Are your hamstrings actually stiff in reality? There are many people who "feel" that there hamstrings are stiff and then go about stretching them day in and out to try to relieve back pain, move better, etc.  Well I have some news for you.  Just because they feel stiff does not necessarily mean that they are.  Stiff hamstrings is a very commonly misdiagonosed case.

A client I began with last week had this exact problem.  He had been to a physical therapist for a couple of years who misdiagnosed the problem and  he himself also "felt" that his hamstrings were stiff. However, when I checked the other joints around his hips and simply looked at him stand, it was easy to see that this couldn't be farther from the real issue at hand.  He had an anteriorly tilted pelvis.

When your pelvis is in anterior tilt, your hip flexors become stiff/short and your glutes shut off and become weak/inhibited.  Your hamstrings are ALREADY in a constant state of stretch and since your glutes are not doing their job, your hamstrings take up all of the slack.  Since they are in a constant state of stretch and constantly overworked, they will FEEL stiff. So, as sad as it is, many people just like the client I saw, go on for years stretching their already overly stretched hamstrings and make their problem worse than it already is. 
I should point out that an anteriorly tilted pelvis also increases the curve in the lower back, which overstresses this region also and often causes back issues.  Guess what, stretching those hamstrings makes the issues worse.

So what do you need to do to fix the problem?  First of all, stop stretching your hamstrings, which are already on stretch.  What you need to do is stretch your hip flexors (primarily rectus femoris, psoas, tfl) or for the simple minded the front of your hips, and activate/strengthen your glutes.  Doing this will tilt your pelvis back in the direction of neutral, take the stress off of your hamstrings and back, and make you feel like a million bucks again.  The hip flexor stretch, glute activation work and soft tissue work that I covered in previous posts are great ways to begin doing this.

Before I go, you should note that this is not the case with everybody.  Some people really do have stiff hamstrings that need some length.  Everything must be checked to determine what is really going on.  Assumptions will get you nowhere.  Hope everyone has an awesome rest of the weekend!

The Db Arc Row is a great exercise that you don't see or hear about much.  I picked this gem up during my time in the strength and conditioning program at UW-L.  It will train all of the little stabilizers around your shoulder joint and is great for prehab. 

To perform the arc row, set up as you would for a regular dumbbell row with hips back and a flat back; upper body close to parallel with the ground. Begin the exercise with a pronated grip (Palm towards your body). Move your arm out in an arc (hence the name arc row) and gradually supinate (palm facing away from body) your hand as you bring it back and touch your back pocket. Be sure to pinch your shoulder blade as you move towards the back. If you do not do this, you will just get shoulder extension which is not what we want. We want scapular retraction and external rotation. Once you touch your pocket with a supinated grip, rotate back around to the starting position with the same arc you used during the concentric portion of the exercise. These are best performed for 2-3 sets of 8 to 12 reps at the end of a workout or as part of an extra workout.


Give them a shot next time you train upper body!

This "trainer" (if you can even call him that) should be locked up!!!!

Between unqualified moron trainers, certain doctors, certain therapists, coaches, overbearing athletes' parents, group exercise instructors, media and the list could go on giving out ridiculous crap exercise and training advice, I get so frustrated some days, I just might have a mental breakdown and/or heart attack before I'm halfway to 30. 

REAL strength and conditioning/fitness professionals "in the know" need to somehow band together and get some kind of licensing going to train people and give out advice.  I mean come on, you have to have a certain license to work on someone's hair but not with someone's body? How does that work?  Perhaps the CSCS and CPT could become the license? At the very least, narrow it down to one respectable certification.

A friggin plastic surgeon even tried giving out some ridiculous exercise advice to a client of mine last week.  When will it ever end?  Let me just say this.  I don't go around telling people about getting face lifts, what medicines to take or what they need to do about their heart surgery.  Stick to what you know and let people like myself do our jobs.  Thank you. 

In regards to unqualified trainers,  I have plenty of clients right now who I'm working with to undo issues and imbalances that "trainers" they were with before me created, due to a lack of any kind of knowledge whatsoever with proper program design or assessment. (Thats only the start of it) Studying for a week and taking an online certification course does not make you  qualified to train people, believe it or not.

Oh and by the way, teaching Zumba or Bootcamp does not make you a qualified strength and conditioning professional, sorry to tell you.  So do us all a favor, and stop trying to teach exercises you don't even do right yourself to a group of people who have no business doing them either.  Leave your impingement pushups to yourself.

Last but not least, if you think you are hardcore and know what you are doing because you read all of the latest Muscle and Fitness or Shape magazines, you are sadly mistaken.  Do yourself and others a favor, and leave your terribly imbalanced anterior dominant program to yourself and your mirror, and stop messing up other people's bodies along with yours.  Those cutoffs and the NO Explode you take every workout really don't make you that strong or big by the way.  As a matter of fact, I have seen 120 pound girls outlift you by hundreds of pounds. 

Myself and many qualified individuals in this field have spent and spend hours upon hours training ourselves, training all varieties of clients, reading books, reading articles, studying research journals, attending seminars, watching videos and dvd's, competing, networking, getting respectable degrees and basically live strength and conditioning, fitness, and anything dealing with the body and its performance.  Exercise and Sports Science is so much more than the average person realizes.  In depth anatomy, physiology, biomechanics, nutrition, bioenergetics, strength training science and I could go on.  Quite frankly, its an insult to us when some of these uneducated people go around misinforming the general public.   There is always more to learn and just when you think you know a lot, you realize you know nothing. 

The reason I get frustrated is because I am so passionate about what I do, and I just want people to receive the service and teachings they deserve to get.  I wanna see people get better and reach their goals.  If more people understood these things, more people would be much better off with the way they feel,  the way they perform and with the quality of their lives.  Hopefully more and more people will come around.  Any thoughts from my fellow brothers and sisters in pain or anyone for that matter?  I would love to hear them.

Have you ever experienced knee pain, back pain, had an injury somewhere, etc? How many specialists,  therapists and trainers did you go to only to come back to square one with no progress or results in the long run?

I have seen lots of people who come to me with problems such as these and one common problem I have seen is that most of the professionals people have been to only look at and treat the symptom(s). Well guess what, unless you find the CAUSE of the symptom and remove it, the symptomatic relief will be only temporary until the cause brings it right back.  For example, if someone has knee problems, more often than not the real issue will be somewhere in a joint above or below the knee, which would be in the hips or in the ankles.  Unless this real issue is taken care of, the knee issues will continue to come back.

In Low Back Disorders, Stuart McGill states the following: "Reducing pain and improving function for patients with low back pain involves two components:
*Removing the stressors that create or exacerbate damage
*Enhancing activities that build healthy supportive tissues"

Take a good look at that first point.  Without getting rid of the cause, or stressors, the symptoms will never go away for good. The cause may be a mobility issue somewhere; it could be a weakness or imbalance somewhere; it might just be a certain activity or movement that causes problems.  Whatever it may be, the cause must be found and eliminated if the symptoms are to fully be rid of.  You can get cortisone shots 24/7 but unless you take care of the real culprit, you will never be better.

Crossing over to another spectrum, the same type of idea goes for plateaued lifts in the weight room or performance on the field.  Unless you identify the weakness that is halting progress and fix it, you will be on a long road to nowhere.  For example, if your squat is stuck and you keep squatting away week in and week out, you will go nowhere.  Maybe you need to fix something with your technique, maybe you have weak glutes that need to be strengthened, maybe you have rotation in your hips you don't know about, or maybe your program just plain sucks; whatever it may be, you need to find the limiting factor and take care of it. 

Whether you are talking about issues with pain and injury, or performance, it is absolutely imperative that you find the CAUSE of your problems and eliminate it.  If you don't do this, you are just spittin in the wind, my friend.