Top 5 Take Homes (so far) From My Weekend with Dr. Stuart McGill

I had the opportunity to spend a weekend with Dr. Stuart McGill and about 200 of his closest friends in downtown Toronto earlier this month.  It was a jam packed weekend running from 8am-6pm on Saturday and Sunday.  By the end of Saturday I thought my head would explode and my hand would be in a permanent cramp from all the notes I was taking. 

I wanted to share with you a few of the pearls I picked up from Dr. McGill.  I think it will reinforce much of what you are already doing and perhaps give you a few ideas.

1.     The spine is not a ball and socket joint - duh!  I think most of us know that but did not always treat it that way.  Think of the ball and socket joints in the body - let's take the shoulder for example, ball and socket joints are definitely designed for mobility not stability.

Now consider the design of the spine as it fits together like a jig saw puzzle it is definitely not created for mobility, but rather stability - so why do some of us try to train it like a ball and socket joint.

Although I have not done Russian Twists or anything like that for several years, I must admit I did this more to err on the side of caution.  I was not 100% convinced that we should not train some rotation, using the old argument that hockey players will rotate about their spine to varying degrees when they play.  When Dr. McGill told us not to treat the spine like a ball and socket joint it just solidified in my mind that not only was this a risky endeavor, but also makes no sense from a structural standpoint. 

Take home: Train the spine to stabilize rotation, not generate rotation.  

2.     Stretching can improve mobility, but will not necessarily change movement patterns.   Although we may improve an athlete's flexibility using myofascial release and stretching techniques, that does not necessarily translate into improved movement patterns.  The athlete may have plenty of mobility to get into a proper squat position but they may not use it because this is not the habit of movement that they have established and engrained.

I think this goes hand-in-hand with Gray Cook's use of his functional movement patterns when improving mobility.  Remember when you studied French or Spanish in high school?  You learned new vocabulary, but then you had to use the words in a dialogue.  Same goes for the body - you have to learn how to use what you have.

Take home: You can stretch muscles to improve the overall flexibility, but you also need to train the athlete how to use the new range of motion in their sport and training.

3.     This one made me immediately think of hockey players specifically.  Dr. McGill was talking about 'failure tolerance' of the spine and that even applying a 'safe' load over and over  will lower the failure tolerance of the spine.  He described it like bending a wire coat hanger repeatedly.  The first few times you apply the load it is safe for the coat hanger, the coat hanger remains intact.  This continues until the one time when you apply the exact same load the hanger snaps. 

Then he turned to a discussion of how 'creep' of the viscoelastic properties of the spine can lower the failure tolerance.   The example he gave was road cyclists, but I immediately thought of hockey players sitting on the bench with their terrible rounded posture.  They sit there letting their spine 'creep' lowering their failure tolerance and then jump on the ice and smash around for 40 seconds before sitting again.  I emailed one of my clients immediately after the day telling him to sit up on the bench.

We did a demo where, from a standing position, we found the posture where our erector spinae just shut off.  Then we pushed our chin forward (like many of our clients do all the time) and sure enough the erector spinae popped back on.  Then again we found a neutral posture where our erectors just turned off, then rounded our shoulders forward - you guessed it, erectors popped back on.

Take home:  Insist on perfect posture from your athletes - during the training session, during the game, all the time.

4.     I had thought of the longissimus primarily as an extensor of the spine as part of the erector spinae group, but Dr. McGill showed that the fibres of the longissimus run at a 45° angle so their functional anatomy suggests that they serve to protect against posterior shear first and extend second. 

Here is what really jumped out at me, when the spine is taken into flexion the fibre angle moves from  45° to only 8° which makes it a much less efficient shear stabilizer.

Take home:  The athlete must have a neutral spine position to maximize shear stability.

5.     I have not had athletes perform crunches in their training for a few  years, it did not take much to convince me that crunching increases the wear and tear on the spine and contributes to an eventual failure.  I did however have some trouble getting through to a few of my athletes who insisted on doing crunches on their own because they wanted a six pack.

Personally, I don't care if any of my players have a six pack.  I care about their success and safety on the ice.  The rational 'spine sparing' argument did not hit home for some of them.  Dr. McGill gave me a great piece of ammo for this argument.  Here it is - when doing crunches the rectus abdominus is only working at approximately 10-20% of its capacity.  During a 'hand walkout' the rectus abdominus worked up to maximum capacity with minimal load on the spine. 

The hand walkout is similar to the stability ball rollout except rather than rolling out on the ball, the athlete begins in a push up position and slowly walks the hands forward as far as he or she can without an change of torso position (no movement at all).  When they reach their limit of stability, they walk back to the starting position without any torso movement.

Take home:  Sell your athletes on proper core training by telling them that not only will these exercises improve performance and reduce their risk of back injury, but they also work your six pack muscles more effectively than crunches.  I kind of hate that I have to sell it like this to some of them but I think of it as 'the spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down'.   

And that just takes me up to page 3 of my notes!  Much of that information is familiar to you and likely includes strategies that you already use.  What it did for me was add some first hand scientific support and reinforce that when training core stability there cannot be any movement in the torso - if your athlete loses their position just a little, they are not training core stability, they are training a faulty stabilization pattern.

If you get the opportunity it is definitely worthwhile seeing Dr. McGill present this material, even if you have read his books and articles.  Seeing it presented in a logical progression helps create a more complete picture of the structures and processes. 

 If I could offer one tip it would be to try and find out the number of participants enrolled in the course.  The course I attended seemed to have 200+  participants so for some of the practical components there was not even enough space on the floor for everyone to get down.  A smaller group or smaller practical sessions would have made this time a little more productive, but it was still well worth the investment.