This week I had a conversation with a client about some discomfort he was feeling in his knees after martial arts training.  The discomfort was so great that it was both taking the joy away from something he loved (martial arts training) and forcing him to consider whether he's too old to continue participating.  

When he showed me the moves that were causing the problems, it was very clear to me what the problem was and it was the technique of the drill being taught that was causing the problem.

1.  Shrimping

2.  Bucking

Shrimping is a ground based defensive retreat motion when you find yourself being attacked by an opponent, who's on top of you.  It sounds like food and makes me think of the dance move flossing, but its a backwards sliding and turning motion.  Here's a video showing a demonstration.  The ironic thing about this video demonstration is the coach emphasizes the heel push technique that I encouraged my client to use, which makes me wonder if my clients' coach may have mis-learned how to demonstrate that particular cue.  

This drill is probably more familiar to you, because its both playful and defensive.  Its a 2-leg or 1-leg bridge / hip thrust while supine (lying) on your back.  If an attacker / opponent is on top of you, while you're on the ground, if you can get them closer to your hips, you can explosively bridge and throw them off of you, either overhead or to the sides, allowing yourself to retreat.  Here's a video of bucking.  In this drill, the person on the ground "bucks" by pushing through his heels.

There are many times you want to be on your toes, especially in life and sports, so you can jump, sprint, react and go forwards, as well as times you want to point your toes as in dance and gymnastics, but when it comes to training, most of the time you want to have your feet flat and push through your heels and that's especially true on deadlifts, back squats, split squats and lunges.

Reasons you want to have your weight on your heels in training is it activates the glutes and hamstrings more and it takes the tension away from the front of your knees.  You can experience this to be true instantly if you try a split squat and do a couple of reps with your weight on the balls of your feet & toes and then do a couple of reps with the weight on your heels.  The weight on your toes will irritate your knees.  The weight on your heels won't and you'll feel more glute and hamstring activation, which everyone wants.  

Since pushing through the balls of the feet and toes causes instant anterior (front of body) knee pain, it makes complete sense to me that the technique being taught for the 2 drills to my client was either mistaken our in need of being updated.  

Remember what Bruce Lee said, "accept what is useful, reject what is useless".  

So when you're training, exercising and living your life, if you have anterior knee pain with squatting motions, try switching the emphasis from the balls of your feet to your heels and see if that helps to reduce the discomfort.

Wondering if Vivi and I can have shrimping races across the hall?

Coach Mike

p.s.  here are 4 ways, I may be able to help you when you're ready

1.  group personal training

2.  private training

3.  program design:  Custom Corrective Cardio Workouts (C3's), Personalized Treadmill Workouts, event training or programs for self-care, body transformation and/or performance training.

4.  community building:  high performance workshops, charity event fundraisers, family boot camps and gift certificate donations