If you have followed me on social media since this past spring, you have seen and heard me talk about “pulling pinkie toe” and getting to the inside edge of the foot. These are concepts that I learned from Coach Adarian Barr when I spent a few days in Sacramento in April. I understand that this can be a tough concept to grasp as many of us have learned different concepts that are contradictory to that. Heck, I am guilty of coaching this pattern out of a lot of my athletes who I felt weren’t performing jumps or other drills by the book.
Coach Barr has coined the term “Rewire” and getting to the inside edge of your foot is a major part of the process. Essentially, we are trying to get the brain to learn that these positions are where we want to be. For some it is easy because they are already there. For others, years of having these patterns coached out of them or just poor movement in general will make for a longer Rewiring process. For me, the best way to feel and understand this position is to treat the portion of your foot from big toe to close to your heel as a rail. Just ride the rail.
For me personally, the concepts forthcoming have rejuvenated my training. At 40 years old, I am now hitting PRs on various jumps that hurt my body to perform a few years ago. Also, I felt like I about blew out my calf this past February working on bounds. The problem there was that I was pushing so hard that I overpowered my Achilles. Since April when I met Adarian, I started working on rolling through my inside edge, I have been pain free and can demonstrate a bound at any time without warm up.
Below are a number of exercises we do to promote the position of inside edge. Most of these exercises can have a number of points to focus on. For the purpose of this article, we are focusing only on inside edge.
Base Position
This is where the Rewire process begins. Set the posture by pushing your xiphoid forward and getting long in the spine. Then squat down so your butt is “in the bucket” (a concept for another article) and hold your position on the inside edge of your foot. “Pulling the pinkie toe up” helps achieve this inside edge position.
From the base position, we will begin the sequence of using glutes to get the shin to drop. When this happens, you will essentially be rolling through the inside edge of the foot. There is way more to the sequence of the exercise, but for now we are just going to focus on using glutes to roll through inside edge. (FYI – sticking your pinkie finger out will cue your brain to pull your pinkie toe off the ground!)
Squatted Walk and Jog
This is where we begin to put the athletic posture in motion. Push your xiphoid forward, get long in the spine, and sit down in the bucket. From here, we will begin walking by getting the shins to drop and applying pressure through the inside edge of the foot. After about 5 yards, we will begin to jog. All that happens here is we are going to remove the base quicker to turn a walk into more of a jog or run. Remember, stay in the posture and keep pulling those pinkies! You will learn a lot about your athletes just by watching them do this drill for 10 yards.
Rudiment Hops
There is a pretty simple process here as I am sure many coaches are using some kind of variation of these to train stiffness or to learn to go heel to toe. Our focus here is continuing to pull the pinkie toe as we stay bouncy on each contact. Hip and knee bend should stay consistent through each contact. On the single leg version, we coach the athlete to keep their zipper on their big toe – this will keep them “in that hip” especially on the lateral versions.
The video only shows a few reps to keep it brief. We do sets of 10 yards with 2 and 1 leg, forwards, backwards and laterally in each direction.
Skip Variations
Before we get to skips for height and skips for distance, we now begin in base position to improve our sequence and timing. Base position, to small step, to big step to jump is what we do over and over for a few weeks. I found this has helped many of my young athletes run through their jumps and time up big step (horizontal) with small steps (vertical). The big to small concept can be found in many of Coach Barr’s social media posts.
Big focus for us in this drill, you guessed it, pull the pinkie as you run through the jump
Banded Jumps
This is something a lot of people do, but the purpose for us is not overpowering the bands. Rather, it is using the bands as a reference to tell us “when” to jump. I like to use the thigh cuffs, but certainly you can do this with regular bands.
Set up in the posture, ideally in bare feet. Just like in base position, we are going to get the glutes in the bucket so the shins drop toward the floor. Now in order to truly be on the inside edge of the foot, you will need to let your knees come in a little bit. This position is OK as long the tibia and femur are moving together. I would encourage those that disagree to listen to a few podcasts from Joel and reference the work of Dr. Pat Davidson.
I will reiterate, we are not trying to jump high here. Instead, we are working on rolling through the inside edge and then starting the jump when you feel the bands pick up a stretch. It is at that point that the Achilles is ready to release energy. Take advantage of it; that is what inside edge is all about! So the shin will drop towards the floor and then rise as you leave the floor
Those who perform this drill incorrectly will hinge back at this hip and essentially stand back up and jump. You will notice minimal shin drop with a person who jumps like this. I use this exercise either in a low rep fashion prior to a more intense jump set or at the end of the workout for 2- 3 sets of 8 – 12 reps to hammer home the Rewire process.
Single leg lifting
One thing I have noticed over the years is that someone that struggles to perform a split squat variation or a single leg squat usually lateralized over the outside edge of the foot. Although I am not cueing an athlete to pull their pinkie toe on a heavy set of split squats, I am telling them to have about 70% of their weight on the inside edge of the foot. Also, having them align their zipper on their big toe really helps the athlete keep a solid foot position as well. This is something I have learned from PRI concepts over the years.
If you are a trainer or coach that spends a lot of time on their craft and sometimes questions if they are on the right track, trust me I have been there many times. Learning about Coach Barr’s Rewire concepts and then going out in person to work with him is the best thing I have ever done in my 16 years of coaching. It was simple for me, I knew there was a better way and I just needed to bite the bullet and go do it.
Obviously, it can be tough for a strength coach or trainer to get out of their comfort zone and learn concepts that might violate what they hold in the highest regard. If performance results are what you are after, then I would say taking a look at the Rewire process is a no brainer.
About Mike Kozak
After graduation from Ohio State, Mike was a physical education teacher at a variety of Columbus Public elementary schools. He also coached 6th grade basketball and worked in conjunction with the G2 basketball camps. In 2002, he created Soar of Columbus with his business partner Nate Fugitt. In between 2002 and 2006, Mike trained youth athletes in a variety of settings throughout Central Ohio including Marysville, Hilliard and Worthington. In 2006, Soar opened its first facility in Lewis Center. There he has trained hundreds of youth athletes as well as a number of current and prospective college and pro athletes. In addition to his duties at Soar, Mike is also working with the NFL as a National Field Supervisor for NFL Regional Combines.
Two simple qualities guide Mike’s training philosophy – expert teaching and sound program design tailored to the individual. Youth athletes receive the teaching that is necessary to establish a sound base of strength and speed technique. Advanced high school and college/pro athletes are trained in a manner that best prepares them for their sport or event. No gimmicks, no bells and whistles – just coaching at the highest level.
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