SS 203 – WTF is Bracing? With Kabuki Strength

Episode 203 Show Notes

Grant and Heavey are joined by Brandon Senn and Brady Cable from Kabuki Strength in Portland, Oregon. They’re in the business of teaching people how to create tension and to ultimately move their bodies better against resistance. This skill is applicable to virtually every single sport.

 

[07:07] What is Kabuki Strength?

 

Kabuki Strength is not only a manufacturing company, but also a strength and conditioning company. They seek to find the best solution for athletes at all levels. Hence, they consider themselves a solutions-based company, providing unique pieces of equipment as well as coaching services to provide education and training to people interested in getting stronger and moving better.

 

Both manufacturing and coaching happened simultaneously. The company was founded by Chris and Rudy, who are both high-achieving corporate guys. They decided to chase something more meaningful, and so the first product they made was the ShouldeRök™, a loadable steel mace Then, they took on a handful of clients until it snowballed three years forward into what it is today.

 

[12:35] What is a ShouldeRök™?

 

ShouldeRök™ is a steel mace that is plate-loadable. It looks like a long rod, and when you swing it, it has acts as a natural lever to it as you’re swinging it. It’s basically a product for promoting shoulder health and shoulder mobility as well as creating core stability.

 

If you’re familiar with a kettlebell where you rotate it around your head, the ShouldeRök™ does it similarly. You swing it around your body and that’s where the weight of the tool works as the length of the lever so you’re able to control your spinal position and move at your shoulder joint.

 

[15:30] Some Misconceptions and Truth About Bracing

 

Brandon explains that bracing is probably the most nuanced topic they teach. What people normally think about bracing is flexing your abs. However, bracing is deeper than that.

 

When people mention core, they are referring to the trunk and spine. For a strength athlete, the goal is to become strong, powerful, forceful, and able to move well. The goal can further be to translate as much force that you can produce into the implement.

 

Brady adds it’s all about creating stability of the spine. You’re creating force against the ground into, for instance, the bar on your back. If you lose stability, your position weakens and makes it much harder and riskier to grind out that lift.

 

Hence, you want to reduce all force leaks – the most common ones are spinal deviations, which cause almost all other leaks to occur in sagittal-based movements. Sagittal-based movements are where powerlifters and most other strength athletes live.

 

[18:30] The 2 Primary Mechanisms Behind Bracing

 

The key to proper trunk stability is bracing and proper spinal mechanics. Another term being tossed around a lot is IAP or intra-abdominal pressure. This is created by your diaphragm descending into your abdominal cavity. This reduces the available space between your pelvis and your ribcage.

 

This is the reason for using a weightlifting belt where it’s worn all the way around the waist so we can equally create pressure into it. You don’t want to rely on the passive stability of the belt, but you want to be expanding into it.

 

Bracing is as if you were being punched and your abdominal musculature tense up and become tightened.                                                                                                                                                                                                     

 

Now, that pressure being put out by the IAP is an eccentric load into your abdominal wall, obliques, and lumbar musculature. That load is static and in varying degrees based on what you’re doing, referring back to the dial – intensity and duration, being the continuum. If you need to breathe or require more oxygen intake, IAP is going to be slightly less and bracing is going to be reduced to almost nothing.

 

[21:40] Don’t Take In a Lot of Air!

 

Bracing and IAP are independent of air intake. They found that the biggest fault, especially for strength athletes, is taking in a too much oxygen and relying on that as a passive stabilizer. It’s easy to take a lot of air in, hold it, and press it out in your face, chest, back, etc. and you feel a lot of tightness. But it’s not the same quality of tightness as if you were to direct that properly to the abdominal cavity.

 

[22:35] It’s All About Outward Expansion

 

Something that differentiates elite athletes are that they are intuitively good at doing this. The difference between bracing and IAP is like when you’re flexing your abs. This is not going to give you the correct output that people are looking for when talking about getting your core being tight. Instead, what you want here is outward expansion. A lot of people are able to achieve this just by breathing. Press just with your musculature outwards and not just pushing your belly out. Pushing out and creating pressure through your obliques and lower back and expanding that outwards is the trick. Brady explains some techniques on how to do this. A good common way is just to use your thumbs to press your obliques and checking different areas to make sure you get a good even expansion all the way around.

 

Dead bugs are a counter-movement in Crossfit, which is something you should practice really well. Practice the IAP while moving joints by moving your hips and shoulders and controlling your spinal position. Then progress from there into more complex movements. Not only does this have a huge performance benefit, but also a big injury prevention component as well.

 

[28:35] What Do You Mean by Spinal Alignment?

 

What Brady and Brandon mean by spinal alignment has nothing to do with chiropractic care, but it means your spine is in a strong position that’s conducive to perform movement. You’re basically having your ribcage stacked over your pelvis and not being excessively hyperextended or kyphotic.

 

Additionally, if you were to draw two parallel lines, one right below our ribcage and one right at the top of our hips, those lines shouldn’t ever intersect. You want that unity between your ribcage and your pelvis to be almost a cylinder between the two.

 

[30:15] Check ’em Out!

 

Kabuki Strength is holding seminars all over the country. Check out their video library with 300+ videos covering a wide range of topics to help you with your workouts and help you improve your movement.

 

[32:35] Kabuki’s Manufacturing Side

 

Aside from the mace, Kabuki also manufactures the Buffalo Bar, a curved barbell that works to help alleviate stress on your shoulders. This is great especially for larger individuals with tighter shoulders. Without having that restriction, it allows that individual not to have an overextended position, letting your ribcage down back to that aligned position.

 

Unlike other curved bars that don’t curve as steep, this bar comes with a multi-radial bend that bends in five different places so the bar sits more naturally and conforms to the shape of the person’s back. It also allows the wrists to sit in a more natural position. While you’re bench pressing, you even get a deficit effect from being able to have the load lower. If you’re a baseball player and have a million-dollar shoulder, squat on this bar all the time.

 

[39:15] Why You Need to Work on Your Strength

 

Strength is the foundation for literally every physical quality besides energy system qualities. It is the basis for all physical qualities. It’s necessary to develop and potentiate power, as well as to be more resilient in your sport, whatever that may be.

 

Strength training is the best way to ensure that your joints remain healthy under ballistic movements. Otherwise, resistance to things that aren’t moving well will break. The goal of strength training is to move your body well under load and make those muscles stronger. That’s one part, and another is making your body more resistant to injury.

 

Brady never recommends any professional sports organization or team sports athletes to powerlift for their training, but they should be doing the things that powerlifters are doing in their training.

 

[41:10] Common Powerlifting Mistakes

 

Despite a lot of people who squat with poor form, more people are getting injured deadlifting in terms of traumatic issues.

 

When doing squats, first is breathing, then bracing, IAP, and spinal mechanics, feet and ankles, hips and shoulders. That’s the sequence. The biggest issue among people is not knowing how to organize their spine to transfer load appropriately and allow their joints to move, rather than their spinal column. Learning to connect with your feet to the ground so you can translate that load is essential. The problem is people are in marshmallow shoes all day with restricted toe boxes. As a result, they have terrible knees and hips. Hence, you need to get connected to the floor and transferring load properly. Then, those issues should disappear.

 

Heavey points out how a lot of people pursue strength training and a large portion of them work out 1-2x bodyweight squats and then just stall. They end up getting hurt, and back off and get weaker and then they have to build back up again. This takes a lot of time. This goes back to the movement principles. Problem is, they don’t change anything. When they come back, they just train lighter for a little while and go back to doing the same thing.

 

[44:40] Create Tension. Move Better Against Resistance.

 

They’re in the business of teaching people how to create tension and to ultimately move their bodies better against resistance – and that is important to every single sport. Resistance doesn’t have to be an external implement, resistance can be jumping as high as you can, walking, etc. It’s everything.

 

[45:50] Let’s Talk Whiskey!

 

Grant explains that distilled grain alcohol are all whiskeys. A lot of people often say they never really liked whiskey but love beer, Grant thinks they’re often drinking bourbon that is too sweet and doesn’t hit their palate right. Then you introduce them to a Scotch or Irish whiskey made from malt and love it. Grant ultimately recommends an Islay whiskey to Brandon and Brady.

 

Links:

Kabuki Strength

Check out Kabuki’s video library.

Follow them on Instagram @brady_cable, @brandon_senn, @kabukistrengthlab and find out more about coaching on kabukistrength.com/coaching and why they do things the way they do it!