What I learned this Week V1- Breaking down the foot and ankle:

Subject #1: Vertical Core Training:

Source: http://www.train4thegame.com/sites/default/files/Vertical%20Core%20Training%20Revisited%20Final_0.pdf








1. Vertical Core Rules
These Joints must have proper motion:
– Foot/Ankle
– Hip
– Thoracic Spine/Scapulae
– Cervical Spine

2. The Foot, Ankle, and Hip- affect pelvic
motion. The Thoracic Spine, Scapulae, and Cervical Spine affect Rib Cage motion.

3. Functional Density- More things accomplished in the same amount of time. Vertical Core training gets more out of the effort put in. Dysfunction is often coupled.

4. Example: Only mobilizing a limited hip that has now influenced foot or thoracic mechanics. Cause and compensation become irrelevant because now they are feeding off each other address limitations simultaneously and prevent the vicious cycle

5. What is locomotion? The ability to go from A to B using a variety of specific movement patterns that will allow you to accomplish the task most efficiently
- Specific to individual limitations (kids, elderly)
- Specific to the environment
- Specific to the task (linear-lateral-multi)
- Subsystem of training system (where does it fit in?)

6. Fundamental Definitions
- Lunge – falling onto one leg and returning to the beginning position
- Step – falling onto one leg and continuing to the other leg on the same vector of movement
- Jump - leaving the ground on two feet and landing on two feet
- Hop – leaving the ground on one foot and landing on the same foot
- Leap – leaving the ground on one foot and landing on the other foot.

7. What are the Fundamental Locomotor Patterns?
- Walk - a step followed by another step (no flight phase)
- Run – a leap followed by another leap (flight phase)
- Shuffle – a step followed by another step, but the feet do not cross each other
- Skip – a hop followed by a step followed by a hop

8. What are the Secondary Locomotor Patterns?
Carioca Series – pattern in which the feet cross once in front and once behind each other
- Walkioca – carioca pattern while walking
- Skipioca – carioca pattern while skipping
- Carioca – carioca pattern while running (flight phase)
- Skuffle – a shuffle pattern while skipping

9. What are the directions?
Sagittal Plane
– Anterior
– Posterior
Frontal Plane
– Right Lateral
– Left Lateral
Transverse Plane
– Right Rotational
– Left Rotational

10. Secondary Directions
S – Sagittal/Transverse
O – Transverse
Z – Frontal/Sagittal/Transverse
8 – Frontal/Transverse
Square
Triangle
T

11. Movement Acquisition
- Examining sport specific patterns
- Breaking down complex movements into locomotor components
- Speed Acquisition - linear, lateral, multidirectional speed acquisition.

12 Benefits of Retro walking - As we get older and without proper training, we lose the ability to move posteriorly.
- Study by Laufer Y.: older population can not increase their speed when walking retro. The reason is they can not increase their stride length.
- Why? Lack of ankle mobility, hip extension, trunk extension, or proprioceptive training (no eyes in the back of our head).
- Since there is less hip rotation and frontal plane motion of the pelvis with retro, the lumbar spine is spared and the thoracic spine is required to move more

13. Analysis of “Retro” walking
- Retro Locomotion loads the anterior core more effectively than forward locomotion.
- Forward Gait: shock absorption through knee flexion, hip flexion, being absorbed by the posterior chain.
- Retro Gait: shock absorption through calf (gastroc, soleus, TP, PL), anterior core.
- Retro Gait forces more T-Spine extension with less comparative lumbosacral stress

14. Locomotion progression
Level 1 - complex moves in to matrixes
- Walk
- Skip
- Shuffle
- Run
Level 2-
- Walkioca
- Skipioca
- Carioca
- Skuffle

15. How to use it
- Always progress walk, run, skip/shuffle, carioca
- But how you progress is to each is up to you
–Directionality
–Bottom-up
–Top down
–Dimension (speed and range)















Subject #2: Breaking Down the Foot

Source: http://www.train4thegame.com/sites/default/files/Foot%20Cliffs%20Notes%20101.pdf

1. Over one quarter of your bones are in your feet. The initial mobility joint of the foot is the ankle or talocrural joint. While the ankle often serves as a catch all term, by definition it constitutes the interaction between the talus bone and the bones of the lower leg.

2. The setup of the ankle allows it to act somewhat like a hinge to give it front and back motion.

3. The subtalar joint is made up of the Talus bone and the heel bone. Unlike the ankle, this joint doesn’t just move front to back but allows the rear-foot to move in three dimensions, which is why it’s so important.

4. See, I consider the subtalar joint to be the trigger of the body. If the trigger is working right, the gun fires and amazing things happen throughout the rest of body. But, if that trigger gets jammed up, bad things happen and the rest of the body can’t do its job. The subtalar joint converts motion of the heel up the chain of the body, allowing other joints to move and muscles to activate.

5. The mid-tarsal joint is interesting, because it’s actually two joints 1. Talonavicular joint (Talus bone + Navicular bone) and 2. Calcanealcuboid joint (Calcaneus bone + Cuboid bone). The subtalar joint gives the rear-foot 3D motion while the mid-tarsal joint gives the forefoot 3D motion.

6. The often overlooked MTP joint or metatarsophalangeal joint (metatarsal bone + Phalange bone) aka… The Big Toe! BigToe??? Can the big toe affect the rest of the body??? You’re damn right it can! If the toe doesn’t flex upward or go through hallux dorsiflexion (as the people smarter than me called it,) when the foot pushes off the ground, that trigger can get jammed up again. A locked up trigger means the rest of the body (hip, knee, back) can’t work right. Back pain from the big toe

7. Gary confirmed my intuition, I remembered him telling me that the foot not only has to function as a “mobile adapter,” to react to gravity, ground reaction and the momentum of the body, but also as a “stable propulsive flipper,” to allow the foot to explode off the ground. They told me to think of the foot as a wave… It flows from, mobile to stable, mobile to stable, mobile to stable... Load then explode, load then explode, load then explode.























Subject #3: The Biomechanics of Barefoot Running:

Source: http://www.facebook.com/Thespotter?v=wall#!/notes/emily-splichal/biomechanics-of-barefoot-running-by-dr-emily-splichal/483892491188

1. The foot plays a very important role in shock absorption and the translation of ground reaction forces through the rest of the body

2. If we look at the foot kinematics during running shod we see initial contact between the foot and the ground in the form of a heel strike. From heel strike there is a shift in body weight to the lateral side of the foot to the forefoot, ending in propulsion off of the great toe joint. A runner’s heel strike is associated with up to 2-3 times our body weight in ground reaction forces.

3. As speed increases, there was a noted decrease in ankle dorsiflexion, and therefore an associated decrease in ground reaction forces during heel strike. Interestingly, this contrasts with barefoot runners who land with a more plantarflexed ankle with initial contact being on the ball of the foot and ending with great toe joint propulsion.

4. A plantarflexed ankle position significantly reduces amount of ground reaction forces during barefoot running.

5. A 2008 study by Divert et al. found a much higher oxygen consumption by shod runners when compared to barefoot runners. This increased oxygen consumption can be associate by both mass of the shoe and the variance in a heel strike in shod runner and forefoot contact in barefoot runners