goals, aches and pains, so on and so forth. But again, as I say before, as I said before, we love encouraging the exploration model of trying to figure out how your body actually moves, so on and so forth, and then see where you get and then, you know, ask for a little bit help to go above and beyond that, if you will. So, I hope this was beneficial. It was a reminder to myself that I need to add more of these correctives. And just kind of, you know, get back to the exploration play model of figuring out my body and then still, you know, reverting back to the basics and the foundation, the bread and butter of compound lifts, squats, deadlifts, swings, cleans, military press, so on and so forth. Because those offers so much bang for your buck, that if you’re doing those, you have more time to then go through this exploration model where, whereas not, again, not wrong, you’re kind of classic bodybuilding, where you’re hitting certain regions of your body with a lot of different exercises throughout, that takes a lot more time. If that’s your goal, nothing wrong with that, you know, bulk up, that’s awesome. But if you’re someone who’s trying to, which again, is more so speaking to the population that we treat, family, kids, busy, if you’re trying to like kind of pack these things in, the compound lifts that we just described, you get a lot more out of those full body movements, and then you have a little bit more extra time to spend on the correctives and accessories if you will.

 

Anthony Gurule  26:15

So I hope this was beneficial. Please make sure to like subscribe and share if you’re diggin this. Make sure to follow us on social media as we indicated on Instagram, @live.loud.life. You check out our website as well where we have a lot of this content also in blog form, depending on how you just want to consume the information that’s gonna be helping you and that’s www.liveloudlife.com.  no dots in between. Liveloudlife.com So thanks for tuning in, guys. We’ll see you next time.