Make like a monkey – more crazy movement!

Thanks to my buddy Shawn for sending me this one!  Sweet!

Extreme Movement is a combination of information from joints + eyes + inner ear!

Off to a broomball game Friday night and then out with some of the guys/girls in town for Grip n Rip and it is going to be a blast. I will have to bug out at around noon on Sat from Grip n Rip since Jodie and I are headed to Baja Mexico for some R and R and to get in some kiteboarding! Whoo ha!

No worries, as I will have some posts already keyed up, but I may be very late on comments; so please bear with me. Heck, they said they have internet but from what I heard I would be surprised that the internet is actually working though.

rock on
Mike T Nelson

Damien Walters Show Reel Video- How Do you Want To Move?

Damien Walter is a freak. You must watch this!

How Does He Train?

See this exclusive interview below

Damien Walters Interview

How Do You Want To Move?

Is Your Training Getting You Closer To Better Movement?

If Not, Why Not?

The Answer Is Coming Soon. The Movement Will Be Here……

rock on
Mike T Nelson

PS

Damien Walters I am not, but I will be working on the back flip again later in 2010 (must…..graduate……first)

Hardcore Parkour

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The Science Behind Biofeedback

I’ve been getting some great questions regarding biofeedback as of late, which is awesome. I am glad to see others asking questions and taking action. Kudos to you!

One of the questions has been around the science of biofeedback

• Is there any science?

• What does the science say?

• Who is this Mike T Nelson character and is he qualified to answer any of this?

• Why is he wearing a lab coat?

Find out below

Mike T Nelson Background

The Science of Biofeedback

Comments

What are your thoughts? Leave me a comment below and let me know!

Rock on
Mike T Nelson

If you liked this post, please subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking HERE

Damien Walters has nothing on these guys; so they get the Extreme Human Performance of the week.

If you want to see some really wicked cool stuff, you need to see the Damien Walter post and interview below

Damien Walters Crazy Movement and Interview: Real Parkour and Gymnastics

If you want to see my work on a handstand, check it out below.  This is from earlier this year and to be perfectly honest I have not worked on it much since then.

HARDCORE PARKOUR!

Mike T Nelson

I see a fair amount of shoulder “issues”   A simple test is to have the athlete bring their arm out to their side and all the way up while keeping their palm down and elbow straight and stop when they hit tension.

Have them do the same thing out in front.

If they don’t have a good range of motion (ROM), overhead lifting will NOT be a good idea!  Why would I put a kettlebell in their hand if they can’t get their arm over their head withOUT weight?

How to fix it

“He who treats the site of pain is lost” —Karel Lewitt, M.D

Not everyone who has less than stellar range of motion will have pain, but most that have shoulder pain have decrease shoulder ROM.

While my goal is not to directly get rid of their pain, I know that by getting a full range of motion a vast majority of the time their pain will go away.  Better movement almost always results in less pain.

Here is a video of a pre and post Z-Health joint mobility work

What Did We Do?

While every case is different, here we did some LEFT ankle mobility work (this athlete has some extra hardware in his left ankle and a scar from the said hardware), neck mobility work, and right wrist mobility work.

In general, from all the shoulder issues I’ve work with I find the following to help a vast majority of the time.

Mobility work for the

• Opposite foot/ankle
• Opposite hip
• Thoracic spine
• Same side hand/wrist.

While it is not this easy all the time, about 70% of the time it really is if you are doing the drills correctly (I love the Z-Health R Phase and I Phase drills for this) and you can reassess the athlete after EACH drill to know if you made them move better or worse.    A gait assessment and simple shoulder ROM test (both taught in the Z-Health R Phase certification) work awesome.

Since we are targeting the nervous system directly, we should see and IMMEDIATE change to know if the athlete is better or worse.  Gone are the days of sending them home with scap wall slide, stick ups, external rotation work, etc and then they come back 2- 6 weeks later to see if they worked or not!  We can now tell in SECONDS if the drills we did were good or bad.    This is critical since every athlete is an individual.

But I Do “Prehab” Exercises and They Work!

I am not saying that those other exercises never work or are “bad”, my point is that I believe there is a much faster way to get an end result.  You can now get great results with some simple looking joint mobility work and a reassessment protocol if you target the nervous system directly.

Any comments, let me know!

Rock on!

Mike T Nelson

PS

If you are interested in more info about the Z-Health R Phase cert, drop me a line(Mike T. Nelson) by clicking HERE with the subject “Z-Health Cert Questions”

Updation

I have a bunch of cool videos shot and some more “hacks” for range of motion, but my dissertation is taking longer than I thought, so I will have them up this Saturday.

It seems my header on my blog went goofy, so I am working on that and hope to have it fixed early next week.  Still working to get it more compatible with our Mac friends too.

In the meantime, I have a very special treat for all of you!

It is a true honor and privilege to have a very special guest post from By Josh Hanagarne, World’s
Strongest Librarian.

Be sure to check out his awesome blog at

Worlds Strongest Librarian

Take it away Josh!

Moving My Body, Saving A Life

By Josh Hanagarne, World’s
Strongest Librarian

Has your body ever betrayed you? How about your brain? Do they ever seem like they’re doing whatever they want? Do they ever seem to want different things?

I ask because I can answer YES to all of those questions…and then some. I was in Washington D.C. one sunny day when I suddenly punched myself in the face as hard as I could. This surprised the other people near me, but they weren’t surprised as much as I was.

But all I could do was look down at my bloody shirt and think, I need to do laundry.

Tic, Tic, Boom

In 9th grade I got diagnosed with Tourette’s Syndrome and we all thought, “Hmm, this is sort of weird.”

Tourette’s makes you do two sorts of things:

1.You move involuntarily
2.You make noises involuntarily

For about ten years it was just a nuisance. Then I went one round with myself in D.C. and things started ramping up from there. I screamed uncontrollably until I got a hernia from the pressure. I dislocated fingers. I chewed my mouth to pieces, and so on.

And on and on and on. And if it sounds miserable, it was.

Things are no different now, but things are wonderful

For nearly 15 years, my body was my enemy. Rather than engage it, I chose to ignore it. That didn’t work very well. But later when I got into weights and kettlebells, things changed. I learned to dominate this sack of flesh and it began to change.

My symptoms didn’t change. They never will. But the discipline I’ve picked up along the way makes everything seem bearable. Once you’ve picked up kettlebells and worked hard, nothing else feels as intimidating. Not even the knowledge that either one of my hands might break my jaw at any moment.

If it happens, it happens. As long as it doesn’t interrupt my training, I’ll keep smiling. Getting stronger is the answer for me. But the point came where I couldn’t figure out how to maintain my rate of progress.

Mobility – The Missing Ingredient

I recently spent one week training with “Unbreakable” Adam T. Glass in Minot, North Dakota. Adam knows a lot about the body and how it works.

I’d dabbled in mobility work before. Mike T. Nelson of this very website did a ZHealt session with me before the RKC and it cleared up some lingering problems for me.

During the week with Adam I learned that Mike is one of Adam’s coaches. We spent more time that week talking about mobility than anything else. I had no idea that I knew so little. But rather than be intimidated, I was inspired and excited.

It’s hard not to be when you start hitting personal records (PRs) again. After about 5 minutes of Z-Health work, Adam fixed my shoulder that had been bothering me for a year. Five minutes after that, I pressed a 92 lb kettlebell with the arm that hadn’t pressed for that year. It was a huge PR and my eyebrows shot up just as quickly as that kettlebell.

I could go on all day about this, but I won’t

If I could say one thing to you and have it stick, it would be this: forget what you think you know about the body. I would love nothing more than to pick Mike’s brain for a year and be one of his guinea pigs.

I thought it was fun to get stronger, but feeling my body move better is satisfying in a different way. And the two are inseparable. I had used weights and kettlebells to take control of my life again. Now I’m seeing that mobility work will let me take control of the weights and kettlebells at a much higher level.

No matter where you’re at in your training, no matter what your relationship with your body is, both can improve-drastically.

Find someone who knows more than you do about the body. Help yourself and let them help you. You cannot overestimate the potential of a perfectly functioning body. And the perfectly functioning body is the one that breaks records and reaches its potential.

I hear Mike Nelson is pretty good at this stuff.

I’ve seen these principles of mobility in action. My training saved my life. Mobility is improving the rest.

Josh Hanagarne
Get Stronger, Get Smarter, Live Better…Every Day

About the Author: Josh Hanagarne, RKC, is the twitchy giant behind World’s Strongest Librarian, a blog about living with Tourette’s Syndrome, kettlebells, book recommendations, buying pants when you’re 6′8″, old-time strongman training, and much more. Please subscribe to Josh’s RSS Updates to stay in touch.

Extreme Human Performance of the Week: Brett Favre to Greg Lewis TD Toss

Due to my crazy schedule I have not made time to watch a full Vikings game for some time, but today Jodie and I were hanging out for a bit and after she left around half time I debated about watching the rest of the Vikings vs 49ers game.  Everyone knows I should spend that time working on my dissertation if I ever want to graduate, but my butt seemed like put crazy glued to the coach.

It was a back and forth game the whole time and it did not look good for the Vikings near the end.  They were all out of time outs and only about 1:30 left on the clock and they needed a TD.    Yikes.

In the past it would be a complete stumblefest as they would attempt to get a score, but would end up pissing away precious seconds on each play and all Vikings fan leave pulling out their purple hair.

This time was different!

Brett Favre and Greg Lewis to the Rescue!

Brett Favre lead them right down the field and had brilliant time management on the clock.   With only seconds left he threw a strike to Great Lewis who made an AMAZING catch in the end zone.  He went up and knew exactly where his entire body was in space, made sure his left foot was inside the line and dragged his right toe.  You have to watch the video below, especially in slow motion.  Stellar throw and dynamic catch.

What Did We Learn Today?

All exceptional athletes have an amazing movement map -  they know exactly where their body is in space at all times.   This is a combination of visual, vestibular (inner ear “balance”) and joint information to the brain (proprioception).   If you want to go from here to Chicago, a detour through the UP of MI is not the best route!

Each one of the these components can be trained also, but rarely do you see them trained; even at an elite level.  Virtually every athlete needs to start with joint mobility (I personally love Z-Health for this) to enhance their proprioception and thus their overall movement map

Better map = better performance

Congrats to the whole Vikings team and Brett Favre and Greg Lewis for the Extreme Human Performance of the week.

Who else watched the game today?  What are your thoughts?

Rock on

Mike T nelson

Here are some cool video before and afters with a Kettlebell Swing.

For those new to Kettlebells (KBs), the KB Swing is basic, foundational exercise.   It works to great tons of power by using the hip to snap the KB forward.

BEFORE

KB Swing before any Z-Health Mobility work. Notice the height of the KB at top, “up” shoulders and slow hips.

AFTER

KB Swing after 40 min of Z-Health Mobility work. Notice the increase in hip snap and this was after a short training session also

HOW?

I actually did not use many standard exercise cues to get her body to do a better kettlebell swing.   We just upgraded her nervous system.  Think of it as upgrading the software on your computer.

Better software = better performance

If your athlete are not learning at the rate you want them to, maybe they need a better movement map to create a “smarter body”   Smart bodies learn fast.

Want More?

If you want to know exactly what I did to improve the KB Swing in this case, drop a comment below.

15 comments by this tomorrow (Friday) at midnight (Central Standard Time) and I will have a follow up post on what I did and why.

Rock on

Mike T Nelson

PS

Feel free to pass along this post to others that are interested and get them to post away here!

A HUGE thanks to all those that took me up on the phone consulting special.  It is a blast to talk to some really exceptional athletes!

For those that missed out on it, I will have some slots available later (but without bonuses), so drop me a line.

Special Treat!

As a special thanks to everyone that reads this blog, I was able to round up a special interview with Craig Keaton in Dallas TX and this one is FREE as my way of saying “thanks again”

Now you may be wondering .”Who is this guy?” and while he is not a “big name” Craig really really know his stuff and I always have a killer time picking his brain about research, Z-Health, training athletes and nutrition.  Craig trains top American football players, Olympic competitors and the every day athlete just looking to look, move and feel better.  If you are looking for Extreme Human Performance, you must listen to this interview!

Check out the interview below and The Movement Dallas website below.  If you are in the Dallas area, you owe it to yourself to pay Craig and The Movement a visit.

The Movement Dallas : Changing the way you eat, move, eat, think and live

Craig’s Formal Background

For over a decade, The Movement Dallas Co-Founder Craig Keaton has sought, created and implemented cutting-edge fitness and wellness strategies to radically transform his and his clients’ lives. Craig has a varied background: at a university level, he studied for over 8 years in the fields of Biochemistry and Exercise Physiology, and following that, received certification in the fields of Corrective Exercise and Nutrition/Lifestyle Coaching with the world-renowned C.H.E.K. Institute. Most recently, Craig completed a 3-year hands-on education program devoted to pain relief and performance enhancement with Dr. Eric Cobb, the founder of Z-Health Performance Solutions.

Craig utilizes his holistic background to address clients’ root issues and is intuitive in his approach to “treat the person, not the disease.” This philosophy has aided Craig in coaching people who are as varied as their goals: from professional, Olympic and collegiate athletes who want to optimize their performance, to those with debilitating disease states who wish to recover their health and quality of life. Craig’s current endeavors include a full schedule of highly committed clients, the research and development of the most effective fitness and health concepts and applications, and the education of fitness/wellness professionals through The Movement Apprenticeship and Certification Programs.

Rock on
Mike T Nelson

PS

Leave some comment love on your thoughts on the interview and what YOU want to see here!

Play Now:

 Craig Keaton Interview [37:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I have crazy new information today based loosely off the following abstract, so hold on tight.

Nail-gun narcolepsy
The Lancet, Volume 374, Issue 9685, Pages 238-238
B. Mokhlesi, M. Khan

You have to see this pic from the abstract!

From the abstract

“A man aged 48 years who had a history of obsessive compulsive disorder and depression was found unconscious on his basement floor with a nail gun. He arrived at the emergency room in a deep coma with a 15 cm (6 inches) nail embedded in the occipital lobe……. Although the man did not have any sleep disorders before the traumatic brain injury, he developed substantial and persistent hyper somnolence with daily sleep duration of 20 h”

First off, the guy is lucky to not have any other issues considering there is a huge freakin’ nail in his melon!  They were able to treat him with drugs and I guess he is back to “normal” now.  Eeek.  I can’t imagine sleeping for 20 hours a day for weeks (although it does sound nice for a few days).

Nails, Hippocampus, Athletic Performance

The hippocampus is a section in the brains of humans and other mammals primarily concerned with the limbic system and plays important roles in long-term memory and spatial navigation.   (Note, the limbic system include the following brain structures: hippocampus, amygdala, anterior thalamic nuclei, and limbic cortex.  It develops to mange the “fight’ or ‘flight’ chemical).

In our fury rodent friends, the hippocampus has been investigated as part of the brain system responsible for spatial memory and navigation; so this may be important for athlete on the playing field.

Neurons (brain cells) in the rodent hippocampus area respond as place cells: that is, they fire bursts of electricity (action potentials) when the animal passes through a specific part of its environment.   No, they don’t get shocked every time the crawl past the rodent water cooler, as they (and you) can’t feel the action potentials.   These hippocampal place cells interact with head direction cells, whose activity acts as an inertial compass, and with grid cells in the neighboring structures (cortex).  What does that mean?

In rodents, there appears to be 2 mechanisms involved 1) Head Direction Cells and 2)Place Cells

From an article “Do humans have some kind of homing instinct, possibly involving navigation by magnetism like certain birds do?”

“1) Head-direction cells: When a rat is placed in a large recording chamber and allowed to forage for food, there are cells in some parts of the brain that fire whenever the rat faces one particular direction. It does not matter where the rat is in the chamber; whenever it faces in that direction, those cells fire like crazy. Each of the head-direction cells has its own, unique directional preference, so that the direction the rat faces at any given moment is signaled by the firing of some particular combination of these cells.”

“2) Place cells: These neural cells are the complement of head-direction cells. They fire whenever the rat is in a certain location, rather than a specific direction. Studies indicate that place cells, too, use both landmarks and path integration (a record of the animal’s movements through space) to keep track of where they are.”  

The interesting part is that they seem to operate independently from cues from the eyes (visual) and inner ear (vestibular function from the semicircular cannels that provide input to the brain about head orientation)

Human Data

In humans, their is much debate about the existence of place and head direction cells.   I envision some cool experiments with humans in a maze, blindfolded, looking for food at the end!

We can control our movement maps though!

If  you want to drive from White Bear Lake Minnesota to Chicago IL you need a great map.  A detour through the Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan to say “Wat Up to da Yoopers” is not ideal.   You want to drive right from point A to point B in the most efficient manner, unless you want to take a sight seeing detour.

How Do You Get a Great Movement Map?

Your brain controls all of your movement and strength, so to optimize it we need to look at how the brain gets its information.   This primarily comes from:

1) Eyes (visual and eye muscle movements)

2) Vestibular (inner ear “balance”)

3) Proprioceptive (info from the joints)

In order to optimize the body for performance (and pain reduction), we need to optimize each one of these systems. This is what I really love about the Z-Health system, as it works to optimize each system and then combine them in a way to get maximal results in record time!

Better movement = better performance

Superior athletic performance for virtually ANYONE is the result as you can learn to move more athletically and do things that they thought were not possible with the correct approach.

Where Do I Start?

For most, the best way to start is by doing some dynamic joint mobility work (like Z-Health or dynamic mobility drills).  If you are near a Z-Health trainer, you can stop in to see them and get a custom approach just for your movement to jump start your progress.   If you are in the Twin Cities MN area, hit me up at michaelTnelson@yahoo.com

Summary

So while the debate in humans about head direction and place cells rages, we know for certain that you can control your movement maps by visual, vestibular and joint movements; so get to it!  That PR is just around the next corner and stay away from the nail gun!

Rock on

Mike T Nelson

PS

Time is ticking the offer below and may already be over depending on when you read this page, so click below

Huge Announcement and Special Offer