Alex Effer on “Stance-Driven” Performance Training, Crawling Mechanics, and Sensory Movement Principles

Today’s show is with Alex Effer, owner of Resilient Training and Rehabilitation.  Alex has treated and trained a variety of clients, from professional and amateur athletes, to a wide spectrum of the general population, ranging from those with certain medical conditions, to postoperative rehabilitation and individuals with chronic and complex pain.  Alex has experience as an exercise physiologist, a strength and conditioning coach, and has consulted with a number of elite and Olympic organizations.  Alex has taken a tremendous amount of continuing education courses and is on the leading edge of modern training theory. There are loads of different continuing education courses and theories, each carrying methods to train athletes from perspectives on breathing, corrective exercise, and exercise variations, to name a few.  It is in the process of getting to the core principles that define these many training systems, that we can gain a greater level of wisdom to make better decisions in exercise selection and training organization. For today’s podcast, Alex speaks on his continuing education journey, and core principles that many current courses in human performance/assessment and biomechanics tend to have in common.  He speaks on how to dial up, or down, points of contact in a movement to help an athlete achieve better mastery over a skill or core human function. In the second half of the show, Alex gives some analysis and progressions with functional training movements, such as crab walks, and bear crawls, and then talks about how some “meathead” oriented exercises are actually more functional than we give the credit for.  Finally, Alex talks about exercises that either “push an athlete backwards in the chest” or “push them forwards” from the back, and how those ramifications can go into, not ony the way we select exercises, but aso the way that we periodize and organize our training programs. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster and Lost Empire Herbs.  For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to www.lostempireherbs.com/justfly View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 5:15 – Common trends that Alex found in his educational process, having taken “all the courses” 13:30 – How Alex looks at force vectors in training and movement, and the difference between walking and running when assessing gait and looking at these force vectors 20:15 – Where Alex has gotten most of his information in training when considering PRI versus other educational systems (such as DNS or SFMA) 22:15 – Why it may be a faulty method to try to compare babies to adults in terms of baseline movement patterning 30:00 – How to transition a client from 12 points of contact, to only 2, and how to use the extra points of contact to improve one’s movement ability when athletes may struggle with standing motions 44:30 – Assessing crab walks, and explaining (or regressing) why athletes might not be able to lift their hips up while performing the crab walk 51:15 – Why some “fitness/bodybuilding” movement can have athletic movement applications, such as a tricep kickback or arm curl coupled with head turn 56:15 – How athletes doing exercises in a manner that “feels good” often times is an optimal method of them doing that movement, versus whatever the commonly accepted technical model for that exercise might be 1:00:00 – Alex’s theory on periodizing training based on early, mid and late stance oriented movements 1:12:15 – Viewing training intervention as either “pulling someone back” or “pushing them forward” “When you take every single course, you kind of get mind-blown by them the first time… and then you hit a client that totally goes against all the algorithms and everything they say, and you have to pivot” “(all the continuing education courses) believe in some sort of respiration and how that affects the body”