Movers and Stabilizers

Our bodies contain many different muscles. Some of these muscles are made to move us, while others are made to stabilize. The movers are generally our larger muscles, and are the ones that most of the gym bros are trying to grow. These are, typically speaking, the “show muscles.” The stabilizers, I believe, are the more undervalued of the two types, and are often pushed to the wayside and ignored when training. The stabilizers play a pivotal role in keeping us healthy and moving well, and in preventing us from breaking down. Without strong stabilizers our joints would lack good coordination and control during movement. Then, add faster paced and heavier loads into the picture when you lack stability. Examples here include training in the gym or competing in sports. Weak stabilizers plus high loads and high velocity movements equals not-so-great things happening.  
 

It’s great to have strong movers, but you also need good stabilizers to help control and guide your movements. For example, when the stabilizers are weak and cannot take on the tasks expected of our bodies, those oh-so-common problems that we hear about start to arise. Many common knee problems, low back problems, and shoulder problems can stem from poor stabilizers throughout the body. Having weak hip external rotators can cause your knees to collapse in when jumping, squatting, or running (figure 1). Poor spine stabilizers, aka the “core” (not to be confused with your six-pack abs), can contribute to back pain. Weak rotator cuff musculature and shoulder stabilizers can lead to all sorts of pathologies in the shoulder.

Figure 1: Weak hip external rotators will cause your knees to collapse inward during the squat, very similar to when landing from a jump as well.

So, how do you strengthen these mysterious stabilizers? 

For the hips I like banded walks, stepping sideways, on diagonals, or any step variation you want to do. Put the band just above your knees, do a quarter squat, and take side steps, 45 degree diagonal steps, and forward/backwards steps. Clams are also a great exercise for your hip external rotators (figure 2).

 Figure 2: Laying on your side with your knees bent and feet together, lift your top knee away from the other while keeping your feet together.

For the core, plank variations-front and side planks-are a great place to start (figure 3).

Figure 3: Front and side planks. Hold these for time, in bouts of 15-30 seconds for reps. Focus on breathing and keeping your spine in a neutral position while bracing your core.

For the shoulders, banded external rotations are good to get the ball rolling in the right direction (figure 4). 

Figure 4: Keeping your elbow towards your side, your elbow bent to 90 degrees, and you hand in front of your stomach, move your hand away from your body, rotating your arm away from you while keeping your elbow in place.

There are so many different little exercises for strengthening the stabilizers that I cannot list and draw all of them here. Hopefully some of these things, when incorporated into your daily or “every other day” routines, will help and improve some of those weak stabilizers.

Ryan Goodell, CSCS

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Bench Talk: The Set Up

Benching: the ultimate bro exercise. Chances are if someone asks you how much you lift they are either asking about your bench or how much you can bicep curl. Regardless of your answer, it’s important to know how to properly set up and perform the bench press to keep those shoulders healthy and put up some nice numbers when lifting. You don’t want to be that guy telling people about how you used to be able to bench 600+ pounds (even though you were never close) but can’t bench anymore because you tore your rotator cuffs apart and abused your body with shitty technique for years. 

First let’s define benching for general wellness and how that differs from benching in powerlifting, where you are trying to lift maximal amounts of weight. The biggest difference will be the arch of your back. In powerlifting, you are trying to shorten the range of motion in order to lift the largest amount of weight possible (figure 1). For general health, this is not necessary, and technically you do not really HAVE to bench at all. For the sake of this article, however, we’ll say that your life would be incomplete without benching in it.

Figure 1: Slightly arched and very arched back. If lifting for general health and wellness (left), and if lifting to lift maximal amounts of weight (right).

Starting from the bottom up, both of your feet should be in contact with the floor. Foot position will vary from person to person depending on where they are most comfortable. Some like to tuck their feet under them, some like their foot placement more out in front, and others like to have their knees at 90 degrees (figure 2). In powerlifting, having your feet out in front of you or tucked underneath is generally a better option because this allows you to create leg drive. Isn’t that cheating?! No, it’s the sport. When benching for general purposes, though, leg drive is not required so you can put your feet wherever your heart desires. This is where your feet will stay for the entire set. Your feet will NOT move from this position and you will NOT attempt to be the Karate Kid throwing kicks and flailing your legs around, when pressing. This is also not a bad reason to use a little leg drive, or at least apply a little bit of pressure through your feet, to keep them in place and provide a sturdier base of support. 

Figure 2: Varying foot positions, depending on comfort.

Your glutes and upper back are next. These should both be in contact with the bench. The glutes should be squeezed, generating increased stability throughout your body. The upper back and posterior (back) shoulder musculature should also help stabilize. The lats should depress (pull down) your shoulders and lock your shoulder blades in place. Additionally, your middle back musculature should try and squeeze your shoulder blades together. These two motions combined-the lats depressing the shoulder, and the mid back pulling the shoulder blades together (figure 3)-will feel a lot like “trying to pull your shoulder blades into your back pockets.” 

Figure 3: Line of pull from the muscle action during the set up. The resultant force acting like you are “trying to pull your shoulder blades into your back pockets.”

At this point in time, during the set-up, you may be thinking “Holly crap, this feels very uncomfortable. Should it feel like this!?” The answer is YES. If you feel very tight, stable, and uncomfortable you are doing it right. No one ever said that lifting was comfortable. If it is comfortable, you’re probably not lifting enough for your body to get an adequate stimulus to adapt and improve.

There is one more piece to what ‘s going on at the shoulder: trying to get your shoulder external rotators to turn on. This is a small but very important aspect because your shoulder external rotators help protect your rotator cuff. They can be turned on by simply trying to bend and pull the bar apart (figure 4).

Figure 4: Hands trying to spread and bend the bar. This allows you to turn on your shoulder external rotators.

For general purposes having your hand placement on the bar just outside shoulder width is a good place to start. People tend to find their own comfort zone, where they are strongest, but you can play around with hand placement when performing different bench variations if you chose to do so.

Lastly, what should your head be doing? There are people who feel comfortable lifting their head up when pressing, and watching the bar touch their chest, and others who keep their head firmly planted on the bench. Realistically, this doesn’t really matter as long as you are not letting your chest collapse down and not losing all the stability and tension you’ve created during your set up.

Ryan Goodell, CSCS

P.S. - Pictures not drawn to scale. 

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Don’t Waste Yo Gains!

When you train your body launches its “fight or flight” response, becoming more sympathetic. This response is normal; if you don’t become more sympathetic during your training session, you are not training hard enough. Making the transition into a sympathetic state while training is important for your body, as it provides the energy and drive to perform. If we stayed in a parasympathetic state, aka the “rest and digest” state, we would feel lethargic and not have a great training session. Getting into the sympathetic state allows us to produce a great enough stimulus, via training, to make our bodies adapt and perform better. We should not stay in this state after training or for an extended period of time, however. After all, being in a “fight or flight” state causes our bodies to become catabolic and break down. 

Since you just put all that hard work in at the gym, it would be a shame to let it go to waste. Before you leave the gym, an activity that returns you to a “rest and digest”/parasympathetic state should be incorporated into your training session. This type of activity will allow you to “turn off” the sympathetic switch and turn on a parasympathetic one, getting your body into the repair and recover mode as quickly as possible. 

How do you get into a “rest and digest” state, though?

Get your body to relax, bring your heart and breathing rate down, and just calm down overall. This can be achieved through a couple of methods. Meditation, deep breathing, and walking outside are just a few that you could try after a training session. Personally, I find that laying on the ground with both my legs straight up against a wall and keeping my eyes closed helps bring me back to a parasympathetic state. I like doing this because it helps return blood to the heart, because it’s simple, and because it allows me to lay down and take some diaphragmatic breaths. It only takes about 3-5 minutes and it’s definitely worth the time. Always leave the gym feeling better than when you came in.

Ryan Goodell, CSCS

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