#6 Joint Dominant Exercises - Joint Strength Is Primary

Strength training is generally looked at through the lens of “can the weight be moved from A to B?”

Since joint injuries (ligament, capsule, cartilage, meniscus) are so common and catastrophic another question we should be asking is “what impact is this movement going to have on joint performance and longevity?”

The movements that cause the best long term-term outcomes for joints must be causing the joint to remodel. This process interacts with muscle and tendon health but relates to different structures.

This article discusses the need for new language among coaches and athletes to optimise the process of joint bulletproofing.

Loading muscles inappropriately creates irritating challenges.

Overloading ligaments, meniscus and cartilage at high speeds creates catastrophic damage.

Some of this damage may never be undone.

Joint injuries cost: big bucks; years of athletic development; shattered dreams and more.

The consequences of these injuries often go beyond annoying and beyond career ending.

Now that we know how serious this is, let’s get to work on establishing new logic to solve this challenge better...

ATG uses movements that overload ligaments, meniscus and cartilage with more impact than any other system I’m aware of.

In military terms that’s like having the nuclear weapons.

Watching Ben Patrick’s results with knees solidified my understanding of the importance of Short vs Long logic of muscle training.

Ben wasn’t thinking in the logic of short to long but it’s exactly what he was doing.

BUT then we found an outlier.

Step-Ups.

Particularly Petersen & Patrick created massive changes in knee health in a way that short range exercises typically don’t.

This question was on my mind for months.

Just like Short & Long Range, there was a blindingly obvious solution hiding in plain site.

Step-ups movements are critical in the ATG system not just for their healing impact on the patella tendon but for the impact they have on the whole knee structure.

We all know this.

But if there is no language for it then we can’t fully harness the power of the concept.

In fact I’m quite certain that knee injuries have been caused in the ATG system because we missed this.

I’m about to lay it out in a way that will turn you into the Spiderman of strength training.

We have spoken a lot about cartilage, (meniscus) and ligament adaptation but we haven’t categorised the movements that impact these structures most.

Short & long range logic systemises muscle adaptations.

Tension training can be increased by altering Load, Speed or Length.

Balance is needed Bottom to top, left to right, front to back, short to long etc.

Therefore we need new labels to consolidate this knowledge and cause less catastrophic injuries.

Can agree that slant step-ups create very strong demands on the JOINT (ligaments, meniscus)?

If so then we can go searching for the other movements that have the greatest risk & therefore potential rewards for the ligaments and cartilage.

We could label these as Joint Dominant movements relative to other movements that create very little stress on ligaments and meniscus.

This classification is most useful at the knee because the knee is that joint that relies most on cartilage and ligaments.

Personally I’m relatively happy to max out (to technical failure) almost anyone on bench press.

I’m talking about getting to a rep max in the 1–5 rep range with good technique over 5–10 sets stopping at technical or muscular failure, whichever comes first.

I might choose not to for many reasons but I wouldn’t be scared to.

Now even if we’re talking about a 10–20RM on the Petersen or Poliquin step-up… I would NOT want that 10–20RM score.

Why?

Because the limiting factor might not be the muscles.

If we push this to near limit levels then how long is it before these structures are back to their best?

The answer is NOT to avoid this movements.

What is needed is new language and a new breed of coaches and athletes who can speak this new language of athleticism.

In some ways it is awkward to ask about the joint sensation, instability or nauseating feeling from using a movement.

The risk in bringing an athletes awareness to joint instability is that they might not want to use the movement or they might become anxious about the strength of their joint.

Still is being proactive about solving an athletes worst nightmare better than pretending it doesn’t exist?

How long do these structures take to adapt?

Does adding weight week after week make sense for these structures?

What percentage intensity relative to the level that would snap structures should we be searching for?

Using subjective rating of joint sensation is probably the best we will have for the foreseeable future. Maybe one day live scanning will show live deformation of the ACL or slippage of the tibia beginning to happen relative to the femur.

We’re going to need new thinking.

New logic.

New criteria.

It follows that “Joint Dominant” movements will need more time to adapt since we’re talking about LOW BLOOD FLOW movements.

We might also need to focus more energy on SLEDS & Blood Quality if we want to bring more nutrients to these structures.

I’m not aware of any research on the impact of driving blood flow to an area together with Joint Dominant movements.

In fact I doubt that this work has ever been done since I haven’t heard of movements being classified in this way.

So what relative intensity makes sense to load these structures multiple times per week?

Should some people be more conservative with the frequency of loading?

Look out for pain / sensations that aren’t muscular.

Any swelling in the joint or catch after a session is a sign that cartilages / meniscus may have been challenged.

This isn’t a bad thing but ignoring it and only thinking about strength outcomes and muscle soreness could be catastrophic.

Is there more sensation in the joint capsules that takes time to warm-up?

We know that too much Long Range / Extreme Long Range strength work (particularly with high intensity in the lower rep ranges) can irritate tendons.

Specifically moving explosively into the bottom of the RDL or out of the bottom of the nordic can create issues with under-prepared tendons.

Doing high repetitions of eccentrics with more than 1RM nordic loading has also caused tendon pain for some.

If that happens we decrease load, speed, volume of those movements AND add in more short range work.

This is the change that I suggested to Ben for the hamstring work when too many people were getting hamstring tendon issues. We added more short range and lowered the frequency and intensity of the hamstring long range training.

The change has worked well and we get less hamstring issues.

The same solutions are in front of us for making the best use of joint dominant exercises.

In PART 3 we will explore those solutions.

In parts 1 and 2 we’ve established that classifying movements gives us new accuracy in movement selection

Anyone can use a paint brush.

Not many could paint the Sisteen Chapel

Now that we have our language and our WHY outlined we need to list out which movements are joint dominant and which are not.

Now we’re starting to KNOW how can we APPLY this systematically?

What else do we need to know about cartilage, meniscus and ligaments?

Remember “We’ve got the bombs!”

We have potential to blow up our joints or make them bomb proof with ATG movements.

Labelling / naming movements as joint dominant could be a first step to using the most powerful movements for greatest benefit with the lowest risk.

What’s most important is that we have the language.

Language moves the concept from the shadows of an unspoken idea to a room where everything is on show.

We’re starting to understand that even if a muscle can do the work and is ready to train again that doesn’t mean that the ligaments, capsule, symphisis and other structures are ready.

If we are now armed with a 4th scale… Joint sensation. Then we can get direct feedback on any movements and know how “joint dominant” it is for that person.

Mark Bell talking about behind the neck presses and legends in the bench pressing…

Ed Coan is the commonly accepted Greatest Of All Time powerlifter. He loved BTN Press to mid head.

Most weightlifters are very comfortable pressing behind the head. Klokov has been on of the best examples for the world of being STRONG and MOBILE.

Variations of dislocates.

Let’s say you can press 60kg behind the neck BUT you shoulder hurts after you do them. If you press BTN multiple times a week you tend to get nagging shoulder pain in the back of the joint. That then starts to bother your bench press and dips… and you’re back to pink dumbells or a surgeon who sees damage (and dollars) he can reach reach with a knife.

Then 60kg presses aren’t for you.

But maybe broomstick presses for 50–100 reps are a better place to work for now!

Maybe shoulder rebuild + ATG Pullovers will open this position up so there is nothing to worry about.

I’m going to use myself for this one.

I had patella tendon pain on and off for around 20 years before getting serious about ATG.

It’s gone but the consequences for the ACL and meniscus are not.

Inside my knees feel bad in the high step-up variations.

There is a nasty jointy feeling when I go too heavy or too high on step-ups.

I now know what tearing the knee apart would feel like.

I’ve never injured my ACL or meniscus to my knowledge but I can feel that I could with slant movements.

I can also feel that when I’ve experimented with deeper single leg deep knee bends or even done high repetition or high frequency deep knee bends or hack squats there is a spot in the movement that doesn’t feel right.

I’ve generally ignored this over the last 3 years thinking that it will go away at some point.

Recently pushing harder with these movements the sensation was a little stronger and I started to have some slight meniscal locking symptoms and some days I feel like have to be cautious going down stairs on my right leg.

Do I blame ATG for that?

No. I’ve been experimenting and I was knowingly pushing limits. Generally I think that’s good practice for life.

Is having an athlete or someone who sprints, jumps or plays a chaotic sport pushing the limits of slant strength a good idea…

Based on my experience I would say… NO!

What I’ve come to learn is that using Joint Dominant movements to near mechanical failure can weaken structures.

We can INCREASE the risk of injury short-term by over-doing the movements that will eventually make us BULLETPROOF.

What next?

Coaching.

Conservative progression.

Rating JOINT SENSATION alongside the other 3 scales.

Good form isn’t even always a strong enough guide (although it will almost always tell us if someone is beyond their limits).

Since most people in the ATG community do want to push limits we need is to have awareness of which movements to push when and what the consequences might be of pushing the wrong movements.

I propose that Joint Dominant movements should be treated as a distinct category of movements.

Together with Short / Long Range, Pain & Tension classification this gives us not just “the bombs” but more key intel to know what to do with them.

Warm the joint and muscles with short range movements first.

Use appropriate long range movements to prepare eg. pullovers and deep dips or push-ups can help behind the neck presses to be much smoother.

Use slow tempo, pauses, pulses with lighter loads until the joint is no longer a factor and the movement becomes more about strength and power.

Models create a framework for deeper understanding.

The model of SHORT & LONG for understanding how movement selection impacts adaptations is the most important breakthrough I’ve seen in decades.

It’s now clear that the Short to Long philosophy repeatably impacts adaptations. Coaches can now prescribe exercises with much greater precision. The type of muscle & tendon damage, muscle activation from strength training are variables we can select for when building a program.

The specific adaptations that follow different exercises isn’t yet common knowledge among coaches but it will be in the years ahead.

We now know that training long range & extreme long range contractions with high speeds and high loads would be the best way to tear a muscle. Peak muscle and connective tissue tension is much higher when the muscle is both under stretch and contracting maximally.

This is why achilles, calf and hamstrings are the muscles most likely to POP. They are loaded at length in common sporting movements like running and jumping.

Reverse engineering this we can make muscles and tendons stronger than ever before by gradually manipulating the variables.

Height on step-ups and joint sensation on behind the neck presses and dips are some of the most obvious places to start with applying this logic.

It’s beyond question that we do need to challenge the joint structures to get back to child-like and animal kingdom movement capacities.

What’s joint dominant for one person can be muscle dominant for another person because their joints are well prepared.

Exactly how to avoid overloading?

How can we progress these movements?

How can we allow time for adaptation?

With the question posed we can answer it in the gym over the years ahead.