Today’s episode features personal trainer and human movement expert, Rocky Snyder. Rocky is the owner of Rocky’s Fitness in Santa Cruz, California, and is an experienced personal trainer, as well as an accomplished surfer and snowboarder. Rocky has taken an absolutely immense amount of continuing education in human performance and is the author of four books. His most recent being “Return to Center” , which featured a unique integration of a joint-based model of training and movement coaching, combined with neurological assessment of effectiveness.
“Return to Center” is the first training book in a very long time (outside of “Even with Your Shoes On” by Helen Hall that I read earlier this year), that I absolutely devoured (both books has heavy inspiration from Gary Ward, who has been a 2 time guest on this podcast, and developed the “Flow-Motion” model of tri-planar joint based analysis of human movement).
When it comes to “functional training” we often think of things like working on balance boards, or perhaps in a more realistic world, things like single-leg training and lots of bodyweight gait-pattern style movements, like crawling and heavy carries. Even in using these movements which are inherently more tied to human gait, they are often still performed under “manufactured” paradigms that take them outside of the scope of natural human movement and elasticity. Rocky has an incredible command of human movement principles, and can describe how these principles are showing up (or not!) in any exercise done in the gym, which is really the core of what we might call functional training.
For today’s podcast, Rocky tackles questions regarding his own joint-centered approach to training, as well as specifically how he looks at lunges and single-leg training in relation to the gait cycle, and how doing this optimally will improve joint health, VMO, and glute development, as well as athletic performance markers and injury reduction. This was a show that is a real key-stone in being able to truly train athletes on an individual level.
Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.
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Timestamps and Main Points
8:10 Key aspects of Rocky’s journey of movement and learning about the human body
22:40 How Rocky assesses clients using a tri-planar and joint-centered approach
29:10 How Rocky uses lunges in all three planes to assess athletes
45:40 When inward knee travel becomes a problem to Rocky in athletic movement
56:10 How to observe athletes to determine if athletes have excessive medial knee travel in their general movements
59:10 How to train squatting under load with respect to the natural movement
Rocky’s take on bilateral to unilateral/functional work in a training program
Quotes
“When getting the body to move as joints are expected to move, amazing things can happen”
“If we bring the body back into a more centrated place, the brain is going to allow a greater deal of force production”
“If you’re not going to explore how the (frontal and transverse planes) move then it’s going to reduce your ability to produce force in the sagittal plane”
“By knowing how the joints move in any exercise, it can tell the coach exactly what you are missing… the bottom line is that you should know how the body moves”
“The knee, when it pronates, should be flexing and externally rotating… the knee joint itself is rotating towards the midline faster than the tibia… am I seeing that when someone is lunging, or are they keeping it over the second toe because they have been told that it shouldn’t drive inward”
“A lunge is just an exaggeration of a walk, a gait pattern, that’s what a lunge should be”
“(In a lunge) Is the pelvis rotating away from the back leg and towards the front leg”
“There are some people who may clean their movements up by loading them”
“We have got to stop just thinking of the foot when it comes to joint mechanics. There are pronation mechanics for every single joint, just as there are supination mechanics”
“When the calcaneus rolls forward into pronation, the knee should flex”
“That’s where we want to go is, “do we have oppositional movement in the body” whether it’s the foot, the hips, the skull, or whatever”
“At the bottom of your squat movement, you are still going to have to drive your knees medially to turn on the glutes and everything else”
“You can’t get away from (the knees traveling inwards at the reversal of a squat)”
“When it comes to ACL re-education programs, it all comes down to, can that knee flex and externally rotate. Can it extend and internally rotate? Can it do it under load?”
“The VMO is usually one of the muscles that doesn’t do its job, because it’s not being trained to do its job properly, because we don’t allow to let the knee to go inward or over the big toe… keep it over the second toe and you’re asking for an ACL tear”
“(In assessing athletic knees through lunges and step ups) I would say mid-patellar should be over the first met-head in loading, before ascension, I want to see it traveling forward and laterally into that spot”
“(With squatting) Is the goal to lift more weight, or is the goal to improve performance?”
“Throughout life, man spends only 10-20% of time moving in a bilateral fashion, the other 80% of the time is spent moving in a contralateral fashion. I have my program mirror that, having 80% or better doing unilateral, contralateral, and opposing actions”
Show Notes
Bowler Squat
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About Rocky Snyder
Rocky Snyder grew up outside of Boston and moved to Santa Cruz in 1991. He met his wife in 1997, and is a proud father to a daughter and son. He is an accomplished and avid surfer and snowboarder, and well known as a regular on KSCO 1080am since 2002, with his Surf and Ski Report every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at 6:25 am, and every weekday on KPIG 107.5fm at 8:25 am.
Rocky is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist, an NSCA-Certified Personal Trainer, Certified in Applied Functional Science, NASM-Corrective Exercise Specialist, a licensed US Soccer Coach and a USA Weightlifting Coach. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Rocky has written three books on sports conditioning, has been featured in many publications and his fourth book, Return to Center is now available with all major booksellers
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