The other day I was walking through the climbing gym and saw someone who looked like they were doing a lat prayer stretch.
If you aren’t sure what that is and want to know what I’m about to ramble on about for a few hundred words, click here for a video of me explaining it.
It’s a good stretch and I program it a lot.
It tends to be particularly good for endurance athletes because they often have tight lats, which can lead to a whole bunch of issues… but that’s not really the point of this email.
Today, I want to get back to the guy in the gym.
Another time, we can discuss why your tight lats make you slower.
Now before I get started, I want to be clear…
I don’t know the guy I saw.
I don’t know his movement limitations.
I don’t know his background or current goals.
So I don’t really care what he was doing and I’m not judging him for it.
He just put a thought into my head that I wanted to share.
The way he was doing the stretch was doing nothing to actually stretch his lats.
His head was well above the bench and he was positioned in a way that it couldn’t drop even if he wanted to…
His hands were clasped together, facing inward…
And he was having a pretty easy phone conversation.
Now, as I said, I don’t know this guy and I’m not certain what he was trying to do.
And – quick sidebar – I really try to give people the benefit of the doubt in the gym. There are so many goofy gym exercises that do nothing…
Until it turns out the person you’re mocking is actually recovering from a car accident and that movement serves a particular purpose in helping recover some of their lost movement.
So who knows…
Maybe this guy was rolling out his triceps on the edge of a bench.
I just know he wasn’t stretching his lats.
How?
Well, the lat goes from your mid back, underneath your armpit, and attaches to the front of your upper arm.
Due to the way he was positioned, he wasn’t making the muscle all that much longer than he would by just driving a car.
So he probably got almost as much stretch on the way to the gym as he did kneeling next to the bench.
The completely casual conversation he was having also indicates he wasn’t working very hard, so he probably wasn’t putting the muscle through any real stress.
More than anything, it just felt like a lesson.
Because I see this kind of thing every day.
Someone sees a movement or a training strategy on the internet and decides to follow it…
But they completely ignore important bits of context or key details.
Now it’s often true that key details weren’t provided in the original instructions.
For example, maybe that guy didn’t know that you should do that stretch with your palms up.
It’s also possible it was in the original instructions and the guy thought it just didn’t matter.
Or he forgot.
All things considered, I’d say there’s about a 50/50 shot it was in the instructions in the first place.
And even if it were, I’d say there’s another 50/50 shot that the person in the video had any idea why…
(The amount of strength coaches who have no idea where the lat attaches is… let’s just say problematic…)
But my point is…
The details matter.
Or at the very least, they should matter.
If you’re getting your programming from someone who knows what they’re talking about, then it probably matters whether you hold one weight or two during your Bulgarian split squats.
And if it’s one, it should also matter whether it’s on the same side or the opposite side of your working leg.
(It affects how your hips move, so the right positioning can help hip function while the wrong positioning can reinforce any current problems you might be having.)
Now, I don’t think we need to get obsessive over every last minute detail of your training.
I’m on record in a lot of places saying that most people just need to work hard for a long time and they’ll see progress.
We should also have room for flexibility.
Unless you’re getting paid to do this sport, then it probably doesn’t matter whether you ran 12 or 13 miles on that midweek run 9 weeks out from your race…
But we should also understand that little things can make a big difference.
And if you don’t know which details matter, you might end up doing a lat stretch in a way that doesn’t actually stretch your lats.
If you aren’t sure what details matter and want to talk to someone about it, then you know what to do.
We’ll set up a time to chat and see if I can help.