Dr. Stuart M. McGill PhD

Dr. McGill is a professor of spine biomechanics at the University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada). He lectures internationally and has authored over 200 scientific publications that address the issues of lumbar function and low back injury mechanisms. His advice is often sought by governments, corporations, legal experts and elite athletes and teams from around the world. Difficult back cases are regularly referred to him for consultation. His website is BackFitPro.com for more information on his books, speaking schedule, articles, and to download the interview from the 2009 teleseminar!

Dr. McGill has authored Low Back Disorders: Evidence Based Prevention and Rehabilitation and Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance.

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This is a former 'Exercise of the Week' mini-article but thought I'd put it up again since it's been awhile and Dr. McGill talks about it in his interview.

This one comes from Dr. McGill's book, "Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance" which is excellent and I would recommend it to any clinician or coach.

"The depth of the anterior labrum of the hip joint acetabulum is a major determinant of the ability to squat deeply. In order to find the optimal hip width (or amount of standing hip external rotation), have the athlete adopt a 4-point kneeling stance. From neutral, rock or drop the buttocks back to the heels. Mark the angle at which spine flexion first occurs. Then repeat with varying amounts of space between the knees. Look for the optimal knee width that allows the buttocks to get closest to the ankles without any spine motion. This is the hip angle that will produce the deepest, and ultimately the highest performance squat. It is much wider than most people think."

If you have an athlete struggling with his/her depth or just have a patient trying to get up off the john, try this! Especially if all else is looking good. I know I've overlooked it a few times as other 'issues' seemed more pressing until they finally reached a plateau with their ability to get below parallel. Gave them the correct stance for their hip structure and down they went.

I've been using this quite a bit lately with my younger athletes, 13-16, that are growing like crazy especially upwards. They don't know what feels right. Most of the time they've got one foot forward of the other, one foot is straight ahead while the other is pointing out, etc. Now I know they don't pay lots of attention to detail but I have to think some of it is just a lack of body awareness that comes with growing spurts. Giving them a good reason to be consistent, i.e. better squat numbers, now has them paying more attention.

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Dr. McGill talks about the ability to pulse being essential for elite level athletes. Here are a couple great examples of a quick contraction and then attempting to relax just as quickly. Thanks to Dewey Nielsen for the videos

KettleBell Swing with Pulse

Helicoptor Pulse - This is an incredibly difficult exercise but also incredibly cool. Obviously use with caution and only with high level athletes that need to resist rotational stresses. Grandpa doesn't need to master this one to lift his grandkids.

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Dr. Stuart McGill

At a gymnastics or martial arts meet, or at a weightlifting competition, listen to the coaches advice to the athlete -- Stay tight! This means to maintain stiffness. Being stiff ensures that there will be minimal energy losses as forces are transmitted through the linkages. Optimal performance requires stability, and stability results from stiffness. Stiffness in the body results from muscular co-contraction. Used properly, it will assist in getting through "sticking points", enhance whole body strength and speed. Be stiff, and be compliant. Knowing the difference and when to be one or the other is a major way to improving performance.

When a muscle contracts, it creates both force and stiffness. Force creates joint torque to support postures and create movement -- but sometimes the force will enhance joint stability and sometimes it will compromise stability. It depends on the magnitude of the force and its relative magnitude relative to all other muscle forces acting at the joint. In contrast, muscle stiffness is always stabilizing. A stiff muscle buttresses against perturbations from all directions. Stiffness at one joint buttresses the development of explosive power at another. Stiffness is also enhanced by positional techniques of the body segment linkage where one segment can be stiffened against another -- for example, stiffening an arm against the torso.

When all muscles at a joint stiffen together a "super stiffness" phenomenon generally occurs. The total stiffness at a joint suddenly becomes more than the sum of individual muscle stiffnesses. Consider the abdominal wall in creating "core stability". Rectus abdominis, external and internal oblique and transverse abdominis appear to bind together when all are active to create a super stiffness higher than the sum of each individual muscle. For those activities that demand high core or torso stability, all muscles must be activated -- never isolate one. Furthermore, as will be shown later, high performance in athletics requires rapid muscle activation onset and force development, together with equally rapid reduction of muscle force. Super stiffness needs only to occur briefly in such cases, but if it needs to be brief, the motor control system must be highly tuned to ensure optimal super stiffness.

Consider a lifter in competition. The core must be extraordinarily stiff to minimize energy losses and ensure that the torso will not buckle. Super stiffness is required with all muscles contributing. Some individuals have recently begun to advocate "drawing in" the abdominal wall during the exertion -- this is ill founded. Not only does super stiffness and stability demand all muscles to be stiffened but they must be maintained at a distance from the spine. Sailboats with masts needing stability achieve this with rigid spreaders of the guy wires or rigging. Vasily Alexeyev achieved the spreading of the muscles to enhance stability with girth. In contrast to the manoeuver of abdominal hollowing (not recommended), try performing the abdominal brace. Here is how to begin teaching the brace. Begin by standing in a relaxed upright standing posture with sufficient erectness so that the torso extensors are inactive -- palpate them to be sure. Then contract the entire abdominal wall and feel the back musculature contract. This is the brace -- all muscles around the torso stiffen to ensure stability. Now the focus is on matching the intensity of the contraction to the stability demand of the task. Interestingly enough, stiffness and stability is an asymptotic function -- in other words a lot of stability is achieved in the first 25% of the maximum contraction level. Thus 100% muscle contraction levels are rarely needed -- the trick is to activate many muscles to achieve symmetric stiffness around a joint.

As a professor and consultant I see too many people who succumb to bad backs during the effort to increase fitness. No wonder. Building true strength and function is elusive for many following the traditional American approach dominated by body building concepts. Of all the variables required for optimal performance, building muscle strength is the easiest component to enhance with training. Far more difficult is the enhancement of the foundation components of healthy motion and motor patterns, joint stability and endurance. And only then with this foundation can serious strength with speed and power be developed.

The Ultimate Approach

Our work on back fitness and injury mechanisms over the years has led to the development of a 5 stage program documented in my textbook "Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance". Briefly, building the ultimate back requires core stability and follows a 5 stage process that ensures a foundation for eventual strength, speed and power training. The stages are:

Stage 1. Groove motion patterns, motor patterns with corrective exercise