Question of the week "What is Z Health and how do these goofy looking exercises help me?"Answer
I think the main influence of the Z Health drills is to remove the "neurologic brakes"
"Jammed joints create muscular weakness."--Dr Cobb
If I injure my elbow, neurologically my body will start to shut down the muscles that cross my elbow (triceps, biceps, etc) in an effort to protect my body and reduce the risk of further damage. My body is trying really hard to protect itself which is pretty smart!
Now if that joint is not brought back up to 100% mobility, my body still has some "neurologically braking" going on, thus performance is not optimal. At some level, my body thinks that there still is an issue in my elbow and will be shutting down the muscles to some degree.
If that make sense, lets go even further in that the NS (nervous system) connects ALL the joints, so ANY joint that is not back to 100% mobility is going to dampen performance! Yes, that is a leap, but it makes logical sense (and I've seen it happen many times). So far, every chronic shoulder issue that I've helped someone with, I have yet to do anything with their shoulder! Most of the time it is the opposite foot/ankle, opposite hip, thoracic, or same side wrist. The body moves as a whole (hopefully or else you have some problems), so ALL the joints must be working optimally.
It is true that many times issues will follow the back force transmission line (think of your body as a big X where the force from your RIGHT foot can end up in your LEFT hand and LEFT jaw/face) , but not always. This is the reason to evaluate EACH drill that is performed. Physiology is messy, so you want to assess, not guess.
If you are interested in a custom Z Health session, email me and check out this link.
Stability vs Mobility
Further down the rabbit hole, here is something that I've thinking a lot about for awhile now regarding stability vs mobility.
I think we need to train mobility in order to get any stiffness or stability! This was the end point of my whole mobility in the low back rant (it recently ran at Diesel Crew also, so thanks to Smitty for doing that).
Watch babies/kids--they have tons of mobility and then they LEARN stability. Frankie Faires likes the word "coordination" and I will agree with that so put another way "Stability is just coordination". People are making this too complicated. Yikes, I think I just said others are making it too complicated. I better write down this event.
I actually heard Gray Cook say something similar to this awhile back on the Strength Coach Podcast, so that was pretty cool since he is a bright dude. He is on most episodes of the Strength Coach Podcast, so check it out at this link. You can also search for it in itunes.
Comments?
Mike N
