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Several months back, I discussed the general anatomical attachments of the Rectus Abdominis. Today I’d like to dig a little deeper into the actions, or better yet what it does when there is no action in this anterior abdominal muscle.

I also wrote a piece on Upper Cross Syndrome detailing its effect on posture and relative tension.

In order to properly continue in discussing the Rectus, let me also briefly touch on Lower Cross Syndrome. The same concepts of short and long muscles apply here only it applies to the hips. So when you have a crossing pattern of weak and a crossing pattern of strong muscles in this region, you will develop a constant anterior pelvic tilt causing a chain reaction of muscle issues.

Because the Rectus attaches on both the hips (pubis bone and pubic symphasis) and the ribs (xiphoid process and cartilage of ribs 5-7), we can then determine that an inhibited Rectus Abdominis will allow for the ribs to flare and the pelvis to tilt anteriorly. Both of these results help catalyze what is known as the open scissors. This is a combination of both a rib flare and lower cross syndrome. It should be noted that although the presence of a rib flare does not guarantee the existence of upper cross syndrome, it is highly likely that the individual with open scissors will have both syndromes.

Because of this, many athletes will make a conscious effort to single out the Rectus and focus on strengthening it to lessen the open scissors. While this is a good idea in theory, the primary action of the Rectus is not work alone and its certainly not designed for sit ups and crunches. What should be done instead is allow for your abdominal muscles to work together and create core stability. A proper plank is a great way to activate your entire core while emphasizing the Rectus Abdominis. The Rectus is an anti-extension muscle (meaning it works to prevent your lumbar spine from going into extension), so squeeze your glutes and allow for that pelvis to tilt posteriorly to a more neutral position. It should also be realized that your breathing pattern will likely have the greatest effect on your ability to correct these postural issues. Plain and simple, if you cannot breather properly, restoring posture will border on impossible.

PHOTO COURTESY OF:

http://slstrength.com/2013/01/02/upper-cross-syndrome-explained/

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As sports medicine programs continue to develop concepts such as Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization and Postural Restoration, we as strength coaches will continue to develop the concepts that we teach on the gym floor. Classic exercise techniques preach muscle isolation, hypertrophy and isolated strength but as new strategies arise, we see that performance training should be based around movement training involving many different muscles. For example, if I want to train a baseball player to hit with more force, I’m not going to isolate his training to isolated movements such as a medicine ball side pass (no rotation) or lateral lunges. If I’m going to properly train this movement, I need to realize that this movement is a collection of muscular contractions that need to work in sync to cause this movement. Therefore, in order to train these movements, I need to ensure that when the hitter calls upon this movement, he will be able to use them correctly to generate the most efficient force possible.

Irradiation refers to the fact that one muscle has an effect on many muscles up their respective chain (superficial back line, etc.). A quick example is  how hamstring tension can be decreased with some release techniques on your plantar fascia on the bottom of your foot. Irradiation can be positive or negative. If I have an anteriorly tilted pelvis, my irradiation superior and inferior of this point will prove negative and the rest of the muscles in the chain will have to adopt compensation patterns to make up for the dysfunction. Conversely, if my pelvis is aligned properly, it will have a positive irradiating effect (although that’s not to say another muscle in the chain won’t be having a negative irradiating effect).

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Upper Cross Syndrome is a postural dysfunction in the shoulder region. Signs of UCS included shoulders being rolled forward, shoulder shrugging during exercise and extension of the neck causing the head to be pushed in front of the body.

Upper Cross Syndrome is essentially an imbalance of muscular tension that is fairly common among the general population. Muscles such as the Pectoralis Major, Pectoralis Minor, and Upper Trapezius muscles will have a higher relative tension than muscles such as Lower Trapezius, Deep Neck Flexors, Rhomboids and Serratus Anterior.

UCS is typically caused by people who train their chest more than their back. So if you grew up doing push-ups without doing exercise like inverted rows, you are a prime candidate for UCS. Other factors such as sleeping posture, sitting at a desk without proper posture for extended periods of time and poor exercise form are all contributing factors to the development of UCS.

These muscular imbalances cause some additional kyphosis of the spine as well as an array of problems resulting from poor posture.

One thing that I have noticed in my time training professional athletes is that most guys are Upper Trap dominant, meaning that when it comes time to retract the scapula, the shoulder blade uses an upward glide because their Lower and Middle Traps aren’t strong enough. This, of course, leads to UCS, so one way to help correct this syndrome is to strengthen the Lower and Middle Traps.

Another way to correct this postural issue is to create a chest to back exercise ratio that favors your posterior (back) side. I would recommend at least 1:3. This will allow for your posterior chain to gain ground on your chest muscles thus pulling your shoulders back to the proper position. Along the same lines, we want to make sure that we stretch the tight muscles to release tension and increase length. We also need to make sure we create enough Thoracic Spine mobility.

Lastly, it’s important to incorporate soft tissue work into the treatment program. For this particular region, using a lacrosse ball or a baseball work the best. Make sure you emphasize the Upper Trap and Pectorals during your myofascial release.

Upper Cross Syndrome is very common and should be treated in order to avoid future injury as a result of poor posture.

IMAGES COURTESY OF:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KVPq1Qq-sEA/ThHWQEZg3pI/AAAAAAAAAB0/CwWepGbC5ZQ/s400/Trapezius.jpg

http://www.empowher.com/files/ebsco/images/si1544.jpg

http://erikdalton.com/images/upper-crossed-syndrome.jpg

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Stretching has been a warm-up requirement for quite some time but recent studies have been revealing some interesting information about stretching’s effect on performance.

From a Strength and Conditioning perspective, we need to keep our athletes healthy, but at what cost? A study in a recent edition of The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research suggests that PNF, static and ballistic stretching are causing a decrement in performance in various power lifts. The researchers are concluding that these stretching methods are causing a significant decrease in power output potential. So as coaches, we are faced with a health vs. performance dilemma with these warm-up methods.

Thankfully, we don’t need to confront this problem. The same study reveals the benefits of Dynamic Stretching and the use of this method can increase your power output potential in the very same exercises discrediting the aforementioned stretching methods.

SOURCE:

Maximal Strength, Number of Repetitions, and Total Volume Are Differently Affected By Static-, Ballistic-, and Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation Stretching, Barroso, Renato; Valmor, Tricoli; Dos Santos Gil, Saulo; Ugrinowitsch, Carlos; Roschel, Hamilton; The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, Volume 26, Number 9, September 2012

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When assessing athlete’s movement patterns, scapular mobility, especially in baseball, is critical to the health of the athlete. In today’s world, we see athletes who are upper trapezius dominant. We see athletes with protracted scaps and we see athletes with a number of dysfunctions in their shoulders. As strength and conditioning coaches, we must develop ways to correct the impairments. For protracted shoulders we may assign soft tissue work to the pecs and extra pull exercises and for upper trap dominant athletes we need to strengthen the lower and middle traps.

In the Volume 26 of The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, a study is published examining the proper intensities to use when targeting certain scapular muscles. For example, if we are looking to gain lower trap strength, according to the study, we may prescribe a prone abduction regimen with a high intensity.

In the study, seven exercises were measured. The shoulder press, one arm row, push-up plus, press up, prone abduction, prone flexion and a ring fallout.

The muscles studied in this examination were Serratus Anterior as well as the Upper, Middle and Lower Trapezius.

Maximum Serratus activity was recorded during high intensity push-up pluses and high and low intensity shoulder presses.

The most Upper Trap activity was measured during high intensity shoulder press and high intensity prone abduction.

Lower Trap was most targeted during high intensities of prone abduction and low intensities of the press-up.

Finally the Middle Trap was most active during a high intensity one arm row; however the drop off to the low intensity row was minimal.

A lot of times, as strength coaches, we are limited in the time we can work with our athletes, so it is imperative to select the most effective and efficient exercises in order to get the most out of our sessions.

SOURCE: Andersen, Chrisoffer H., Zebis, Mette K., Saervoll, Charlotte, Sundstrup, Emil, Jakobsen, Markus D., Sjogaard, Gisela, Andersen, Lars L., “Scapular Muscle Activity From Selected Strengthening Exercises Performed At Low and High Intensities.”, The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, Volume 26, Number 9, September 2012

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Baseball players have adopted many different techniques to increase their bat speed at the plate. The use of the donut has been widely discredited as a tool that does more harm than good and today, warm-up bats with varying weights come into question.

Hitters face a monumental neuromuscular task with every pitch. According to RK Adair’s, The Physics of Baseball , a hitter has anywhere between 400 and 500 milliseconds to locate the ball, decide to swing, and then actually swing. With this information, it is easy to identify bat speed as a critical factor in a hitters batting effectiveness.

In a study performed for The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, researchers revealed data suggesting ways to increase bat speed at the plate.

Through research, it became clear that most studies discrediting warm-up devices such as the donut and heavy bats were performed with less than one minute of rest in between collecting a baseline bat speed, swinging with the device and testing the results.

The Adenosine Triphosphate system of the body, which is essentially the body’s energy has a life of six to ten minutes. This evidence suggests that in order for adaptations to occur from swinging with a warm-up device, it would require a much greater rest period.

With this in mind, researchers studied the effects of different rest periods using the same common warm-up devices. The study included a donut, heavy bats and light bats.

In the test of sixteen collegiate baseball players, as rest between warm-up swings increased so did their bat speed.

From a baseball perspective it should be noted that a study conducted by DeRenne et al. concluded that the use of a lead donut significantly changed batter’s swing pattern thus decreasing swing speed.

From a strictly bat speed perspective, increasing rest time between competitive swinging will also increase your bat speed. Factors such as number of pitches faced will play a role on swing velocity.

SOURCE: ”Effects of Various Warm-Up Devices and Rest Period Lengths on Batting Velocity and Acceleration of Intercollegiate Baseball Players,” Wilson, Jacob M., Miller, Abraham L., Szymanski, David J., Duncan, Nevine M., Andersen, Jody C., Alcantara, Zane G., Morrison, Timothy J., Bergman, Christopher J.; “The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research,” Volume 26, Number 9, September 2012

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The Pectoralis Major is the most popular of the pectoral musculature. Aside from its role in classic exercises like the bench press, the Pec. Major adducts the arm towards the body, as well as internally rotates, depresses and flexes the arm.

When discussing training technique, it is very important to understand the insertion and origin of the muscles you are training in order to produce proper force vectors.

Pec. Major inserts on the humerus at the lateral lip of the bicipital groove to the crest of the greater tuberosity.

Because we know that the insertion always contracts in towards the origin, we know that this insertion will be moving towards Pec. Major’s origin which is the medial third of the clavicle, anterior sternum, upper six costal cartilages and aponeurosis of the external oblique.

With this information we can gain a better understanding of how to train the Pec. Major.

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Teres Major’s job is essentially the opposite of its counterpart, the Teres Minor. Originating near the Minor’s origin at the middle half of the scapula’s lateral margin, the Major originates on the lower third of said margin.

Unlike the Minor’s role as an external rotator, the Teres Major’s primary responsibility is internal arm rotation. This action differential can give us some insight as to the location of the of the insertion point of the Teres Major.

Major inserts on the medial lip of the bicipital groove. It is just medial to the latissimus dorsi’s insertion point.

SOURCE: Hosford DPT, Darryl, “Shoulder Girdle Musculature,” http://www.PTCentral.com/muscles

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As a follow up to my article IMPROVING SQUAT DEPTH, I thought I should mention the concept of relative hamstring tension. In “Improving Squat Depth,” I talk about the importance of the hamstring in increasing your depth. The tension in the hamstring can draw the pelvis into a posterior tilt thus initiating squatting technical failure.

What we didn’t cover is what we are trying to accomplish by stretching the hamstring and rectus abdominis. This is where relative tension comes into play. We have to measure the relative tension of the hamstrings and rectus abdominis with the relative tension of the lumbar back extensors. As long as the tension is greater in the extensors, then the pelvis will be able to remain in anterior tilt, but once the relative tension shifts then the lumbar extension turns into flexion and the pelvis tilts posteriorly.

So when we stretch the hamstrings and rectus abdominis for the purpose of improving squat depth and performance, our true goal is to increase the range of motion in which the back extensors remain at a higher tension than that of the hamstrings and rectus abdominis.

We can also improve the back extensors capacity to maintain spinal and pelvic alignment by practicing exercises such as the superman hold.

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The Rectus Abdominis is your 6-Pack muscle. Covering most of your stomach, the RA flexes the trunk into a crunch position and compresses the abdomen.

Inserting on the xiphoid process and cartilage of ribs 5-7, the RA contracts towards the pubic crest.

Read about some of the importance of Rectus Abdominal health here in IMPROVING SQUAT DEPTH.

SOURCE:

http://www.lumen.luc.edu

Hosford DPT, Darryl, “Abdominal Musculature,” http://www.PTCentral.com/muscles