Training Deep Dive - What Why and How GOATA

• What is GOATA

  • GOATA stands for Greatest Of All Time Athletes or Greatest Of All Time Actions

  • GOATA is a movement system that was born from the question of “what is causing this increase in non-contact injuries in sports?”

  • From that question GOATA was discovered by observing the movement patterns of four main groups

    • Indigenous tribes - people who live closest to how our ancestors did and aren’t plagued by modern bodily ailments such as knee, hip, and back pain

    • Developing children - again these are humans who haven’t spent a lifetime in chairs, and cramped shoes

    • Multi-decade super athletes - Athletes that had long, high performing careers, and competed at that level with out much injury. Micheal Jordan is the prime example.

    • 70 and older age group athletes - people who are still able to perform at a relatively high level even in to advanced age

  • What was found in studying the movement behaviors of these groups was that they all exhibited common patterns of movement. Patterns that don’t show up or are even reversed in cases of injury and chronic pain.

  • These patterns and behaviors were then distilled in to a system that re-teaches the body to move naturally in these patterns to bring us closer to “Nature’s movement code” that is present in us at birth but becomes corrupted through modern comforts and conveniences. A code that allows for greater possibility of life-long pain-free performance.

  • The behaviors that were discovered include

    • Producing forward locomotion using the muscles in the “back chain”/posterior side of the body predominantly.

    • Walking and standing with the feet pointed straight and or in the direction of travel.

    • The head is carried over the foot where the majority of the weight is held, rarely held at the midline of the body.

    • The lower limb from the hip to the toes follows a consistent “pressure wave” where it appears to create a bow shape as weight is transferred to that leg, then the leg “turns the corner” during the push off of that leg and the weight is transferred to the other leg.

      • The bow may be more accurately described as external rotation and abduction of the hip as the knee hip and ankle flex to accept the load and seems to load tension in to the iliotibial band like a bowstring.

      • The corner is the exact opposite of the bow and may be described as internal rotation of the hip as the knee hip and ankle extend to push off and transfer the load to the other leg and propel the body in space.

    • The “inner ankle bone stays high” throughout gait. This seems to point to maintaining a certain amount of structural integrity in the arches of the foot, and avoiding over-pronation. It was noticed that the collapse of the arch and the “inner ankle bone low” position was common in non-contact injuries and it is thought that this collapsed position prevents rotation of the tibia and fibula which contributes to knee injuries as the femur rotates without reciprocal rotation in the lower leg.

• Why GOATA

  • Mostly, it is a relatively simple system of exercises and postural cues that can be done anywhere and have growing support of therapists, trainers, athletes, and other practitioners.

  • I do not want to discourage anyone with these points. I bring up the dysfunctions and compensations only to point out that our environment, while comfortable, comes with costs. Costs that are realized every day in the form of back/hip/knee/foot/etc pain and other aches that can be a result of a unstable foundation at the foot and improper loading of the hips and lower back.

  • GOATA has become CENTRAL to my training methodologies and I have all but eliminated knee pain that has haunted me since dislocating my kneecap in high school, ankle disfunction from more sprains than I care to count, and back pain that has been at times debilitating (weeks of inability to take a breath without pain never mind walking) since a motorcycle accident in my 20s. All of those still haunt me but have become less intense, shorter in duration, and less frequent since incorporating the handful of exercises that comprise the GOATA system. Eventually, they will become nothing but a distant memory rather than something lurking in the shadows as I have the tools to deal with them. I cannot guarantee that these exercises will fix any problems of yours, though I can guarantee that they are simple to perform, easy to incorporate in to life or an existing exercise routine, and are practiced and prescribed by a growing number of athletes, trainers, and therapists around the world. I have also seen similar results many of in the clients that I work with.

    • Compensations and dysfunctions such as duck feet when standing and moving, pushing the hips forward when standing and moving leading to a front chain dominant posture and gait, instead of pointing the feet forward and keeping the head in front of the hips leading to a back chain dominant posture and gait. There are many other compensations, most of which are a result of spending too much time seated in chairs instead of on the ground and wearing shoes with lifted heels and compressed toe-boxes, all of which change the way our body was made to walk.

      • Many also have the habit of resting the hips against the counter when washing dishes, and hands, or brushing our teeth. This is a result of favoring our “front chain” (mostly the hip flexors and quads (tight and overworked hip flexors anyone?!)) rather than our back chain (glutes and hamstrings) which are much stronger and better made to support the body both in standing and in motion. This is a “simple” way to incorporate GOATA in to your everyday life.

      • Another way of incorporating GOATA in to everyday life is to spend some time resting on the floor. You will find that you naturally change positions frequently. This becomes a sort of “free” mobility session for your hips and lower back. The key thing to remember when doing this is that “the best position is the next position” meaning that we aren’t meant to stay in a static position for extended periods of time. Which is exactly what the sofa and recliner encourage us to do. Watch any of your pets rest for further evidence. They change positions frequently when resting.

      • Please do not try to force yourself in to correcting anything listed above. This is an instance where “more is NOT necessarily better” and you can do too much too fast. This is particularly true when considering posture. For instance, if you naturally stand with “duck feet”, forcing your feet to point forward right away would only serve to aggravate your hips because they have become used to this externally rotated position. You must instead lengthen the muscles in the hips to allow the feet to NATURALLY point forward.

        • Keeping the hips off the counter can be done with less concern though even after years of practice I still catch myself doing it. However, my posture and pain have improved so while it may be helpful it doesn’t seem necessary.

• How to incorporate GOATA in to training

  • The best place to start is with regular practice of the groundwork and progressing up to standing.

    • This can be a dedicated practice or incorporated as a warmup and or cooldown in to any other training you are doing.

    • I have found that reteaching movement patterns goes faster when you aren’t sending mixed signals to the body. For example, for me this meant giving up powerlifting (often done with wide feet pointed out, head in the center, weight on the heels). It may be helpful to go on a similar “movement elimination diet” if you want to make fast progress. The same would be true of a diet of food, you could clean your diet up all you want, it will be difficult if not impossible to make improvement if you still allow cake or other treats frequently (this felt weird to type because it seems obvious but the analogy needed to be made because many don’t see movement as following similar rules).

      • I have yet to get back in to powerlifting. Not because I no longer want to but because I see it as less important that feeling and moving better. Now that I’ve felt the results of this style of training setting PRs in the power lifts is much less important to me.

  • If the GOATA specific training is practiced long enough and correctly it won’t so much need to be something to be consciously incorporated as much as something that has been integrated in to the way you naturally move. Meaning you won’t need to think about it, your body will be incorporating GOATA on its own.

  • Once the postures are understood it will become apparent how they can be incorporated in to other training methods. In general:

    • Train with the feet straight, weight on the balls of the feet, head over the foot with the most weight on it.

      • Keeping the feet straight helps to keep the hips from getting tight in an externally rotated position

      • Training with the weight on the balls of the feet (heel elevated or not, both should be done) helps to train, strengthen, and lengthen the ENTIRE posterior chain of the body from the plantar fascia and the muscles of the feet, all the way up through the glutes.

        • More coaches outside of GOATA are training their athletes in this way. Cal Dietz is probably the best example.

      • Head over foot keeps the body balanced.

    • When moving exercises are done the head will shift from one being over one foot to the other. This coincides with RMT training (as covered in another blog…)

    • I usually don’t recommend training with a barbell across the shoulders as this limits movement of the shoulders and head but GOATA is a scale/spectrum and if your needs dictate that you train barbell back squats then following some or more of the GOATA principles is better than none.

    • I also do almost all of my exercises from a standing position. This includes presses. I use a cable machine for my horizontal presses and do any overhead presses standing as well. This allows me to load and strengthen both my feet and my core in conjunction with whatever else I’m training.

    • Most of the standing and some of the ground work can be loaded with weights. Which means most leg exercises you were doing likely have a GOATA parallel.

    • Once the main principles of GOATA are understood and integrated in to your movement the exercises (lunge/drop-in, squat, hinge, etc) can be loaded and progressed like any other resistance training program.