The Nimble Warrior: A guide to moving better, increasing performance and reducing injury. [2 ed.] 9798518582910

Table of contents :
Intro & Acknowledgement
Chapter 1: Movement Screens
Chapter 2: Tissue Management Techniques
Chapter 3: Target Area Treatments
Chapter 4: Conclusion & 5 Day Training Plan

Citation preview

Acknowledgement & Dedication Copyright © 2021 David Morrow All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This book would never have come to fruition were it not for a series of seemingly unrelated events; A lost bus ride in Park X; 9/11; A girlfriend moving to Korea; Fran; The Cambrian patrol; Afghanistan; Teaching 7th graders; Getting married; Having a son; Having to piss in a jar in bed; Getting dangerously high blood pressure; Leaving a career; Getting fired; Acting on my dreams. Thanks goes out to EE for being my unpaid editor and to the Royal Montreal Regiment for giving me a shot at training their troops. This book is dedicated to all the sheepdogs that keep us safe at night - Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum

Backstory I’m a 15 year veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces, a master science teacher and successful beet farmer. I’m most proud of my family and having opened three schools during my tour in Afghanistan. My fitness training company, Dave Morrow Personal Training, is where I can unleash my passion for fitness and wellness upon the world. I pride myself in serving the veteran and firstresponder communities. If you’re a veteran or currently serving member of any of the world’s militaries, police services or emergency services, you can become a member of our HRD2KILL Facebook Group, drop in on my Youtube channel, listen to the HRD2KILL Podcast or read the HRD2KILL Blog.

THE NIMBLE WARRIOR

This is a snapshot of my story and why I’m here today serving my veteran and first responder community to the best of my ability with all the knowledge I’ve acquired over a fruitful yet painful career in the Canadian Infantry. I proudly served my country during the Afghan War on Oeration Athena between November 2010 and July 2011. During that deployment, my back herniated and my whole life changed. Why does this matter? It led me down a course of self study and reflection and I realized I had to figure out why I got injured in order to be able to fix myself.

I wake up some mornings and I can’t walk properly. Some days I can’t go to work since my back is so jammed up or worse, I can’t pick up my son. I’m limited to how long I can stand and how long I can sit. It’s a lingering reminder of the Afghan war and it’s the greatest gift I could’ve ever been given.

Helping to prevent Injuries or help rehab a fellow warrior is deeply important to me. This is why this book exists. In this book, I’ve compiled some of the best mobility exercises that I used to get myself from immobile in my bed to being able to compete in the Crossfit Open, Spartan Races and Triathlons. I give full credit to the mobility god, Kelly Starrett of The Ready State and his incredible book, The Supple Leopard. If you find this book informative and helpful, then I highly recommend that you get a copy of his book because it’s a gamechanger. The book is broken down into three chapters: • Chapter 1: MOVEMENT SCREENS • Chapter 2: TISSUE MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES • Chapter 3: TARGET AREA TREATMENTS Chapter 1 has you complete a series of movement screens to identify points of immediate attention. Each one of these movements can be done at home without the need for much equipment or space. Once your main areas of attention are addressed, you can move to the appropriate section of the book to begin your mobility exercises for that specific area of your body.

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P R E FA C E

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If you’re finding this book early on in your careers... Good. The exercises here will help bulletproof yourself against injury. If you already are injured or suffering from lingering pain, get after these exercises everyday. Just like a car needs The Nimble Warrior By Dave Morrow Personal Training

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a good mechanic, you need to work on your body to get all the moving parts moving in the right direction. Take note, I’m not a physiotherapist, osteopath or chiropractor, nor do I pretend to be one. I’ve learned these techniques, through experience and they freakin’ work. I fully recommend you find an awesome team of therapists, as I have, to keep your body moving and use this book as a point of reference on your journey. Your ability to protect and serve your communities and countries and come home safe to your loved ones depends on you being a Nimble Warrior.

NIMBLENESS... ...has never been an adjective that describes me very well. I’m 6’4” and over 200 lbs. When I was a little kid, my buddies would complain when my fat ass would break the entrance of our epic igloo (I realize that’s the most stereotypical Canadian thing I could’ve possibly written, but it’s the truth). Needless to say, as I got older, I liked to dance and even for a big white guy, could hold my own at the clubs. Therefore, on a nimbleness spectrum of 1 to 5 with Fat Bastard as a 1 and Jackie Chan as a 5, I’d put myself down as a solid 3. I joined the Canadian Grenadier Guards at 19. They’re a reserve infantry regiment in my hometown of Montreal. It was love at first PT. I had never excelled at any sports. I’m a generalist; jack of all trades, master of none kind of guy. But when I joined the Army, something was different. I wasn’t just middle of the road average, I excelled. My first interaction with my platoon commander went something like this, “Private, have a seat. How are you enjoying your first week on basic?”

Enjoy the book, Train Hard, Fight Easy

Dave

I replied, “Sir, with all due respect, I fucking love this shit.” He responded, “Great, masochists do really well in the infantry.” So, punish my body I did. I loaded up my ruck, almost weekly and would hump through the streets of Montreal. I ran hills and banged out thousands of push ups and pull ups. So long as you could keep up on a death run, I figured, I’d always be seen as competent and “fit”. Man, that changed once Afghanistan popped off.

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I distinctly remember watching footage of our boys hopping off the Chinooks and being bombed up to the tits. “Holy shit, that’s a lot of gear!” I thought, “We don’t train like that at all.” This was around 2002. By 2005 I was spending another summer acting as a drill instructor for our ceremonial unit and nursing incredible knee pain. We would “pound the pavement” all day in the The Nimble Warrior By Dave Morrow Personal Training

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shittiest boots known to man. Pretty sure they got them from some warehouse in Kazakhstan. I paid no heed to the fact that I couldn’t walk up stairs without my knees buckling. This was probably the start of the breakdown phase where my youthful, sinewy joints and ligaments started to cry for help. Up until then, my tissue management essentially consisted of Advil in the morning and copious amounts of beer at night. Pretty standard infantry self-care. We would stretch out the hammies before our standard 0530 hrs run, come back, maybe do some shitty calf and quad stretches and then it was back to pounding pavement. Couple this with leadership courses with never ending patrolling and hasty withdrawals, my body was starting to go a bit wonky. Nimble, I was not. My dad would often joke with my mother when she would groan getting out of her chair that she was, “nimble as a cat.” It was sarcastic as shit but it stuck with me all these years. When I started to make old man noises getting out of my seat, I would hear my dad’s voice in the back of my mind say, “Nimble as a cat, eh?” Hence, the term Nimble Warrior was born. So what is a Nimble Warrior? I came up with a few criteria on how to determine your Nimbleness Factor. Here they are: 1. Can you touch your toes with supple knees?

5. Can you jump, with 2 feet, up onto a 24” box? One point for every movement you can do without any pain or discomfort. If you score a 5/5, awesome, keep up the good work and keep maintaining your tissue and find some new tips found in the book. If you are anywhere from 0/5 to 4/5, you need to get to work. The mobility and tissue management exercises in this book is your starting point for getting yourself back to maximum nimbleness. There’s one caveat, if you have an injury that functionally prevents yourself from doing any of these movements, ie broken leg, please consult your doctor, therapist, shaman etc. I don’t want any of you saying that my book is bullshit because you couldn’t jump on a box but you have two torn ACLs. So why is this of any importance to you? Read on to the next section.

WHY IS NIMBLENESS IMPORTANT? We need to identify a few key terms with respect to my definition of nimbleness. First, I like to define nimbleness as a combination of three critical components. They are: • Mobility • Flexibility • Agility

2. Can you pop a squat, thighs past parallel, chest up, knees pushed out? Watch my video description.

4. Can you grab a hockey stick and adopt a front rack position, stick resting on shoulders, upper arms parallel to the ground, stick resting on all your fingers? Watch the video demo.

Flexibility can be defined as the ability for a muscle to lengthen.

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Agility is the power to move quickly and easily 05

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P R E FA C E

Mobility can be defined as the the ability of a joint to move freely and easily before being restricted by surrounding tissues (ligaments/tendons/muscles etc.).

P R E FA C E

3. Can you grab a hockey stick, arms extended and rotate them over your head and touch the stick to your low back?. Watch my video demo.

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Therefore, before you achieve peak nimbleness these three areas must be addressed. Much confusion arises when we discuss flexibility vs mobility. I’ll give a quick example. Imagine you’re asked to touch your toes and can only get your fingertips to your knees. You’d say to yourself, “Shit, I’m really not flexible.” Now, if you’ve ever been to a physiotherapist you’ve probably been flat on your back and had your leg passively stretched, knee extended and hip flexed and reached a normal range of around 70 degrees. This is a classic case where you feel the same stretch in your hamstrings but instead of being limited by any number of possible “sticky” points on your body, you show a normal degree of flexibility. The limiting factor when you touch your toes is not your flexibility but your overall mobility. Make sense? This was the major part of my fitness game that I was lacking that led to my back injury. In a case like this, stretching your hamstrings would not help improve your toe touch. You will need to learn how to improve your mobility, stability and strength of your spine and hips in order to get into this position. The end result is more resilient joints that have their full range of motion (ROM) for improved performance while reducing the risk of injury. This is crucial for the modern warrior. Neglecting to take care of your poor range of motion issues and simply focus on strength and endurance will inevitably result in injury. The trick to improving joint health and maintaining a pain free body is in our ability to have active control over the positions we move through. You don’t need to be the most flexible person in the world but active control over movement along with daily mobility training for joint health can help keep our bodies healthier than we ever imagined.

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Time to get after it!!

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CHAPTER 1

MOVEMENT SCREENS

In this chapter: 1. The Squat 2. The Hip Hinge 3. Arms Overhead

SECTION 1

TEST #1

THE SQUAT

Here’s your first test - stand in front of a mirror or have a buddy look at your feet, head on, and then pop a squat (the best squat you’ve ever done in your life). Which direction were your feet? Were they more like Fig 1.1 or Fig 1.2?

The Squat - The most basic of human movements. Based on my completely non-scientific observation, we squat roughly anywhere between 20 to 50 times a day. Think about it, how many times do you get up out of a chair or from seated to standing? That’s a squat. Now, imagine that each time you preformed that movement, you did it incorrectly? That’s a ridiculous amount of accumulated dysfunction trained into you.

Ideally, your feet should be as in fig 1 when you squat, however, most will defer to having a slightly toed out position like fig 1.2. What we don’t want is to squat with our feet turned out any more than in fig 1.2. If that’s the case, refer to chapter 3, Section 1 (Lower Leg).

Odds are, no one has ever given you any instruction on how to do it because it’s assumed that we all do it well. If you’re going to fix one thing this year, fix your squat. This is how I started. I mentioned that I had a crippling back injury but I also suffered from horrible knee pain as well. I was fitted for orthotics and special braces and prescribed lots of anti-inflammatory meds; they were all shit. Just bandaids to a bigger problem. Once I fixed my movement patterns and got after fixing my squat, miraculously my knee pain vanished. Look at the athlete on the previous page, I selected this pic for the sole reason that she is effortlessly setting up her lift in the ideal squat position. Heels are on the ground, knees over the toes, chest up and hips well below parallel. This is your standard to achieve. Toed out feet is typically caused by a very tight calves, specifically the soleus and anterior tibialis (Figure 2.3). Lots of running and ruck marches can wreak havoc on this area.

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TEST #2

TEST #3

Test 2 is to observe your knees. Again, stand in front of a mirror, position your feet as in Test 1, now lift your arms at about 45 degrees and squat down (best squat you’ve ever done in your life). How are your knees looking? Are they caving in like in figure 1.3 or are

Test 3 deals with your upper body position. With arms overhead at approximately 45 degrees, looking at yourself in the mirror or with your buddy, feet correctly positioned, knees pushed out, squat down (best squat you’ve ever done in your life) and observe where your arms go. Have they become nearly parallel to it like in figure 1.5 or are they still at a 45 degree angle to the ground like in figure 1.6?

they tracking over your toes and pushed out like figure 1.4? This is a common sign that you have a very inactive medial glute (Figure 2.3). This is also very common, even for athletes and strong people. It means you’re unable to generate “torque” or external rotation which is generated by your big ‘ol butt. Your piriformis and medial glute are probably probably very tight and you should refer to the tissue management exercises in Chapter 3, Section 1, (Hip Complex)

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If you’re having trouble keeping your chest up this could be due to a few reasons. The first is that your ankles are like concrete and to keep from falling backwards when you squat you lean forward since your shins can’t move over your toes. Like in Test #1, you can apply the same tissue management techniques. Additionally, you may be really immobile in your thoracic spine area (Figure 3.8) and you should perform the tissue management exercises shown in Chapter 3, Section 2, Upper Body Tissue Management.

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Ideally, we want to maintain a nice proud chest with effectively very little leaning forward when we enter our squat.

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SUMMARY Congratulations, you’re done the basic squat movement screen I do with all my clients. Clean up your squat and you realize that this basic movement pattern drives a lot of your day to day ability to move pain free and improve maximum nimbleness. The main takeaways from this section: • Everyone can improve their squat. Whether you had real trouble with all of the tests or not, you can always strive to do 1% better each day. • Have someone watch/film your squat and review it often. This is the best way to associate what you’re doing wrong with a visual representation. It may take weeks to make serious progress but keep at it. • Really tight ankles tend to be the biggest inhibitor to proper squatting for the warrior class. The second biggest issue tends to be inactive glutes. Make sure to read on and correct those issues.

“Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach.” Tony Robbins

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SECTION 2

TEST #1

THE HIP HINGE

The Hinge - Arguably one of the hardest movements to master as a tactical athlete. Even with an athletic background, most have never learned how to engage the hip to generate power. This may be a result of many years of having it “turned off” with dangerously high volume reps of sitting and the insistence amongst military commanders to avoid compound weighted movements. Think of any full body movement that requires a powerful push or pull and your hip hinge is involved, for example; throwing a punch, jumping, pulling a rope, getting a heavy sandbag off the ground, getting a sandbag from your hip up to your shoulder.

Test 1 is simple; stand with your feet shoulder width apart, toes facing forward, hands at your sides and bend over 45 degrees at the waist, knees supple not locked out. With a buddy, have him or her stand to your side and observe your knees. Did you flex your knees, like in figure 1.7? Or legs remained straight like in figure 1.8? Watch my demo video. Bending your knees too much may be a sign that your hips have become way too overactive from all that high intensity sitting you’ve been doing over the last decade. What this does is shut off your glutes (dat ass). This is what us fancy personal trainer types like to call, reciprocal inhibition. You can try an example of this next time you’re at the gym; flex your tricep as hard as possible, then try and do a dumbell curl. It’s literally impossible and this is

Poor mobility through this movement tends for us to start defaulting to a squat which doesn’t generate nearly the same amount of power and it usually produces a lot of unwanted sheer force upon our knees. Think of a boxer popping a squat before throwing a right cross. Looks funny right? Not only that, it substantially increases the amount of time it takes to throw the punch which decreases its power output. Same goes for an offensive lineman in football pushing away a defensive lineman. If he squats he doesn’t generate nearly enough power to stop the other lineman in his tracks. This movement pattern is really important for executing the deadlift, one of my favourite exercises. Not only that, it also opens up the world of olympic lifts which all require massive amounts of speed generation through a hip hinge.

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what’s happening when your hips are too tight, the reciprocal muscles are the gluteals and they’re completely turned off.

Refer to chapter 3, Section 1, Hip Complex, for your tissue management exercises. 17

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and you can apply the corrective exercises from Chapter 3, Section 2, Upper Body.

TEST #2 Test 2 is the same as Test 1 but observe your back position. Is it in what we call a “neutral” position? In order to determine this neutral position, conduct the following drill: 1. Take a broom stick or something similar and place behind your back with the grip shown in figure 1.9 2. Make contact with the stick starting with your head, then between your shoulder blades and finally your sacrum (low back). 3. Conduct the hip hinge, Figure 1.10, and notice if any of the points of contact become removed like in figure 1.11, reset and re-do until the “neutral” position is learned (this may take minutes to months, depending).

Ultimately, you should feel tension in your hamstrings and your butt throughout the movement, if not, make sure to follow the remedial tissue management in Chapter 3, Section 1, Hip Complex. If you have the stick pull off the low back during this test, you may lack some mobility in your thoracic spinal (T spine) area

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SUMMARY Hip hingeing ain’t easy. Unlike squatting, we can get through most of our days without ever hip hingeing if we’ve never learned how to do it. Getting shit off the ground doesn’t always have to result in popping a squat, you can generate a lot more force in a deadlift than in a squat, just compare your 1 rep max values. Here are the main takeaways from this section: • Athletes require the capacity to hip hinge to complete numerous, powerful, athletic movements. • Inability to hip hinge can result in defaulting to a squat which can start putting more strain on your knees than necessary. • Tight hips are endemic to Western society and can primarily be attributed to way too much time on your ass, literally. • You need to get off your ass, unlock your hips and get your posterior chain, which includes your glutes to start generating power for you. “Leaders honour their core values, but they are flexible in how they execute them.” Colin Powell

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TEST #1

SECTION 3 ARMS OVERHEAD

Arms Overhead - This test is deceptively simple. Extend your elbows and put your arms over your head. Did large parts of your body all of a sudden start moving like your traps (trapezius) moving to the sky and your low back start to bow like you just stuck a gold medal landing off the olympic rings?

With your arms extended, at your sides, raise them up, trying to brush your bicep with your ear. Some funky stuff can happen here, in figure 1.13 we have what I call, “the perfect dismount” with a lot of extension of the spine. We want to fix that for sure. Additionally, in figure 1.14 we have a good neutral spine but the elbows are flared out, no bueno. Our ideal position with arms overhead is in figure 1.12, notice everything is stacked on top of one another, wrist to heels, rib cage down.

I’ve seen all kinds of train wrecks in this regard. I know, I was one of them. If it feels like your arms get stuck just past 45 degrees and the rest of the body needs to find the range of motion somewhere; that needs fixing. We use our shoulders a lot. They bear a ton of the load when we’re hauling heavy metal tubes with ruck sacks on. Keeping your weapon on target, pushing a dude off your chest whether on the mats or engaged in mortal combat all use shoulder strength and mobility. I can’t even count how many dislocated shoulders I’ve seen in my lifetime either. Usually, these occur doing innocuous shit, like putting on your shirt but the poor movement patterns that lead up to them is what we’re going to address here.

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Again, years of combat sitting could cause very immobile T spines due to really poor posture or slouching, this can also lead to tight front deltoids (shoulders) much like the issue we saw with our hips in Section 2. Refer to Chapter 3, Section 2, Upper Body for your tissue management exercises. Tight lats and triceps can keep you from extending those arms fully and your tissue management exercises are also in Chapter 3, Section 2, Upper Body. 23

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SUMMARY Addressing your shoulder mobility improves your overall effectiveness. It can decrease your chances of rotator cuff injuries and reduce shoulder and neck pain in the long term. Not to mention, mobilizing your thoracic spine will help with adopting a neutral spine position for all your major lifts and just make you more durable in the long run. The main takeaways from this section: Especially for men, we tend to overtrain our pectorals and shoulders to the detriment of our back and rotator cuffs. This can lead to overactive chest and shoulder muscles and inactive rotator cuff area that can result in injury when pressing large loads. Immobile thoracic spines force other areas of your posterior chain to compensate for this lack of mobility and can result in rounding of the spine during other movements such as the squat and deadlift. This marks the end of the chapter on movement screens. Now that you’ve completed your movement assessments, it’s time to start addressing the deficiencies you’ve encountered here and do the work outlined in the next chapters. The next chapter will present you with the different techniques that are available and recommended in order to address any nimbleness deficiencies you’ve encountered during your movement screens. Pitter Patter....

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CHAPTER 2

TISSUE MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES In this chapter: 1. Self Myofascial Release (SMR) 2. 2. Static & Dynamic Stretching

SECTION 1

Assuming you don’t have any major structural issues, like bone malformations or issues due to major trauma, then most of your issues can be mitigated with some basic tissue management techniques. However, I can’t stress enough the importance of employing an experienced therapist that has worked with athletes or other military/LEO members in the past.

SELF MYOFASCIAL RELEASE

Most have probably never heard of this unless you’re a fitness nerd or therapist of some kind. I know the first time I heard the term it made me think of some unsavoury things that could be released from my body. Alas, the science-y term is really, at its heart, just a form of massage; an extremely important form of massage for us Army types too. Let me explain without going down the rabbit hole too much, what the hell this is. Take this beautiful piece of beef. Notice it has these wide, white areas? That’s the fascia or what we would normally call gristle. Imagine a sheet of connective tissue that sits in between muscles to keep them attached and stabilized and it’s literally everywhere in your body. Like any tissue, it’s subject to everyday forces that we subject it to and can become a source of discomfort and eventual injury, if we don’t police it. It’s literally what holds all our stuff inside us together, kind of like a fibrous glue, if the glue starts to set and harden, this results in reduced mobility in the area. This will result in your body adapting to your new “normal” which can eventually lead to dysfunction which, BAM, puts you in the injury cycle!

In order to properly start mobilizing fascial tissue or “smashing” as the great Kelly Starrett would say, you need to acquire some tools. Here are the basic two*: Lacrosse/Tennis Ball Foam Roller *Click on the images to buy the ones I use off Amazon. It sucks. It can be debilitating and can end your training in a hurry if you don’t mitigate it causal factors. This is a serious concern for us Army types since ruck marches and long runs tend to be the greatest exacerbating factors to shin splints.

The swelling occurs along the piece of muscle called the tibialis anterior (fig 2.3) travelling on the lateral side of the tibia and along the soleus which wraps itself along the medial side of the tibia. Couple this with a sore Achilles tendon and you’ve got the Holy Trinity of lower leg pain.

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THE SMR TOOLS

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*Click on the images to buy the ones I use off Amazon. Arming yourself with these simple tools will allow you to get started. But in all honesty, you can use anything that is lying around your house. Baseballs, old squishy toy balls, pipes, rolling pins, the list goes on. In the next chapter we will look at the specific exercises you can do to hit specific areas of concern. The goal is to apply light pressure to an affected area and gradually increase the intensity and time spent releasing the area. A good strategy is to start from soft to hard. Meaning, start with a softer tennis ball, let’s say on your plantar fascia, and roll that around and judge your pain levels. In the case of SMR, we are looking for “The Pain Face”, as Kelly Starrett so eloquently describes as the point where you know it’s working. Don’t know what your pain face is? It’s similar to your “O” face but without any fun involved.

Well done, soldier. The positive takeaway from this is that you had to train harder than you ever have in order to get to this miserable state. Now, how do you fix the mess you’re in?

A typical session will have you applying pressure to the knotted or tight area for at least 30 sec before you move on to the next tight area down the chain. You should keep pressure on the area until you feel a sense of release, you may need to do a few sets of 30s each to get yourself there. The term “foam rolling” is a bit of a misnomer, you really don’t need to roll your tight areas like dough, constant pressure or tiny circles will suffice at this point.

Say hello to my little friends...

COMMON FASCIA PROBLEMS In order to properly start mobilizing fascial tissue or “smashing” as the great Kelly Starrett would say, you need to acquire some tools. Here are the basic two*:

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I. Lacrosse/Tennis Ball II. Foam Roller

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SUMMARY Congratulations on completing a crash course in human anatomy. You probably never learned this in high school so grasping new material like this is not only good for your body but adds to the list of things you can talk about at a party. This is the tip of the iceberg and like my former high school students, I encourage you to dive deeper into the subject. A great resource and my go to is Kelly Starrett’s Mobility Wod and his book, Becoming a Supple Leopard ALSO check out our conversation on my podcast about how to keep our warfighters fighting. The main takeaways from this section: • Self Myofascial Release is a term to describe the release of fascial tissue, essentially massage, through the use of your own techniques. • Without an orthopaedic or structural incongruence that causes you pain or improper movement patterns, the majority of your joint pain can be managed and reduced by improving the movement of your fascia.

“What is malleable is always superior to that which is immovable. This is the principle of controlling things by going along with them, of mastery through adaptation.” Lao Tzu

• Find a sore spot and press for 30s is a simplified but effective way to visualize SMR. • “Foam rolling” is a misnomer for SMR, in actuality you don’t need to roll at all, simply press and hold for 30s with small movement circles, if necessary.

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• Pain is a good thing, however, always start soft to hard. Tennis ball before baseball, soft foam roller before hard roller because we want a pain face not a howling dog stuck in a trap.

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SECTION 2

You’re at full extension of the hamstring and you’re now more likely to have a sharp pull that sidelines you for a few weeks/months. If you have ever pulled your hamstring, you know how long it takes to heal.

DYNAMIC & STATIC STRETCHING

Looking at a study by Hartig and Henderson (1999), they investigated if increasing hamstring flexibility would decrease lower extremity overuse injuries in infantry recruits. According to their research, improving hamstring flexibility significantly decreased the rate of injury from 29.1% of candidates down to 16.7%.

If you remember back to the start of the book, we talked about the analogy of not being able to touch your toes while standing but having a passive stretch done by a therapist results in normal range of motion. We’re going to expand a bit more on flexibility and its importance for your job performance here. So why be flexible?

FLEXIBILITY

Confusing?

Flexibility leads to the ability to allow your tendons and especially your ligaments which attach your bones to your muscles to stretch without snapping. If we’re talking about nimbleness, we need to incorporate flexibility. Imagine your biceps femoris (hamstring) being extremely tight due to months or years of low intensity runs. That tightness is your body’s response to a stimulus, ie the constant pulling motion of your hamstring through a shortened range of motion. It is training itself to be efficient in that specific ROM. Our bodies do an awesome job of adapting. You’re actually making life easier since there’s more tension there now. However, this has a down side.

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Yup I like thinking about flexibility like buying home insurance; you pay for decades hoping that you never have to use it. I’ll elaborate. Stretching undeniably allows you to increase tissue extensibility. A week of static stretching and you see improvement relatively quickly. Whether you’re on patrol or navigating an obstacle course, you’re putting yourself at risk for injury just by the sheer nature of walking with weight on your back on awkward terrain or vaulting over large barriers. Since this is the case, you will have greater forces to overcome if you step into a perilously deep tank rut. Your level of flexibility will determine the extreme end range of extensibility of your knee or ankle before rupturing or spraining.

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If you have a really tight hamstring, anything that is done outside of that normal ROM gets a little sketchy. Need to sprint after only doing months of low intensity jogging, guess what?

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However, a much larger Australian study of Army recruits noted that there was no significant differences in injury rates between a control group of pre-exercise non static stretching recruits and pre-exercise static stretching recruits (Pope, et al., 2000). What did seem to matter, with respects to injury, were age, fitness and enlistment date.

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Some of you will never step in the tank rut or fall off the ‘A’ frame and will never have your tissues forcibly stretched but for anyone that does, you have that “insurance” policy of being flexible. Remember, flexibility is complimentary to strength. Being strong is awesome but if you’re inflexible, you’ll snap. Heed the words of the artist, Pink; “The willow is my favourite tree... It’s the most flexible tree in nature and nothing can break it...” Pink

Rule #2 of Dynamic Stretching - Keep at it until you’ve actually increased ROM. Example - Each warm up rep of squats I’m trying to get deeper into my squat, I’ll add a minimal amount of weight and get deeper still until I’ve reached my best possible position. This may take 20+ reps but it pays off in a big way. I’m not trying to patronize anyone here either. It may seem obvious but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen guys helicoptering their arms then slapping a bar on their shoulders and doing a hernia inducing set of squats.

DYNAMIC STRETCHING This type of stretching is accomplished by moving yourself through a specific movement pattern that you will likely encounter in your upcoming event/activity. Essentially, stretching through movement. Examples include:

A great one two punch is to get to smashing your tissues with some SMR and then do your dynamic stretches. This will allow you to access greater ROM with your dynamic work, right off the bat and let you be more efficient with your pre and post exercise routines. Any dynamic stretching routine should incorporate 3-10 different exercises, at 15-20 reps per exercise, done in 1-2 sets

STATIC STRETCHING

• Twisting lunge • Inch worms

Hands down, the Army’s favourite warm up. Anyone who’s been in can probably remember your o’dark thirty PT runs. Let me refresh your memory...

• Floor sweeps

0530 Reveille

• Shoulder pass throughs Dynamic stretches are great before doing any sort of activity. I usually apply two simple rules:

0610 Touching your toes for 30s, pulling on your ankles for another 30s and swinging your arms for 30s more. 0615 Death run with the tall, skinny 2LT

Example - I’m going to do some heavy, high bar, back squats therefore I’m going to stretch with some actual squats.

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Rule #1 of Dynamic Stretching - Mimic what you’re actually going to do in your WOD.

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So what are some forms of static stretching that can be incorporated into your daily routine?

All too familiar right? Don’t get me wrong, I love static stretching, but the way it was usually incorporated in our PT sessions made me cringe. Just like anything in life, if you want something to be effective, it has to be done right. Touching your toes in the morning is only paying lip service to a valuable exercise modality.

Here are a few of my faves: • Leg up the wall pose • Pigeon pose • Child’s pose • Downward facing dog • Samson Stretch What’s important to note is that I rarely, if ever, do static stretching before hitting a WOD or playing a sport.

As previously stated, based on studies done on military recruits, there was no conclusive evidence that static stretching has any significant effect on reducing injury, however, based on my analogy of flexibility training being like insurance for your house, it makes sense to incorporate it into your fitness habits.

Why? Two reasons: Reason #1 - I don’t like getting ready for something that requires me to be explosive or high intensity with low intensity, non-dynamic activity. Doesn’t allow me to get my head “in the game”.

Just like home insurance doesn’t reduce the probability of your house flooding it simply reduces the financial pain of reconstruction; flexibility training doesn’t reduce the probability of injury but can reduce the severity of an injury.

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Static stretching is a form of stretching that holds a muscle and its connective tissue under tension in order to, hopefully, improve its ROM.

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Reason #2 - The evidence doesn’t really support it. According to Behm and Chaouachi (2011), static stretching of 90s or more for a muscle group impairs performance immediately after doing the stretches. Additionally, most studies suggest there is no added benefit to stretches of 30s or less on athletic performance.

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Below is a summary table of the types of flexibility training you can do. For those that have a tight stretching game (pun intended), I haven’t gone over all types of stretching here simply because I’m writing this based on my own experiences on what I know works. By all means, I encourage you to do your research and attempt each modality as it may let you achieve your nimbleness objectives in a more timely manner.

SUMMARY Classic stretching exercises play an important role in achieving maximum nimbleness. The combination of static and dynamic stretching with SMR was the game changer for me. Here are the takeaways from this section:

TYPES OF STRETCHING SMR Used to help reduce trigger points and inhibit overactive muscles. Usually done with a foam roller. Done by applying pressure for a minimum of 30s to the shitty areas. Should induce “pain face”. Done before or after exercise.

STATIC Used to correct existing muscle imbalances and lengthen tight muscles. Done typically after exercise and held for a minimum of 30s for 1-3 sets.

• Static stretching is important but probably doesn’t reduce the probability of injury. However, it probably does improve the longevity of your tissue and joints.

DYNAMIC

• Static stretching before an activity doesn’t increase performance but can have a detrimental effect if done immediately before activity.

Uses your momentum to take a joint through full ROM. Great for those that have good movement patterns and typically used before exercise after having done SMR work. 3-10 exercises, 1-2 sets of 10-15 reps.

• Dynamic stretching is a great way to improve ROM of your joints for the activity you’re going to participate in and probably will help reduce the possibility of injury. • Conduct SMR first, then conduct either your static or dynamic stretching routines second for maximal benefit. • Typically, use dynamic stretches before doing something dynamic and static stretches for cool downs and recovery. This concludes the chapter on tissue management techniques. Your goal now, is to develop your own tissue management program. Typically, a tissue management program will address your trouble spots immediately before an activity, immediately after activity and during down time in your training schedule. For example, I grind, smash and stretch while I watch TV at night with my wife. The following chapter will show you the basic SMR exercises that address the most common trouble spots to develop your nimbleness program.

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CHAPTER 3

TARGET AREA TREATMENTS

In this chapter: 1. Lower Body Tissue Treatment 2. Upper Body Tissue Treatment

SECTION 1

In figure 3.2, this is a simple SMR technique you can do with your thumbs on your ankle. Dig around in there a bit and see if there’s any pain face reactions; like digging for tight fascia gold. Go all around your ankle too, not just the top portion, you’d be surprised where you find some golden nuggets of pain. You can do these everyday until you no longer illicit the pain face and then move on to a harder implement or more advanced exercise.

LOWER BODY TISSUE TREATMENT EXERCISES The following section will address the major points of concern for the lower body. Do these exercises every day. If you have time to binge watch Game of Thrones you also have the perfect opportunity for tissue management. Grab your implements of pain and let’s get started

FOOT & ANKLE Keeping your feet in good health is a no brainer for any combat arms types. We spend ample time training our recruits on the importance of keeping their flip flops on in the shower and keeping our feet dry in the field but we neglect to inform them of how to keep their foot fascia moving well. Our feet are like Vanna White’s legs, they are our money maker, critically important to doing our jobs.

LOWER LEG

A simple way to keep the fascia under your foot from tightening up and giving you a nasty case of plantar fasciitis is to do the following exercise in Figure 3.1. Start with a tennis ball and if it’s painful, stick with it before trying the harder lacrosse ball.

In general, using a foam roller on your calves is a good idea. It’s a relatively large muscle group so you’re probably going to find a whole bunch of fun, little spots to stop and grimace on.

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Figure 3.4 is an example of how to do this, remember, don’t roll up and down like it’s pizza dough; roll until you find a pain spot and hang out there for 30 seconds or so.

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Keep constant pressure, while standing, on the ball and flex your toes a few times. Remember to hold for at least 30s.

I always progress from foot to head in my SMR progressions but that’s totally up to you. Next up is our tree stumps, our legs. These do all our load bearing so take the time to sort them out well.

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Similar to Figure 3.2, you can start by running your thumbs up the medial or inner side of your tibia (shin). There is a lot of connective tissue here that connects the soleus to the tibia and what gets inflamed when you get shin splints. You can prevent this from happening by using this technique. In figure 3.3, we have another exercise that addresses the outer part of the lower leg, called the anterior tibialis. This bad boy rarely gets addressed when we do the typical army calf stretch but man does it get tight after ruck marches. Pop a foam roller on this guy and see what faces you make. You’ll also notice, after going for a longer run than normal or your first run in a while, this area, especially closer to the ankle, gets super sore and tight. This is due to the fact that in order to run, you need to push your entire body off the ground by plantar flexing your foot, which requires a big effort from the anterior tibialis.

HIP COMPLEX Ahhh, the hips; they don’t lie. They are the major generator of force for any lift and allows for force to be transferred through the body. The pelvis, lumbar spine and core make up the entire complex. Let’s address the key trouble spots. Assuming that your part of the combat arms, I can assume that you are significantly more active than the rest of western society and sit at a desk less than the average desk bound athlete. I make this point because most of us have a real addiction to sitting all day. From the time we enter school till the day we die, we spend an inordinate amount of time literally on our asses. According to the Canadian Health Measures Survey (2011), Canadians spend an average of 10 hours per day keeping a seat warm. This includes work, driving and chilling out. I mention this because, let alone that sitting has been linked to poorer cardiovascular health, increased levels of metabolic disorder and higher incidence of dementia, it also plays havoc on your hips.

Roll all the way up from your ankle to your knee.

Remember what your body is constantly trying to do, make shit easier for you so that you use less energy. If your steady state is similar to the one in Figure 3.5, you’re body is going to go into power save mode and keep your hips nice and tight in that neat little flexed position all day. 90% chance you’re pain facing right now. This was my biggest lower leg issue that took months to address. Some of you may even feel a tightness or pulling in the outside of your shin when you squat or try to squat deeply, therefore addressing this trouble spot for most of us is an absolute must.

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“Hamstring flexibility and hip mobility for me are the two most important factors on the field.” Jake Arrieta

Tight hips are not your friend. They prevent you from squatting properly and it also turns off your glutes and forces you to compensate by using a lot more of your quads which can increase sheer forces on your knees and voilà, you’re on the road to having sore, grumpy sergeant knees.

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Let’s try to avoid that with these SMR techniques. Figure 3.6 is what I call the bread and butter of SMR techniques. If you need to spend any time it should be on this exercise. Simply grab your roller and start making love to it. Get yourself placed so that the roller lies just beneath your hip bone and then press your hip flexors into ‘er. The tensor fascia latae (TFL) shown in Figure 3.8, is slightly off to the side of your hip. The psoas, sartorius and iliacus are the big 3 of the “hip flexors” that need tons of work too. Get after ‘em. Grind the hips into it a bit...easy buddy, just some SMR here. Flex your glute (butt) while you’re at it too, to get deeper into the tissue. Maybe not one you should do in a crowd, considering the movement and pain face might get people to call the gym manager. Progress to a harder implement once you’re ready. Enjoy Figure 3.7 is another brutal SMR exercise that attacks the glute but specifically the piriformis (see Figure 3.8). This gets rock solid after a few years of heavy rucking, sitting and running. If you didn’t cry when you put the roller on your anterior tibialis in Figure 3.3, you’re gonna do it now. Place the roller under one cheek, cross your leg over the other knee, to open the glute up, and drop your weight onto the roller gradually. Move your glute around the roller until you hit this band of tissue called the piriformis that runs East-West. Getting the glute “unlocked” opens up the ability to actually use it for your squats which takes tremendous effort off your low back as well. Hence the reason why I blew my back out.

My tissue was rock solid all the way up and down the chain but my piriformis was so tight that I almost cried when I got on the roller for the first time after my back injury.

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SUMMARY Like all great accomplishments in life, if they are to be fruitful, you need to go through a bit of ass pain to be successful. This is no different for improving your lower body mobility, literally. Remember, you’re playing the long game here; one session isn’t going to improve years of immobility. You’re reading my book because you presumably had no clue - you don’t know what you don’t know, as a wise man once said. However, every day you do complete a session, you will be at least 1% better and that’s how you have to view this shit. The big takeaways from this section: • Your lower body, in my opinion, is your absolute priority when starting out. Your warriorness requires long marches not romantic walks on the beach and therefore, you need your dogs (feet) to not be barking and your legs to be able to get you into and out of the fight. • Always go after the big asshole first and the others will fall in line - just like a bar fight, you take care of the biggest threat first and usually the rest of the minions will back off. Therefore, go after your gluteals and calves first to get the biggest bang for your buck at the beginning. • Keep at it every day, always strive to be 1% better. “Not only is yoga excellent for flexibility, but it is also a great tool for longevity and injury prevention, as it allows for internal body awareness” Kyle Shewfelt

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SECTION 2

Take a deep breath, this is probably unpleasant (Figure 3.10).

UPPER BODY TISSUE TREATMENT EXERCISES

If you’re up for some extra masochism, extend your arm and raise it towards your head (Figure 3.11). Hang out there a bit and repeat a few times.

Last but not least is our torso. Anecdotally, the most overtrained part of the body for any young infantry soldier. Not from morning PT or operational demands but from sheer ego to look like Thor when we hit the beach. Specifically, chest and arms, I’m not trying to say this from any soap box either; I’m guilty as any other young buck of overtraining my chest and arms for the same reason. What can manifest itself here is really tight shoulders and poor control over the scapular area of your back. Rounding of your shoulders is typical for guys that overtrain their chest plus it gives an illusion of volume when you’re young and skinny. As you get older these internally rotated shoulders can start to hurt and lead to things like rotator cuff tears, sore necks and locked up thoracic spines. Fixing some of the damage can be done with some simple SMR work. Get out your foam roller and place it just under your shoulder blades, arms at your sides and slowly move your arms over your head as in Figure 3.9. Slide up your spine one rib at a time and repeat until you get to the top of your scapulae. You can progress this to a lacrosse ball which is extra fun or a double, taped up lacrosse ball for even more bonus fun.

Lastly, we need to clean up those lats (Latissimus dorsi). If you’re having difficulty with getting yourself into that front rack position, here’s a remedy. Lie on your side and place the foam roller just under your armpit and apply your body weight to it. That meaty part between your armpit and your rib cage needs attention. Roll into new positions with your arm extended at your side (Figure 3.12). Sitting, again, can wreak havoc here. If your neck is craned to look at your TPS reports on your screen all day, you may get some real relief from this exercise as well. I like to finish off this bout of treatment by also taking the lacrosse ball and rolling it up and down the sides of my neck.

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Overly active trapezius muscles, figure 3.13, tends to happen to a lot of us that carry tons of weight. I kind of miss my infantry traps that were bulging for years but are now lost to history. Really over active traps can put some strain on your neck, so to clean that area up, grab your lacrosse ball and place it right above your scapula and lie down on it. The Nimble Warrior By Dave Morrow Personal Training

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IMPORTANT NOTE A point of note for infantry soldiers. We carry heavy loads over long distances and it’s usually not balanced properly. We tend to lean over and not have very much of that weight stacked over our hips. This ‘C’ shape isn’t an ideal position but our bodies can only handle so much load before we curl up. This essentially turns off your core muscles because we’re no longer ‘braced’. In the long term, this results in a poor ability to ‘brace’ and the core muscles down our mid-line get ‘turned off’. When we go to lift, we don’t ‘brace’ and our low backs are doing too much of the actual lifting. This pattern is what lead to my back injury. My core was essentially turned off for years and I thought I was really strong since I could do a lot of sit ups. Exercises like the plank, plank rollouts and hollow rocks are a great way to start ‘turning on’ your mid-line again.

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SUMMARY Keep your upper body moving well and your lower half will have a much easier time of it, especially when talking about spine mobility. Here are the main takeaways from this section: • Men tend to have overtrained upper bodies and can experience lots of shoulder internal rotation that can lead to poor control of the rotator cuff muscles and lead to injury. • Poor T spine mobility can impair proper lifting form in the squat and deadlift and can result in more stress being placed on the lower back which can result in injury as well. • Ruck marching puts tremendous strain on the trapezius muscle group and therefore can become relatively immobile and overactive which can lead to neck pain. • Work on your midline religiously. This will pay off massive dividends in the future.

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CHAPTER 4

CONCLUSION

GO FORTH AND BE NIMBLE From the outset, the point of this book was to make an easy to read, fun and informative tool to prevent as many career ending injuries as possible. My dream would be to see this material taught on basic military courses and on an even greater scale, at the high school level. I hope I don’t piss off any physiotherapist but wouldn’t it be great if people didn’t have to constantly need treatment for issues that could’ve been prevented with some SMR. Had I been introduced to this knowledge earlier on in my career, maybe I’d still be in. However, I’ve started to become a lot more aware of the universe’s mysterious ways and had I been exposed to this knowledge earlier on and had I not gotten hurt then I wouldn’t have written this book and therefore may never have helped anyone avoid a career ending injury. Powerful stuff, I know.

At the start of the book, I mentioned my Nimbleness Factor scale, make sure to refer back to it in a month or so after having implemented your tissue management routine. Notice any changes and or breakthroughs. Sometimes just a little work goes a very long way. If this isn’t the case, don’t get discouraged. In my case, it took me months to undo over a decade of damage. There’s no easy way around becoming nimble, you need to put in the time and supplement with plenty of BHW (bloody hard work). But I know that if you’ve read this, hard work is a very intimate acquaintance of yours. Your review of this book matters. A review will help more people get out of the pain cave and live happier, more fulfilling lives. You can leave one here. I’m truly appreciative of your support. Here are some last words of wisdom: “A man is born gentle and weak. At death, he is hard and stiff. Green plants are tender and filled with sap. At death, they are withered and dry. Therefore, the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death, and the gentle and yielding is the disciple of life.” Lao Tzu

My success will not be measured in dollars and cents but in knowing that some door kicker or medic or police officer, somewhere, is able to do their job because I passed on some of my knowledge to them. That’s what it’s all about. We covered a lot of ground but there’s still so much more to cover. Take this book and run with it. If it’s your first intro to this kind of exercise then there’s a lot to digest. Take it one day at a time; Rome wasn’t built in a day. Build your tissue management routine to suit your needs, that’s why I didn’t make one for the book. This is your journey. Now you have the technical knowledge, time to start applying it. If you need help with this, I know a good coach. Reach out to me by clicking here. I’d love to hear about your journey using this book.

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DBM

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Go forth and be nimble...

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Fig 2.3, usage license (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1123_Muscles_of_the_Leg_that_Move_the_Foot_and_Toes.jpg)

REFERENCES

Fig 3.5, (Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash)

Behm, David G., and Anis Chaouachi. “A Review of the Acute Effects of Static and Dynamic Stretching on Performance.” European Journal of Applied Physiology, vol. 111, no. 11, 2011, pp. 2633–2651., doi:10.1007/s00421-011-1879-2. Hartig, Donald E., and John M. Henderson. “Increasing Hamstring Flexibility Decreases Lower Extremity Overuse Injuries in Military Basic Trainees.” The American Journal of Sports Medicine, vol. 27, no. 2, 1999, pp. 173–176., doi:10.1177/0 3635465990270021001. “Mobility|WOD - Optimize Athletic Performance & MobilityWOD | Optimize Performance & Improve Mobility, www.mobilitywod.com/.

Improve

Mobility.”

Fig 3.8, usage license (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1122_Gluteal_Muscles_that_Move_the_Femur.jpg#filelinks) Fig 3.13, usage license (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1117_Muscles_of_the_Neck_and_Back.jpg) Chapt 1, cover photo (Photo by Victor Freitas on Unsplash) Chapt 2, cover photo (Photo by cottonbro on pexels) Chapt 3, cover photo (Photo by Hadis Safari on Unsplash)

Pope, Rodney Peter, et al. “A Randomized Trial of Preexercise Stretching for Prevention of Lower-Limb Injury.” Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, vol. 32, no. 2, 2000, p. 271., doi:10.1097/00005768-200002000-00004.

Conclusion, cover photo (Photo by Ana Arantes on Unsplash)

Shephard, R.j. “Physical Activity of Canadian Adults: Accelerometer Results from the 2007 to 2009 Canadian Health Measures Survey.” Yearbook of Sports Medicine, vol. 2011, 2011, pp. 111–113., doi:10.1016/j.yspm.2011.03.006. Starrett, Kelly, and Glen Cordoza. Becoming a Supple Leopard: the Ultimate Guide to Resolving Pain, Preventing Injury, and Optimizing Athletic Performance. Victory Belt Pub., 2013. Fig 2.1, usage license (https://pngimage.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/ musculo-bovino-png-4.png)

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References

Fig 2.2, usage license (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arch_tendonitis.jpg)

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D. Poor Man’s Hamstring Curl: 30 reps total

5 DAYS OF SQUAT MOBILITY

E. 5 Way Hips: 3 full sets per leg

You’re a BEAST for wanting to get your squat dialed in. Obviously, you’ve got serious goals and you’ve addressed your squat as something you need to work on. This is a great starting point. This easy to follow squat mobility program is going to improve your squat depth guaranteed. Safer, more mobile squats is a surefire way to bulletproof your knees, hips and back. You will need a foam roller, lacrosse ball, an exercise band and some weights (kettlebells preferable). Use the links provided to the ones I use. Make sure to take videos of your progress and post in the HRD2KILL FB Group or use the hashtag #hrd2kill. IF you are reading this in paperback, you can find all the video demonstrations for every exercise by conducting a Google search.

G. TFL SMR: Hold on tender spots for 30s for each leg H. Piriformis SMR: Hold on tender spots for 30s each leg I. Afghan Squat Challenge: Max hold for time J. Single Leg Glute Bridge: RETEST - 10 reps. Any change? K. Squat Test: RETEST - 10 reps. Any change?

MIDLINE STABILITY DAY 2/5 A) QL CLEAN UP: WATCH, LISTEN, DO B) BEAR CRAWL: WATCH, LISTEN, DO - 5-10 MINS OF PRACTICE DO 2-3MINS TOTAL

HIPS AND GLUTES DAY 1/5 A. Squat Test: THE MOST IMPORTANT PART - Cold test of 10 reps (pay attention to any tight areas in your ankles/calves/hips) FILM YOURSELF FROM THE SIDE and watch later. B. Single Leg Glute Bridge: Cold test - ten reps/leg (pay attention to tight areas around hip and low back)

C) BEAR CRAWL W STICK: ATTEMPT ONLY IF YOU HAVE SOMEONE TO PLACE THE STICK ON YOUR BACK. PHASE 1: STATIC BEAR HOLD W 3 POINTS OF CONTACT (BACK OF SKULL, SHOULDER BLADES, TAIL BONE) THIS WILL FORCE YOU INTO THE PROPER POSITION. PHASE 2: DO WHAT’S IN THE VIDEO (VERY CHALLENGING)

E) HOLLOW ROCKS: 40 TOTAL REPS 65

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References

D) RACK ASSISTED SQUAT THERAPY: DO 10 X 10 SEC

C. Banded Good Morning: 30 reps

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F. Banded Hip Distraction: Minimum 1 min/side or until your hips feel more open

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BACK & SHOULDERS DAY 5/5

ANKLES & CALVES DAY 3/5

A) Front Squat: 10 reps just the barbell or broomstick - FILM FROM THE SIDE

A) Squat Test: Cold test - 10 reps (pay attention to any tigh areas in your ankles/calves) FILM FROM THE SIDE.

B) Ring Row: 20 reps

B) Standing Calf Raise: 20 reps - if you have light weights, grab them.

C) YTWL Exercise: 4-5 sets 3-5 reps

C) 3 Way Calf Raises: do 5 sets

D) Front Rack Mobility: 3 x 10 reps

D) Ankle Dorsiflexion Exercise: 30 reps/ankle - Don’t worry about adding weight.

E) Latissimus Dorsi SMR: Hold on tender spots for 30s, repeat until less painful

E) Banded Ankle Distraction: 20-30 reps/leg F) Anterior Tibialis SMR: Hold on tender spots for at least 30s per leg

F) Dual Kettlebell Front Rack Hold: Every minute on the minute for 10 mins do: 20s hold - brace abs hard, no arching of low back. If form breaks, put weights down and find lower weight. GO HEAVY

G) Calf SMR: Hold on tender spots for at least 30s per leg

J) Front Squat: RETEST 10 reps w barbell or broomstick - FILM FROM THE SIDE

H) Bent Knee Calf Stretch: 3 x 30 sec hold

K) Squat Test: THE MOST IMPORTANT PART - 10 reps FILM YOURSELF FROM THE SIDE and compare to your first video from Day 1. Any changes?

I) Squat Test: RETEST - FILM FROM THE SIDE

CHECK IN

MIDLINE STABILITY DAY 4/5

A) How are things going? Set up a chat time with me to establish next steps from here. Be sure to post your results using #hrd2kill on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

A) Morning Flow: watch, listen,do B) Deadbug: 30 reps total, nice and slow

D) Hollow Rocks: 40 reps total

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References

C) Rack Assisted Squat Therapy: 10x10 sec

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