The Perils of Specificity I: A Delegation to The Mayor of Chincinnati

I recently suffered a minor back injury while performing a conventional deadlift. I believed it to be little more than a re-aggravation of an older injury (compression of L5/S1) due to the sciatica and immobility which accompanied it. Upon further reflection, I've become skeptical of my original hypothesis. There were no indicators of chronic injury, as I had experienced no pain while moving similar loads during high bar squats several days prior, and the injury in question was sustained suddenly and unexpectedly during the third set in a series. The weight and intensity were submaximal (singles at ~80%), and the interval was adequate (90-120s). Ruling out pre-existing injuries and fatigue, the only plausible cause is a breakdown in form.

Shocking, yes? The strength specialist form nazi lost his bearing on a submaximal deadlift. I wasn't paying attention, simple as that. My mind was drifting off into space, and I didn't bother to take the weight seriously. Plenty of lifters (many better than I) hurt themselves by not paying attention; this phenomenon is not exactly news. The item of particular interest in regards to injuries sustained during high intensity closed chain movements is personal variability. In comparison, chronic elbow pain during extension is usually tendonitis, and shin splints are generally a product of anterior tilt. I would never advocate diagnosing an injury based on the frequency of its occurrence, but very often (on the internet, for example) one is not able to personally supervise a series of diagnostic tests and palpate adjacent muscles, so the probable response based on the information given must suffice.

So why did The Segugio's form break? Ever cognizant of my passionate and controversial (but biomechanically advantageous and therefore correct) advocacy of a low (knee and hip flexion beyond 90 degrees) starting position, I immediately assumed that I must have prematurely raised my hips. Again, this idea did not hold to scrutiny. Thought my hip position may have been less than ideal, I would have been perfectly able to slowly grind out a rep using my hamstrings were that the only deficiency. What happened instead was a break just below the knee, and a dropped weight. I had raised my head, throwing my once neutral spine out of alignment, and prompting the generation of shear forces against the line of pull of my erectors (amirite).

Good. Stop being stupid and keep your head straight. But there's a lot more to it than that. A break in form is usually caused by a reversion to intuitive (as opposed to trained) motor patterns. In our day to day activities, we benefit far more from fine motor control than high threshold recruitment, so we tend to sacrifice mechanical efficiency for practical convenience. It's "easier" to bend at the waist and pull to pick something up than to sink to your heels and drive upwards, despite the fact that you can only generate a fraction of the force. Untrained people seem to walk with their quads, lift with their backs, and use their shoulders to push and pull. Ask someone to do a push-up, and they'll spread their hands a mile apart, then hunch over it while sinking at the hips. Ask someone to pull and they'll medially rotate with flexed elbow (think arm wrestling).

As fitness professionals, we remain mindful to avoid falling into these improper movement patterns. We barely notice activating our lats to pull a door shut, or pushing a grocery cart with retracted scapulae. We're always highly aware of our bodies in the execution of the mundane; never failing to sit using hip flexion or to maintain a soft knee and tight core while standing. This mindfulness, useful as it is, can lead us to believe ourselves immune to muscle imbalances, and cause us to neglect active injury prevention (or pre-hab, if you will).

An untrained person is far more likely to have an inhibition/compensation complex, such as upper cross syndrome (see title), but chronic unintentional activation can still cause imbalances. There won't necessarily be a visible discrepancy in muscle size or strength, but there will be a greater intuitive reliance on contracting a muscle that has adjusted to prolonged periods of shortening. In other words, someone with slumped shoulders and/or rounded back may feel quite comfortable in their contorted position(s). If an imbalanced position becomes ingrained in the mind as de-facto anatomical, then one will unconsciously seek to return to said position in the absence of mindful stimulus. We can all force ourselves into a proper starting position (assuming adequate flexibility and mobility), but how we "unfold" in our moments of mindlessness is dependent on the incidental programming we code with every last bit of energy made kinetic. The existence of "collateral activation" is the topic of our sequel.

Brace yourselves. Will be amazing.