New Routine

My outlook on training has significantly changed in the past 3-4 weeks.  I was doing shit wrong for many years.  I thought I knew what I was doing, but I didn't. I can blame all of the people that I listened to for the wrong reasons, but at the end of the day it is my responsibility to understand each of my training decisions.  To be clear, all of this was precipitated by my hip, and my complete inability to squat without excruciating pain.  I'm also talking specifically about exercise form and exercise selection.  Poor form, coupled with supremely ignorant decisions on exercise selection left me in pain and a severely fucked posture.

"Just squat, bench,  dead and row your whole life bro, that's all you need."

That's not really too far off from how I thought before, and now I'm paying the price.  I still feel the big exercises are the best bang for you buck and should be the staple of most programs, but not at the expense of being able to move around like a normal person.

For too long I just assumed my form was "good enough" and that I didn't need to sweat the small stuff.  After all, I reached some other decent numbers. Looking back this had little to do with form and mostly to do with broadly understanding the spectrum of programming methodologies. In short, I didn't get stronger because of my form, I got stronger in spite of it.  An anterior pelvic tilt is still a relatively strong position.  You can still progress in that position and plenty of strong people have done it.    Hard work + heavy weight will get you quite a long way.  But ignore the warning signs at your own peril.

One warning sign was that my squat never progressed.  I hit a 500 pound squat multiple times in college, got 3 green lights at 512.5 in competition. . . and then it completely stagnated. I'd change my stance, switch up my hand placement, go low bar, go high bar, sit back, sit down, you name it.  Inevitably I'd decide my squat was sucking because I wasn't programming it right.  So, I learned a shitload about programming.  This is a good thing and will help me once I'm out of this stage.  But all the while my low back arch increased, my anterior pelvic tilt became more pronounced, and my posture became closer to caveman than a human being.

Though I'm disappointed in myself that it took so long to finally address the underlying structural issues, I think this whole process is a blessing in disguise.  I finally know how to get my squat strong again:  fix my posture.  Of course, this is a bit of a simplification of my issues, but that is really what it comes down to.  My posture sucks and it creates huge  mobility issues, movement issues, and muscle balance issues.  Like Dan John always says, its simple not easy.  I need to fix my posture. Simple.

Fixing my posture isn't easy though because it requires that I: rid myself of anterior pelvic tilt; rid myself of lordosis; strengthen the fuck out of my core the right way; relearn how to engage my core; relearn how to use my glutes; re-program the internal cues I have for all exercises; re-program my body position on all exercises; control my hips; control my ribs; improve  external rotation of my hips and shoulders; do a bunch of incredibly simple movements for months on end; accept that I'll be completely uncomfortable during most of these months, and; reinforce all of the work I do in the gym when walking and sitting the other 23 hours a day.  Plus a shitload of other stuff I'm not listing and that I'm not even aware of yet.

I have a new found respect for people that  bust their ass doing this stuff.  Its fucking hard and takes a monumental amount of effort.  There is no coasting.

With all of that said, I'm having a lot of fun!   This is an area of training I know nothing about, so I'm trying to soak in as much as possible.  There is so much to learn.  It really help to have a good friend like Gabe that can give me advice on all of this.   I've pasted in the program I will be doing for the next 3-6 weeks.  I'm not sure how fast/slow I will progress out of these movements but I'll just have to wait and see.  Also, I've decided I don't like the "Getting Mobile" name for this phase.   I'm not doing this to "get mobile" for the sake of getting mobile.  I'm doing this to get stronger.  I'm training.  So this is just going to be called Phase 1.

Without further ado, this is the program Gabe recommended and the same thing he started with:

WARM-UP
Lacross Ball: feet, ankles, shoulder girdle, lats, pecs
Foam Roll: glutes, it band, hip flexors, quads, thoracic spine
Mobility: thoracic spine rotation, pushup plus, split squat thoracic rotation, spider wall crawls, wall ankle mobilities, lying leg raises, side leg raises, groiners, wall sprinter stances
Corrective/Activation: quad stretch, cable lateral walks, glute bridges


ROUTINE 
Day 1
1a. pull through
1b. split stance cable push
2a. split squat (counterweight)
2b. split stance cable pull
3a. side plank
3b. prone i, t, y's
3c. lying external rotation

Day 2
1a. goblet squat to box
1b. pushup
2a. split squat (counterweight)
2b. face pulls
3a. plank
3b. prone external rotation to row
3c. scapular wall slides