Are you fixing or feeding the problem ?

This past weekend I attended Julian Pineau’s strongfit seminar, Julian is a person I have admired for a long time as I just love his philosophy on movement and training which mirrors my own where intensity trumps volume and movement ability is king. As much as I drive home the importance of moving perfectly all the time and building a bulletproof body I have always believe that someone who moved better will beat someone who is fitter, stronger but moving sub optimally every time. But something struck a chord with me this weekend “ you are either fixing the problem or you are feeding it” I have heard this a thousand times but I finally saw its true meaning regarding movement and the general population. Basically If you have someone squat and they have mobility restrictions, movement deficiencies meaning something isn’t firing such as the glutes and hammies and imbalances such as quad dominance because they have had to overuse their quads due to a lack of posterior engagement then getting someone to work mobility and do basic squat patterns is useless, this isn’t really fixing the problem. Instead we need to address the glutes not firing and teach them how to external rotate in the squat, not more mobility, we need to get the glutes to fire through activation and over time you will rebuild the structure and they will have a better squat pattern. How long will it take ? As long as it takes 😉 Take Hills for example, a multiple time regional athlete, she has MASSIVE issue gaining strength due to incredible hip and hamstring flexibility and as a result she has very little glue or hamstring activation and is super quad dominant as a result. I can put her through a squat cycle time and time again for little gain as its only feeding the problem. Instead if we now focus on fixing the issue by hammering her posterior chain with heavy sled sprints and pulls after fatiguing the quads which will mean the posterior chain HAS to work under load. Sooner rather than later we return to the squat rack and boom, the quads are not working along and its PB city.   FIX IT OR FEED IT, BUT YOU CANT DO BOTH.