Egoscue method and strength training

[Guest]

Okay, first a bit of background info: I trained capoeira pretty seriously for about seven years. Due to recurring injuries and some other things, I more or less quit training about seven months ago. I decided I wanted to fully recover from my injuries, increase my strength and flexibility, eat healthier, learn more about training and conditioning etcetera - before going back to capoeira. It's a great sport/art but unfortunately most teachers know sh*t about physical preparation and I simply refuse to get injured any longer because of that.

So, I came across Ido's website and loved his approach. I followed his workouts and also came to know the work of Coach Sommer, Dr. Loren 'paleo' Cordain and more. Once I found Gymnastic Bodies I started to work on the bodyweight progressions and I love them!

I noticed, however, that I found it hard to train consistently (both Ido's exercises and those of Coach S.) and after a bit of introspection, I concluded that this has to do with my body still not feeling optimal (knee and SI joint problems). I also discovered recently (never noticed it ) that my left hip is slightly tilted backwards and my feet are slightly everted. So there are some postural dysfunctions that I want to take care of.

After reading Slizzardman's posts, I got myself a copy of Egoscue's Health Through Motion book and I like it a lot! I'm planning to spend the next couple of months properly rehabbing and prehabbing by following Egoscue's schedules and also doing various routines described by Coach and Ido (shoulder and scapula ROM etc.).

My question (yes, there is one after all ) is: how much strength work should I incorporate in my routine during this prehab phase, where I want to focus on correcting my postural dysfunctions and hopefully recovering from the related joint problems? Will doing the GB bodyweight progressions interfere with the Egoscue work (how wise is it to do strenous work when the body is trying to realign itself)?

Thanks in advance!

[Alvaro Antolinez]

I didn´t read that book but if you have your pelvis rotated I´ll look for a osteopath (I don´t know how it is written) both my wife and my father in law had problems with their pelvis and it was fixed after 3 to 5 sesions. My osteopath is french and is also a phisiotherapist. some simple but accurate movements of a good one could save you months. I have to check that book though!.

[Tarun Suri]

I would simply do esgoscue method and your strength training sessions at the same time at different times of the day.

After my exams, I'll be working out the usual:

mobility/warmup

skill work

strength (static and FBE)

mobility/prehab

And then after eating and maybe a few hours later I'll do Egoscue session.

I don't see any reason why doing both at the time time would not compliment each other.

[Guest]

I didn´t read that book but if you have your pelvis rotated I´ll look for a osteopath (I don´t know how it is written) both my wife and my father in law had problems with their pelvis and it was fixed after 3 to 5 sesions. My osteopath is french and is also a phisiotherapist. some simple but accurate movements of a good one could save you months. I have to check that book though!.

I am seeing an osteopath and he's doing great work on my body, but he doesn't seem to think that my pelvis rotation is something to worry about. Actually, I don't think it's something he can do anything about, because there's nothing wrong with my mobility - I just have a bit of postural disalignment caused by years of imbalanced moving, sitting, standing et cetera. I need to correct this by paying attention to my posture and by doing specific exercises to correct the alignments in my body (Egoscue method). But thanks for the suggestion

I would simply do esgoscue method and your strength training sessions at the same time at different times of the day.

After my exams, I'll be working out the usual:

mobility/warmup

skill work

strength (static and FBE)

mobility/prehab

And then after eating and maybe a few hours later I'll do Egoscue session.

I don't see any reason why doing both at the time time would not compliment each other.

At the moment I am doing both the workouts and the Egoscue routine. But I can imagine that doing strength work when your body isn't 'straight' in its alignments may actually increase the imbalance. Hence my question. Thanks for your insight anyway, I'll wait and see if there are other opinions/experiences and then decide what to do.

[Tarun Suri]

I used to think in that manner, but here's what I realised the more and more I learnt about biomechanics:

It will be a life quest in itself to correct all my disfunctions.

What do I mean by that? Take a look at all I learn about my body since Egoscue and then to many other sources:

Everted feet

Flat feet

Femur rotation

Valgus (for the knee)

Titled pelvis

Rotated pelvis

Hyperextended lumbar spine

Rotated Humeri

Lower and more forward left shoulder

Disfunctional Jaw

Tight calfs, soleus, hip flexors and god knows what else

Weak left gluteus medius (hope I got that rights)

Not properly promotion ball in socket joint of hips

Poor dorsiflexion

Imbalance between ligaments in knee

Poor gait mechanics

Weak (walking muscle in quadriceps)

Disfunction in plantar flexors

Hallux Valgus

Poor breathing mechanics

That's a long list and let's just say I'm not done learning. Not even close. Many things on that list will take many years to cure and some of them I will never likely correct. When fixing musculoskeletal correction becomes an ultimate priority, you start sacrificing a lot especially become the quest is never ending.

Are you ready to sacrifice your stretch to that end?

I truly believe that incorporating Egoscue, Z Health, and any other mobility corrective programs will work much better and faster with strength training program. I compare it to doing passive and active flexibility. If you focused on only passive, you will not be able to use those capacities in real life settings. Ask you correct yourself, teach your body to learn to use those new lengths as you train strength.

Don't be discouraged, but you have far more disfunctions than you probably realise.

Keep on truckin',

Random havoc

[Joshua Naterman]

Biomieg: As long as the time spent on the strength work for a particular joint doesn't exceed the time spent on corrective measures you should be fine. The obvious exception is pain. If strength work causes pain, work the muscles some other way that doesn't cause pain until you've rehabbed sufficiently to go back to your original conditioning with no pain. It doesn't take much to maintain strength, and it doesn't take a HUGE amount of work to build strength, so even when focusing on rehabbing dysfunctions(NOT injuries) you should be able to make small gains unless you're really messed up.

[Guest]

I probably should have made a distinction between dysfunctions and injuries - I'm not really injured anymore at the moment but my left SI joint keeps on giving me bits of trouble and I also have a small assortment of other joint discomforts. I'm pretty confident that I'm on the road to full recovery and that it has been a good decision to quit capoeira for a while, though.

My postural dysfunctions aren't that bad but once I found out about them (funny how you can overlook this kind of stuff when it concerns your own body!), common sense dictated that I should take care of them. I'm not sure if my hip tilt and slightly everted feet are the root cause of my other troubles, but I'm pretty sure it won't hurt to get them back in line!

Before posting my question, I'd already decided to focus on rehab/prehab, stretching, mobility and postural realignment the coming months. I was thinking along the same lines as RandomHavoc, in that it would not be a good decision to completely eliminate all strength training from my workouts.

Thanks for your replies guys!

[Chris Hansen]

At the moment I am doing both the workouts and the Egoscue routine. But I can imagine that doing strength work when your body isn't 'straight' in its alignments may actually increase the imbalance. Hence my question. Thanks for your insight anyway, I'll wait and see if there are other opinions/experiences and then decide what to do.

I'll share my experience, here's the short version.

For several years I had problems with my left shoulder. I eventually figured out that the lat forgot when to fire to stabilize the joint and this caused all sorts of problems. I got the lat to fire again and everything got better.

During this period I spent all my time and energy only on things that might help improve the condition of my shoulder, I even neglected the things I still could do. What happened is that my shoulder didn't get better any faster, my strength and conditioning went down the drain and things that didn't bother my shoulder before started bothering it when I finally did try them again.

I guess I just want to caution against becoming too single minded about fixing problems.

[Guest]

I appreciate your insights, thanks. I wasn't planning on completely abandoning all strength work; I was mostly concerned about the possible effects of strenuous strength work on realigning my body (I can imagine that postural imbalance is typically combined with muscular imbalance, so heavy strength work could possibly increase this imbalance and counteract the Egoscue exercises).

So I'm planning to take some time for extensive prehab, combined with lower-volume strength work doing the easier BtGB progressions

[Joshua Naterman]

DOn't lose your capoeira skills, those are awesome! Even once a week practice will keep them pretty sharp.

Edit: Not to imply that that's enough for improvement, but whatever doesn't hurt you to do now is a good idea to practice once a week so your body doesn't forget or become detrained.