IOL Strength and Conditioning

Boris Bachmann, of Squat RX

Dick Hartzell, the inventor of Jumpstretch bands, had a series of instructional videos covering all kinds of creative uses for stretching, mobility, and strengthening exercises. In the videos, Dick Hartzell encouraged the viewer to “shop around” with the stretches and positions. While “shopping around”, there were a few particular drills that I found personally very helpful for back pain and they are shown below. Some of them may be useful for you to – understand that the traction provided by bands in this manner could aggravate certain conditions, so If there are concerns, please consult with a medical professional before attempting.

Begin by wrapping the band around the back and onto one knee—give yourself more slack for the first knee. Getting the second loop around the other knee will be harder if you are taller or bigger. Use a lighter resistance band if this is the case.

On all fours, you can do glute and IT band stretches and “tactical frog” drills.  The bands provide a firm traction for the lumbar and hips region. Butterfly stretches are also a delight wearing bands.

The bottom position of the squat can be grooved with bands worn this way. The pressure of the bands around the knees will pull the hips into external rotation and encourage proper lumbar curvature. Flexibility and limb length will limit who will be able to get into proper position. Build into them.

I don’t illustrate it here, but hip thrusts or “glute bridges” (ala the “glute guy,” Bret Contreras) may also be done with bands fitted in this manner to good effect—the bands will serve to strongly engage the glutes and dis-inhibit the hip flexors.

One additional thing I found was that wearing the bands in this manner placed my hips and legs in a more comfortable and natural position for seiza. The bands provide traction for the lumbar, open the hips, and help create improved posture in this seated position and encourage greater awareness of the tanden (the diaphragm “power center”).

Seiza with bands

More from Jumpstretch

Robb Wolf, author of the new book The Paleo Solution, is well known in the Crossfit community and its offshoots as a nutrition lecturer.  He’s a sharp guy, a biochemist, and good-natured—an athlete with a good sense of humor who pulled those qualities together to give us this understandable, easy-to-read coverage of how foods move through the human body. This includes the hormonal chemistry, and with a few exceptions over which I admit to having skimmed with eyes glazed (my fault, not Robb’s), he makes the science understandable to even the most stubborn of us.

What I won’t get into is the argument over evolution and whether we’re able to stomach foods created after the Paleo years. There’s a lot of drama over the whole science vs emotion vs food religion, but the truth is, some people have allergies or food intolerances to dairy and gluten and other foods, and for them, a guide like this may be magic. When person finds a simple menu to follow without too decision-making and not much hassle, and after a few weeks suddenly realizes a lifelong bloat is gone, joint aches ease or fuzzy thinking clears up, who cares what’s behind the diet philosophy? If a food that causes a problem is taken away and life gets more pleasant, this diet has worked.

Certainly many people have no problem with dairy and grains, the main focus on the avoidance list, but most likely more people suffer some from these foods than those who don’t. Is it enough of a problem to never eat a crusty San Francisco sourdough smeared with brie again? Did I just give myself away? Hmmm…  Well, the truth is, I’ve gone without grains plenty, and I’ve gone without dairy before also, but I’ve never gone without both at the same time, so I’m not yet ready with the live-person review.

There’s a nice, again easy-to-understand discussion of heart health, and the chemistry and blood tests adults should monitor. It’s good to find these covered by a sharp athlete, giving hints of numbers to look for outside the pharmaceutical industry standards seen in the lab reports. This is true also in his treatment of optimal daily vitamin and mineral intake, and his handling of the often mind-boggling topic of supplements.

This book contains a good-sized section filled with menus and recipes (I read this on an ipad, so can’t tell you how many actual pages this represents). For some people, this will be a helpful and perhaps even an important part. I don’t do recipes much, other than bread, which is off the table on this food plan, so this section didn’t do anything for me. On his website, you’ll find a nutrient density matrix, a quick-start guide and a shopping list. The book isn’t indexed, little goof there, but you can download an index on that book resource page along with the rest of the goods, here.

If you’re a research geek, you’ve probably already done your searching around. If not, here’s a page full of research documents collected by Dr. Loren Cordain.

And you can catch up with Robb via podcasts, coming at you weekly, here.

I’ll say one thing before I go: I sure like him.