Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Why ask Why Comments

Kevin Moody says:
"I see quite a few high school runners with MTSS. When I ask them to squat they usually internally rotate at the hips, adduct at the knees and pronate at the foot/ankle."
There is a reason Kevin is the head ATC at the Lake Placid OTC. He is a great "functional listener". Right on Kevin- MTSS, stress fx are force reduction problems. Films on lower leg stress fx commonly show spiral or frontal plane patterns:
External Frontal Plane Loads May Be Associated with Tibial Stress Fracture/
Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 40(9):1669-1674, September 2008.CREABY, MARK W. 1,2; DIXON, SHARON J. 2

Free moment as a predictor of tibial stress fracture in distance runners/
Journal of Biomechanics , Volume 39 , Issue 15 , Pages 2819 - 2825
C . Milner , I . Davis , J . Hamill
So, what I'm after here is moving the center of gravity to the inferomedial tibia & use contralateral LE drive to add a FP, TP force.
Why the arms up over behind my head? Right again Kevin, I'm influencing the core. In this case, I'm taking my glutes, lats, & erector spinae out of the picture as to make the leg itself work a little harder (integrated isolation, as G2 calls it).
JH, great comment about the pronation lengthening the tibialis anterior!! A very underrated force reducer. Dr. Dan Cipriani, biomechanist & GAIN faculty member makes a good point that every muscle has a triplane function, & contracts ECONCENTRICALLY. In other words, it may be working isometrically in one plane, eccentrically in another, and concentrically in third. I've seen some practitioners use variations of toe raises to strengthen it. A waste of time, I think.
Thanks again Kevin & JH...you guys keep me psyched up.

3 comments:

Kev said...

I sure am learning lots following your blog Joe! Thanks .... I think because by the time I get through trying to comprehend what you write about I feel pretty stupid most days!

In the Why Ask Why .... are you doing a slow squat type motion? How many, how deep, etc?

Joe Przytula said...

It's just the opposite Kev- I learn from you guys. To answer your question, the hand position pretty much squelches hip flexion, so, squat depth will usually be limited. As far as what tempo & how many reps, that is an excellent question that involves "planned performance training", chapters 5&6 in Vern Gambetta's "Art & Science of Athletic Development" book. I need to address that in another post. Thanks.

JH said...

Econcentrically? Can you give an example where this occurs?

Thank you.