Proprioception is Sexy - RKC Snatch Test Preparation & other Sports Performance applications

It never fails. Regardless of the field of endeavor, there's always someone with a serious disconnect between reality and actuality. Like the word proprioception. Would you think that something so nerdy could be sexy?

Let's look at how that works with movement, for example. If you've ever lifted a weight overhead as an adult, the odds are pretty good that when you thought you achieved the lockout position, you probably were a bit shy of straight at the elbow. Nonetheless, you were probably dead sure that you'd locked out that elbow and pressed or snatched that heavy weight to a perfect apex.

Sorry to break this to you, but you might've missed the lockout.

If you've ever done the RKC Snatch Test and heard the words "No count!", that could've very well happened because of an incomplete lockout. Yeah, I know you're sure. I know you've never had a no-count doing the snatch test at home. I know your form is perfect.... when YOU'RE THE JUDGE!

Subjectivity is the primary means of enabling the self towards failure. And as the legendary Functional Movement Screen founder Gray Cook says, "We all need systems to protect us from our own subjectivity." So the system that we need to refine is that which gives us feedback as to whether or not we're really moving the way we think we're moving and takes away our ability to argue defensively like bratty little children.

Proprioception is the ability to distinguish where one part of the body is in relation to another. We develop that ability somewhat as children during the growth process. In the years from newborn to childhood, you developed the ability to go from randomly poking yourself in the eye to picking that booger out with surgical precision. But with our increasingly sedentary lifestyles (and even in grade school since physical education programs got the ax years ago), proprioceptive deficits are building up faster than fat on the waistlines of American youth.

And as a result, you get to hear about proprioception from me. But here's the good part... Proprioception IS sexy!

Good proprioception affords you two very big advantages.
1. Accuracy in movement - which means that you very likely execute very precise, very controlled, very graceful, and very efficient movements. If you have great awareness of your own movement, then when your nervous system tells you that you locked out, then you REALLY did lock out. If your body is telling you that you locked out your back leg on that stance, then your Sifu likely agrees with you too. If your nervous system is masterfully in control of your body's movement, then that fadeaway jumpshot that you launched from 3-point land has a much higher likelihood of creating that sweet sound of nothing-but-net. That makes you not only a better athlete, but a more attractive specimen as well. Not to rip on bodybuilders, but you could be the most buff dude on the beach & unable to tuck your own shirt in.

2. Reduced injury rates - make everybody happier, except your competition. Someone with great proprioception can push harder on the field or in battle and get more out of his or her body. Someone with terrible proprioception will push hard and either waste move clumsily & get hurt or lurch like a car with the parking brakes on and create repetitive motion injury.

So for those of you who want to come to the RKC, I encourage you to find the strictest feedback mechanism that you can find (like a combination of Flip video & a solidly qualified instructor) and apply it mercilessly towards yourself. Why? Because if you're allowed to lie to yourself, you probably will. And your reliance on faulty proprioception may cost you a rather pricey certification, airfare, & lodging (as well as a few days off from work and wickedly sore muscles).

On the other hand, if you use this blogpost as a call to really invest the effort into re-calibrating your proprioception, you'll find that you not only perform better under pressure, but do so with less effort, more grace, and a decreased likelihood of injury.

If you're not interested in the RKC, no problem. But you STILL have to deal with the reality of your own movement patterns and develop a REAL awareness of them. As I often tell my students in martial arts, kettlebells, or any other form of movement, if I tell you to do something such as straightening your leg, and you think you're already straightening your leg, try to straighten it a little more anyways. If your leg moves, then you didn't have it as straight as you could have. And then that little bit of movement should humble you enough to self-check more & more and develop sharper & sharper awareness of your body and your control over it.

Don't wait until life takes away all your compensations before you take the time to self-check your perceptions against unflinching reality.

Mobility FIRST - Strength training and optimal joint function

A question I often get asked is whether or not someone can exercise around a restriction or limitation in range of motion/movement. Clients/patients and their coaches/trainers often want to simply train around a restricted joint or pattern. Their rationale is that if there's enough muscle around a limited or painful joint, then the muscle will protect the joint from further injury and hopefully take away the pain altogether.

The problem with that logic is that strength training perpetuates and reinforces existing patterns. So if there's a problem with the way a joint moves, strengthening the muscles around the joint might often do more harm than good.

While there are certainly times when a limitation is unavoidable - due to serious musculo-skeletal irregularities like bony outgrowths, implanted hardware, or completely severed tendons - more often than not, such limitations CAN be dealt with successfully.

HOW?

- When in doubt, refer back to one of the FMS system's mantras - MOBILITY FIRST!

What sort of mobility are we talking about improving here? Active or passive?

- YES. If there's at least passive mobility, then you know that a joint or a series of joints has the ability to move through a range of motion unimpeded. When a joint is restricted, the body tries to create movement somewhere else in the chain. And that's the essence of compensation. When you have neuro-muscular compensations that cause stabilizers to exert their force to create movement and prime movers that become hypertonic (tense or tight) to add stability, the body starts moving in a manner that it wasn't designed for. This, in turn, leads down the road of self-destruction. Exercise starts exerting greater-than-normal shear forces on joints, and that is NOT a good place to be.

What if stretching, foam roller work, and massage therapy don't work?

- Then maybe you need something a little more hands-on to regain range of motion in the locked-up joint spaces.

Sometimes, what a joint needs most, especially a joint with deep intrinsics that are guarding a pathological positioning or movement pattern, is a passive mobilization that a skilled chiropractor, PT, osteopath, or Tui-Na specialist can provide.

After the mobilization, re-check the movement patterns and see if they improve. If the movement patterns improve overall, you've got your answer as far as the efficacy of the approach!

More later... sprinting off to another hectic day!

Denial again - Turning a blind eye to compensation

We'll get back to the Shoulder series when I'm back stateside. I'm about to get a quick workout in before showering up & hopping on the plane, but I just saw this article, and I think it sums up a lot of what's at issue with a lot of the world.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081130/ap_on_re_us/students_dishonesty

We do it in our training, too. We're too quick to allow errors in form or compensations to slide under the radar. And with each successive rep, we "add strength to dysfunction"... allowing our stubbornness to be substituted for sensibility.

Remember what Ohshima Sensei said about having the strength, honesty, and courage to look inside and cut out one's weaknesses? Let's get back to that... HARD STYLE!

TOOTH & NAIL!

"We defend our weaknesses, our compensations, our insecurities, and our delusions tooth and nail."
- Me, Clover Park Tai-Chi class... 8/23/08


When it comes to the workings of the human body, there are two people who've revolutionized my thought processes - Pavel Tsatsouline & Gray Cook. If you've been following this blog at all, you have a decent idea of who both of those men are.

Gray has been known to say that "The most talented athletes aren't necessarily the ones who have perfect movement screens, but are often the ones who compensate for their shortcomings better than the rest."

He went on to say ominously, "But that doesn't mean they're the most durable if their movement screen scores are low."

It's that same way for people in general. The people who are often the most successful or the most wealthy or the strongest or the most famous or the most vociferous aren't always the people with the best internal set-up. Oftentimes, we're the people who are just better at compensating than others.

To give you an example, I'm going to speak about one of my acquaintances. To maintain total anonymity, I'll refer to him/her as "Them". Gosh,.... sounds awfully southern, don't it, y'all?

Them's one of the nicest people you'll ever met. Them likes to think of themself as positive & progressive. But when Them views themself in the mirror or is faced with criticism, Them becomes very emotional & defensive, not realizing that Them's tone of voice turns from a rational adult to a whiny little brat, bordering on the edge of tears. The defensiveness, the frustration, and the fear in Them's voice, mannerisms, and body language is obvious to the educated/experienced eye.

Them loves the quality of the information I give out and is eager to be proficient in it and teach it, but Them hates to be on the receiving end of my criticisms. Them may reflexively snap back at me, slink off to the corner to cry, or just outright quit and come back after a few weeks of nursing Them's feelings.

See, here's exactly where Gray's statements come into play for us on a deeper level than just athletic performance. These are truths that apply solidly for who we are as human beings.

People love to be praised, patted on the back, recognized for achievement. But people HATE to stack up as less than someone else. You'll see grown men cry and rational individuals behave like wounded animals when you point out their deficiencies or asymmetries. It's that way for plenty of the seniormost people in ANY field of endeavor, and it's certainly that way for EVERYONE on a human level.

We compensate socially in no shortage of ways... from half-a$$ed, meaningless apologies to Jedi mind trick-style diversions, to politicking, to verbal passive-aggressiveness, to simply disengaging. Depending on your background, your education, your training, and your priorities, you may use any of these "tools" or countless others to protect your paradigm.

But life and the world around us keeps evolving.

Just like the RKC II's certification requirements have evolved, so too does the rest of our world. People who went through the RKC and RKC II before the requirements became as solid as they are now have one of two options - to $h!t their pants in cowardice, and whine and complain about how unreasonable those newer requirements are, OR to accept that the cert is nowhere near as meaningful if it's not earned through real blood, sweat, and sacrifice.

Psycho-social evolution is no different. Everyone wants a pat on the back, a moment in the spotlight, and/or the assurance that all is good. All is NOT good. If you were reading the section above about "Them" and thinking "Is he talking about me?" or "He certainly isn't talking about me", then I'm talking about YOU. Instead of concerning yourself with what I think, why not prioritize your own self-discovery process and developing the honesty, courage, and persistence needed for the self-strengthening process?

As I was cleaning out some old papers from back in my early college days, I came upon a scrap of paper that I'd jotted a quote down on. My first and only Shotokan Karate master, Tsutomu Ohshima, once said during a class that "We need to have the courage to look inside ourselves and see the ugliness and weakness that we try to hide from others and often from ourselves. If you can look inside with honest eyes and have the courage to see your own sickness and weakness, then you can cut those parts away from yourself and become truly strong."

Inertia allows us to make plenty of excuses about why we can't evolve. Entitlement and denial allow us to treat everyone who calls us on our bull$h!# like criminals or lunatics. We should do away with all of that.

Those who are fighting for evolution are the ones who fight to identify their own weaknesses and struggle mightily to overcome them by predicting their defensive behaviors, deciding to put a stop to such cowardice, and executing a corrective strategy.

As the late Rev. Kensho Furuya once told me, "People think I'm preachy when they read my column sometimes, but I often write to remind myself of what I should do." The same applies for me as well. Gray's teachings apply to so many more levels of life than the casual reader might comprehend. Instead of simply adding strength to dysfunction, let's clean out the underlying dysfunctions & pathologies, reboot our systems, and then add beautiful strength to a rock-solid foundation.