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It
never fails in every weight room across the
country that I have the opportunity to visit,
I see terrible posture and position. In the
weight room, on the track, or just moving around
in basic movement patterns, position dictates
everything! From standing as straight as possible
to maintain the normal curves in your spine
to making sure you use the proper lifting technique
to avoid injury. Position and posture might
be the most under coached skills in performance
training.
Do
you coach position and posture in every task
in the weight room and on the track? The quickest
way to see results hit a plateau is to stop
coaching position and posture. With Inertial
training we focus everything we do around holding
positions and having perfect posture. Correct
posture helps the body let go of huge amounts
of energy. When the body begins to fatigue the
brain will try to convince the body that form
and/or posture is not essential. If the shoulders
slump or shrug while throwing a baseball in
the ninth inning or your hip height drops in
a 100 meter sprint, your performance will drastically
change in a negative way. All position changes
will affect your bodies ability to produce force.
Let’s take the bench press for an example.
Always video tape everything so you can evaluate
position and where in the lift it might break
down. Monitor position during each rep. Being
able to bench for reps is being able to maintain
correct position so that the force can be applied
correctly and efficiently. The basic position
for this for a quick example is no different
than what most experts preach. Shoulders down
toward the hips, squeeze the bench with the
shoulder blades, chin on the chest without raising
the head off the bench, elbows at 45 degrees,
lower arms perpendicular to the ground, rigid
wrist, squeeze the glutes tight, lower legs
perpendicular to the ground, feet driving through
the floor. The key becomes to watch the position
each and every rep. Can you keep this position
during the eccentric movement? Can you hold
this position during the concentric part of
the movement? And, most importantly when heavy
loads or top speed is called upon can you hold
this position?
Potential
performance drops and or stale mates can most
always be traced back to position. This might
be the best value of Isometric work in the weight
room. It teaches proper position. Forget the
firing pattern dilemma, forget about specificity,
and just think about position. Most young athletes
don’t understand parallel or chest up
and but back in the squat yet often times we
want them to go right into down and up movements
in these exercises. Even worse yet is when some
coaches have their young athletes do speed reps.
If you cannot maintain proper position at slower
speeds or lighter weight, how do you think you
might make out with heavier weights and higher
velocities?? If you can’t create the position
and hold perfect posture, you can’t create
ultimate force. Let them feel the musculature
being worked before the movement is added. Some
are flat out not strong enough to hold themselves
in the correct position. Either way, it’s
about getting into that position and holding
it. The first thing we do at my facility is
talk and go through position work. No exceptions
to the rule! Matter of fact, I like younger
kids to be able to hold these positions for
longer periods to show me their strength with
the desired musculature.
The
monkey brain is always working in your
body. What is the monkey brain? It is the essence
of our survival instincts. Freezing with fear
is fine and good when you are a caveman and
do not want to be seen by a tiger ready to eat
you, but it doesn’t serve us very well
when driving a car at 70 mph and being confronted
with an eminent accident. When confronted with
fear or stress (emotional or physical) we will
adopt postures that are fine for lateral fleeing
motions but not so good for forward assault.
When talking with the creator of the Inertial
Exercise Trainer, Steve Davison, here is what
he had to say about position. “When under
stress, your stance will widen and your head
will stick out forward of the acromiom. This
totally changes our core’s ability to
perform the movements necessary to support vestibular
balance in the human body. As a result, when
performing athletics in a less than optimal
posture (but emotionally comfortable) we substitute
muscle activation inefficient to our bodies
design performance criteria.” The cure
for this folks is to focus on being pretty while
running and or training. In a fatigued state
train with perfect posture. Therefore, when
fatigued in competition the body will adopt
muscle activation efficient to our design performance
criteria. The result………fatigue
equals proper posture instead of the reverse.
And, muscle activation efficient to our bodies
design performance criteria will result in the
elimination of injury as a substitute. We are
in essence rewiring your neural system. Steve
Davison goes on to say, “The human form
will not exert any force greater than its ability
to preserve its balance. Hence, head alignment
with the line of the back and body core are
essential in communicating with the vestibular
system the orientation and energy flow of the
body while in motion.”
With the inertial machine the focus as you know
from the last article is on turning on musculature
at the proper time in the movement. The underlying
focus is always on posture. The initial preparation
is to be able to hold your body in position
to utilize the preferred muscles at the right
time, making the correct type of contraction,
and of course being able to relax these contractions
(antagonist) to the same intensity and velocity
as the contraction. Inertial training can teach
you these things and more!!! So with out further
a do, get out there and get into position!!!
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