The Pistol – World’s Dumbest Exercise?

I’ve got a little secret.  I used to absolutely hate pistols.  I used to watch people who are good at them and just get mad.  How the heck do they make it look so easy?  At the time I was 170lbs and able to take 400lbs for a deep squat but couldn’t manage to complete 1 stupid pistol?

It’s frustrating.  Everytime I’d go try to go down to the bottom of a pistol it would look like bambi on ice and I’d either fail miserably on my depth or fall backwards on my butt.  I mean, it was really bad.

Over the years I’ve slowly become a little more proficient in the pistol.  I’ve put in several years worth of knowledge, mobility, practice and accessory work to make them both look and feel a bit better.  I wanted to share this knowledge with you.

First off, for proficiency in the pistol you’re going to need enough mobility in 3 basic places:

To test to see if you’ve got the mobility for it you’ll need to be able to squat comfortably with your feet together.  It’s an easy test:

1) Ankle Dorsiflexion Problems

Don’t have it?  Time to see where things fall apart.  First check the ankles:

Failed the test?  Better get to work:

2) Hip Flexion Problems

Pass the ankle mobility test but still can’t squat with the feet together?  Must be either a hip or lumbar spine issue.  You can check hip mobility by seeing if you or your athlete can lie on their back and pull their knees to their chest without their lower back rolling off the floor (Part of the SFMA deep squat breakout).  To be strict try and keep …read more

I’ve been reading and listening to probably what is more than a healthy amount of scapular research and rehabilitation lately.  It’s great for me because I’m currently working with a few athletes with scapular dyskinesia and shoulder pain.  I wrote a bit about scapular dyskinesia some time back and it’s easily one of my most popular articles to date.

Now, it’s important to understand that winging and dyskinesia can happen for variety of reasons.  Pain is a huge player in the mix as well as specific weakness or muscle imbalance.  As a therapist it’s our job to determine why this winging is occurring and troubleshoot how to correct it.  This article is going to talk more about specific weaknesses.

There are also several different types of winging and dyskinesia.  Sometimes the inferior border of the scapula pops up with movement (Type 1).  Sometimes the shoulder is protracted (scap anterior tilt/internal rotation) at rest (Type 1).  Sometimes we get a shrug with excessive downward rotation when we raise our arms overhead (Type 3).  What I’d like to talk about today is medial border prominence (Type 2) as shown in the picture above.  I see this quite a bit in athletes especially when they’re attempting pushups.

This article’s inspiration comes from Ann Cools.  She is a researcher, physiotherapist and professor.  She is an absolute boss when it comes to the shoulder and specifically the scapula.  The clinical reasoning process used in this article comes from her.

First off, when you see this occur in your patients you have to ask the question of why is this occurring?  Dyskinesia could theoretically cause shoulder pain but can also occur because someone is in pain (Maybe an individual is moving differently to decrease stress on a sensitive area in the shoulder).  Ultimately we want to promote symmetry …read more

To recap from last week, as therapists sometimes I feel as if we lack in our exercise selection for certain athletes trying to return to sport.  We do a good job of finding evidence based EMG exercises for specific conditions but sometimes drop the ball when it comes to finding great exercises that are specific to getting back to sport.  Those basic exercises are of extreme importance but what do we do once our athletes have reached their maximum benefit from these exercises and aren’t yet back to their activities.  I work with a decent number of weightlifters and crossfit athletes.  Besides a lack of knowledge of their sport, the second biggest reason for failed previous treatment is a lack of specific exercise progression to get them back to their activities.  Getting someone back to their ADLs pain free and getting them back to high level performance are two different things.

I wanted to put together a series of exercises I use with my athletes to get them back to their sport.  In part 1, the exercises are specific to strengthening and conditioning an athlete along their rehab/physical therapy process to get back to open chain activities like handstands, pushups and handstand pushups. The second example will be a series of open chain exercises.  Populations that would benefit from these exercises would be an olympic lifter, power lifter or crossfit athlete that wants to return to bench press, overhead press, push press, jerks and any other open chain pressing activity.  The exercises are split into phases, so you know how to progress an athlete throughout the course of their rehabilitation.

This exercise progression is by no means a replacement to a thorough evaluation with specific emphasis on correcting deficits and potential causes of injury.  However, I think it provides several ideas on how …read more

I’ve been working with a lot of students lately in my clinical practice as a physical therapist lately.  In my experience most students tend to have pretty good clinical decision making skills, a fairly sound evidence based approach as well as some solid evaluation and treatment ideas.

When it comes time for program directors to visit their students at our clinic they usually ask about ways to improve their physical therapy curriculum.  Far and away the biggest comment I give is the lack of experience with exercise selection.

I also feel that as a profession overall we lack a bit in this area.  We do a good job of finding evidence based EMG exercises for specific conditions but sometimes drop the ball when it comes to finding great exercises that are specific to getting back to sport.  Those basic exercises are of extreme importance but what do we do once our athletes reach their maximum benefit from these exercises and aren’t yet back to their activities.  I work with a decent number of weightlifters and crossfit athletes.  Besides a lack of knowledge of their sport, the second biggest reason for failed previous treatment is a lack of specific exercise progression to get them back to their activities.  Getting someone back to their ADLs pain free and getting them back to high level performance are two different things.

I wanted to put together a series of exercises I use with my athletes to get them back to their sport.  These exercises are specific to strengthening and conditioning an athlete along their rehab/physical therapy process. The first example will be a series of closed chain exercises.  Populations that would benefit from these exercises would be a gymnast or crossfit athlete that wants to return to handstands, handstand walking or any other closed chain pressing …read more

1) Running Drills Every Triathlete Should Master

I use these drills at least several times per week.  They’re excellent drills from a rehab perspective as well as from a performance perspective.  Chris Johnson is also an athlete and excellent therapist.

2) TED talk with Lorimer Moseley on Pain

This is another video I point patients to frequently.  Pain is a very complex topic and understanding it is enormous from a rehab and injury prevention perspective.  Lorimer Moseley helps out on this front with an entertaining and informative video.

Now You’re Smarter,

Dan Pope DPT, CSCS

P.S. If you enjoyed this article then sign up for the newsletter to receive the FREE guide – 10 Idiot Proof Principles to Performance and Injury Prevention as well as to keep up to date with new information as it comes out via weekly emails.

…read more

Several months ago I had the opportunity to see Adriaan Louw speak.  I really enjoy Adriaan’s perspective and appreciate the work he’s done in the areas of chronic pain understanding and rehabilitation.  His books are excellent for patients and if you’ve never heard him speak.  His info is equally informative, immediately applicable and incredibly entertaining.

One thing that Adriaan spoke about that I’ve been wanted to share for some time was sleep hygiene.  What’s interesting about sleep is that it’s going to be beneficial for just about everyone.  We have plenty of research to support this and it can be very valuable for both athletes (Looking for optimal performance) and patients in chronic pain (To get out of pain).

I think most people understand this (Maybe not in the chronic pain population as a means to help decrease pain) but don’t always implement this knowledge into their athlete’s program or patient’s plan of care in a practical way.

Changing behaviors is our priority and knowledge is not always enough.  Take for example our current obesity epidemic.  We have an enormous problem here but really no lack of information on how to change the problem.  Everywhere you look there is a book or doctor or trainer out there espousing how to lose weight.  Knowledge doesn’t always change behavior.  If this was true we wouldn’t have this problem on our hands.  Putting that knowledge into action is the key.  This also goes for something like getting better sleep at night.

One thing I’ve been recently doing is sending patients home with this information and making goals for them to incrementally reach those goals.  Adriaan gave a nice practical and comprehensive program for increasing hygiene and that’s what I’m going to share today.  He recommends trying to implement one of these strategies each night until you’ve accomplished …read more

I spoke recently at power monkey camp with therapist Dave Tilley in Crossville Tennessee.  He was a big advocate of creating a spectrum of exercises in order to improve someone’s movement.  In other words, he didn’t believe that solely lying on a foam roller would yield the best carryover to your push jerk.  You’re probably missing some steps in between.

A better system might:

An example for someone with a crummy handstand because of limited wrist mobility would be:

• Wrist mobility drills x 10/side
• Active wrist extension in quadruped x 5-10 per side
• Forward Crawling x 5-10 steps / side
• Handstand Specific Work

What’s important in this example is that we’re mobilizing what needs mobility, reinforcing it with motor control exercises and then using lower level exercises that utilize that same range of motion.  What’s important to note is that the exercise we chose (forward crawls) is very specific to handstands.  This element of specificity is extremely important for carry-over into our chosen exercise (handstands).  What’s also important is that crawling is generally a bit less challenging and complex then a handstand.  Therefore our patient / athlete can put there efforts into using and learning their new range of motion instead of worrying about busting their head when they’re upside down.

For the kipping pull-up we may have an individual with limited overhead movement and subsequent poor technique.  A continuum of exercises to help this athlete might be:

Some specific low level exercises less complex then the kipping …read more

Lifting Drills From the Ground

Great article from athlete and physical therapist Reena Tenorio.  She shows some nice accessory lifts to help improve the snatch and clean and jerk.  I saw a couple I’ve never tried before.  Good stuff.

Quadruped Rocking Mobility Matrix

Really cool quadruped hip mobility sequence.  Hip mobility can get a tad boring at times.  Here are some cool drills from personal trainer Dean Somerset.

Advanced ACL Rehabilitation

I really enjoy rehabilitating ACL injuries.  I feel that sometimes physical therapists lack the knowledge and clinical application of late stage rehabilitation for these athletes.  Physiotherapist Enda King goes over this process thoroughly.  I really enjoyed this podcast.

Learning!

Daniel Pope DPT, CSCS

P.S. If you enjoyed this article then sign up for the newsletter to receive the FREE guide – 10 Idiot Proof Principles to Performance and Injury Prevention as well as to keep up to date with new information as it comes out via weekly emails.

…read more