In this part 2 I’ll be diving into the strategies proposed by Frans Bosch that respect the laws of motor learning and training.

 

If you haven’t already read part 1 go back and do that first.  In this part 2 I wanted to finish up with a final section of motor learning as I still felt there were a few topics that need covering to give coaches more tools on how to give feedback.  (Although is not technically the focus of this sport specific blog series I felt it needed to be covered).  Specificity of strength training in my opinion is not just about the exercises you choose but how ‘specific’ and relevant your cues are- this will have an influence on transfer outside of the gym too!

Laws of Motor Learning and Training

 

There are a number of principles of motor learning which have implications for an approach to strength training, such as the decentralised-control mechanism discussed in the last blog for making movements robust.

 

We already discussed one of the principles, knowledge of results (KR), based on feedback in terms of the intention-action model.  Another principle is based on the importance of variable learning.  Together these approaches provide room for self-organisation of motor patterns.

 

I’m not going to get into a lengthy discussion on skill acquisition approaches as it is beyond the scope of the blog. But I’ll share you a video from Dr Mike Young in case you want more info

 

Dr Mike Young – Motor Learning Part 1

 

 

 

Dr Mike Young – Motor Learning Part 2

 

 

The Exception To The Rule: when you can use an internal focus

 

However, there is one thing I didn’t mention about KR that I wanted to add in this blog. In general it is better to focus on information outside the body rather than within.  The body particularly likes to know what the end result looks like.

 

As previously discussed, KR is the preferred feedback for the body (knowledge of the state achieved FOLLOWING the movement i.e. you either land the jump in a balanced fashion or you didn’t, the ball hit the target or it didn’t!) rather than giving feedback on the internal features of the movement, knowledge of performance (KP).

 

There is a third type that isn’t really talked about but I believe is the secret sauce of the elite coaches.  It’s called ‘Intrinsic KR.’

 

Intrinsic KR may at first seem like KP but if a ‘stable’ position of the head for example, (such as when hurdling or hitting a tennis ball) is termed KP information, it fails to take account that keeping the head still is the RESULT to be achieved through organisation elsewhere in the movement pattern.  Basically if you get this right it takes care of a lot of other features of the movement up and down the chain.

 

So ask yourself what is the most important RESULT you want within the body?

 

This is subtly different to just giving the athlete all the cues in the world about every single joint position and trying to talk them into position! Pick the most important ‘beacons.’

 

Example 1: in running if you want the athlete to keep knees high when sprinting.  You could just tell them to lift their knees higher…but elite coaches know that a better intrinsic KR attractor is to get them to run with a stick straight above their head.  Being able to keep the arm straight is the RESULT of keeping the pelvis high and the knees up!  Or hold a dumbbell overhead and punch the dumbbell into the air with the opposite arm.

 

Example 2: in running if you want to keep the pelvis and shoulders forward and not rotating put a wooden dowel on your back or skip with a rope.  The stick must be kept as still as possible as a RESULT of keeping keeping pelvis still.

 

Example 3: a gymnast approaches the springboard prior to executing a vault.  This requires considerable body tension.  It can be controlled by keeping the arms high during take off.  If the arms are high, body tension will automatically increase.  The fact that the arms can be kept high is the RESULT of keeping body tension high.

 

Example 4: a baseball pitcher often taps the ball with their glove just before pitching.  This releases RESULT information that tells them their shoulders are properly turned- otherwise they would be unable to touch the ball with their glove.

 

Example 5: an athlete often looks up and maintains visual with the ceiling as they complete an Olympic lift. This releases RESULT information that tells them their hip are properly position- otherwise if they popped up too early they would be unable to see the ceiling.

 

A possible rule here is the further the effect of the movement is located from the cause of the movement, the better the movement can be controlled.

 

Example in Tennis of the external to internal focus:

 

• Remote and external: where the ball lands after it is it
• Less remote and external: the shape of the ball trajectory as it crosses the net
• Close and external: the contact point where the ball is hit
• External and process-orientated: the turning of the racket when the ball is hit
• External and result-orientated: where the racket ends up (follow through) after the the stroke
• Broadly internal: extension of the body when hitting through the ball (use your legs)
• Narrowly internal and process-orientated: the wrist movement when the ball is hit

 

Some attention-focusing strategies work better than others.  There is a simple rule that indicates what works best: the further away from the process the better.

 

What do the best coaches do to improve movement?

 

First: they know the features or ‘attractors’ of world class movement (by definition- this is a feature of movement that all world class athletes do irrespective of their ‘style.’)

 

Second: by knowing what the attractors they can direct the athlete to good result information, because good result information can only be found in stable attractor components of movement.  Being able to anticipate result information (and therefore plan) is the core of motor control, and the clearer the information, the better the control.

 

This could be as simple as a tennis coach knowing that a still head position is an attractor meaning keeping the head still is the RESULT to be achieved through organisation elsewhere. So they focus their attention on something further away from the head to keep it still.

 

I saw a great example with Louis Cayer getting a player to wear a baseball cap over one side of their face so it covered their right eye.  If they didn’t keep their shoulders turned (another attractor) so they could see out of their left eye they were effectively running to the ball blind.

 

Specificity within Strength & Power Training

 

Now we will look at exercise classification.  Please remember that this blog is concerned with exercises that help to improve athletic performance.  There are numerous other benefits of strength training but here we are only concerned with the contribution that practising one movement makes to improving another movement, known as transfer of training.

 

One of the criticisms of strength training exercises is they are almost always ‘part-practice‘ exercises, in which a small number of aspects of the sporting movement are trained in isolation.  Part practice allows greater emphasis on those isolated aspects, which can be trained without the possible disruptive influences of other components of the sporting movement.

 

This allows ‘overload‘ to be created in the exercises.  The rational is that this greatly improves individual aspects, which can have an important impact on the overall movement.  Bosch argues that such transfer is not self-evident for the sensorimotor links (the contextual relationship between the sensory and motor information) and will be different in part practice and in the sporting movement.

 

The common practice of choosing exercises that are solely based on similarity of joint angles and angle changes cannot therefore guarantee the intended transfer.  To talk about transfer it is useful to ask a few questions.

 

Question: how does the amount of force produced in the strength exercise relate to the amount of force produced during the sporting movement?

 

Question: how does the mechanisms of force production in the gym relate to the sporting movement, for example is the sporting movement reflex driven with decentralised control mechanism, and how does that relate to the strength exercise?

 

Question: are your power measurements an accurate reflection of the power produced in sporting movements?  Is it a sport with a fixed speed of movement or a change in speed and hence a change in power produced?

 

Strength and Transfer

 

Frans comments ”coaches are far too likely to assume that the maximal amount of force a muscle can produce is always achieved in the gym.  We have already seen that a number of sporting movements (running) display an extreme pattern of excitation and inhibition at spinal-cord level owing to reflex support (the stumble reflex, the crossed extensor reflex and so on).  As a result, larger peaks of force production occur in such movements than those that can be achieved through maximal voluntarily contraction (MVC).”

 

He goes on to say, ”If the maximal force that can be produced during the exercise is less than during the sporting movement, the exercise serves no purpose when it comes to providing overload. Simply jumping evidently makes you very strong without any need for strength training.”

 

 

Daz comment: I agree with the concept that the maximal load that an athlete can lift with a barbell is not the maximal force that the muscle can produce.  But I disagree with the concept that it serves no purpose.  For me, there is value in bridging the gap between what the muscle will have to do in the sporting movement and what the muscle is capable of doing in the gym.  Furthermore, Frans constantly refers to the shock type movements in sport which occur with very sudden impact forces of 6-8X BWT, as evidence for the lack of transfer of traditional strength training.  However, there are many movements in sport that involve acceleration and deceleration forces with 2x or even 3x BWT where we know elite athletes in the gym can approach these force outputs.

 

Frans constantly refers to the relevance of training the hamstring, calf, and abdominals ISOMETRICALLY, as this is how these muscles function in throwing, running and jumping tasks.  They use the elastic muscle action.  Interesting he states (pg 278) that:

 

Since elastic muscle action is optimised by better recruitment of the contractile elements, maximal strength training is particularly suitable for creating conditions for improving elastic movements.

 

To me this justifies the reason to do maximal strength training, it’s the foundation on which to build up to the advanced isometric protocols you may have seen Alex Natera and Dr Mike Young use with sprinters.

 

Finally, Bosch states (pg 285) ”sporting movements have to be executed at high speed, making it very difficult to learn complex patterns in stages.  Strength training is appropriate for learning and improving certain components of a movement pattern, because the increased resistance allows the characteristics of the high-intensity movement to be maintained without the movement having to be executed at high speed.  Strength training thus compliments technique training.”

 

As I said, if you read the book carefully enough you will see Frans is advocating use of traditional strength training, but he is simply cautioning us to reflect on what role it plays.  Hint: it’s not to enhance a specific sport movement 🙂

 

Power and Transfer

 

In many sporting movements maximal strength is not a performance determining factor.  The intention in many sports is to accelerate either the athlete’s own body or an object that is already moving at some speed.  This tends to shift the interest to ways to use power training to create a link between force production and velocity.

 

Frans comments ”measuring force at a single speed will not tell us anything about a performance in which speed keeps increasing.  Even if the sport in question seems to have a more or less constant speed of movement (rowing, speed skating and so on), the speed of muscle action does vary within a cycle. Power measurements may therefore be rather questionable if they are carried out in a movement pattern that differs from the sporting movement.”

 

He also questions the specificity of power testing when in many cases there is disparity in the similarity between test and sporting movement.  Variable to consider include:

 

• Rate of Force Development (RFD) important in your sport- first tenth of a second (0.1 or hundred milliseconds) versus  training of RFD against resistance in strength exercises lasting longer than 150 milliseconds)
• Bodyweight versus Barbell loaded jumps*/landmine punch
• Double leg versus single leg
• Double arm versus single arm
• Deceleration at the end vs no deceleration (speed bench press vs bench throw)

 

*When you use a barbell on your back the load acts eccentrically on the muscles, thus providing the pre-tensioning needed to reduce the muscle slack.  If you start from a squat position without a barbell there will be plenty of muscle slack.  Frans also states ”in power training, high resistance facilitates both the beginning (RFD) and the end (deceleration) of the movement, thus making the movement easier to coordinate.  Especially at a high level of mastery, such ‘simplification’ of coordination of course does little to help athletes learn the complexity of explosive athletic movements.

 

Frans comments that ”in virtually all explosive sports the first tenth of a second of the action is crucial, and no major external resistance has to be overcome.  Therefore this makes it difficult to determine if training training of RFD using strength exercises lasting longer than about 150 milliseconds  yield positive, neutral or even negative transfer to the quality of RFD without resistance.”

 

Frans does go on to say that there is possible value of a general block of training (of strength and power training one presumes) sought in an area other than applicability within the sporting movement, such as increasing the robustness of the musculoskeletal system.

 

Reflex training

 

Frans prefers to focus not so much on the power outputs because it varies across so many speeds and makes it hard to identify the limiting factor for power.  The real problem is how to adapt intermuscular cooperation for optimal execution of the high intensity sporting movement.  The solution is to use light weights and perform movement patterns that are largely controlled by basic rhythm and reflex-supported muscle control (stumble reflex and crossed-extensor reflex).

 

Example:

 

Twelve sets of five to six repetitions, emphasis on RFD.  During a competition period, preference may be given to reflex training, because of the highly specific RFD and limited fatigue after training.

 

 

Daz comment:

 

I would firstly refer readers to the journal article by Andersen & Aagaard (2006) which is one of the journal articles I refer to in my ‘Force Hacks For Strength Coaches’ Training.  If you want to sign up for the FREE training click below:

 

In the journal it highlights that ”At time intervals later than 90 ms from contraction onset maximal muscle strength could account for 52–81% of the variance in voluntary RFD (Fig. 6).” So before you dismiss the role of maximal strength training completely be sure to acknowledge how much it accounts for the variance at sport relevant speeds.

 

But on the topic of power training I think his statements are valid, which is one of the reasons why I think power testing has more limited scope in actually determining an athlete’s ability to meet the dynamic explosive demands of the sporting movement at the elite level, and is really more a guide to inform whether they have a general ability to produce a certain level of force at a certain speed of movement.  This may indicate whether your general programming needs to be directed more to the force or velocity side of the continuum.

 

As far as my overall conclusions go there is one thing I do 100% agree with Frans.  He finishes his review of strength and power transfer with the comment that a lot of the traditional strength training while not suited for transferring to the sporting movement, it is in fact highly suited to optimising the coordination within a single muscle (intramuscular coordination) and for optimising cooperation between muscles (intermuscular coordination).

 

Specific cooperation between the muscles in a contextual movement is based on fixed building block of intermuscular cooperation

 

In terms of contextual transfer to non-linear control of the sporting movement, strength training is particularly suitable for exercising and improving these building block.

 

Hopefully, we now have a common language of what aspect of a strength exercise is specific.  It’s NOT specific to the WHOLE movement– hence my title of the blog- there is no such thing as a specific strength exercise for an entire movement! Duh! That should be obvious now!!!

 

But there are ways muscles can be trained in the gym to target ‘specific cooperation.‘  Has the penny dropped? Still not sure? Let me give you an example.  The cooperation between the back muscles and the hamstrings, both of which are attached to the pelvis.  The back muscles must work to stop the hamstrings from pulling the pelvis into too much posterior tilt, reducing tension in hamstrings which is not conducive to high speed running.  (Remember the elastic properties of the hamstring/achilles is what enables the decentralised mechanism of extremely high force absorption during sprinting- to do this the hamstring must work isometrically at its optimal length).  This is why you see a lot of sprinters with their backs well extended.

 

Six exercises that help this intermuscular coordination:

 

1. Single leg good morning
2. Single leg Bosch hamstring hold (60% BWT for 2-3 sec rising to 100% BWT for 3-4 sec)
3. Clean 
4. Step up (25cm box with heavy Barbell equal to athlete’s BWT)
5. Barbell Lunge and forward bend (the body’s centre of mass moving forward increases the moment arm of the mass above the hip. The back muscles must remain at the optimal length, and at the same time the hamstrings must generate a great deal of force to fix the hip).
6. Barbell balance (barbell on your back)- can also be done as balance-to-clean* (shown below) or a balance-to-snatch

 

Intramuscular pattern for hamstring examples:

 

Single leg Bosch hamstring hold (strength exercise)

 

Barbell balance (RFD exercise)

 

*The last exercise ‘barbell balance’ is a specific exercise to running as it give intrinsic KR.  The back foot must be kept still and placed on the box in front as a RESULT of keeping pelvis still without rotation.

 

It’s generally advised to form the fixed patterns ‘attractors’ of the lower limb in a closed-skill setting (mainly sagittal plane) and to train the improved forms without barbells (a broomstick or aqua-bag for instance, is often sufficient).

 

This principle can also apply to the shoulder girdle.  Scapulohumeral rhythm is a fixed rhythm involving upward (lateral) rotation in relation to abduction in the shoulder joint.  In this rhythm, there are fixed principles of cooperation between muscles, e.g. the upper and lower trapezius and deltoid muscles.  Another example is protraction of the shoulder blade by the serratus anterior and flexion by the pectoralis major muscle.

 

In a complete pattern such as a throw or a tennis smash, the use of these building blocks (attractors) results in a highly contextual universal movement pattern.  The arrangement of the building blocks must be self organising so exercises like the ones below are preferred, by keeping a large number of degrees of freedom in the exercise:

 

• Single arm dumbbell overhead press
• Scapular wall slides
• Abdominal bracing with plate press
• Bear crawls
• Water filled bags (aqua-bags)
• Medicine balls
• Wrestling

 

Throwing is dominated at the intramuscular level by elastic muscle action (in the same way it is for running).  The intention of the movement is defined by the trajectory of the ball.  In strength training it is wiser to be satisfied with specificity at the recruitment level in more or less isometric conditions, as that is a key component of the elastic muscle action.

 

Specificity in terms of intention (wrist movement at the end position and trajectory of the ball) could only be accounted for in types of training in which resistance is close to the resistance faced during sporting movements, such as throwing weighted balls.  Be cautious here though, as the kinetic energy has to be transported differently here so even something that seems very specific isn’t as much as we would think.  The throw with a weighted ball has to be timed different.

 

In thrust and push movements (like a punch) with a clear beginning and end, specificity can be increased simply by moving towards a clear end point in the exercise (e.g a ball hanging from a string).

 

Conclusions

 

One of the biggest criticisms of exercises in the gym is that they provide little or no sensorimotor stimulation.  I’m pretty comfortable with that because for me the gym is not a playground to try and overload movement specificity.  The limited specificity there is lies in the intramuscular and intermuscular specificity stated above.  There are no movements that can combine quantitative overload and movement specificity at the gross level so stop looking for them.

 

For inexperienced coaches (and athletes) I’d focus on the ‘safe zone’ or choosing exercises at both ends of the overload and specificity continuum.  The questions that arise there are fairly easy to answer- how to increase strength in the gym or the control/speed of the sporting movement for example?

 

These are good starting points for expanding the repertoire by adding types of training that are closer to the centre of the model.

 

Furthermore, in sport the more important efficiency of movement is to performance (e.g long distance running or any endurance sport) the more variation should be built into strength training.  Also, the more complex the sporting movement (e.g. Tennis) the more variation.

 

Perhaps being obsessed with power measurement and carefully chosen barbell weights for a very specific link of speed and force might only be important in sports that are simple in motor terms, such as cycling.

 

An approach based on exercise physiology (overload) is then less useful than one based on motor learning (variation).

 

My take is that overload is important to bridge the gap between forces experienced in the sporting action and those performed in the gym.  Furthermore, strength training is  highly suited to optimising the coordination within a single muscle (intramuscular coordination) and for optimising cooperation between muscles (intermuscular coordination).

 

Strength training serves to get force production in the more complex patterns of the sporting movement ‘under way.’  That is why experienced coaches are right to describe strength levels in the gym as good enough.  Instead of pushing for higher and higher maximal strength levels, they are satisfied with a reasonable level, for this may ensure that force production will develop further when executing the sporting movement.  A good example is the single leg- Bosch hold with an extra 60% of the athlete’s body weight to prevent injury, and and extra 90% of it to achieve good sprinting speeds.

 

If the level of the athlete is already high and the athlete already has vast experience of high-resistance training, there will be much less progress, or indeed none at all.  In that case, it is very useful to look more closely at ways of varying the environment (in the gym).

 

Building self-efficacy in youth athletes

 

A couple of distinctions I have found between mental toughness, confidence, and self-efficacy:

 

Mental toughness vs self-efficacy?

Firstly,  I hesitate to use the words ‘mental toughness’ as sometimes, this may be used as an excuse to force young athletes to work excruciatingly hard, all the time (I am not anti-hard work, but getting the balance between pushing and pulling back right is essential for long-term athlete development). As the rugby strength coach, Kier Wenham Flatt puts it:

 

“What we think of as mental toughness is probably actually comprised of several different abilities like task focus, discipline, concentration, durability, aggression and emotional control”.

 

Which will mean we have to figure out what our individual is missing and train this quality.

Now, to get us back on track.

Confidence vs self –efficacy?

 

I wanted to use this term, rather than the word ‘confidence’, personally I think self-efficacy provides a better description than confidence; in describing somebodies belief in their own capabilities, to complete a specific task.

 

I quite like this differentiation;

“Confidence is a nondescript term that refers to strength of belief but does not necessarily specify what the certainty is about… Perceived self-efficacy refers to belief in one’s agentive capabilities that one can produce given levels of attainment” (Bandura, 1997).

 

So here are some of the things I focus on, when building self-efficacy in this special population

 

Understanding individual differences and specificity

 

Youngsters who have higher levels of self-efficacy in one task may not display this, in another. How many times do we see children perform tasks autonomously whilst crumbling in a different task, especially after injury? James Smith in his book ‘Governing Dynamics of Coaching’ suggests that mental toughness is task specific, I believe this can apply to self-efficacy. Whilst a very complex issue, it may force a coach to do a bit of digging to identify potential route causes for low levels of self-efficacy and create an intervention. Alternatively, booking a few sessions with a sports psychologist may be warranted.

 

Process vs outcome

 

Secondly, I place having a process based rather over an outcome based system – kids love winning (I personally think this is a good thing) life is competitive, I am not a coach who will dampen a healthy competitive edge. However, teaching youth to ‘love the process’, that ‘winning is not everything ‘will make sure they do not miss the forest for the trees. Especially in a world glorifying overnight successes. Additionally, success does not come overnight (unless you are on X-factor!!). How many times do grandparents say “nothing great, comes easy.” If we are not teaching our kids to love the training process, then we are missing a vital part in their development.

As Daz Drake states:

“Where confidence is based purely on winning outcomes the player had better be winning lots otherwise they will consistently under-perform and subsequently lack confidence”

Goal Setting

 

Looking further into processes, I want to talk about goal setting. What is your ‘why?’ what makes you get out of bed, to train? When talking to my young athletes about goal setting I like them to give me specific, clear goals; getting stronger/fitter isn’t a detailed goal. Sometimes this leads to a few blank faces and an answer may not be immediate. However, once these goals have been set, remind them to keep them in a safe place, where they can look at them every day. Sometimes we all need that boost, when we don’t feel like training.

 

“You have to work hard to get your thinking clear to make it simple”- Steve Jobs

This quote has always has always stuck with me. I think this can apply to setting a clear direction you want to sail your ship. Set clear, purposeful goals.

 

Whilst we are on the topic of clear, specific goals. I also think of giving, clear specific feedback. How we critique/give feedback is important, why was something good or needs improving? For example, ‘that was a great squat well done!’ I can be guilty of this. On reflection, I am not sure what this actually means to the individual. Whilst not all feedback needs an essay, I also believe in telling the child what they did specifically that was notable.

 

Using Guided Discovery to build self-efficacy

 

Offer the task not the solution – I want to move on to learning through Game play, conditioning games to drive certain adaptations, such as skill acquisition, movement exploration or fitness. Allowing the athletes to solve problems and enhance decision-making capabilities, in my opinion, develops self-efficacy through adaptability. As with everything, balance is key, therefore I am also a believer in good old fashioned set drills for learning. Nevertheless game play, allows young athletes a chance to express creativity, accountability, resilience, and teamwork. All these things fundamental to athletic performance.  When they are out there on the court or field, in the midst of chaos, they only have themselves to rely on. Sometimes that little bit of creativity and resilience, in the last 2 minutes, may make all the difference!

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Perception around setbacks and failures

 

Changing perception around setbacks and failures. The aforementioned paragraph, links nicely with this. In the book ‘Black Box Thinking’ a sentence stood out to me. I want to share this with you.

 

“Dyson was not the first to come up with the idea of a cyclone vacuum cleaner, he was not even the second, or the third. But he was only one with the stamina to ‘fail’ his concept into a workable solution.”

 

I think this is primary for long term athletic development. It’s important to know how losses and volatility feel so that we can use the right methods; recognition of these feelings, create an intervention, and fuel future successes. Failure is part of the process and it may happen often.

Habits

 

Another significant factor in building self-efficacy I want to allude to is habit forming. I always try to remind my youngsters of the importance of good habits whether these are as simple as putting their weights away to pre-tournament routines, in the book the ‘Power of Habit’ the author suggests that ‘small habits people introduce into their routine unintentionally carry over into other aspects of their lives.’ in the area of sports performance this series of autonomous behaviours enables players to act in the moment, reduce distraction and perform at their best during competitions.

 

Performance

 

Lastly, although this may seem obvious, is bettering the performance of the young athlete. Equipping them with the knowledge that they can handle the task ahead goes a long way in developing self- efficacy; especially in contact sports where knowledge of their own ‘super strengths’ and previous victories will increase their belief in their ability to dominate a collision!

Today’s blog isn’t scientific, perhaps a little anecdotal, compared to the others but I hope it can create some discussion around this central area of Long term athletic development.

 

Thanks for reading!

Konrad McKenzie

Strength and Conditioning coach.

@konrad_mcken

 

References:

• Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: W.H. Freeman.

 

This week’s post is a guest post from APA coach Konrad McKenzie looking at the role of the Core.

Core training

The Core is a broad term that is used frequently in the fitness industry. However, I feel we should give it the respect it deserves by considering its anatomy and function – rather than ‘chucking in a few sit ups’ at the end of a session. Once we have an idea of this, we can begin to train this region with intent, purpose and focus.

Muscles associated with the core

At the muscular level, muscles of the core include; QL, Rectus Abdominus, internal/external Obliques, TVA, Gluteals, spinal erectors, and more. These muscles provide a base to transmit forces and are often seen as the vital link between the upper & lower body.

Photo taken from: https://www.yoganatomy.com/why-you-should-understand-your-core-muscles/

Muscles and the myofascial matrix

Before delving into the operation of the core musculature, it is important to understand the complexity of the myofascial slings (or trains) that connect the body and surround the core. Myofascial tissue is made up of layers of fibrous connective tissue, muscle, and tightly packed bundles of Collagen. Although I do not want to delve into too much detail in this blog, a significant proportion of this Myofascial tissue surrounds the core – similar to a Serape.

Picture taken from: Logan et al (2013) The serape effect

This has large implications when we are considering the transduction of forces. It fortifies the idea of muscular and fascial chains driving movement as opposed to individualistic muscles functioning independently.

A further look into the Sling systems

Muscles and myofascial tissue are linked. They operate within interdependent subsystems called ‘Slings’ which, when stimulated, synergistically contract to produce efficient movement – these subsystems are named the Anterior Oblique sling, Posterior Oblique Sling, Deep longitudinal sling and the Lateral sling.   

Photo taken from: https://caseycolemanpt.wordpress.com/2016/11/18/walk-the-walk/ highlighting the anterior oblique and posterior oblique slings.

I want to focus on the Posterior (POS) and Anterior Oblique slings (AOS) – notice how they work in a diagonal pattern. Muscles within the POS include the Gluteus Maximus, Latissimus Dorsi, and Thoracolumbar fascia. The AOS includes the external and internal Obliques, opposing leg adductor complex, and hip external rotators. Both of these systems work synergistically to produce movement and stabilise the lumbo-pelvic-hip complex.

Myofascial slings transfer force from the point of origin to other parts of the body. They are interconnected and organised in a way that allows an optimal transfer of forces. Additionally, dysfunction and pain in one area may be caused by another area of the body.

‘It is the victims who cry out, not the criminals’ famously expressed by Diane Lee.

 

These slings also operate to stabilize the pelvis and spine during movement particularly important if you participate in rotational sports.

Photo taken from: Altis, highlighting the rotation of the shoulders and hips happening in opposite directions. Notice the trunks anterior musculature is pre-stretched in a diagonal pattern.

Acknowledging the human body as interconnected and operating as one system is important – especially if the goals are to increase athletic performance or to improve health.

**This discussion will not go into the depths of myofascial lines and meridians, if you want to find out more, a great book that I am digging my teeth into is Anatomy trains by Thomas Myers **

Training considerations?

When it comes to training the core, I am a huge fan of Mike Boyle’s methodology. He does a great job in explaining the function of the core in athletic movements and provides a bank of exercises in the second edition of his book – Functional Training for Sports Performance.

During Athletic tasks, we want the core to have sufficient levels of strength and stability to transfer forces through the entire kinetic chain; this enhances performance and reduces the chances of injury. During high intensity movements it is evidenced that the natural function of the core is to resist motion in the hips and spine. It is impossible to imagine fluid, efficient movement if these segments of the body are excessively moving, thus ‘leaking’ force, due to an inefficient energy transfer from the ground up. Also, a significant number of lower back injuries occur due to the inability of the core to tightly control rotation at the L5- S1 level. Would you rather be a stiff spring or a tomato?

When looking at programming core exercises my approach has definitely changed over the years. I like to focus on the ‘Anti’ Exercises; I look at selecting exercises which challenge anti-rotation, anti- extension and anti- lateral flexion.

Some examples:

• Anti-extension exercises – Serve to reduce excessive spinal extension during athletic movements such as sprinting, throwing, or weightlifting activities.
  Exercise examples: Plank, Deadbugs and Barbell rollouts.

• Anti-rotation exercises – I want to be a little clearer with this, rotation is an important athletic quality – particularly for rotational sports!! However, it seems prudent that we learn to control or prevent rotation before we can fully express our rotational potential!
  Exercise Examples: Palloff press, Bird-dog rows and Renegade rows.

• Anti-lateral flexion – Many running based sports require frequent changes of direction including cutting, turning, and manoeuvring. These movements often require frequent adjustments in response to a number of perceptual interpretations. The aforementioned movements will cause an element of side to side bending in the spine, if this becomes excessive these tasks become inefficient. Moreover, injury risk is increased.
  Exercise examples: Side plank, Single arm carries and Overhead Palloff press.

Now, the requirements of the sport will dictate which core exercises will have emphasis but a healthy dose of all the core exercise categories would be considered in a fitness program.

I hope that gives you some more ideas when thinking about training this important region of the body.

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Konrad McKenzie

Strength and conditioning coach.

 

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Nervous to Lift Weights With Children? In this post I give my Top Tips on Lifting Weights With Children and unpack some myths about the safety of using resistance with youth athletes.

If you’re a coach and you are looking for more info on ‘How To Get Buy In That Lifting Weights Is Safe For Children, I have FREE Webinar on the topic, be sure to click on the link to register for this FREE Training

To be clear, I am in favour of children lifting weights.  But I will explain below by what I mean by this statement so please read the whole article in order to ensure you correctly understand my position.

Background to This Post

Okay, so first things first, this is not the first and it certainly won’t be the last time I write about this.  There are some myths that just won’t go away, and the myth that lifting weights with youths is DANGEROUS is one of them.

The inspiration for this post was that one of my colleagues was asked by a parent to NOT lift weights with their child (for context the child was a teenager going through puberty).  I find that this is the time when this conversation is going to typically come up.

Usually the ‘child’ has gone through a skill learning phase of how to lift weights, meaning lots of bodyweight, broomstick and ‘light bars.’ (the photo below is of a youth using bumper plates and a light bar, meaning it looks heavy but it actually totals less than 20kg in total).

All of this goes by unnoticed (or at least not commented on by the parent).  Then at some point the coach thinks… ”now is time to swap the training bar (let’s call this 10kg) for an Olympic bar (20kg)…and the parent immediately gets on the phone. For context, in my experience, the child is usually going through puberty (12-14 yrs old), will be at least 50 kg in body mass and has probably had at least 6 months training history. So a 20kg bar represents less than 50% body mass.  So we invariably get into a discussion about what we define as ‘lifting weights,’ and what the perceived dangers are.  For some reason the sight of the Olympic bar is usually the trigger for a conversation.

 

Myths of Lifting Weights

Now I must be clear, you won’t have this conversation with a parent (or I’d be extremely surprised) if their child is attending a weightlifting club, with the goal of competing as a competitive weightlifter.  They understand that lifting weights from a young age is going to be part of the process of preparing to be elite in that sport.  It’s more likely to be when the child is participating in another sport and as a coach you use the techniques of weight training or weightlifting in your programme.

Usually the argument goes something like this…’I don’t want my child to lift weights because…..

1. I’m worried it will stunt their growth
2. I’m worried it will cause damage to their growth plates 

Now most of the reading I have done in this area has focused on the stress lifting weights may place on the articulations of the knee joint (especially with loaded deep squatting).  A good article to read is Growth Plate Fractures which I will refer to later on.  For an overview of the Maturation of the Growing Spine please click on this link Spinal Development paper.  But for the people who don’t want to read all 31 pages here is the summary:

• Primary ossification takes place at 1-3 years and 4-6 years.
• Secondary ossification appears between 10-13 years (puberty) and fuse 18-25 years old.

Parents know that when a child is fully grown, the growth plates harden into solid bone.

Many parents are also aware that stress fractures in the spine of the posterior arch (pars interarticularis) are associated with repetitive flexion/extension (in my main sport of Tennis stress fractures of the spine are known to be associated with repetitive characteristics of the serve action).  So there is already a bit of nervousness about adding ‘high’ levels of additional stress to the developing (and therefore weaker) spine with high level weighted squats.

Medical Definition of Ossification

Ossification: The process of creating bone, that is of transforming cartilage (or fibrous tissue) into bone. … Bone is osseous tissue. “Os” is a synonym for “bone.” The Latin word “os” means “bone” as does the related Greek word “osteon.”

So it could be argued that while a child is still growing particular care should be taken, and that when the spine reaches adulthood it will be less susceptible to damage, and this is the time that ‘higher’ levels of loading could be used.

So let’s look at this in a bit further detail……does lifting weights at a young age stunt growth or damage growth plates? What do we mean by ‘taking particular care?’  And finally what constitutes ‘higher’ levels of loading?

Growth Plate Fractures- Any Truth?

Take from Growth Plate Fractures (see full article):

The bones of children and adults share many of the same risks for injury. But because they are still growing, a child’s bones are also subject to a unique injury called a growth plate fracture. Growth plates are areas of cartilage located near the ends of bones. Because they are the last portion of a child’s bones to harden (ossify), growth plates are particularly vulnerable to fracture.

Approximately 15% to 30% of all childhood fractures are growth plate fractures.

Most growth plate fractures occur in the long bones of the fingers. They are also common in the outer bone of the forearm (radius) and lower bones of the leg (the tibia and fibula).

Cause

Daz comment: To be honest the statistics here are inconclusive.  We can say that over 50% of growth plates are associated with participation in recreational or competitive sport.  For those who choose to believe that lifting weights is unsafe, it would be easy to assume that this surely contributes towards some of the other 47%.

But other statistics suggest the contrary (Hamill, 1994):

• Further evidence of the safety of weight training relative to other sports and exercise activities can be seen in the injury rates of other youth sports (Hamill, 1994). Weight training’s injury rate of 0.0012 injuries per 100 participant hours pales to the 6.2 injuries per 100 participant hours in youth soccer and 1.02 injuries per 100 participant hours in basketball. Time in the weight room carries even less risk of injury than a traditional physical education class where there is an injury rate of 0.18 injuries per 100 participant hours.

In cases of injuries reported in the scientific literature the overwhelming majority of these injuries were attributed to improper technique in the execution of the exercises and excessive loading

One-year study of a USA Weightlifting Regional Development Center program that included more than 70 pediatric athletes in which no reports of injury were noted (Pierce, 1999).

Training programs in which training loads are prescribed and monitored and in which training activities are supervised have proven to be remarkably safe in terms of the frequency of injury occurrence.

To my knowledge there are:

• No studies in science that have shown that deep squatting cause meniscus and cartilage on the backside of the patella to wear away.
• If this were true we would expect to see extreme amounts of arthritis in knees of weight lifters. This is not the case
• No studies in science that have reported an injury to the growth plate of a child during weight training when proper supervision and technique instructions are provided

How Can We Take Particular Care During Periods of Accelerated Growth?

In my experience the aspects of athletic training that expose the athlete to the highest stresses are those that lie outside of the gym.  The stress of repetitive loading of the sports skill itself places far higher stresses on the body than anything I will expose the body to in the gym.

So any intervention to manage the stress on the growing body needs to start with a review of overall training stress starting with a possible reduction of the amount of hours of time spent playing the sport.

Landing forces are several times bodyweight whenever an athlete jumps and lands or sprints and decelerates to a stop.  Furthermore the repetitive high speed, ballistic actions of kicking and striking place significantly more stress on the body.  Yet parents and coaches see these as necessary endeavours that you must pay the price for entry into the world of elite sport.

Whenever I have spoken to parents there is simply a lack of understanding of the nature of Force acting on the body during high speed movements on the sports field.  Because they are only using their body weight they just assume the forces must be lower than when you go into the gym and lift with something on your back.  But performing a drop jump like in the photo below can cause up to five times bodyweight load through the spine.  This compares to less than one time bodyweight that a coach will typically ask an athlete to experience in the gym- and the movement is performed under control so it is even better tolerated!!

If you are a parent or coach and are interested in the physics of the forces acting on the body I’d encourage you to watch my FREE Webinar

Now one thing we can definitely do, from the weight training stand point is eliminate spinal loading and move from bilateral (both legs) back squatting, to unilateral (one leg) squatting.  This removes the need to do spinal loading while still continuing to apply an overload to the legs.  This is a no brainer and can relieve some of the parent’s concerns about lifting excess weight through the spine.  We might not have as much control over the forces they experience playing sport, but at least we are using alternative (but equally effective) ways to overload the legs.

Please see my article on this: Which is Better- Back squat or Split Squat?

What Constitutes High Loading?

At APA I have a performance pathway for all aspects of athleticism including strength.  These are known as Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).  Now if your sport is competitive powerlifting or competitive weightlifting then these KPIs are an end unto themselves.  Whereas if you play another sport like tennis, they are simply a means to an end, not an end unto themselves.

However, while a tennis player is never going to need to be as strong as a competitive weightlifter it is generally seen that most adult elite sportsmen and women are capable of lifting several times their body weight in a back squat (2 x bodyweight), deadlift (2.5 x bodyweight) or isometric mid thigh pull (4x bodyweight).

Now to reverse engineer this at APA we have a six stage performance pathway: I will use the back squat as an example, as it is often used as a reference for lower body strength.

1. Basic 1– bodyweight (early childhood)
2. Basic 2– soft resistance (bands, balls and light bars-pre-adolescence)
3. Basic 3– intro to more external load (50% bodyweight for 10-15 reps- adolescence)
4. Advanced 1– maximal intent to lift for 5 reps (100% bodyweight- post puberty)
5. Advanced 2– maximal intent to lift for 3 reps (150% bodyweight- junior pro)
6. Advanced 3– maximal intent to lift for 1 rep (200% bodyweight-senior pro)

So for me, I am very comfortable lifting 50% of an adolescent’s body weight for 10-15 repetitions provided they have excellent technique and can lift and lower the bar at the controlled tempos demanded of them.

However, as I stated earlier it is common sense that if a child is going through some accelerated growth we can substitute some of the back squats for split squats or one leg squats and so on.

Position Statements

If you’re still not convinced or would like to read further I encourage you to read the following:

1. Youth- USA PositionStatementNSCA2009
2. Youth- UK Lloyd_Positionstatementonyouthresistancetraining_BJSM_2013

 

Hope you have found this article useful.

Remember:

• If you’re not subscribed yet, click here to get free email updates, so we can stay in touch.
• Share this post using the buttons on the top and bottom of the post. As one of this blog’s first readers, I’m not just hoping you’ll tell your friends about it. I’m counting on it.
• Leave a comment, telling me where you’re struggling and how I can help

Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask.  APA aim to bring you compelling content from the world of sports science and coaching.  We are devoted to making athletes fitter, faster and stronger so they can excel in sport. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — APA TEAM

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This blog is a review of the Tennis Files Podcast Episode 33 – S&C For Tennis