My Stupid Foot

As far back as I can remember, my right hip has always turned out. My feet were perpendicular; at 12 and 3 o’clock. I blamed 7 years of fencing, but it never really “bothered” me, because I always did things like squat and swing with a little more external rotation than others and it seemed to work out just fine. My hips like being all splayed out like a ballerina. In fact, I have more turn out than the two professional ballet dancers I know. I never really thought much about it (other than having a nifty party trick that made people squick out), until I did some things I had never done before, like trying to learn the pistol and flying back and forth to New York a lot.

The pistol is the godfather of bodyweight exercises. If there was a dictionary entry for “simple; but never easy” the picture next to it would be a guy doing a pistol. And if there was a Don of the pistol, it would be Steve Maxwell. I was in New York visiting Antonio, getting advice on how to progress myself into doing pistols. A few minutes into us dicking around with kettlebells, Steve Maxwell dropped by. Soon I was getting 30 minutes of free instruction from the Don of pistols himself. The conversation went like this:

“What the hell is up with your foot?”

“It’s always done that.”

“Well stop it.”

“I can’t today. My TFL cramps and hurts from the 6 hour flight.”

“You’re 29 years old. I’m 60. Nothing on you should hurt yet.”

Later that week I was relaying this story to my friends Rob and Charlie, both fitness uber-nerds. Their verdict, “Your right foot is stupid.” What are friends for, right? But I still didn’t believe them. I have never had a problem before. I’m pretty strong and mobile and I never have any pain… except after 6 hour flights to New York.

I finally put all the pieces together when Rob took me climbing, something I had never done before. When you climb you have to put all your bodyweight on your big toe and drive upward a lot. I immediately pulled a muscle in my right ankle. Which muscle? The one that you use to put pressure on your big toe and drive upward. Everyone was right: my right foot was stupid. 

Here was my rehab strategy:

• Attack my feet and ankles with a lacrosse ball and stretch them a lot.
• Pick up lots of things off the floor with my feet.
• Consciously walk with my feet parallel and drive off my big toe.

That’s it. Within a week, weird stuff started to happen. I started to get soreness and cramping in my internal hip rotators. My feet started to face forward without me thinking about it. And most importantly, I got off my next red-eye to New York with no hip pain! But then other great stuff started to happen…

My problem in the pistol is that I cannot maintain intra-abdominal pressure at the bottom. I just collapse and fall over. It’s the same problem I have with conventional deadlifting. If my feet get closer together than shoulder width, I just deflate like a popped balloon. But after two weeks of my “rehab” I was suddenly hanging out at the bottom of a squat with my feet and knees together with little effort. The same day I was rocking the close-stance squat, I was setting up to do some sumo deadlifting. For some strange reason I decided to try and pick up the 275lbs I had put on the bar with a conventional deadlift. My one rep max in the sumo is 320lbs, but I have never even picked up 135lbs conventionally. But that day I put my feet a little less than shoulder width apart, engaged everything crazy hard, hinged down to the bar, grabbed it outside my knees, and squeezed the trigger. The damn thing came up like it was made of styrofoam. Let’s be clear, I didn’t just add some weight to a lift: I did something I have never been able to do at all after two weeks of picking up t-shirts with my damn toes.

The lesson here? Well the obvious one is don’t neglect your feet. Get out of your shoes and be barefoot as often as you can. Train in a pair of shoes with toes (I even bought a pair of these to walk around in). But the more valuable lesson here is not to neglect movements you can’t do, just because you can’t do them. It’s one thing to work around problems, it’s a whole other thing to completely neglect weaknesses. I should have put the pieces of my dysfunction together, but it was too easy to just sumo deadlift or turn out my feet a little in the squat. It wasn’t until I was forced into new things like climbing, pistols, and frequent long-haul flying that I began to understand the totality of my problem, which turned out to be very easy to fix. So remember kids, there’s very little difference between a groove and a rut. If you get out there and try to do some new things with your body, you just might be surprised what you can learn.

Coach Stevo's Field Trip

I was in New York this week and spent my time going to gyms and seeing how people who go to gyms work out. As you know, I spend most of my time either training my clients outside or training with other fitness nerds. My wife insisted that I go to the gym in her building and train her which opened my eyes to just how the other 97% lives. It was illuminating, and here are some takeaways that I guess I forgot most people don't know.

1. There's no such thing as spot fat loss.

Crunches will do nothing for your beer belly. The adductor machine will do nothing for your flabby thighs. You're just going to have to eat less and focus on get stronger. Fat comes off "last in; first out" and it happens the during the 163 hours a week you aren't at the gym.

2. There's more to training than moving faster or moving more weight. There's also moving better.

Move your joints through the whole range of motion. Trust me, as you get older you're going to want every radian of range of motion that you can get. It doens't matter if you have to use less weight; joint stability and mobility is related to being able to apply force through the whole movement pattern. Elegance is a worthy fitness goal.

3. Running shoes are for running (and they aren't great for that either).

I saw so many people compromised by their footwear. Super supportive, cushy shoes that were messing with people's balance and ability to hold a position. Grab a pair of these or these. Or just take them off and train in your socks.

4. Your body doesn't stop at your hips.

I saw no one squatting. No one hinging. No deadlifts, no lunges, no split squats, no SLDLs, no RFESS. I saw two flat-assed girls who spent more time picking out gym outfits than they did holding weight do a few of what could only be described as "1/8 squats." Their hips probably see more flexion on the toilet than in the gym.

5. There's no such thing as spot fat loss.

Just in case I stuttered.

6. If your trainer has you sitting for more than 10% of your session, fire him or her immediately.

One of the more hearbreaking things I saw was an incredibly built female trainer who undoubtedly played a collision sport at a high level walk a not-even-remotely-old man from seated machine to seated machine and count reps. I was pressing kettlebells and I heard him look at me and ask her, "what's that?!" I know I don't have any context to the exercise selection that she had programmed for him, but Sweet Zombie Jesus woman, get that man on his feet! 

7. Have some damn fun!

You don't have to hate working out for it to work. In fact, the more you like it the more you likely you'll come back and do it again! When that guy looked at me pressing kettlebells and lit up, his trainer should have lit up, too. Nothing improves compliance like having fun. Stop treating training like work, and live a little. Throw a medicine ball really hard at the ground. Hit something! Pick up something heavier than you thought you could.

Oh, and P.S...

8. There's no such thing as spot fat loss.

It Came From the Inbox!

In this ongoing series, I post (with permission) actual questions that have landed in my inbox.

What muscle does [that] work?

All of them. If you're working with me or doing any of the exercises I've mentioned on this blog, the answer to this question will always be "all of them." The movements I coach, hinge, squat, carry, push, pull, twist are movements that you do every day of your life. They require the coordination of your entire body to transfer force from the ground, through your body, and into the weight. This means all your muscles have to work together. Sure, a hinge will work the muscles of the back of your body a little more than the front of your body, but the goal here is to get your body to work better as a tool so that you can do whatever you want with it. Worrying about 'what muscles do what' is your motor cortex's job.

Inchworms: The Subtle Carry

Dan John knows about carrying around heavy things. He loves carrying heavy things so much that he slapped a picture of him doing it on his first book. In the snow. With a smile on his face. But the praises for the loaded carry is not limited to strongmen and throwers. Mike Boyle recently talked on T-Nation about “[drinking] the loaded carry Kool-Aid” and adding them into the programming for his athletes. With over 12,000 years of combined coaching experience with different philosophies, backgrounds and populations, when Mike and Dan agree on something, it’s generally a good idea to listen. But even if that argumentum ad verecundiam isn’t enough to convince you, check out McGill, S.M., McDermott, A., Fenwick, C. (2008). Loaded carries light up the muscles of the trunk like that cop’s maglite lit up the fogged up windows of your ‘89 Camry on prom night.

But loaded carries can be limiting. The common variations, farmer walks, rack carries, duffel carries, and sled pulls, all require equipment, lots of space and grip strength endurance. What if you do not have the stuff, space, or grip strength (yet) to see the benefits of this class of human movement? Break the movement down into what it’s actually doing. Stu McGill calls loaded carries “moving planks.” You are just moving a load from one side of your body to the other, usually above your center of gravity, while maintaining a rigid body position through the trunk, hips and shoulders. With that in mind, take a look at the inchworm.

Start from a standing position. Place your hands on the ground and walk them out as far as you can while maintaining the “plank” position through your trunk, glutes, and packed shoulders. Now walk your hands back towards your feet and keep your butt high until you can stand back up. Alternatively, you can walk your hands back towards your feet which will result in forward progress.

What did you just do? A moving plank! The similarities to a farmer carry are subtle in appearance but obvious in impact. Don’t believe me? Do ten.

How should you start using the power of the inchworm in your program? Well, doing them would be a start. Add them to your warm up. Or add them as a kicker at the end. Or do them when you’re bored at work. Just start playing around with the movement and see what you like about it. I teach a class of female middle-aged casual exercisers in a commercial gym. Convincing them to pick up 1/2 their bodyweight in iron is like convincing my dogs that the vet is going to make them feel better. So I just started having them do inchworms in between sets of strength exercises. No special equipment, no turf needed, everyone of them loved it, no one got hurt, and they all started looking and feeling a lot better. I’m no scientician, but I’m pretty sure that’s progress.

It Came From the Inbox!

Meh.In this ongoing series, I post (with permission) actual questions that have landed in my inbox. 

Can I have a Luna bar?

Sure! Wait, you're suffering from being extremely underweight, right? Or you just hiked 2/3 of the Appilachian Trail this weekend? A doctor diagnosed you with hypoglycemia because throughout a 24 hour period your blood plasma glucose levels are between 4-8 mmol/L? Oh, none of those? Then why are you eating a rectangle of soy byproducts that has more sugar than two Reese's Peanut Butter Cups? 9 grams of soy protein does not make up for 27g of sugar. The general guidelines for protein consumption during body recompotision are 1g/lb of bodyweight. If you you are a 140lb woman who wants to be hotter, that means you should be shooting for 140g of protein a day. Putting it bluntly, 9 grams of protein is nothing towards that goal. And processed soy is kind of a lame protein. Be creative with ways to get more protein and more plants into your diet. Not more sugar.

Want something sweet that packs more than 30g of protein and will keep you full for a lot longer than a candy bar in disguise? How does a Watermelon Creamsicle Smoothie sound? "Yum," that's how!

• a cup or so of seedless watermelon
• 1 tsp konjac flour/glucomannan powder
• ice – 10 or more cubes
• almond milk, enough to thin
• 1 scoop vanilla protein powder (whey, casein, egg, or a blend)
• stevia drops to taste

Blend the hell out of it and enjoy!

Yum!