When the foot and ankle are off balance it provides ample evidence that dysfunction looms above. The footpad, or bottom foot, is rich in nerve endings that send proprioceptive feedback to the brain with details of the terrain. Simply put, the brain is very interested in hearing where the foot stepping and landing.
Paved roads and walkways, and consistent step-height, pose significant threats to ankles designed over millions of years to cope with multiple changes in pitch and texture from one step to another. It is questionable whether any intervention applied to dysfunction above these two structures can be fruitful without simultaneous correction of issues in the foot and ankle. Tight gastrocs, or calf muscles, restrict the ankle and create imbalanced arches in the foot. This leads to power loss, overuse injury, and compromised gait (walking).
Creating more balance between the arches starts with following the Release-Stretch-Contract protocol below because the arches play a major role in all movement including but not limited to:
Supporting all bodyweight
Balance
Absorbing shock
Transferring ground reaction forces
Compensating for malalignment
The musculature between foot and ankle, ankle and knee, and knee and hip, function together to provide shock absorption and critical balance to the rest of the system. Instability in the ankle points to imbalances in the calf muscles, and the opposing muscle, the tibialis anterior. When the calves shorten due to over plantarflexion, the tibialis anterior is weakened. The calves need to grant extensibility in order to get the tibialis anterior to contract and balance the delicate foot equation that doesn’t end there.
For now, we’re just concerned with creating greater dorsiflexion.
(In later posts, we’ll explore other imbalanced equations such as long, over-stretched lateral gastroc and peroneals, and short and tight medial gastrocs, that also create instability in the foot and ankle.)
Protocol: Perform three rounds of each, aiming for increases with every round.
RELEASE: GASTROC: The idea is to place the meatiest part of the calf on the stick, find a tender spot, pause, relax, breathe, and move slowly from dorsiflexion (where the calf is forced to lengthen), to plantar flexion where a short and tight calf will find relaxation, or the least amount of residual tension. Find 3 different spots in the calf that feel tender and perform 10 pull and points of the foot (dorsi-into-plantarflexion).
STRETCH GASTROC: Because you stand into this stretch, some measure of bodyweight might get dumped into the other leg, be sure the heel always remains in contact with the ground. Advance the foot forward as the muscles and fascia begin to relax and be conscious of any flexion occurring in the hip and/or knee that result from over-stretching the calf. This takes time, patience, and frequency to see changes above and beyond what is achieved during a session.
CONTRACT INNER ARCH:
Slanted Calf Raises- Lift the heel only as high as perfect form dictates. Any rotation or bending of the knee is a compensation and needs to be controlled.
CONTRACT TIBIALIS ANTERIOR– Pull the foot as evenly and as far into dorsiflexion as possible while maintaining good form.
If the brain is the ultimate authority on how we move, then it stands to reason it will protectively tighten muscles to keep the body from joint actions it deems unsafe. But how the brain incorporates movement and what its preferences are aren’t always clear. But if compensated movement isn’t brought into the collective consciousness, how much can we expect to change?
Fascia can be thought of as fiber optic cable feeding information to the brain, and there are areas it seems to listen to very intently. The core is one of those places.
Training should focus more on the forces that destabilize than asking bodies slowed by the brain to speed back up. But we need more than fastidious interventions to fix dings in the body’s collective chain. At Meso Fit Boca, we consider the ripples dings leave behind that affect the entire system.
When the core is weak, the spine is vulnerable. We train the core to brace and react to destabilizing force. Bucket Theory considers the relationship between the ribcage and pelvis extremely important to training. Since both the ribcage and pelvis resemble buckets, one inverted (rib cage) stacked atop another (pelvis), we need to consider the contents of these buckets to understand why the brain goes to such great lengths to protect them. People sleep fetal because it protects the contents of these buckets, and slouching may be a protective method in the absence of core strength.
Strong core’s keep the ribs and pelvis stacked and aligned while the extremities perform reach movements. The brain green-lights all movement when the buckets align, stabilize, and create a solid torso. The core is a reflex. Drawing in, pulling the belly button toward the spine, or any other miscue pertaining to ‘setting’ the core prior to moving is incorrect. The core needs to react, not prepare. No one has dictated which joint action should be stronger; or whether the mirror opposite joint actions should be of equal strength. But from the brain’s perspective there are only two joint actions of note, reach and withdrawal, and the brain uses the core to manage both.
To reach high-hanging fruit requires length, but also the power to withdraw reach quickly should reach become perilous. The core functions as intermediary between ribcage and pelvis while the extremities move away from the spine or midline.
Bucket Theory looks at how the body creates and manages forces the world enacts on us. If torso stability is compromised, spinal rotation replaces the joint actions more suited to create movement. This creates shearing forces in vertebral disks and leads to eventual degeneration. Until silly putty is repurposed as a suitable disk replacement, we should work hard to keep the spine stable and let the extremities do their job.
Reach exposes. Withdrawal protects.
So it stands to reason withdrawal should be the focus of strength training. At Meso Fit Boca, our Signature Series of exercises elicits an adductive response, and therefore, a core response from all our exercises. We believe if the core isn’t involved in every exercise, it can hardly be incorporated into collective movements like walking outside of training.
It’s important to note that balance comes from the brain, not muscles. The inner ear protects us from falling forward with an errant alert system that reels you back the instant you lean forward. This is an important system to manipulate in training because prone position (plank and push-up) loads the core and forces it to brace the spine. But these bracing positions do not tax the obliques as effectively as they could. We need to add a rotational component to prone position to incorporate the obliques.
Looking at fiber direction, the obliques are ideally positioned to prevent torso rotation. There is also sufficient evidence to support the idea the obliques are uniquely connected to the opposing adductor muscles (See Anterior And Posterior Slings). This begs us to consider diagonal patterns as the ideal patterns to strengthen.
Undoubtedly, one diagonal pattern is weaker than the other. To assess this, get into push-up position and try to place all your weight into the right hand and left foot and lift the opposing sides off the floor. If you instantly loose balance, there’s instability in the pattern. Now try the other side. This is one of the reasons to advocate using the non-dominant hand as much as possible outside the gym. Strengthening the weaker diagonal pattern takes precedence over all else if the system is to progress.
Diagonal Pattern Holds:
Very important things happen when considering abduction an exploratory joint action like moving your foot along ice to test it. If the ice cracks and splits, the body needs to withdraw the foot quickly. The protective action of adduction should be as powerful and fast as possible, even spring like. This was evolution’s brilliant adaptation to earth’s terrain that grants the body unlimited reach with powerful withdrawal so we can retreat should the earth fight back. This is why adduction is inherently stronger than abduction.
More amazingly, every time you adduct, the core fires. This powerful coupling adds credence to the idea that adduction should remain a lasting, powerful, force or the brain will shrink your world. Yes, length is important, but if length gained is at the expense of the ability to reign it back, length becomes arduous.
Present the torso as a single, solid structure, and the hip and shoulder joints can manage any destabilizing force. Present the world an improperly trained core, one pretensed (set) before movement, and the brain’s ability to manage and properly distribute force is compromised. So the brain scratches all the activities that require a strong torso, including bucket list items.
The Bucket Workout:
Diagonal Pattern Holds
Deadbugs
Supine Rear Laterals
Prone Pullovers
Prone Rear Laterals
At Meso Fit Boca, we didn’t come up with a new way to squat, deadlift, or pushup.
We created exercises that include the brain in the quest for brawn.
We believe that the loss of function associated with aging is really a system wide breakdown caused by misalignment. And by aging, we mean merely getting older, as we’ve seen movement dysfunction in clients as early as 13 years old. This is why we cannot continue to ask bodies to perform without regular check-ups for signs of movement dysfunction. These bodies still produce movement, and some of them do so exquisitely. But we also believe that to correct this, we have to measure the associated loss of equilibrium that comes with the repetitive movements caused by sport and life.
The more profound the difference between the non-dominant and dominant sides of the body show that the body isn’t in need of MORE exercise, it needs careful attention to restoring lost power (see Absolute Power). Our 4-phase system allows each client to proceed with the knowledge that our programming cleared enough movement restrictions to allow it to proceed into more challenging phases. Our pinnacle so called “5th phase” is reassessment that allow us to build on past successes.
Our Signature Series of exercises comply with what we theorize is the brain’s Modus Operandi, which is to move clients through their worlds unharmed. We say ‘their worlds’ because until we understand the movements clients perform thousands of times a day, we’ll be of little help in improving their lives. Anyone trainers can apply more exercise, but RAMP certified trainers assess every client to ensure they apply the correct interventions to the parts of the body in most need. Once that proves fruitful, we seal in those improvements, so that our clients can explore more.
Clients don’t just have a better understanding of their body, they report more mobility moving around hectic days. And when they need to hit the gas because some days requires it, they have more throttle. Other theories center on how to tax an existing movement system. We strive to improve every clients’ movement capacity before we apply exercise, because exercise won’t work without increasing overall ability.
Think of each RAMP phase (Restore-Align-Maintain-Progress) as a way to categorize movement ability. Restoration allows us to bring the body back to its middle. Then we align the body with exercises that re-pattern the brain and allow it to move in the new space created in restoration. Once these goals are maintained, the brain allows greater expressions of movement.
Below is a sneak peak at one of our Signature Series exercises, The Lateral Push Up Walk version 1. We design and use each exercise based on how easily it is either regressed, for people lacking full extension, and it lends itself to multiple progressions. All of The Signature Series exercises are designed specifically to match each of the phases, and all are able to be progressed in suit with our goal of constant improvement.
