Teaching people how to move and exercise safely, or “Fix Yo S#!t” in other words, is the driving desire behind Dr. Mike Wasilisin, the face and brains behind social media PT giants MoveU. Eliminating unnecessary sand injuries, the later need for pills and insurance claims. Where more appropriate and simpler treatment is possible, the sports chiropractor advocates for easier diagnosis and rehabilitation for all.
In his videos, Wasilisin shares fun and easy-to-understand tips for better posture and training techniques, and in this episode for Muscle & Fitness, the real-life doctor - who also plays an Instagram influencer - provides a valuable demonstration of how to prevent deadlift disasters, by improving your spinal alignment. By trying his "Head-Back Crack" method, you'll also get more out of your deadlift because you're targeting the hamstrings and glutes more efficiently.
MoveU
MoveU wants you to "be one with your crack"
"It's called 'head, back, crack,'" says the MoveU doctor as he recommends, both for illustration and for practical purposes, using a wand placed vertically across the person's spine. "You're going to have a stick going into your head, your back, and that crack. And now you're hanging all the way down. All the way, keep swinging until you come to a stop.
Once you start bending toward 90 degrees, the stick will naturally move away from the back end. The lesson here is to be able to bend while the stick is touching all three points, as this is the optimal position for back alignment during a deadlift. "You have to learn to be one with the crack," says Wasilisin. "Feel the crack, hold the crack, now come all the way up." The next step is to slowly return to a standing position while maintaining the position of the stick.
For those who are still working on their flexibility and are finding bending toward 90 degrees difficult, they can modify the downward movement by bending their knees. "w that you've warmed up your spine, you've done 10 reps of this... look at yourself in the mirror, [behind] the deadlift bar,” says Wasilisin. "What you're going to do from now on is hold that position, you're just going to straighten your knees and straighten your torso, maintain those (visual) contact points, you're in better spinal alignment, you you're preventing injury, you reduce pain, you gain strength in the muscles that matter most.”
