Assessments Part 4

Written By Dave  |  Blog  |  0 Comments

Here’s a few pics of me that Cheryl took on 10/19/12. I knew I was a little out of whack but wow, the pictures are very eye-opening! And I’ve put on some extra, unwanted fat 🙁

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Ok.. yecchh. Look at the 1st 2 pics. The R ankle and lower leg versus the L leg in the 2nd pic. Also notice how much external rotation is going on the in the hip and lower R leg in the 2nd photo. In the 3rd & 4th pics you can see the torso turned to the R and head not centered. Also look at the spacing between the torso & arms. The last two show how jack my upper back is, especially in the last picture. The R scapula is winged out because my torso is being torqued to the R.

My FMS scores are:

Screen Score
Overhead Squat 1
Hurdle Step 3 R, 1 L (pain in L hip)
Inline Lunge 3 R, 1 L (balance and pain in L hip)
Shoulder Mobility 2 R on top, 1 L on top some discomfort w R
ASLR 3 R, 2 L (pain in L hip)
Pushup 3 (yeah, I can do something 🙂 )
Rotary Stability 1 R (can’t bring elbow to knee because of hip) 2 L
   
   

I already know what my problems are, I have a R rotated pelvis which is causing a L impingement in the hip. The R rotation is typical and many people have it. The torso turning right is actually odd, because normally the torso would rotate opposite of the hips to bring the head to the center. So I’m really tight on the R through the lats and obliques. Because of  that my neck is out of alignment as it tries to be straight forward.

Those are some of the obvious things going on and there’s no telling how long I’ve been like this or what made it happen. I can recall having hip pain as far back as 1998-2000 but it would come & go and I never though much about it except it was annoying. Over time things got worse and in June 2011 I went to Indy to have a full assessment done. Bill Hartman and his business partner Mike Robertson run a place similar to IronBody but they do more semi-privates and only 1 “bootcamp”. Bill has been in Physical Therapy over 20 yrs and Mike has been in the fitness industry for over 10. They are teaching me their systems so I can be a better coach and be able to help you feel better and move better.

Bill took photos, which I haven’t seen, and ran me through the full assessment then wrote me a one month program to help me get re-aligned. The program included isometric squeezing of the foam roller between my knees in specific ways to reposition the pelvis and strengthen the muscles to keep the pelvis where it’s supposed to be. It also included breathing drills to make that more efficient and use the proper muscles to breath. Proper breathing is really what it’s all about. If you don’t breath properly you can’t stabilize, if you can’t stabilize things start moving the wrong way.

He also included a lot of activation exercises like the glute bridge with 1 leg, side lying leg raises and movements to open up the chest and mobilize the thoracic spine (between the shoulder blades). The strength portion targets the quads, core, chest and back in pushing movements like squats, pushups and band presses. Day 2 focused on the hips, glutes and upper body in pulling movements using exercises like the sumo deadlift, inverted row, hamstring curls on the stability ball and band pulls from the 1/2 kneeling position. The lat part of the workout was either farmer’s walks or overhead walks to work core stability and strength even more.

That was in late June of 2011. After 2 weeks or so of that, I got very bored with it and missed doing conditioning work like burpees and ropes. I was told no overhead work at all except for the Overhead walks which meant no snatches, jerks, getups or presses. Needless to say I was bummed so I kept pestering Bill about whether I could this or that & he said no. 🙁

I stopped doing his program and started back into some of my own, but not as hard as I had in the past, then in November I decided to get back into doing kettlebell sport. I had Ken Blackburn of the IKFF down in January for a workshop. Then I, and some of you, trained for our 1st ever kb sport competition in May. Ken came back down in July and we held a certification course for instructors.

All was well, but I would get pain in the hip and sometimes the shoulders would act up. I’d do some of the foam roller isometric holds from time to time but not enough to make a difference. After returning from Colorado Springs, I decided to do a very heavy workout, including max effort snatches and jerks. Guess what… I broke 🙁 My right shoulder has been messed up ever since. I’m pretty sure nothing is torn, but I have a ton of trigger points and adhesions in my pecs and back. The good thing is it made me realize I should have done what Bill told me in the first place. Which is what I’m doing now. I have 2 more weeks of the program then we’ll see what else he has to help me get fixed!

The gist of this is, get an assessment and do the program you are given, then re-assess. You may or may not know you have something out of whack but you’ll know when you break! Then it may be to late!