When I tell people what I do is help athletes and regular people “reprogram” their movement and muscle firing sequences for improved physical outcomes, I am usually met with a quizzical look. Recently, when a high profile NBA rookie Zion Williamson was reportedly undergoing “reprogramming of his movement”. I had quite a few of my past and present clients reach out to me and basically say “Oh, this IS important!”
Photo credit NBA.com
When I have a chance to explain to people why this reprogramming is so essential to a large majority of human’s on this planet, people definitely understand conceptually what I am referring to, though it is hard for them to track it experientially as it is so rare.
When I talk about the impact of reprogramming with people who have chronic knee or back issues, and simply cue them into a different system where, suddenly, their pain and discomfort drops by a substantial amount (sometimes even close to 100%), those people understand the impact of this process.
When I cue athletes who have the proper musculature, but lack the programming to fire into it, and their vertical goes up by 2 inches in as little as 15 minutes, they get it as well.
So what exactly is this process, and why is this so important? Let me explain.
All humans learn a set of movements from an early age, from watching parents, from movement cues of peers, via injury/pain.
While there are likely hundreds of ways that we learn and evolve our particular movement, one thing is for sure, and that is that this movement becomes our current set programming in which we continue to operate out of, unconsciously
No one teaches us as we grow up how to walk, or how to sit and stand. No one teaches us how to hip-hinge to access core musculature to stabilize our pelvis and indirectly save our backs from countless bends (leading to degeneration in the long run).
No one teaches us proper posture with bio-mechanical cues that actually make sense, instead just relying on “stand straight” or “stop slouching” and hoping for the best. This set movement, most certainly can evolve (or devolve) via injury and pain. A blow to the hip, or the low back can set off a chain reaction of changes that alter our ability to fire and load our core in disastrous ways. Since all of our movement is mostly unconscious in nature, we never have the chance to check these changes at the door. Instead, they alter our bodies’ bio-mechanical efficiency, and can change everything from our gait, to the overall health of our joints and ligaments.
Most of you know that one of the biggest reasons I founded Atheq was directly because of a car accident that I was in. But did you know that I have found direct evidence that the car crash actually changed my movement mechanics, and my ability to load and unload my kinetic chain properly? To this day I still have difficulty doing ANYTHING load bearing on my left leg. Why? Because my glute has difficulty loading properly, and my neuromuscular patterns instantly put me in a position where my back wants to lock up in compensation. Is this something I am overcoming? Absolutely. Can we prove and alter set neuromuscular patterns? I am proving that we can. Until I recently discovered this, I was still having waves of tingling and occasional sciatica in my left side after playing sports involving verticality. After re-training and reprogramming? That issue has been eliminated. I have multiple clients who have “issues” in a knee or in one side of the hip that are immediately alleviated when we can force systems that have become “load resistant” to start loading properly again. Is this process simple? No. Is it possible and repeatable with any human being? My work says yes.
Gait mechanics can be changed with emphasis on musculature that needs to fire appropriately in order to stabilize the pelvis. When the glutes are fired properly in the sequence that I cue, in my experience, they tend to address most gait issues almost instantly. People are so externally rotated (duck feet) in their walk, they are not addressing the need for stability in the hip/pelvis when walking this way. This is creating a negative impact on the kinetic chain, forcing compensation into the low back, hamstrings etc. Believe me, proper gait can be the difference between chronic back pain, and not being in pain at all when walking distances. Gait is one of the things I was forced to figure out for myself, and until I was able to address it, walking would always tighten up my back in a very uncomfortable way. More evidence of an unstable kinetic chain.
Let’s take something very simple, such as getting up from a chair and take a look at that from a programming stand point. Even something as simple as this, is quite complex when we take a look at the required programming to make this movement stable, repeatable, and eventually pain free. Getting out a chair requires hip extension when done properly, so let’s talk about that quickly.
Hip extension is the following. Extending our hip anytime we increase the angle between the thigh and the front of the pelvis, and that can start from any degree of flexion. We are actually in hip extension when we are standing, and when the leg goes to the back.
So basically from a sitting position, we are trying to get to “extension” or into a standing position. Think of a bodyweight squat movement. This is likely one of the things I cue people on the most. I have taken people with chronic back pain and had them stand pain free after some very specific cueing. That is how important reprogramming can be. So how do we cue it? First we have to be able to fire the glutes appropriately to create the thrusting movement we need to get ourselves into extension.
The glutes should fire us out of this seated position. If they are not sufficient to the task, or are not programmed to fire in this movement, several compensations can occur, including directly loading the knees, or the low back. This becomes either a quad dominant movement, or a lumbar dominant movement. Both are easy to spot. If the abdominals are not in a ready position to activate via good posture, or the head drops when attempting to stand, once again compensation occurs that can create pain in the low back as the paraspinals and lumbar are loaded- often to overload. You can see how important the glutes are in this movement. Much of my work revolves around neuromuscular techniques to get the glutes to not only activate, but to progressively load in a way that leads to function and eventually elite athleticism. This is important, because the glutes can atrophy, and even become completely inactive in something called “gluteal amnesia”.
Glute activity and strength won’t magically fix all of our movement related issues, but it allows us to modify our movement into more core dominant, glute dominant movement that is, in my opinion, superior. What does that mean? It means we can move more athletically, while remaining stable. The hips can remain a mobile system, while the spine stays stable. This concept is further expanded on by the Joint by Joint approach
If the hips are immobile and not functioning properly, the body will seek out compensation and create mobility in the spine. This is something we must avoid.
As you can see, even something as simple as sitting and standing is quite complicated and requires a fair amount of core control and strength in order to do it in a manner that does not create compensation in the kinetic chain. As of one year ago, getting to hip extension when sitting for any length of time would take me 5-6 seconds and quite a bit of gritting my teeth. That was after five years of non-stop work on my kinetic chain. After my recent discoveries that have led me to totally reprogram my firing sequences, that has dramatically changed. This motion, through progressive training sequences via Cognitive Neuromuscular Reprogramming methodology, is now effortless. I am even loading my spine in workouts for the first time since my accident almost 8 years ago.
Pain free. How? Reprogramming.
RESOURCES
- Brown, Larry. Pelicans Teaching Zion…https://larrybrownsports.com/basketball/pelicans-teaching-zion-williamson-walk-and-run/529888
- Primary Movement Patterns. https://www.ptdirect.com/training-design/training-fundamentals/the-primary-movement-patterns
- Woodruff, D.(2005) Movement Patterns
- Ogle, Marguerite. (2019) Hip Extension Basics https://www.verywellfit.com
- McGill S. (2007). Low back disorders: Evidence-based prevention and rehabilitation
- Boyle, Mike. Advances in Functional Training https://www.otpbooks.com/advances-in-functional-training-excerpt/