Today’s episode features Pat Davidson, Ph.D.. Pat is an independent trainer and educator in NYC. Pat is the creator of the “Rethinking the Big Patterns” lecture series, is a former college professor, and is one of the most intelligent coaches I know in the world of fitness and human performance. As an athlete, Pat has an extensive training background including time in strongman, mixed martial arts, and many types of weightlifting activities. He has been a guest on multiple prior episodes of this series.
The human body is quite complex, as is the potential array of training interventions we can impose on it. To ease this process, and help us to direct our focus, it can be helpful to categorize means and methods. We have spoken on this podcast often about compression, expansion, mid-early-late stance, and other biomechanical topics. Outside of these ideas, training can also be, simply, considered in light of spending more, or less time on the ground and in contact with objects.
On the podcast today, Pat shares his thoughts on a new idea in categorizing athletes and training means, which is based on that contact with the ground and deformable objects. This goes beyond muscles, and into the sum total of a variety of muscle, joint and pressure system actions that deal with more, or less points of contact for an athletic movement.
Within this system of “high ground” and “low ground”, Pat goes into exercise classification, as well as an explanation why more “aerial” exercise, such as movements involving a level of balance, are as popular as they are, based on the ground/aerial spectrum and links to athleticism. Pat also gets into the role of the feet, particularly in mid-stance, on the tail end of this enlightening conversation. This talk really helps us see a number of training means in a new and helpful light.
Pat and I had a long and awesome talk here; based on some logistics with production and time, we’ll be jumping right into the meat and potatoes of our talk.
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Timestamps and Main Points:
4:10 – How the number of movements and skills involved in a sport can impact the training concepts
6:17 – How sports can be “more grounded” or “less grounded”
22:32 – The links between good movers, and their ability to move when the amount of “ground” is reduced for them
30:36 – How far to take and maximize “high ground” activities, in light of other athletic activities
38:31 – The link between “low ground” athletic activities and “functional training” methods
49:00 – Single leg vs. bilateral training in terms of being “high ground” or “low ground”
1:01:04 – How being in hockey skates/rollerblades, or sprinting in track spikes make movements “higher ground”
– Pat’s thought’s on addressing mid-stance in light of “more ground” or “less ground”
1:16:56 – The role of mid-stance in transitioning to “forefoot rocker”, or up onto the ball of the foot
“The more stuff there is outside of you that you can push against, and the less deformable that stuff is, the more “ground” (type of athlete) that is”
“The low ground athletes are like half-pipe skateboarders, snowboarders, olympic divers, acrobats”
“High ground individuals; a powerlifter is the highest ground I can think of, weightlifters, bodybuilders, interior linemen in football”
“If you look at the characteristics of low ground and high ground athletes, they tend to be very different from each other”
“The 100m is an instructive thing, where it’s changing in ground as it goes throughout the race”
“I basically, in the rethinking the big patterns model, without realizing it; the progressions are based off of removing influences of ground to the person”
“As ground goes away; you have to create your internal ground, your fluids and forces you can distribute to create the right pressures to move off of”
“A barbell is tremendous grounding”
“Feed more ground to the exercise, and the person has a higher probability of being able to do it right”
“The higher ground, easier to learn exercises, would also be good choices for driving a hypertrophy stimulus”
“Functional training to me just means a bias towards “low ground” exercise selection”
“I think psychologically, some people trend towards lower ground movements better”
“I think that once the lower load bearing foot is kicked out laterally, that is the most challenging stance (from a low-ground perspective)”
“You are going to have an easier time doing the higher grounded version (of an exercise)”
“Ice skating is lower ground; you are standing on butter-knives on top of ice”
“The higher homunculous areas are smarter places to coach from”
“You need to feature strong eversion and pronation of the back foot; that is going to unlock you to be able to lateralize your pelvis (in a swinging motion)”
“I break movement down to what way are you trying to turn, are you trying to turn left or trying to turn right. If you are doing something bilaterally you are doing the same direction turn on both sides at the same time, and it squeezes you into one direction”
“One of the things that I usually hear good golf swing coaches talk about is, if I set you up properly, the right stuff should just happen”
About Pat Davidson
Pat Davidson, Ph. D., is an independent trainer, consultant, author, and lecturer in NYC. Pat is the former Director of Training Methodology and Continuing Education for Peak Performance, and former Professor of Exercise Science at Springfield College and Brooklyn College.
Author of MASS and MASS2 and developer of the “Rethinking the Big Patterns” lecture series and upcoming book on the same topic.
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