Fran Strategies

[Craig Loizides]

Originally Posted by Alex Europa

Great article about the potential long term effects of managing workouts by Jon Gilson of AgainFaster (W/F/S)

Isn't this really an issue of programming rather than pacing? Let's say you're training for a mile. You'd want to do some workouts faster than mile pace. The go all out approach would be run 400 as fast as possible and then finish the rest of the mile as well as possible. A better approach would be to do something like 5x300 at 400 meter pace with 3 minute recoveries.

With CF workouts this requires something like power bias workouts, or Gant's method of specifically choosing weights and reps, or my favorite using "Lynne" style workouts. For instance max reps of thrusters followed immediately by max reps of pull ups. Rest and repeat. Scaling probably plays a bit of a roll here too. I think a lot of people would be better off going up in weight once in a while. There's nothing magical about 95 pound thrusters. But increasing weight still isn't going to let you hit that max intensity. That takes either a fly-and-die approach which I don't think makes sense or changing your workouts to plan for that max effort.

[Garrett Smith]

Craig,
To directly answer your question, I would say no. It would have been more proper for me to say a "neutral" pelvic position/tilt.

One cannot have a posterior pelvic tilt and still have a significant lordosis in their lumbar spine. I made the error in my earlier post of saying the equivalent of "if it's not a posterior pelvic tilt then it must be an anterior one", completely disregarding the neutral position. My bad.

I hope I'm explaining this clearly. Either way, I don't know that any of us are really gaining anything from this tangential discussion at this point (which I started, I realize).

[Grissim Connery]

I guess this thread has taken off in 2 diff directions, but i had a bit of a breakthrough today. I was front squating and concentrating really hard on straightening my spine. i think my problems a few years ago were that i would over hyper extend my spine and that would cause much pain. anyways, i got in the bottom and when i focused really hard, my abs started to lock up. i have never legitamately felt my abs contract hard while squatting before. anyways, this contraction allowed me to better control my posterior muscles and drive with them much harder. my back finallyi felt completely stable as i squatted, and i never realized after years of squatting just how unstable i had felt before.
i think my abs are gonna kill tomorrow though.

[Craig Loizides]

Originally Posted by Garrett Smith

Craig,
To directly answer your question, I would say no. It would have been more proper for me to say a "neutral" pelvic position/tilt.

One cannot have a posterior pelvic tilt and still have a significant lordosis in their lumbar spine. I made the error in my earlier post of saying the equivalent of "if it's not a posterior pelvic tilt then it must be an anterior one", completely disregarding the neutral position. My bad.

I hope I'm explaining this clearly. Either way, I don't know that any of us are really gaining anything from this tangential discussion at this point (which I started, I realize).

Thanks Dr. G. I've actually been working to eliminate my anterior pelvic tilt so I was confused by your post. I've actually seen a noticeable improvement in some of my lifts, especially deadlift, when I started focusing on neutral pelvic position / neutral spine instead of focusing solely on maintaining an arch which is the advice I seem to hear the most.

[Garrett Smith]

Craig, I'm glad my post made things a bit more clear.

The reason many people, IMO, emphasize the lordotic arch in the back is that it is a much safer position for the lumbar spine than losing the lordosis to flat or especially kyphotic.

However, if someone already has a posture of hyperlordosis (with the accompanying anterior pelvic tilt, or vice versa), as in your situation, emphasizing the back arch could be detrimental. Basically, it sounds like you are on the right track.