Mobility is the trendy item of the moment and it looks like the usual suspects of sports performance are at it again at your expense. In efforts to stay cutting edge they share new progressions, foreign exercises stolen from PT, misinterpretation of basic research, or unfortunately original moronic epiphanies. The prime example is dorsiflexion of the ankle joint. Well people the foot has over 30 j [...]

For the reader who commented on the shoes that the Venice girls are wearing, I could not agree more. I do not advocate the higher heeled shoes worn as training shoes today. I also believe in training barefoot given the correct surface and situation. All of that being said, now let’s be practical. I do not have control over what shoes these kids wear. It is totally their choice based on what [...]

As a training surface a gymnastic floor or resilite wrestling mat is ideal. The athlete can work barefoot on these surfaces. This serves to significantly increase proprioceptive demand because of being barefoot and the compliant nature of the surface. If available sand that is well groomed into a consistent surface can also be a very good tool. All three of those surfaces significantly increase gr [...]

Too much shoe not enough skin.Last night on ABC Evening news there was an interesting piece on barefoot running. It featured biomechanics expert Dr Irene Davis of the University of Delaware. The thesis of the program that as I interpreted it was that that running shoes have gotten too high tech. They have taken away form the feel for the ground. They have shut down the muscles of the foot by not a [...]

The ground is where we live, work and play. It is always there, like gravity, so a goal of training is to learn to use it to our best advantage. The role of the ground in movement is something martial arts practitioners have understood for thousands of years. A Tai Chi instructor summed it up best:Rooted in the feetPowered by the coreReflected by the armsManifested in the handsMovement begins at t [...]

Baton Rouge, LA- Oh how time flies! Today was Smoot's last workout in Baton Rouge before heading back home to Virginia. He intentionally scheduled a later flight so that he'd be able to get in one last workout. If he had known what I had in store for him today he probably would have reconsidered. This is what I had Smoot do today:Short Warmup AStatic Flex: ADynamic Flex: ColeSprint Development: [...]