Today’s episode brings back Alex Effer. Alex is the owner of Resilient Training, and has extensive experience in strength & conditioning, exercise physiology and the biomechanical function of the body. He also runs educational mentorships teaching biomechanics to therapists, trainers and coaches. Alex was recently on the show talking about the mechanics of the early to late stance spectrum and it’s implications for performance training.
Something that has been dramatically under-studied in running, jumping, cutting and locomotion in general is the role of the upper body. Since the arms don’t directly “put force into the ground” and the world of sports performance and running is mostly concerned with vertical force concepts; the role of the arms gets relatively little attention in movement.
This is unfortunate for a few reasons. One is that sport movement has strong horizontal and rotational components that demand an understanding of how the upper body matches and assists with the forces that are “coming up from below”. Two is that the joints of the upper body tend to have a lot in common with the alignment and actions of corresponding joints in the lower body. When we understand how the upper body aligns and operates, we can optimize our training for it in the gym, as well as better understand cueing and motor learning constraints in dynamic motion.
Today’s topics progress in a trend of “expansion to compression”, starting with a chat on the expansive effect of aerobic training (as well as the trendy thera-gun) and Alex’s favorite restorative and re-positioning aerobic methods. We then get into rotational dynamics in squatting, focusing on the actions of the lower leg, and finish the chat with a comprehensive discussion on the role of the upper body in sprinting, how to train propulsive IR for the upper body in the gym, as well as touching on improving hip extension quality for athletic power.
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Timestamps and Main Points:
5:00 – Why Alex thinks that the Theragun is actually a useful tool in the scope of training
15:00 – Thoughts on the use of aerobic training, and blood flow as an “inside out” expansive stimulus to the muscle and the body in general
22:30 – The importance of tibial internal rotation, and how it fits in with the ability to squat and bend the knee
33:30 – How to restore tibial internal rotation for improved squatting and knee mechanics
38:15 – Talking about Chris Korfist’s “rocker squats”, and viability in regards to specifically improving tibial internal rotation
44:00 – Isometrics and work done at shallower knee angles for knee health in respect to the vastus lateralis and vastus medialis muscles
51:00 – The importance of hip and shoulder internal rotation in sprinting, and the role of the upper body in helping the lower body to get off the ground more quickly.
1:07:30 – Narrow vs. Wide infra-sternal angle athletes in regards to upper body dynamics , and general biomechanics in sprinting
1:13:00 – Alex’s take on hip extension in sprinting and how to improve it
1:22:00 – The role of hill sprinting in improving hip extension, as well as the benefits of walking down the hill in terms of priming the body to leverage the glutes better on the way back up
1:24:00 – Why Alex likes hip thrusts with the feet elevated, relative to hip height
1:28:00 – Some key exercises to improve shoulder internal rotation for sprinting
“The vibration aspect of the Theragun I really like; if you slow the landing of running or sprinting, you will see a vibration or wave-like effect of the muscle upon impact”
“Whatever my upper back or torso is going to do; I am going to have similar changes at the pelvis”
“My favorite (aerobic/expansive) tool now is the elliptical. For the elliptical I cue a heavy heel the whole time; it’s going to keep you back in more of a mid-stance, internal rotation type of range; I’ve used that to improve mobility significantly to some people”
“That tibial internal rotation allows the patellar tendon to be in a position to absorb force; and allows the VL to be in an eccentric position…. It allows me to bend my knee so the (tibial tuberosity) turns inwards”
“To stretch the Achilles is un-necessary because if you feel your Achilles is tight and needs to be stretched is because your foot isn’t dynamic enough, or because your knee can’t bend. Your Achilles will naturally stretch like an elastic band when I’m able to dorsiflex properly, and pronate properly, as well as bend my knee”
“Like 9/10 people (this is anecdotal) don’t have (tibial internal rotation) because external rotation gets us off the ground faster… but not spend enough time on the ground which is what IR does”
“You have to roll to the inside edge of your foot to get to big toe extension”
“One thing you can do (to help control tibial internal rotation) is a step-down because it is going to force you to control knee flexion”
“Toes elevation stuff is going to be very good (for helping to engage internal tibial rotation)”
“(Long hold) isometrics are very expansive”
“Anyone who has big valgus or varus in their knees, I may refrain from (squatting) to 90 degree…. Going to 90 degrees to start, the VL is going to over-power the other (muscles)”
“It doesn’t have to be “corrective exercise”, it’s just training but you are modifying the depth or your center of gravity”
“External rotation is about getting me off of the ground”
“The collision made you pronate (in sprinting) not my body; and I have this external rotation force coming up towards my hip”
“As I swing my arm to shift my torso forward, that is the internal rotation coming top-down; it’s not landing underneath me, it’s landing in front of me”
“Just think of the lower half of the body, that’s externally rotating, and the fact that my torso is being pushed forward because my arms and swinging; that’s going to allow me to put force into the ground to propel off of the ground faster”
“A collapsed foot; you are glued into the ground, you can’t create external rotation”
“If I can’t (internally rotate my shoulder) I am going to hit the ground and my arch is going to collapse into the ground, and I am going to stay on the ground way too long”
“The upper body has a massive influence on the leg’s ability to absorb the forces; and release the forces”
“The front deltoid helps with humeral internal rotation”
“If you are running with the elbows coming too far back; you aren’t going to have enough time to get that elbow forward across your body”
“The sprinters that are narrow have more of a horizontal bias of running, where as the wides are more vertical, they go up and down”
“With the split squat, I’ll cue them to press the balls of the back foot into the ground”
“I’ll cue the met head (in the rear foot of a split squat) and they don’t feel knee pain in the back leg anymore”
“(To improve hip extension) I could do hill sprints, I could do carioca’s up the hill; you could also have them walk down the hill (which pushes their shins back which pushes their center of mass back so that their glutes don’t have to push them as far forward)”
“What I much prefer (to regular hip thrusts) is your feet are on top of something that’s higher than your hips (that’ll allow you to get the full hip extension, rather than using your back to do it”
“To improve my shoulder IR during arm training, I can do front shoulder raises, because that’s going to leverage that anterior deltoid; and keep it below 90 degrees to maximize the IR range of motion… I could do bent over pronated grip tricep extensions, I could also do triangle bar tricep extensions, I could do hammer curls, even lateral shoulder fly’s can be very good, chest flys are very good”
“Diamond pushups are awesome (for shoulder IR)”
“The best one to me is side plank position with your palm on the ground, bent arm, heavy hand… those people need to push on the inside part of their wrist (not their thumb which is fake pronation of the hand)”
“I’m going to get internal rotation of the shoulder, the elbow and the wrist. My ankle is my wrist, my elbow is my knee, and my shoulder is my hip; I need all three of those to be in a position to gain internal rotation to gain true shoulder rotation. If I don’t have those three or one is missing I am going to compensate somehow, it’s going to be fake”
Show Notes
Spanish squats for improving tibial IR
Abby Steiner Sprint Technique (Forward Arm Action to Drive IR and Counter Foot Collisions)
Femke Bol Sprinting Technique
High Jumper (narrow) vs. Wide (powerful sprinter)
Glute Bridge with Feet Elevated (Limiting Low Back Compression)
About Alex Effer
lex Effer is the owner of Resilient Training and Rehabilitation, a name that emphasizes Alex’s unique approach to fitness, which is one that combines both aspects of normal fitness and rehabilitation principles to achieve long- lasting pain free results. Alex uses his comprehensive knowledge and passion in exercise science, autonomics, respiration, rehabilitation, and biomechanics to develop programs that promote injury prevention, sports performance, and rehabilitation through quality of movement.
Alex has gained extensive clinical and practical experience treating and training a variety of clients from professional and amateur athletes, high profile executives, older adults, individuals with certain medical conditions such as Stroke, Parkinson’s, Multiple Sclerosis, Congenital Heart Disease, Postoperative rehabilitation and individuals with chronic and complex pain.
Alex’s experience includes: Head Exercise Physiologist at Ace Sports Clinic Inc; Director of Return to Performance and Head Strength and Conditioning Coach for the Varsity Baseball, Women’s Lacrosse, and Golf team at the University of Toronto; Consultant for the Varsity Blues Football, Hockey, Swimming Team; Head Exercise Physiologist for Balance Physiotherapy; and consultant to Olympic Swimming Athletes, and NBA players.
Alex earned his Bachelors of Kinesiology from the University of Toronto, obtained a Post-Graduate Certificate in Exercise Science for Health and Performance from Niagara College and is a Certified Exercise Physiologist, Certified Strength and Conditioning Coach, and EXOS Performance Specialist.
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