A couple days ago I posted some great videos by Joe Sansalone on how to properly perform the prone Y exercise.  If you missed them you should definitely check them out HERE.  Recently I had a brief discussion with Joe via email and asked him if I could share it here because I think the information was incredible.

ME:  After watching your videos on StrengthCoach.com it got me rethinking the whole notion of doing the old YTWL combo (although I currently use Nick Tuminello’s ordering of the exercises found HERE).

Given most people’s inability to properly do the Y pattern, I was thinking that doing the whole thing as a combo might not be the best idea until they can program each exercise properly by themselves. Would you generally agree with this? Moreover, would you ever program them all together?

Joe:  I agree that doing the whole series may not be the best idea, especially with beginners or people with major scapulo-thoracic issues. I often and most of the time program them separately and in various places in the program depending on several factors.

I agree that until a person has mastery of each movement and some base level of strength to perform each one correctly into some level of fatigue, that it is counterproductive to do them as a series. Often it seems we do exercises just to be able to say we did todays program instead of seeing if the client is actually getting the intended benefit of the program. I think this can easily happen with the YTWL as a series. We simply perform them because we know it has benefit and because it is on the paper.

I do sometimes perform them together as a means for developing scapulo-thoracic and shoulder stabilization endurance. Often times in movements the scap muscles will act as stabilizers as much as prime movers and certainly the rotator cuff is being asked to control and contribute to the humeral part of the YTWL series and because of these facts I think, if mastery and proper motor programming is present within each movement prior, than the whole series done together and properly progressed to external load can be good to develop strength-endurance in the shoulder girdle.

I do think that it is more likely to need to separate the movements then link them together for the points you mentioned.

Me:  I recently read a study that demonstrated that a wallslide performed facing a wall primarily activates the serratus anterior and not the lower traps. Do you think this has any implication for why doing a Y against a wall helps as a progression to the Y on the floor since they both upwardly rotate the scapula?

Joe:  I am not a big fan of studies that say this exercise activated that because it seems to me what gets activated greatly depends on where the electrodes were placed and even more on the individual muscle recruitment patterns and execution/proficiency of the person being tested based on their functional capacity, mechanics, restrictions and dysfunctions.

If you take a person who sucks at using their glutes to extend their hip in a bridge due to inhibition because of a tight anterior hip capsule, they will be forced to reduce the neural drive to their glute and increase greatly the neural drive to their hamstrings and lumbar extensors. This would make a glute bridge appear like it activated more hamstring and low back than glute. if in three weeks they were taught to do it right and went back and got tested again the results would show the opposite. This is my problem with studies on exercises and muscle activation. Often times the way the exercise is being executed isn’t taken into account. Look at the plank. People who do it poorly feel the low back due to an inability to control spinal extension and excessive anterior pelvic tilt and those who do it right feel the abs because they are able to properly resist sagital plane force to the spine and pelvis. Muscle activation and recruitment patterns all depends on how the exercise is performed, therefore I do not put much value into these studies because they do not seem to account for movement efficiency or the motor programming of the subjects. I would need to be there to see how each subject was moving to decide if the outcome of the facing the wall wall slide was accurate and then I would need to see a huge sampling.

I think there is an engineered and architecturally designed correct way to move and I think how well we move determines what muscles fire and the sequencing.

Me:  I love your thoughts on breaking apart the series. Your videos really got me thinking along this track. The idea of reintegrating them for strength endurance had not dawned on me though. This is definitely an important step.

Do you teach all movements in the YTWL series in the same way?  (i.e., reach, then set the scap, then perform the movment?)

Joe:  I always teach beginners to purposefully lengthen the muscles first we are trying to activate and contract with each movement. I feel it helps to facilitate a better concentric contraction and recruitment of the target muscles.

With more advanced people I move to elevating them so they can move through a bigger range of motion. With this there is more natural lengthening due to the increased ROM, so i do not find the need to purposefully emphasize the reach or eccentric lengthening here since it is already going to happen for the most part.

Me:  Awesome Joe!  Thanks.

Joe:  My pleasure.

In my next post I’ll include a few more of my own thoughts on this series, but in the meantime you can find Joe on his business page on Facebook and get on his case for not having a blog of his own to share all of his amazing knowledge.

Feel free to share your thoughts below.

If I haven’t already said it enough, StrengthCoach.com is possibly the best discussion forum on the internet for fitness related information.  If you’re not a member you’re missing out.  Just sayin’.

In any case, a few weeks back there was a discussion on the forum about shoulder packing that resulted in one of the most interesting discussions I’ve seen in a long time.  My good friend Bret Contreras has summarized the discussion HERE.

As great as the discussion was, the best part for me was the videos produced by forum member Joe Sansalone.  Take a few minutes and check them out.  Next time I’ll reveal some of my own thoughts as well as a discussion I had with Joe himself.

Feel free to share your thoughts below!