Dr. Kelly Starrett

So we use that as a assessment for, hey, let's spend some time here, isometrics.

We can get your butt practicing that squeezing.

So your brain says, oh, in this position, I can do a normal muscular drill, get my butt squeezing when the quads are tight.

But that's a good example of why a lot of times people have really stiff hamstrings all the time.

They're always sitting in a bent position.

And then the hamstring is doing the work of the butt and the hamstring all the time instead of the butt doing its job and the hamstring doing its job together.

So it's a good example of sometimes that hamstring pathology could be as a result of working in incomplete positions where a lot of my physiology is sort of what I call positionally inhibited.

And the same thing could be true of your shoulder.

Yeah.

And for everyone, that just means you're pausing in a position, right?

And making your brain control that position when we stop.

So if you're doing a squat and you stop, that's an isometric.

That might be one, working on overhead position.

We also could take, if you've ever laid, like you could lay on your back, put a lacrosse ball or some kind of ball in your T-spine and put your arm over your head.

And one of the ideas that I stole right out of my instruction at physio school is that we mobilize at the position of restriction.

Whenever we can, we wanna give context to the tissues that we're mobilizing.

So if I'm missing internal rotation, so if I put my arm out to my side, so here's a quick primer for everyone.

The shoulder really does four things.

I know it seems like it does a lot more, but don't lose the narrative here.

You put your arm over your head, okay.