00:05 - 00:07This is Brent of the Brookbush Institute, and in this video we're going to go over a
00:07 - 00:11variation of tibialis anterior activation that requires no equipment.
00:11 - 00:15Now this isn't my favorite variation, I prefer the previous video we showed
00:15 - 00:19where we had a monster band around a treatment table, or a monster band hooked
00:19 - 00:22to something heavy and you were in long sit on the floor. That external
00:22 - 00:27resistance becomes real handy and you can get that recruitment pattern of heel
00:27 - 00:33strike, but I understand that those monster bands can be hard to hook up if
00:33 - 00:36you don't have a treatment table, if you don't have something really heavy to
00:36 - 00:41hook up to, if you don't have room behind that heavy object to hook up to that you
00:41 - 00:46can actually get in long sit position, you're kind of out of luck. So this idea
00:46 - 00:50of having a variation where you don't need equipment, that becomes very handy
00:50 - 00:56for things like home exercise programs, for group exercise classes and for team
00:56 - 00:59training where you're trying to do a little movement prep. Obviously tibialis
00:59 - 01:03anterior activation is going to help get some inversion, help fight against pes-
01:03 - 01:07planus, or feet flat during an overhead squat assessment, which we know is going to
01:07 - 01:10be beneficial for all of our athletes. I'm going to have Melissa come in, she's
01:10 - 01:14going to help me demonstrate. Melissa does have a little lower extremity
01:14 - 01:20dysfunction. Alright, she definitely works with some stuff in her ankles and she
01:20 - 01:23can get a little flat-footed from her running and what-not. She's going to get in
01:23 - 01:27plank position on the wall here to start. it is important to kind of be leaning
01:27 - 01:32against the wall, we want stability. We don't want to make somebody have to try
01:32 - 01:36to balance or stabilize because I want to be able to focus on getting some
01:36 - 01:43activity in my tibialis anterior. Now the cueing is the same. I need her to dorsiflex
01:43 - 01:46and invert to get her tibialis anterior drive up, but I also need to
01:46 - 01:51her to reciprocally inhibit her overactive synergist, being her long toe
01:51 - 01:55extensors, especially her extensor digitorum longus which is not only in
01:55 - 02:00dorsiflexor, but an eva durand pronator of the foot. So it can really really
02:00 - 02:06contribute to that flat-footed-ness. So what she's going to do is she's going to
02:06 - 02:11try to get into as much dorsiflexion as she possibly can, by driving the this
02:11 - 02:17big toe knuckle right her first MTP up as high as she possibly can. That'll
02:17 - 02:20that'll get her thinking about dorsiflexion and inversion, and then
02:20 - 02:28she's going to curl her toes at the same time to try to shutdown extensor
02:28 - 02:32digitorum longus (EDL). Now you can see here Melissa is having a hard time with her
02:32 - 02:36dorsiflexion. So we're doing this barefooted only
02:36 - 02:41because we want you to be able to see her toes, but you could technically put
02:41 - 02:45something under her heels and have her put her shoes on as you probably
02:45 - 02:49would in a group environment anyway. What you put your heels on could just be a
02:49 - 02:52couple weight plates that are around. Alright and now she's going to have some
02:52 - 02:57room to actually get some dorsiflexion. A good thing for you guys to watch out for
02:57 - 03:02is if the person can't get their fifth metatarsal or the lateral side of their
03:02 - 03:05foot off the floor, they probably need a little heel rise to make this really
03:05 - 03:14effective. Now the reason this isn't my favorite variation is effectiveness on
03:14 - 03:19this exercise, actually getting some observable objective outcomes like let's
03:19 - 03:25say an improvement in dorsiflexion goniometry is 100% dependent on Melissa's
03:25 - 03:30effort. So if she just goes through the motions and just flops
03:30 - 03:33her foot up and then back down, show them that flop foot up back down, just flop
03:33 - 03:37foot up back down, she just kind of does this thing then you're not you not
03:37 - 03:44getting any results. But if she really really tries to get in as much
03:44 - 03:49dorsiflexion as she possibly can and hold it with toes curled, I know she's
03:49 - 03:54going to activate the heck out of her tibialis anterior, and the reason being
03:54 - 04:01is she's working against her overactive calf complex. So as long as she puts
04:01 - 04:06in effort, she really tries to get to the end of dorsiflexion, I know she's going
04:06 - 04:12have to work against her own resistance here. How's that going? We
04:12 - 04:16usually have to go a little drill-sergeant at this point -so up, hold
04:16 - 04:22two three four, squeeze and back down. Right I'll do like two-four-two count
04:22 - 04:29right and one of my favorite tempos for activation exercise -hold three four back
04:29 - 04:36down, come on up. Let's go for some sexy shins because everybody wants sexy shins, back
04:36 - 04:42down, up, hold. Now if she gets really good at this maybe I've had a couple
04:42 - 04:45sessions with her, you have had a couple group training sessions where
04:45 - 04:47everybody knows what they're doing, you can do both feet at once.
04:47 - 04:52So we can dorsiflex on both sides once they get a handle on it,
04:52 - 04:57kind of cut our time in half for this particular exercise. Hold, squeeze as hard
04:57 - 05:04as you possibly can. Good up -two, three, four. I don't see the
05:04 - 05:08lateral side of your foot high enough come on. I mean how are you going to have
05:08 - 05:14sexy sexy shins if you don't, that's what everybody wants right I heard that sexy
05:14 - 05:19shins were in this year. Alright back up good and then back down. Now the way
05:19 - 05:24your ankles set up your tibia isn't at the end of your foot, so if you
05:24 - 05:28dorsiflex it's not like this where your tibia wouldn't move, your
05:28 - 05:32activity is actually a bit forward kind of in the middle-ish of your foot, the
05:32 - 05:35middle third of your foot. So when you dorsiflex your calcaneus actually goes
05:35 - 05:40down and you end up lifting up your whole body-weight, which means that if
05:40 - 05:45you do one foot at a time it's actually really hard. Alright so I'm going to have
05:45 - 05:48her lift this leg, you will be able to see the dorsiflexion and inversion on
05:48 - 05:54this side as she struggles, which she is definitely struggling. Melissa you got to
05:54 - 05:58work on this. Obviously this would be a little easier for her if we maybe did a
05:58 - 06:04little bit more mobility work to start off with. We you know release her calf,
06:04 - 06:10mobilize her ankle, stretch her calf and then do this stuff. But with that being
06:10 - 06:13said you guys can see how this variation doesn't require much equipment. It's
06:13 - 06:18fairly easy to coach right, you can just once they get foot up and in with toes
06:18 - 06:22curled, you know you can kind of queue a bunch of people through that once, and
06:22 - 06:26then the nice thing is that we can go straight into our reactive activation
06:26 - 06:30which is that heel walk video I have up. Alright and we can even gamify that in
06:30 - 06:36a group and do what we call penguin walk marathon, where you get heel walks
06:36 - 06:41and you time it and see who can walk the longest. Alright so have a little fun
06:41 - 06:44that way and it all starts of course with this,
06:44 - 06:50and of course it took no equipment. Again it doesn't get the same effect that I
06:50 - 06:55get out of something like the tibialis anterior activation that's resisted, but
06:55 - 07:00it does get me some pretty good results. Obviously it comes in handy,
07:00 - 07:05obviously for home exercises it's perfect, and I'd really like to see a
07:05 - 07:09little bit more corrective exercise than our in our group environments. So if you
07:09 - 07:12guys have any questions, if you have any comments please leave them in the box
07:12 - 07:17below. I look forward to seeing a lot more of this out in the field and in
07:17 - 07:19classes.