Today we’re going to be discussing one of my favorite ideas, which is without a target, it’s really hard to aim. Whenever we teach movement, whenever we teach exercises, whenever we do any kind of rehab with people, we’re doing neuro testing or whatever, we have to give them a target so that they understand the goal of the exercise is not to artificially create a shape utilizing their current capacities, but rather to target the actual tissue or structure that we want to focus on in a given drill.
This is such a key idea that I wanted to show a little video of this as a example. So what we’re going to look at today is this kind of Z squat or 90 90 squat or whatever you want to call it, positioning in a really common hip mobility exercise. I’m going to show you a mistake that I see all the time. Now, before I get into that, if you are new to Z-Health, we are a brain based education company. ‘m Dr. Eric Cobb. I’m the founder. We specialize in working with coaches, doctors and therapists from around the world who want to bring elite brain based neuroscience training concepts into their work. So if that’s of interest to you, check out our free mini course. Subscribe to the channel.
Here we go. Whenever we have people in this position, you will see in gyms around the world, in training centers around the world and therapy centers around the world, people working on internal hip rotation and external hip rotation utilizing this position.
Very commonly we’ll see people beginning to work on rotations right where we’re just making transitions side to side, working on hopefully internal and external hip rotation. Now, as people progress with this particular exercise, what will typically happen is a coach will say, hey, once you start to have some improvements in your mobility, what I want you to do now is I want you to stop using your hands.
We’re going to turn into a breathing exercise. Take a deep breath in and then exhale and then switch over. Now that’s fine, but what will often happen, and this is something you can test on yourself if you’re comfortable enough to do this exercise, is that if the hips are tight, which remember those are the target of the exercise, if the internal external rotations capacity at the hip is limited, what people will do is as they are not using their hands, they will tuck their pelvis and then they will come up to that, that postural position, and then they will tuck their pelvis again and they will come up to that postural position.
And if I do three or four more reps, I’ll be there kissing the camera, because basically what will happen is I’ll begin traveling across the mat. I’ll be walking with my butt because I’m doing a thoracic or lumbar flexion, pelvic flexion, and extension, which means I’m not hitting the target of the exercise. It means that I am utilizing a capacity that I currently have, which is lumbar flexion extension, pelvic flexion extension, to substitute for internal and external rotation at the hip.
So if you see this happening as a coach, it is actually more important to regress it than progress it until the athlete is capable of actually performing the exercise in a static position, maintaining the postural position that you want, so that as they make that transition over, there’s no walking forward, no walking back. If you are a movement coach, you need to be really aware of what every exercise that you’re teaching is intended to target, because what most of us do, including professionals, is we look at the shape of an exercise and go, hey, I want to achieve that shape, which is great.
There is something to be said for that, however, most of us will achieve a given shape or a movement, something that we’re not used to doing over utilizing areas of movement, mobility, strength that we already have, and leaving untouched or underutilized the areas that we’re actually trying to target. So I wanted to make sure that you walk away today thinking this through, thinking about your own training, thinking about what you’re doing with your clients.
Remember, without a target, it’s really hard to aim. And this actually goes deeply into neurology as well, meaning our brain is designed to hit targets, to have a concept of, this is correct, this is incorrect. If I don’t know what is incorrect, my brain really struggles to go, how am I supposed to do this? So give everyone that you work with, yourself included, specific targets for every exercise.
Make sure that you’re hitting them. Don’t worry about rushing through the progression. Figure out the target, make sure that you’re hitting it, and as you improve there, you’ll be able to increase the challenge as you go forward. All right, I hope you think this through. Hope you find it very helpful. We’ll talk to you soon.
