‘Nuff Said.

This simply  has to be shared (hat tip to Brett over at the kyokushinblog):

Using the Overhead Squat Assessment to Identify Reductions in Punching Quality

The overhead squat assessment promoted by NASM (Clark & Lucett, 2011) provides a useful evaluation of the functional status of the latissimus dorsi during a common movement (video example here). The OHS requires that both trunk extension and shoulder flexion occur simultaneously, either or both of which may be altered if the muscle has become chronically shortened and tight. When the lats are hypertonic, shoulder range or motion (ROM) is altered due to excessive internal rotation and depression of the humerus, which further affects the actions of the scapula. This can be seen when an individual’s arms habitually fall forward past the line of the torso during the eccentric phase of the squat in an OHS evaluation, which is an indication of the arthrokinematic (joint movement) compensations needed to accommodate functional ROM as the muscle attempts to maintain a shorter distance between origin and insertion (for an excellent visual of how this occurs, take a look here).

Rear view of the latissimus dorsi. Note the broad connection to the pelvis, and the insertion on the humerus. An overactive (hypertonic) lat will cause alterations in shoulder and hip function, impairing good technique by reducing strength and mobility, while increasing the chances of an avoidable chronic injury.

FSRI Podcast2: Protective Gear

Random Training Notes 18

Regarding historical or traditional training practices:

Within physical culture, old practices or concepts aren’t necessarily good or better than modern ones just because they’ve been around awhile. There is belief in martial arts circles, especially in “traditional” groups, that something which has been passed down for decades is unquestionably valuable, or even superior to modern evidence-based understandings. A common defense is “do you think technique x would still be around it if it wasn’t battle tested?” Another is “look at practitioner x- if it worked for him, and he had no fancy research.”

The plain and unglamorous truth is that sometimes techniques or training practices got passed down simply because no one knew any better, or it fulfilled a cultural function (particularly in Confucian-influenced societies)  or because they maintained a certain personal prestige or power structure within a group. A technique may have never actually been used in a fight;  a conditioning activity may routinely cause joint damage that actually weakens a student over time, but the status of the originator serves to enshrine it. Old can be good; old is not automatically good.

FSRI Podcast 1: Safety

Linked Resource: Customizing your Medicine Ball

I love using medicine balls with rope handles, but they can be expensive. Take a look at this excellent article by Ross Emamait, from the always interesting RossTraining.com Blog on how to make your own own rope handles.

Customizing Your Medicine Ball

Recommended Video: Toe Home Physical Therapy Exercises

The feet of fight athletes take an incredible amount of abuse. The training associated with most traditional karates seems almost perfectly designed to result in foot and ankle impairments. The sweeps, and falls of judo practice, and the leg checks that kick boxers endure also take a toll.

Watch this video and try incorporating the exercises into your weekly physical training routine to try and offset some of the potential damage.

Toe Home Physical Therapy Exercises

Linked article: Couple badly injured after bodybuilder attack

Something for the “size is irrelevant in martial arts” crowd to chew on:

apparently (he) was under the influence of steroids and other drugs, and it took four police officers, two stun gun blasts and four sets of handcuffs to restrain him.

Steroids and “other drugs” indeed.

Read more here

Linked Article: Anthony Miranda Tried Robbing Ultimate Fighting Champion

At some point, Miranda’s attention was diverted and the victim was able to grab control of the gun and the two wrestled.

During the fight, Miranda accidentally discharged his gun, shooting himself in the ankle, Mirabelli said.

Read the rest here.

Development of Expertise in the Fighting Arts- Some Basic Notes

 What constitutes an “expert” in a fighting art or practice? Approaching the question from a motor learning perspective is highly useful, and has many obvious inroads into discussing pedagogy, practicality and transferability of a training method to a performance setting.Experts in any physical activity exhibit several common characteristics, regardless of the nature of the activity:

1. Superior ability to anticipate the likely outcome of a situation as it emerges. This is distinct from a conscious effort to guess what will happen, which we see in relative novices. Instead, this is more efficient perception-action linking. It manifests as shorter reaction time, with reaction time being the interval between stimulus and initiation of movement. RT is a reflection of the cognitive processing going on between perceptual and motor regions before a physical response is initiated. Combined with more efficient motor programs for the movement time, the result is a faster overall response time (RT and MT combined).

2. Less visual search for the important aspects of a developing situation. A relative novice looks everywhere, whereas the expert looks immediately at the salient areas (a shoulder movement before a punch, a slight drop of the forearm towards the belt line, etc.)

Paying Respects to Joe Frazier

Boxing legend Joe Frazier passed last night. Boxing fans will remember his devastating left hook and uncanny bobbing and weaving skills,  and the trio of  grueling, legendary fights with Muhammad Ali.

What better way to remember him than by watching some highlights of his first (1971) fight with Ali, in which he gained the heavyweight title and delivered his opponent’s first professional loss:

More Fun with Duct Tape

In the previous post, I mentioned using proxy “cell phones” and a padded bottle as rehearsal aids and simulated weapons of opportunity. Making these is pretty simple:

Plastic bags & duct tape

Bundle and stuff 10-15 shopping bags into a smaller bag. In this case, a tortilla bag.

Shape this into a rectangular bundle

Start wrapping duct tape around the center, but don’t compress it too much

Wrap bands of tape running longitudinally and laterally

Rinsed out 12 oz. bottle

Folded plastic bags wrapped around the length

Wrap a few folded bags around the lumps on the bottom

Leave the cap off so that it can compress, wrap a bag around the neck and tape it up

Help at the Push of a Button

This semester I agreed to teach a series of weekly self protection seminars for a women’s resource group on Ferrum College campus. Without going into too much detail here (more will follow in later posts),part of my planning for these included researching the contexts and scenarios in which violence against women tends to happen, as borne out by DOJ victimization and outcome stats and reviewing case reports. The incidence data, and conversations with friends of mine who have been victimized made it woefully clear that the “carry your keys in your hand” strategies, and “on the street/in a dark alley” conceptualizations of violence against women are pretty inadequate by themselves, because they only apply to a limited range of the situations in which a woman may find herself at risk . Since this seminar series is for college-aged women, I structured the program to explore the scenarios and types of assault that are created by social, interpersonal and predatory contexts.

Random Training Notes 17

In the words of our favorite Sumo wrestlers, Eric Gaspar and Tyler Hawkins:

Train hard, eat plenty.

FSRI-STL Members Discover Gravity.

We feel like this could be an important discovery. For the time being we are calling it gravity. We’ll keep you posted if there are further developments.

Get More Out of Your Chishi With Proper Kinematics

Back in the days when I identified myself as a karate practitioner, I enthusiastically pursued all forms of supplemental conditioning that I could find throughout the branches of the folk art. I spent a considerable amount of time researching, constructing and using various makiwara, kakiya, and weights according to the notes left by early authors such as Motobu, Funakoshi, Mabuni & Miyagi. Among these, the chishi soon became a favorite in my training regimens. The chishi is an example of a class of asymmetrical lever weights that can be found in physical culture around the world. “Indian Clubs” are another example of the concept, and Chinese martial arts may also include them in their conditioning methods (Kennedy & Guo, 2005). The early Okinawan karate culture discovered its utility as a training device, and several branches of karate adopted them as part of their “hojo undo”, or supplemental training.

Despite my enthusiasm for the chishi, my concurrent study of kinesiology eventually began to make me question the effects some of the traditional methods of usage, and my formal education in this field has only confirmed that some common practices are dangerous to the shoulder joint system.

First Aid

I was buying some new supplies for our first aid kit tonight. Next person to get scraped up at the Wash U club is getting one of these…

(Also, we have more alcohol swabs, athletic tape and neon stretchy bandage.)

Random Training Pictures

Here are a few photos from a recent FSRI (Missouri) training session.

Chris hits the jump rope. (Photo credit: Anais Miller)

Balance training with Jon. (Photo credit: Anais Miller)

Bob dancing with the heavy bag. (Photo credit: Anais Miller)

Quality Time With the Kakiya

After a brutally hot summer the last few weekends have brought nice, mild weather here in VA, and what better way to enjoy it than working duck-to-counter setups on the training contraptions in the back yard:

Study looks at why second ACL surgeries fail

Apropos of our current “Injury Comeback Story“, this new study will examine the reasons 2nd ACL surgeries are more likely to fail.