Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Ottoman Pistol Part III: ankle bending
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In the previous two posts about the Ottoman Pistol we looked at the main muscles that are at play in this version of that assisted version of the one legged squat: the quads (pt 1) and the hamstrings and butt (pt 2).
The Ankle. In this post we're looking at the last part of this series, and it's less about muscle work and more about movement. It's what happens at the ankles. Why bother to look at movement rather than muscle? It's the last key bendy bit of the move, if you will, and because we usually focus on the muscle side, we can kinda forget that the ankle joint is a key lever (with the knee and the hip) that lets that squat happen. Indeed in full pistols, you'll often hear folks talk about their ankles either a) supposedly not having enough flexibility or b) they cave into the side or c) can't stay down. Take a look at Franz Snideman's great video series on his revelations through the whole pistol for more.
So for today, it might be fun if not just interesting to take a look at what's going on around this wild joint.
Gastrocnemius and Soleus (S&G) First off, we're likely pretty familiar with the big muscles that work the ankle. They are the gastrocnemius (gastrocs for short) and soleus. They're what let us do calf raises, go on point, help control the foot kicking a football. These muscles are usually really strong in just about anyone. Indeed, if they actually test weak, it's likely sign of some other issue that problems with these the S&G.
Two interesting things about the S&G (well i think so): they both connect into the one tendon in the body most of us know by its nick name: the achiles tendon (or tendo calcaneus, formally). It comes from the base of the muscles down the lower part of the lower leg and into the back of the back bone of the foot, that bone being the calcaneus. Contract those muscles, we pull up on that bone, we point our toes. That's the first interesting thing: the achiles tendon connection.
Different Origins. The second cool thing is that while they both connect to the same place at their insertions, the origin of each (the parts closest to the middle of the body) are very different - which kinda helps understand why we have both an S and a G rather than just one big muslce. The design also reflects how important this movement is (technically ankle plantar flexion, or bending towards the base of the foot).
The Soleus tucks in underneath the gastrocs and it connects along the upper shaft of the big bone of the lower leg, the tibia. We'll come back to that in a moment. The keen thing here is that the muscle is dedicated to *just* flexing the ankle down, and it's a biggie. The gastrocs on the other hand, kinda like the reins on a horse, goes around to the frontish of the femur. In other words, it crosses at the knee joint and so not only has an effect on the ankle, but also pulls on the knee to help bend/flex it.
Bottom line, there's a lot of muscle to help flex the foot, and flex the foot down while helping bend the knee.
Super geeky aside: 2nd class lever. Plantar flexion of the foot when used to lift some or all of the body is one of the few examples in the body of what's know as a second class lever where the resistance (or load) is between the axis and the force. The usual example is a wheel barrow. The resistance is the load; the axis is at the wheel (ahead of the resistance) and the force is in the handles (behind the resistance).
If we look at the ankle - where to we see these three things? It's kinda clear that the pull or the force is at the achilles tendon on the calcaneus, right? So where's the axis or fulcrum? This only really comes into play when the foot is actually being used as a lever - as something to move something else (in physics the definition of work is the movement of an object). So, the ball of the foot (unless we're going on point perhaps) is the usual fulcrum of this lever (analogous to the wheelbarrow wheel). The resistance or load becomes effectively the stuff up through the tibia. The tibia, as we see is between the force and the axis/fulcrum. Jeeze that's cool.
Action in Pistol: More Eccentric Contraction. Just as we saw with the muscles of the knee and hip managing eccentric contraction to control lowering of the hip and of the knee (flexion), we're going to see the same eccentric contraction in the S&G for letting the lower leg roll forward at the ankle into dorsiflexion - the opposite of plantar flexion. Dorsiflexion has the angle between the top of the foot and the top of the shin decrease - which is exactly the motion that occurs as we squat down and the shin moves forward relative to the planted foot. The big soleus and gastrocs then pay themselves out under control to support the motion around the ankle. How cool is that?
Meanwhile, at the front of the leg, the tibialis anterior, peroneus tertius and related smaller extensor muscles are going to help by contracting at the front of the shin to help that forward action of dorsiflexon take place.
The ankle joint: wild bones wild bones. One of the amazing things about this joint we tend to take for granted is actually how sophisticated, articulated and mobile it is. When we think about a joint like the ankle we might think about something like a horseshoe with a bolt across the open bit and something like a block with a hole drilled through it hanging off the bolt. Ok, maybe that's just me.
The ankle joint is intriguingly more intrigued. The first bit of the ankle is that the bumpy bits that we feel and bang have names: malleoli. The malleoli are the bumpy bits at the base of the two bones that make up the shin: the bigger tibia that the femur rests upon for knee action with all that meniscus cartilege and acl/mcl joints, and the fibula, the smaller, thinner balance bone. The structure is similar to the lower arm's radius/ulnar double boning.
So ok, we have the malleoli that act as kind of connectors from the leg to the foot.
Talus/Calcaneus. Now it seems to me things get really impressively remarkable. The malleoli move atop a bone that sits atop a bone.
Let's go slowly (at least for me): the part of the foot that hits the ground at the back is the calcaneus. The bone that sits on top of this - doesn't touch the ground at all - is the talus. The malleoli articulate around the talus. The ankle joint therefore or what we think of as the ankle is actually four bones and three joints: bones are the tib and fib and the talus/calcaneus. The joints are the lateral malleoli with the talus, the medial malleoli with the talus and the taleo-calcaneal joint.
From all these connections, we might get a bit more clearly why the ankle may be vulnerable to sprain.
Just take a look at how intriguing the lacing is of the bones of this joint.
It Moves! It's ALIVE
An important thing to note, i think, to help conceptualize the ankle that goes beyond the first part of this post is that we're talking a complex mechanics here, not just a hinge joint.
When we say the achiles tendon conncects to the bone at the base back of the foot, pulls it, and the ankle bends, that sounds pretty simple. And it's a true statement, for a given granularity of truth. But those three joints in just the ankle - never mind the rest of the foot - suggest that the motion may be a little more suble. The achiles does pull on the calcaneus, but it's wrapped atop the talus, which is slotted between the malleoli - which as we see in the illustrations above is way forward of the tendon and also way above that pull point.
We're not even touching on the talus/calcaneus being the back stop for the little tarsals of the foot before getting to the bones that end up through multiple joints into the toes.
What's my point: with this many joints, that's a whole lot of movement going on.
Why have this much movement that we need three joints in the ankle alone?
The foot is how we usually first encounter the world. It lets us stand with the feet in full contact with the earth while we get our butt back and move our knees in, in our athletic ready stance. The foot can do this because its multiple joints support multiple angles of movement while still wrapping around some uneven surfaces and especially while distributing load from the rest of the body across some spingy shock absorbers. I could just go on and on about the miracle of the foot with 24 percent of the bones of our body in those two feet.
Since we're focusing on the ankle for the pistol, though, an important part to bear in mind is that the talus doesn't simply pivot like there's a bolt through one end of the malleoli to the other. There is give, movement as we move the joints in their capsules. For instane, As we bend the knee forward towards the foot on the floor, someone putting their fingers on our malleoli should feel the malleoli roll back - a wee bit - but back nonetheless. The two shin bones move back on the talus. IT's movement we can feel, especially as we practice ankle movements for mobility. Likewise, the lateral (side to side) movements of the ankle happen becuase of the shape of the bones, and also because of the flexibility of the tendons. Tendons are not always pulled up super tight. Muscles pull on them; different positions relax them and so on.
Take away: ankle movement is a complex interoperation of joints. To dorsiflex well in our ottoman pistol, we need to be sure our foot feels comfortable supporting dorsiflexion without collapsing (everting - the opposite direction to the movement shown in the image above).
One of the best ways to help the ankle is actually to work with all the joints: if there's an oddity in hip movement or knee movement or shoulder movement, that might show up in the ankle. The site of an issue isn't always the source.
That said, unless we have a movement practice, most of us don't do movement practice with our feet. Leaning in and out on the ankles from a tall spine - without having to involve the hips - is a potent practice. So is placing our foot behind us and resting on the top of the foot from multiple angles. Each of these motions helps lubricate the joints and tendons, but also practices the movements we need to control in our squat. Shoes that pass the twist test with mobile soles, and that let our ankles move more while walking are also great aids to better foot and gait practice.
SUMMARY
Muscularly, at the ankle in the pistol, the big players are the calf muslces, the soleus and gastrocs, as they eccentrically contract to help let the knee bend forward by braking that forward action by paying out the musculo/ligamentary line at the back of the leg/foot to let the shin come forward towards the ankle.
Joint Wise. The ankle is an interesting set of joints that are ligament to bone to musculo-tendonal levers. It acts like a hinge and like a ball in socket and like an inertial damper for load.
Improving that Base of Support. Sometimes just some simple movement work can improve the action of the joint *just* because they give the joint some practice in moving and practicing its range of motion - with and without load. Please note, we're not talking making the ankles either more stable or more mobile; we're talking simply about supporting whatever their movement needs are for the particular motion.
Recommendations. Please note: no one said that to improve dorsiflexion or ankle control, we need to stretch before squatting. No. We did not. A bit of a discussion around why not, here (threat and movement) and here (what's a warm up)
You're perhaps familiar with the approach i've found successful for myself and the folks i coach: i like z-health movement work for loaded and unloaded movement practice. THe movement template ensures that we get practice in a variety of positions/tensions/challenges. Doing this kind of joint prep work has been shown in some research to help reduce incidence of injury (see By Test Stronger section of this post). That's good. And decent control means better pistol.
Sometimes getting to that control may also mean some prelim practice work before going for the ottoman, both to reduce neuro-perceived threat and sometimes just plain old stress (tips for that one). If you'd like some help with dialing in what you need to succeed here, consider a coach - one who can do a movement assessment maybe even too. Master ZHealth Practitioners Ken Froese and Lou McGovern (remember his excellent tip for improving the press?) have pioneered using a movement with the sphenoid to help get people who haven't pistoled to pistol. We're just that complex and amazing.
Heres to enjoying our movement.
Pistol Resources:
- beast skills site
- Pavel Tsatsouline's The Naked Warrior
- Steve Cotter's Mastering the Pistol
Thanks for viewing this series. Hope it helps you enjoy your ottoman pistol practice even more
Related Ottoman Pistol Posts
So for today, it might be fun if not just interesting to take a look at what's going on around this wild joint.
Gastrocnemius and Soleus (S&G) First off, we're likely pretty familiar with the big muscles that work the ankle. They are the gastrocnemius (gastrocs for short) and soleus. They're what let us do calf raises, go on point, help control the foot kicking a football. These muscles are usually really strong in just about anyone. Indeed, if they actually test weak, it's likely sign of some other issue that problems with these the S&G.
Different Origins. The second cool thing is that while they both connect to the same place at their insertions, the origin of each (the parts closest to the middle of the body) are very different - which kinda helps understand why we have both an S and a G rather than just one big muslce. The design also reflects how important this movement is (technically ankle plantar flexion, or bending towards the base of the foot).
| different origins of the S (on the tibia) and G (on the femur) one crosses the knee (G); the other doesn't. |
Bottom line, there's a lot of muscle to help flex the foot, and flex the foot down while helping bend the knee.
If we look at the ankle - where to we see these three things? It's kinda clear that the pull or the force is at the achilles tendon on the calcaneus, right? So where's the axis or fulcrum? This only really comes into play when the foot is actually being used as a lever - as something to move something else (in physics the definition of work is the movement of an object). So, the ball of the foot (unless we're going on point perhaps) is the usual fulcrum of this lever (analogous to the wheelbarrow wheel). The resistance or load becomes effectively the stuff up through the tibia. The tibia, as we see is between the force and the axis/fulcrum. Jeeze that's cool.
| the bumpy bits of the ankle that we feel or see is really the bumpy bits at the bottom of the TWO bones of the shin: the tibia (big inside one) and the fibula (leaner outside one) |
The ankle joint: wild bones wild bones. One of the amazing things about this joint we tend to take for granted is actually how sophisticated, articulated and mobile it is. When we think about a joint like the ankle we might think about something like a horseshoe with a bolt across the open bit and something like a block with a hole drilled through it hanging off the bolt. Ok, maybe that's just me.
The ankle joint is intriguingly more intrigued. The first bit of the ankle is that the bumpy bits that we feel and bang have names: malleoli. The malleoli are the bumpy bits at the base of the two bones that make up the shin: the bigger tibia that the femur rests upon for knee action with all that meniscus cartilege and acl/mcl joints, and the fibula, the smaller, thinner balance bone. The structure is similar to the lower arm's radius/ulnar double boning.
So ok, we have the malleoli that act as kind of connectors from the leg to the foot.
Let's go slowly (at least for me): the part of the foot that hits the ground at the back is the calcaneus. The bone that sits on top of this - doesn't touch the ground at all - is the talus. The malleoli articulate around the talus. The ankle joint therefore or what we think of as the ankle is actually four bones and three joints: bones are the tib and fib and the talus/calcaneus. The joints are the lateral malleoli with the talus, the medial malleoli with the talus and the taleo-calcaneal joint.
From all these connections, we might get a bit more clearly why the ankle may be vulnerable to sprain.
Just take a look at how intriguing the lacing is of the bones of this joint.
It Moves! It's ALIVE
 |
| the lacing of the malleoli with the taleo/calcaneal joint. |
When we say the achiles tendon conncects to the bone at the base back of the foot, pulls it, and the ankle bends, that sounds pretty simple. And it's a true statement, for a given granularity of truth. But those three joints in just the ankle - never mind the rest of the foot - suggest that the motion may be a little more suble. The achiles does pull on the calcaneus, but it's wrapped atop the talus, which is slotted between the malleoli - which as we see in the illustrations above is way forward of the tendon and also way above that pull point.
We're not even touching on the talus/calcaneus being the back stop for the little tarsals of the foot before getting to the bones that end up through multiple joints into the toes.
What's my point: with this many joints, that's a whole lot of movement going on.
Why have this much movement that we need three joints in the ankle alone?
The foot is how we usually first encounter the world. It lets us stand with the feet in full contact with the earth while we get our butt back and move our knees in, in our athletic ready stance. The foot can do this because its multiple joints support multiple angles of movement while still wrapping around some uneven surfaces and especially while distributing load from the rest of the body across some spingy shock absorbers. I could just go on and on about the miracle of the foot with 24 percent of the bones of our body in those two feet.
| multijoint action allows for sophisticated movement around the joint while staying vertical - when we don't practice these movements we can hurt the lacing that has no practice with the strain at end range of motion |
Take away: ankle movement is a complex interoperation of joints. To dorsiflex well in our ottoman pistol, we need to be sure our foot feels comfortable supporting dorsiflexion without collapsing (everting - the opposite direction to the movement shown in the image above).
One of the best ways to help the ankle is actually to work with all the joints: if there's an oddity in hip movement or knee movement or shoulder movement, that might show up in the ankle. The site of an issue isn't always the source.
That said, unless we have a movement practice, most of us don't do movement practice with our feet. Leaning in and out on the ankles from a tall spine - without having to involve the hips - is a potent practice. So is placing our foot behind us and resting on the top of the foot from multiple angles. Each of these motions helps lubricate the joints and tendons, but also practices the movements we need to control in our squat. Shoes that pass the twist test with mobile soles, and that let our ankles move more while walking are also great aids to better foot and gait practice.
SUMMARY
Muscularly, at the ankle in the pistol, the big players are the calf muslces, the soleus and gastrocs, as they eccentrically contract to help let the knee bend forward by braking that forward action by paying out the musculo/ligamentary line at the back of the leg/foot to let the shin come forward towards the ankle.
Joint Wise. The ankle is an interesting set of joints that are ligament to bone to musculo-tendonal levers. It acts like a hinge and like a ball in socket and like an inertial damper for load.
Improving that Base of Support. Sometimes just some simple movement work can improve the action of the joint *just* because they give the joint some practice in moving and practicing its range of motion - with and without load. Please note, we're not talking making the ankles either more stable or more mobile; we're talking simply about supporting whatever their movement needs are for the particular motion.
Recommendations. Please note: no one said that to improve dorsiflexion or ankle control, we need to stretch before squatting. No. We did not. A bit of a discussion around why not, here (threat and movement) and here (what's a warm up)
You're perhaps familiar with the approach i've found successful for myself and the folks i coach: i like z-health movement work for loaded and unloaded movement practice. THe movement template ensures that we get practice in a variety of positions/tensions/challenges. Doing this kind of joint prep work has been shown in some research to help reduce incidence of injury (see By Test Stronger section of this post). That's good. And decent control means better pistol.
Sometimes getting to that control may also mean some prelim practice work before going for the ottoman, both to reduce neuro-perceived threat and sometimes just plain old stress (tips for that one). If you'd like some help with dialing in what you need to succeed here, consider a coach - one who can do a movement assessment maybe even too. Master ZHealth Practitioners Ken Froese and Lou McGovern (remember his excellent tip for improving the press?) have pioneered using a movement with the sphenoid to help get people who haven't pistoled to pistol. We're just that complex and amazing.
 |
| yup, the sphenoid |
Heres to enjoying our movement.
Pistol Resources:
- beast skills site
- Pavel Tsatsouline's The Naked Warrior
- Steve Cotter's Mastering the Pistol
Thanks for viewing this series. Hope it helps you enjoy your ottoman pistol practice even more
Related Ottoman Pistol Posts
- Part 1: the quads
- Part 2 the hip and hamstrings
PDF
Monday, January 10, 2011
Main Muscles in the Ottoman Pistol, Part 2: the butt
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In the previous post, we considered the quads' role in the ottoman pistol. This post we'll take a wee look at the butt and hamstrings. Remember the quads are largely knee extensors and hip flexors. The vastus group stabilizes the knee, and particularly helps us as we stand up - contracting the quads locks the knee cap for instance. The butt and hamstrings work the back of the leg and knee and hip to flex the knee and extend the hip, as in the runner's leg going back in the sprint.
SO let's take a look at how this muscle combo works in the pistol.
The Butt - the Glutius Maximus
We know that the knees HAVE to straighten for us to stand up in the pistol. But there's another big body part that changes, too, and that's the hip. The hip extends as we move from the squat position where the pelvis is flexed, to standing up, where it's extending. But the movement in the squat not only has the hip extending but the leg externally rotating (turning out) and moving away from midline, or abducting.
The muscles that extend the hip include the biggest muscle in the body: the gluteus maximus. Hip extension (and external rotation of the leg, or the leg turning out) must take alot of work if it has such mass associated with it.
THis massive muscle is interesting in the way it connects to the body: it attaches to the back of the pelvis - that makes sense since it has to connect with the hip. It also connects along the sacrum - the lowest part of the back, if you will.
The muscle connects into the femur at the gluteal tuberosity and into the iliotibial tract (IT band). That tract connects into the top of the tibia - in other words the butt effectively connects over the hip and past the knee into the lower leg. So the butt also helps support the knee via the IT band when the knee is extended (when we're standing up.
The Hamstrings: Biceps Femoris, Semitendinous and Semimembranous Muscles
Along the back of the the leg run the hamstrings or biceps femorous, semimembranous and semitendinous muscles. .
Origins. The semimembranous and semitendenous muscles
along with the long head of the biceps femoris all connect into the ishial tuberosity of the pelvis (into the sitting bones if you will). The short head of the biceps femoris however does not connect to the pelvis. Instead it connects into the femur.
Insertions. The Semis connect into the tibia or the medial side of the knee. The biceps femoris, to the lateral side of the tibia (top of lower leg).
With the hamstrings, then, we have a set of muscles that connects to the pelvis to pull it into extension (to straighten it), and likewise connects with the knee to pull it into flexion (to bend). In the case of the pistol, where the foot is on the floor and stays there, the main action of the hamstrings will be on the hip.
(Aside: It's in running and kicking for instance where the knee is working that we'd see the hamstrings come in more with the knee, but when the leg stays nailed to the floor, or the knee is immobile, the hammies will work the hip).
Working the Pistol
Going Down. As we saw, the quads help the knee, trunk and flexed hip on the way down into the bottom position of the pistol (eccentric contraction). In going down, the glute max and the hamstrings are also on, also eccentrically contracting, actively helping to let the hips flex. That's their main action in the descending leg: eccentric contraction to assist hip flexion.
Coming Back Up. Once down, the glute max will get active to extend the hip (concentric contraction) as we start to come up, and the hamstrings will contribute to pull the hip into extension (concentric contraction) as well.
A note on Eccentric Contraction:
Just to review the knee/hip part of this movement, the quad group (the thigh) on the way down is doing "eccentric contraction" (ec) - controlling the speed of the bend of the knee: it is contracting muscle fibers while the muscle still lengthens to allow the limbs to move. The butt is likewise doing eccentric contraction on the way down to help control the movement of the hip into flexion.
Imagine someone lowering something on a rope: to pay out the rope slowly, one is applying some tension somewhere to control the descent, else the rope will just slide through one's hands. If one is lowering a piano from a building, the important ropes - the ones taking the strain - are the lowering ropes; there may be folks on the ground gathering up rope on either side of the piano to guide it to make sure it doesn't hit a wall on the way down, but the heavy lifting as it were is in the lowering, the paying out of the rope.
Two other points about EC: we're also stronger in eccentric contraction than concentric contraction: it's easier to lower a piano to the ground than pick it up. And finally - a reminder that eccentric contraction kicks off DOMS more so than concentric contraction.
Wrap up of the Butt (really glute max) and Hamstrings
So the pistol is certainly working the legs and butt big time: a lot of eccentric conrtaction for controlling the movement of the hip into flexion on the way down and conversely a lot of concentric contraction to help the hip get back up to neutral.
Plainly this move does a LOT for the lower body - by using one leg, bodyweight becomes a significant challenge for that first rep or multiple reps. Many other stabiliser muscles come into play in these movements; there's also considerable vestibular challenge in this movement as we must add more balance control to succeed. But for now, let's get the biggies figured out.
Next time, in the last of this series, we'll look at the last major bit of the ottoman pistol, the ankles.
Pistol Resources:
- beast skills site
- Pavel Tsatsouline's The Naked Warrior
- Steve Cotter's Mastering the Pistol
Related Articles
SO let's take a look at how this muscle combo works in the pistol.
The Butt - the Glutius MaximusWe know that the knees HAVE to straighten for us to stand up in the pistol. But there's another big body part that changes, too, and that's the hip. The hip extends as we move from the squat position where the pelvis is flexed, to standing up, where it's extending. But the movement in the squat not only has the hip extending but the leg externally rotating (turning out) and moving away from midline, or abducting.The muscles that extend the hip include the biggest muscle in the body: the gluteus maximus. Hip extension (and external rotation of the leg, or the leg turning out) must take alot of work if it has such mass associated with it.THis massive muscle is interesting in the way it connects to the body: it attaches to the back of the pelvis - that makes sense since it has to connect with the hip. It also connects along the sacrum - the lowest part of the back, if you will.
The muscle connects into the femur at the gluteal tuberosity and into the iliotibial tract (IT band). That tract connects into the top of the tibia - in other words the butt effectively connects over the hip and past the knee into the lower leg. So the butt also helps support the knee via the IT band when the knee is extended (when we're standing up.
The Hamstrings: Biceps Femoris, Semitendinous and Semimembranous Muscles
 |
| great kinesiology resource |
Origins. The semimembranous and semitendenous muscles
along with the long head of the biceps femoris all connect into the ishial tuberosity of the pelvis (into the sitting bones if you will). The short head of the biceps femoris however does not connect to the pelvis. Instead it connects into the femur. |
| glute max joining IT band into Tibia |
With the hamstrings, then, we have a set of muscles that connects to the pelvis to pull it into extension (to straighten it), and likewise connects with the knee to pull it into flexion (to bend). In the case of the pistol, where the foot is on the floor and stays there, the main action of the hamstrings will be on the hip.
(Aside: It's in running and kicking for instance where the knee is working that we'd see the hamstrings come in more with the knee, but when the leg stays nailed to the floor, or the knee is immobile, the hammies will work the hip).
Working the Pistol
Going Down. As we saw, the quads help the knee, trunk and flexed hip on the way down into the bottom position of the pistol (eccentric contraction). In going down, the glute max and the hamstrings are also on, also eccentrically contracting, actively helping to let the hips flex. That's their main action in the descending leg: eccentric contraction to assist hip flexion.
Coming Back Up. Once down, the glute max will get active to extend the hip (concentric contraction) as we start to come up, and the hamstrings will contribute to pull the hip into extension (concentric contraction) as well.
A note on Eccentric Contraction:
Just to review the knee/hip part of this movement, the quad group (the thigh) on the way down is doing "eccentric contraction" (ec) - controlling the speed of the bend of the knee: it is contracting muscle fibers while the muscle still lengthens to allow the limbs to move. The butt is likewise doing eccentric contraction on the way down to help control the movement of the hip into flexion.
Imagine someone lowering something on a rope: to pay out the rope slowly, one is applying some tension somewhere to control the descent, else the rope will just slide through one's hands. If one is lowering a piano from a building, the important ropes - the ones taking the strain - are the lowering ropes; there may be folks on the ground gathering up rope on either side of the piano to guide it to make sure it doesn't hit a wall on the way down, but the heavy lifting as it were is in the lowering, the paying out of the rope.
Two other points about EC: we're also stronger in eccentric contraction than concentric contraction: it's easier to lower a piano to the ground than pick it up. And finally - a reminder that eccentric contraction kicks off DOMS more so than concentric contraction.
Wrap up of the Butt (really glute max) and Hamstrings
So the pistol is certainly working the legs and butt big time: a lot of eccentric conrtaction for controlling the movement of the hip into flexion on the way down and conversely a lot of concentric contraction to help the hip get back up to neutral.
Plainly this move does a LOT for the lower body - by using one leg, bodyweight becomes a significant challenge for that first rep or multiple reps. Many other stabiliser muscles come into play in these movements; there's also considerable vestibular challenge in this movement as we must add more balance control to succeed. But for now, let's get the biggies figured out.
Next time, in the last of this series, we'll look at the last major bit of the ottoman pistol, the ankles.
Pistol Resources:
- beast skills site
- Pavel Tsatsouline's The Naked Warrior
- Steve Cotter's Mastering the Pistol
Related Articles
- All About Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, Part 1 - causes
- All about DOMS part 2: aids at reduction of DOMS
- Somatosensory hierarchy: working the other side of the weight room
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Main Muscle Movement in the Ottoman Pistol - Part 1: the Quads
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The (let's call it) Ottoman Pistol described yesterday - works a potent combination of muscles. We know what these muscles are because we usually feel them if we haven't pistoled in awhile: quads (front of leg), glutes (butt), sometimes the adds (adductors - inside leg), and some of that core goodness too. In this first post we'll take a quick look at what's happening with the quads - what those muscles are, and especially, why they're firing up in the Ottoman Pistol.
The Quads
Often the most felt muscles in this abbreviated leg squat are those at the front of the leg, aka the quads The quad group has four big muscles: the vastus set of medialis, lateralis, intermedius and the big front and top muscle (lies atop the intermedius), the rectus femoris. All four of these muscles meet at the knee cap - the patella and from there, hook into the lower leg.
The Vastus Group vs the Rectus Femoris. While the full quad group has a lot in common, there's a big distinction between the rec fem and the vastus group. The vastus set cross the knee and connect along the top of the big honking top-of-the-leg femur bone. The rectus femoris on the other hand actually hooks onto the pelvis itself rather than the femur. Isn't that wild? These four muscles share common connections at the knee, and then diverge where they start: hip vs leg. In other words, the rec.fem. crosses two joints - in this case both the knee and the hip - while the vast group of vastus muscles only cross one joint, the knee.
The Quad Job This difference in hook ups influences the main job of the muscles that make up the quads.
The vastus set acts on the knee to extend it or straighten it out; the rectus femoris, while it also crosses the knee mainly acts to flex the hip or to bring the knee up towards the chest. In the bottom of the squat, the hip is pretty durn flexed.
Integrating the muscle movement with the Pistol. Since we feel the pistol the next day in the front of the legs, we know the quads are involved. We also know now that the quads give us two actions in particular: (1) flexing the hip and (2) extending the knee.
Where's hip flexion in the pistol? IT's in two parts of the movement: the leg controlling the decent (that's going into flexion), and the leg that is extended out. That leg is being held in hip flexion.
In the descending/bending leg, the rectus femoris is stretched. We can see from where it attaches up on the pelvis that as one goes down, and that muscle is activated, it's going to pull the pelvis forward - the pelvis rotates around the hip as the angle between the leg and the pelvis closes down from 180 to 45 degress or less. The RF is not the only muscle involved here, but it's the biggie.
In the extended leg case, a couple core muscles - the psoas and illiacus - are doing more of the work to hold out the extended leg than the rec fem to keep that 90 degree flexion. That's because the RF is at its shortest when the knee is extended and the leg flexed, so it's not getting as big an advantage on the hip.
The more the knee bends, the more the rec fem comes into gear for flexing the leg/hip.
Where's the knee extension in the pistol? When we go to stand back up, the knee extends. That's perhaps the biggest work load of the pistol. And boy do we know that that knee extension, aka standing up, is a challenge. Getting down takes a certain control, absolutely, but gravity guarentees that's the direction we'll move. Getting up is where the money is, and that means knee extension.
Summary: Why we feel the pistol in the Thigh.
There are two big actions in the pistol: hip flexion and knee extension. In other words, going into the squat and coming up from it.
Hip flexion comes in two places: in getting a leg out in front of us and in the descent into the squat position. In the quad group, hip flexion involves the rectus femoris in both of these positions, but in particular in the descent into the squat.
Knee extension comes in majorly as we stand up. The quads pull this off via the vastus muscles pulling over the knee cap by their connection at the top of the femur, the big leg bone. The rectus femoris pulls over the same part of the knee but gets reefed up by that muscle reefing up from the hip. Two big levers therefore pull up the knee into a straightened position.
Next Time
The other big player in the pistol is the butt, aka the glutes. Next time we'll look at how that group of muscles' actions of hip extension, external rotation and abduction contribute to those two big moves in the pistol: the squat and the standing up.
Happy New Year
Pistol Resources:
- beast skills site
- Pavel Tsatsouline's The Naked Warrior
- Steve Cotter's Mastering the Pistol
Related posts:
 |
| from the Beast Skills how to pistol tutorial: a light butt touch for the ottoman pistol |
Often the most felt muscles in this abbreviated leg squat are those at the front of the leg, aka the quads The quad group has four big muscles: the vastus set of medialis, lateralis, intermedius and the big front and top muscle (lies atop the intermedius), the rectus femoris. All four of these muscles meet at the knee cap - the patella and from there, hook into the lower leg.
 |
| From Grant's Dissector (ch6) the rec fem is reflected so we can see the vastus intermedius underneath and the lateralis and medialis to either side. |
The vastus set acts on the knee to extend it or straighten it out; the rectus femoris, while it also crosses the knee mainly acts to flex the hip or to bring the knee up towards the chest. In the bottom of the squat, the hip is pretty durn flexed.
In the descending/bending leg, the rectus femoris is stretched. We can see from where it attaches up on the pelvis that as one goes down, and that muscle is activated, it's going to pull the pelvis forward - the pelvis rotates around the hip as the angle between the leg and the pelvis closes down from 180 to 45 degress or less. The RF is not the only muscle involved here, but it's the biggie.
In the extended leg case, a couple core muscles - the psoas and illiacus - are doing more of the work to hold out the extended leg than the rec fem to keep that 90 degree flexion. That's because the RF is at its shortest when the knee is extended and the leg flexed, so it's not getting as big an advantage on the hip.
The more the knee bends, the more the rec fem comes into gear for flexing the leg/hip.
Where's the knee extension in the pistol? When we go to stand back up, the knee extends. That's perhaps the biggest work load of the pistol. And boy do we know that that knee extension, aka standing up, is a challenge. Getting down takes a certain control, absolutely, but gravity guarentees that's the direction we'll move. Getting up is where the money is, and that means knee extension.
Summary: Why we feel the pistol in the Thigh.
There are two big actions in the pistol: hip flexion and knee extension. In other words, going into the squat and coming up from it.
Hip flexion comes in two places: in getting a leg out in front of us and in the descent into the squat position. In the quad group, hip flexion involves the rectus femoris in both of these positions, but in particular in the descent into the squat.
Knee extension comes in majorly as we stand up. The quads pull this off via the vastus muscles pulling over the knee cap by their connection at the top of the femur, the big leg bone. The rectus femoris pulls over the same part of the knee but gets reefed up by that muscle reefing up from the hip. Two big levers therefore pull up the knee into a straightened position.
Next Time
The other big player in the pistol is the butt, aka the glutes. Next time we'll look at how that group of muscles' actions of hip extension, external rotation and abduction contribute to those two big moves in the pistol: the squat and the standing up.
Happy New Year
Pistol Resources:
- beast skills site
- Pavel Tsatsouline's The Naked Warrior
- Steve Cotter's Mastering the Pistol
Related posts:
- The magic shoulder part one: scapula rigging
- The magic shoulder part two: g/h joint
- overview of fat
- magnificent protein - not just about muscles
Friday, December 31, 2010
We Can Do It - The House Hold Objects of Health
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The best part of a hotel room for working out - at least my favorite item? The ottoman. Yes the humble foot rest. Why? Leg work; butt work and DOMS to go.
To be more particular, i'm talking the ottoman meets the single leg squat, aka the pistol. The pistol move is where one puts out one leg in front and - in the complete move - drops down to a full squat and stands back up again. This is an awesome move. But unless one is steve cotter, doing 50 of these may be a bit of a stretch.
Enter the ottoman. It makes pistols accessible, practicable and fun. Here's how. One can sit down with the leg extended, butt right to the middle of the ottoman and rest, and then stand up on the one leg. One can also just use the edge of the ottoman to touch down as lightly as possible - using it more as a safety stop than a rest - and come back up again.
As for set styles, one can do right leg then left leg for say ten total in a set. Or five and five (or two and two). Rest and repeat.
A lovely Move. There are some really nice bits to this movement: knowing that the ottoman is there to limit the range of motion and to act as a catch enables one to practice control of the descent - we can work on going super slow or faster. We can go down with both feet on the ground. Sit, and come up on one leg.
Butt and Quads A very nice thing about this move is that the position works the butt and the quads in particular - but it also hits the all important core to keep oneself steady while moving down and then up.
Next couple posts we'll look at How the ottoman pistol works those muscle groups. In the meantime, to all those hotel warriors out there, happy new year's eve, and let me know if you give this move a go.
Follow up, Part 1: how the thighs (quads) work in the pistol.
Follow up, part 2: how the glutes (butt) work in the pistol
Follow up part 3: how the ankles work in the pistol
best for 2011.
-mc
if you'd like to learn more about the Pistol, lots of great places:
- beast skills site
- Pavel Tsatsouline's The Naked Warrior
- Steve Cotter's Mastering the Pistol Tweet Follow @begin2dig
 |
| pistol about mid way down |
Enter the ottoman. It makes pistols accessible, practicable and fun. Here's how. One can sit down with the leg extended, butt right to the middle of the ottoman and rest, and then stand up on the one leg. One can also just use the edge of the ottoman to touch down as lightly as possible - using it more as a safety stop than a rest - and come back up again.
As for set styles, one can do right leg then left leg for say ten total in a set. Or five and five (or two and two). Rest and repeat. |
| Full butt on seat - but can go just to the edge, too |
Butt and Quads A very nice thing about this move is that the position works the butt and the quads in particular - but it also hits the all important core to keep oneself steady while moving down and then up.
Next couple posts we'll look at How the ottoman pistol works those muscle groups. In the meantime, to all those hotel warriors out there, happy new year's eve, and let me know if you give this move a go.
Follow up, Part 1: how the thighs (quads) work in the pistol.
Follow up, part 2: how the glutes (butt) work in the pistol
Follow up part 3: how the ankles work in the pistol
best for 2011.
-mc
if you'd like to learn more about the Pistol, lots of great places:
- beast skills site
- Pavel Tsatsouline's The Naked Warrior
- Steve Cotter's Mastering the Pistol Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Friday, December 24, 2010
When Free really means "trade ya; won't tell ya"
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At this festive season, we know marketing tries to hit new heights to entice sales. There's one technique that has begun to grate. It's the promise of "free" that doesn't really mean free. Has this happened to you? You're sent a link to something that sounds super helpful; it claims to be free, but then here's what happens:
first step: - an email address is requested Hmm. Why do i need to provide this email address? We are now moving out of the world of free and engaging in an exchange, are we not?
Second step: confirmation. It turns out giving an any email address is not sufficient - i must confirm the email address by clicking a magic link in an email, and then a link to the promised free material will be provided.
Why not just give me the "free" link?
Ah! there's something tied to the email address - a desire to use it?
Third step: mailing list . finally becomes apparent when the link is sent that one is really subscribing to an email list to get more mailings and "offers" from this person.
Is this exchange actually as promised, free? Well, no, it's not: it's a trade. The currency is my email address and willingness to be on an email list before i get the goods.
Of course (presumably) i can "unsubscribe" from the list, but these terms aren't shared because we're not actually told that we're signing up for an email list. but have you tried to do this with any companies whose mailing lists you seem to be on? Some lists seem never to want to let go despite how much time one takes to go through the process.
But i stray from the point. What gals me is that FREE doesn't mean free. When i go to the store and am offered a "free" sample, it's given to me as an actually FREE sample - no strings attached. When i go to someone's web site, and i get information, that's FREE - no strings attached. That's free.
What most of these mailings are about is not free, but is about a trade: my email (and subscription) in exchange for the item. My time to conclude this exchange for the item.
What also bugs me is the lack of transparency in these exchanges: the page that claims FREE STUFF does not say " once i get your email, you can have this thing." That's only a state one infers many clicks in that one finds out what's going on, and sometimes not until the mail starts pouring in after the fact. And so how evaluate if this exchange (not free give away) is fair value? is worth the price?
There are alternatives. Why not simply make it clear that the vendors are keen to trade what they have on offer in exchange for a confirmed email address & free subscription to said vendor's mailing list? That seems both more honest and more engaging? The terms and conditions as it were?
Isn't this what reputable businesses do? I was fascinated recently by an "affiliate marketing" product (and yup this is an affiliate link) recently that went through long pages of detail about what's in the product, how it works and also went into human-readable detail about what this product would NOT do - so that if you still wanted to get the product after that - fair warning. That was amazing.
I go on and on about precision nutrition: it's 40 page overview book IS free: click the link. Ta da. download. Do they still sell product? Yes.
Now, i'm not going to blame these folks for bait and switch who use the term Free when they mean Trade. THere's a ton of marketing guidance that seems to suggest that this is exactly the way to sell stuff online. Promise FREE as a way to get a name on a mailing list, and build clients from there. It seems that's become so common, we may even no longer expect "free" to mean "free" - it's more like "free, wink wink nudge nudge"
Me, all i'm saying is that that's not what Free means, and i'm sick of it. And perhaps folks who think they do well with their fake free may even do better with real trade. And wouldn't that be a wonderful gift for the holiday season.
All the best,
mc
Related Links
first step: - an email address is requested Hmm. Why do i need to provide this email address? We are now moving out of the world of free and engaging in an exchange, are we not?
Why not just give me the "free" link?
Ah! there's something tied to the email address - a desire to use it?
Third step: mailing list . finally becomes apparent when the link is sent that one is really subscribing to an email list to get more mailings and "offers" from this person.
Is this exchange actually as promised, free? Well, no, it's not: it's a trade. The currency is my email address and willingness to be on an email list before i get the goods.
Of course (presumably) i can "unsubscribe" from the list, but these terms aren't shared because we're not actually told that we're signing up for an email list. but have you tried to do this with any companies whose mailing lists you seem to be on? Some lists seem never to want to let go despite how much time one takes to go through the process.
But i stray from the point. What gals me is that FREE doesn't mean free. When i go to the store and am offered a "free" sample, it's given to me as an actually FREE sample - no strings attached. When i go to someone's web site, and i get information, that's FREE - no strings attached. That's free.
What most of these mailings are about is not free, but is about a trade: my email (and subscription) in exchange for the item. My time to conclude this exchange for the item.
What also bugs me is the lack of transparency in these exchanges: the page that claims FREE STUFF does not say " once i get your email, you can have this thing." That's only a state one infers many clicks in that one finds out what's going on, and sometimes not until the mail starts pouring in after the fact. And so how evaluate if this exchange (not free give away) is fair value? is worth the price?
There are alternatives. Why not simply make it clear that the vendors are keen to trade what they have on offer in exchange for a confirmed email address & free subscription to said vendor's mailing list? That seems both more honest and more engaging? The terms and conditions as it were?
Isn't this what reputable businesses do? I was fascinated recently by an "affiliate marketing" product (and yup this is an affiliate link) recently that went through long pages of detail about what's in the product, how it works and also went into human-readable detail about what this product would NOT do - so that if you still wanted to get the product after that - fair warning. That was amazing.
Aside. Indeed, if you're interested in marketing at all - as a discipline and a demonstration of psychology and have some time, i'd encourage you just to move through this thing - it's Dan Brock's Super Deadbeat affiliate how to program/course thingOk, that's a for sale example. Another example of free stuff has got to be Brad Pilon's site on Eat Stop Eat - lots of value in the information posts about eating and working out. And yes, Pilon has stuff to sell, but you can get a ton from the web site. I'm happy to buy his stuff as a sign of gratitude for all the free stuff.
All i can tell you right now is that i've bought it; i'm fascinated by the material and presentation, and look forward to some time in the first quarter of the new year to have a go with it. It's not free BUT i got as said more than enough information from the overview to make a decision about spending 29 bucks on the potential to get a return on that investment and maybe a bit more.
I can also say that from a brief look through the actual course/material, just as the warnings for the product claim, while the couase makes the steps easy to follow, it does take some attention to detail to have a good go. One may only spend an hour in the office with this, but it's going ot be a *very focused hour*
I go on and on about precision nutrition: it's 40 page overview book IS free: click the link. Ta da. download. Do they still sell product? Yes.
Now, i'm not going to blame these folks for bait and switch who use the term Free when they mean Trade. THere's a ton of marketing guidance that seems to suggest that this is exactly the way to sell stuff online. Promise FREE as a way to get a name on a mailing list, and build clients from there. It seems that's become so common, we may even no longer expect "free" to mean "free" - it's more like "free, wink wink nudge nudge"
Me, all i'm saying is that that's not what Free means, and i'm sick of it. And perhaps folks who think they do well with their fake free may even do better with real trade. And wouldn't that be a wonderful gift for the holiday season.
All the best,
mc
Related Links
- Affiliate Links at b2d
- Fitness Geek Gifts
- and any of the links along the side of the blog - stuff i've tried, use, recommend
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