Appreciate you brother - this is not even scraping the surface of the manual it’s essentially a prologue. Let me know what you need help with as you comb through it all.
Hey Hybrid. Was wondering what you thought about this and if you have ever worked with athletes dealing with overpronation and collapsing arches. Obviously a pretty big hindrance and seems like it would fall under joint health in the foundational health base.
What are your thoughts on treating something like this? Custom orthotics feels like it goes against y(our) philosophy of directing training towards joint strength, maybe solving this through specialized exercises... but seems to be the recommended option by sports medicine professionals. Would you think using orthotics to solve the problem short term while someone is still in the zone of focusing on maximizing strength for sport, and then overtime trying to treat it with specific exercises once strength needs are met, and moving higher up the pyramid?
Or would your thought process be that training specific ankle/arch/foot strength exercises for an athlete starting out is most important since it falls under a necessary joint function at the bottom of the pyramid?
When it comes to “flat feet” it’s terribly over-diagnosed as an issue in my opinion.
It’s ok to have flat feet and often it’s actually a good thing for some sports. If you don’t feel like you have any foot or lower leg issues I’d completely ignore it as a supposed problem.
However everyone can benefit from training the foot directly which is covered on the Substack.
If you genuinely have feet that cannot supinate however (create more of an arch) and the feet are stuck in pronation (flat) then we can work on that and I’ll send some exercises your way.
But the key is that the foot needs to be be able to change shape and move both ways to be healthy - not that where it sits at rest needs to be arched. It’s more about movement options rather than where it tends to chill at during rest.
Especially when symptoms in the foot don’t exist - don’t worry about it.
I'm 38. Always been pretty fit and active. 6' 190lbs. In that group of dudes at 15% bf that like to think they're at 12%. Been doing muay thai on and off for a few years. My cardio could be a bit better but what's keeping me back is my flexibility. My teeps are slow due to hamstring tightness and I can't get power on my roundhouse kicks because I don't have the hip mobility. Any training suggestions. Basically been trying to do more yoga and a few flexibility drills off of YouTube but I need something more systematic? Or maybe just do those things more systematically.
Your own answer to the question is correct. To give you a better answer to the system part though - you should be strength training with the least invasive (in terms of training fatigue) exercises you can that take you through increasingly deep ranges of motion.
Being weak somewhere is often the cause of tightness honestly.
For example:
Hamstrings -> RDL. Get used tot he movement. Try to add reps to it and some weight over time. Once comfortably progressing. Keep the weight and reps the same while you add inches of range of motion.
You can progress then to a more straight legged deadlift version with more tension on the hamstrings. Then widen your grip to get even more range. Add a block to stand on for even more etc
Hard to not improve length and stability that way.
Without this being official medical advice - a good rule of what to work on is seated good mornings & stiff legged deadlifts
Your goal is to try to progressively overload the ROM > the weight.
Use SLOW eccentrics that take 4-6 seconds. This is to emphasize the lengthening of the muscle and make sure you use control.
Split squats and Cossack squats work well in the same way and I suggest using them.
Check back in after really giving that a seriously focused go 1-3x per week for a month.
Thanks, man. I incorporated those and have seen an improvement. i really appreciate it.
I solved one issue and have another though. You have any preferred hip capsule mobilizations? My hip feels "stuck" rotationally when I try and throw a roundhouse. Or if I try and throw a side kick I just can't get my leg near parallel. Undoubtedly some of it is I sit too much, but apart from that any suggestions? I have a thick Rogue band and I'm going to experiment with some mobilizations from YouTube.
It’s possible some mobility work could help - I don’t have favorites personally that I would just share here without looking at you myself. But the first thing to get out of the way is actually just your technique.
It’s really common that people think their leg is supposed to have a certain range when kicking but not actually leaning their torso as needed to kick.
Side & roundhouse will both need to lean torso back in order to reach higher targets (even just landing to the body). Are you sure you are throwing the kicks properly instead of it truly being a mobility issue?
(With someone earlier this year that was saying something is “wrong“ because they “can’t get their leg any higher but it’s not like their muscles are tight”. Immediately when they showed me what they were trying to do and the answer was that your leg is just not gonna go any higher because the human skeleton doesn’t work like that. Bad technique.)
Summary section alone full of fantastic knowledge. Looking forward to the next one!
Appreciate you brother - this is not even scraping the surface of the manual it’s essentially a prologue. Let me know what you need help with as you comb through it all.
Hey Hybrid. Was wondering what you thought about this and if you have ever worked with athletes dealing with overpronation and collapsing arches. Obviously a pretty big hindrance and seems like it would fall under joint health in the foundational health base.
What are your thoughts on treating something like this? Custom orthotics feels like it goes against y(our) philosophy of directing training towards joint strength, maybe solving this through specialized exercises... but seems to be the recommended option by sports medicine professionals. Would you think using orthotics to solve the problem short term while someone is still in the zone of focusing on maximizing strength for sport, and then overtime trying to treat it with specific exercises once strength needs are met, and moving higher up the pyramid?
Or would your thought process be that training specific ankle/arch/foot strength exercises for an athlete starting out is most important since it falls under a necessary joint function at the bottom of the pyramid?
Hey sorry not sure how I missed this.
When it comes to “flat feet” it’s terribly over-diagnosed as an issue in my opinion.
It’s ok to have flat feet and often it’s actually a good thing for some sports. If you don’t feel like you have any foot or lower leg issues I’d completely ignore it as a supposed problem.
However everyone can benefit from training the foot directly which is covered on the Substack.
If you genuinely have feet that cannot supinate however (create more of an arch) and the feet are stuck in pronation (flat) then we can work on that and I’ll send some exercises your way.
But the key is that the foot needs to be be able to change shape and move both ways to be healthy - not that where it sits at rest needs to be arched. It’s more about movement options rather than where it tends to chill at during rest.
Especially when symptoms in the foot don’t exist - don’t worry about it.
Thanks for this.
I'm 38. Always been pretty fit and active. 6' 190lbs. In that group of dudes at 15% bf that like to think they're at 12%. Been doing muay thai on and off for a few years. My cardio could be a bit better but what's keeping me back is my flexibility. My teeps are slow due to hamstring tightness and I can't get power on my roundhouse kicks because I don't have the hip mobility. Any training suggestions. Basically been trying to do more yoga and a few flexibility drills off of YouTube but I need something more systematic? Or maybe just do those things more systematically.
Your own answer to the question is correct. To give you a better answer to the system part though - you should be strength training with the least invasive (in terms of training fatigue) exercises you can that take you through increasingly deep ranges of motion.
Being weak somewhere is often the cause of tightness honestly.
For example:
Hamstrings -> RDL. Get used tot he movement. Try to add reps to it and some weight over time. Once comfortably progressing. Keep the weight and reps the same while you add inches of range of motion.
You can progress then to a more straight legged deadlift version with more tension on the hamstrings. Then widen your grip to get even more range. Add a block to stand on for even more etc
Hard to not improve length and stability that way.
Without this being official medical advice - a good rule of what to work on is seated good mornings & stiff legged deadlifts
Your goal is to try to progressively overload the ROM > the weight.
Use SLOW eccentrics that take 4-6 seconds. This is to emphasize the lengthening of the muscle and make sure you use control.
Split squats and Cossack squats work well in the same way and I suggest using them.
Check back in after really giving that a seriously focused go 1-3x per week for a month.
Thanks, man. I incorporated those and have seen an improvement. i really appreciate it.
I solved one issue and have another though. You have any preferred hip capsule mobilizations? My hip feels "stuck" rotationally when I try and throw a roundhouse. Or if I try and throw a side kick I just can't get my leg near parallel. Undoubtedly some of it is I sit too much, but apart from that any suggestions? I have a thick Rogue band and I'm going to experiment with some mobilizations from YouTube.
It’s possible some mobility work could help - I don’t have favorites personally that I would just share here without looking at you myself. But the first thing to get out of the way is actually just your technique.
It’s really common that people think their leg is supposed to have a certain range when kicking but not actually leaning their torso as needed to kick.
Side & roundhouse will both need to lean torso back in order to reach higher targets (even just landing to the body). Are you sure you are throwing the kicks properly instead of it truly being a mobility issue?
(With someone earlier this year that was saying something is “wrong“ because they “can’t get their leg any higher but it’s not like their muscles are tight”. Immediately when they showed me what they were trying to do and the answer was that your leg is just not gonna go any higher because the human skeleton doesn’t work like that. Bad technique.)