Today’s show features biomechanist, coach and author, Rocky Snyder. Rocky is the owner of “Rocky’s Fitness” in Santa Cruz, California. Rocky is an accomplished personal trainer with an absolutely immense library of knowledge in multiple disciplines of human performance, such as biomechanics, exercise selection and neurology. Rocky is the author of the book “Return to Center” and has a track record on being able to restore functional movement ability to even the most difficult client cases.
In the world of training, we have a “muscle-centric” approach, and then a “joint-centric” approach to performance. I have found that while training and centering one’s efforts on muscles and their actions can definitely be helpful, an approach that can serve a greater percentage of clients in a sustainable manner is one that understands joint mechanics, and how muscles will respond to one’s joint positions. Muscles that are long, short, weak or tight are as such, because they are responding to an individual’s joint mechanics, and therefore the related demands they are constantly placed under.
Today’s episode focuses on the joint mechanics of the feet and hips. Rocky starts by highlighting elements of proper pronation and supination (with an extra emphasis on the action of the foot’s transverse arch in movement, it’s link to glute function and how we can assess how well it is being utilized) and how we can look for a deficiency in either area. Rocky then gets into practical exercise interventions in the world of lunge motions, standing twists, and why Rocky favors spiraling single leg training to glute-bridge oriented exercises for a functional glute training effect. Finally, Rocky gives his take on how loaded carries fit with the gait cycle, and can “balance out” and restore athletes from compressive gym work.
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Timestamps and Main Points:
4:28 – How Rocky got started in fitness, and the different areas of the field he has layered onto his approach, such as biomechanics, neurology and breathwork (evolution from outdoor athlete, to gym rat, into functional fitness/neurology/biomechanics)
10:43 – Rocky’s experience in coaching youth sports
13:39 – What Rocky thinks on the idea of “over-pronation” and what that term means to him
22:30 – The importance of “anchoring the transverse arch” on pronation mechanics and glute utilization in gait
34:26 – How to improve pronation, and solve the issue of “over-pronation” in an athlete
40:17 – Considering barbell hip thrusts in light of knowing more about pronation and spirals in the body, to activate glutes
46:48 – What Rocky is looking for on the level of the pelvis when it comes to pronation
53:35 – The link between sprinting, anterior and posterior pelvic tilt
58:05 – What Rocky is looking at in a reverse glider lunge exercise in terms of pronation and supination
1:03:30 – The importance of a straight back leg in the isometric lunge exercise in terms of the reciprocal action of the body
1:07:52 – The importance of supination in the foot, and how to create a balance of pronation and supination in the feet in various exercises
1:16:45 – How loaded carries fit with expansion bias and functional core strength, for the human body
“I couldn’t stand gyms when I was growing up, I grew up in the backwoods of New England, I grew up doing rock climbing, cross country skiing, whitewater canoeing, but I was also a gymnast and got into wrestling”
“My work originally started with muscular-centric loading… but now there’s also motor neurology and being a biomechanist, that’s where I am today”
“In pronation we need to have opposition in the sagittal plane between the rearfoot and forefoot, in the frontal plane, as well as transverse. If somebody is lowered in all of those places, that would be over-pronation, where they are not able to re-form to a neutral position where there is some shape of arches to the foot”
“In order for pronation to occur, the heel rolls inward while the forefoot is level with the ground, for the most part”
“We need to see there to be a difference of motion between the rearfoot and the forefoot”
“If you can anchor down 1st and 5th met-head, and let the heel move the way it should, you are going to have really great foot mechanics”
“When you look at Roman architecture, you see a keystone at the top of the arch, it keeps the arch rigid, and when there is weight coming down onto that arch, there is even more rigidity… the three arches (of the foot) have three points of contact, and they have keystones… and when we are talking about the transverse arch, there is the middle cuneiform (keystone)”
“Pain is really measured in millimeters, so is success”
“We could have one minute adjustment somewhere in your body and it could have a cascading effect somewhere else”
“I don’t give a lot of hip bridging away in terms of program design”
“We are so muscle-centric in the gym setting, just simply by watching joint motion could be a huge shift in how somebody coaches and looks at program design”
“Just by assessing how the pelvis moves, it’s going to tell me a lot about what’s happening down below”
“Once that pelvis is there, it’s going to send the proper mass down through the leg, and into the foot, and if the foot responds in kind, man, you’ve just made yourself a bulletproof athlete, and acl and high hamstring pull is going to not be there, there are a lot of things that happen when we get the joint mechanics to behave properly”
“We may not see full extension of the knee, if we’re not seeing full extension of the hip”
“If we are not teaching the back leg to lengthen, then what is its power potential when the foot comes off of the ground?”
“Can I give joints this experience in 3 dimensional space, and change how its’ behaving, if it needs changing”
“Pronation is your lowest point, supination is your highest point (in running)”
“If you look at Olympic wrestlers, a lot of them came from the farm-belt”
“When it comes to loaded carries, chaos reigns supreme”
“Loaded carries are all about anti-gravity since we are driving away a heavy load”
Show Notes
Reverse Valslide Lunge
Standing Plate Twist for Pronation and Supination
Using Wedges to Fill Space in the Feet
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Rocky Snyder last appeared on episode #209: The Gait Cycle, Single Leg Work, and True Functional Training for Elite Athleticism
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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