Unlocking Your Athletes' Superpowers
Super-speed. Super-strength. Agility. Quickness. Mentality. The Iron-Man suit! All of these things sound awesome to an athlete who wants to get better. We often look to the elite athletes in professional sports for inspiration because everyone wants their skill level. Reaching that level requires years of training and dedication to the sport. However in our current situation, many of you are looking at the possible short term gains you can get in your athletes. Whether you are a sports coach, strength coach, trainer, even a parent, you've come to the right place!
I graduated from Trine University with my degree in mechanical engineering. In 2016 I started looking at the body from an engineer's perspective to help solve my own pain problems. After spending the last four years of my life defining my own company's vision, I am happy to start sharing the information I have gathered in a way that will create a community that wants to both improve performance and prevent injuries.
This is the opening of a series of articles where I will delve into the superpowers that dwell in all of us that are waiting to be unlocked. My company's performance model has two pillars for physical fitness - Stability and Mobility. These are the basics that must be built to start unlocking superpowers! Get ready, because your superhero journey starts...now!
Stability: Understanding the Deep Muscle System to Build Super Strength
In my line of work I cooperate with professionals in sports science and sports medicine. Back in late 2019 some guys in Australia reached out about what they term as the Anti-Gravity Body Framework (ABF). Research sponsored by NASA and performed by Dr. Carolyn Richardson showed that the deep muscles in the body react to the sense of gravitational forces (termed "Gravitational Sensory Input", or GSI). These muscles do not produce torque around joints but rather stabilize the muscles during movement. The research determined that the lack of GSI in these muscles created stability and posture problems in astronauts who spent an extended amount of time in space!
(Photo Credit: Gravity Fit Ltd)
The ABF works to stabilize everything from your knees and hips to your spine and shoulders when you are doing work. This translate into improving power during mobility, which I will talk about in a bit. It is trained through resistance exercises that are an axial load on the body, meaning the resistance is parallel to your arms or legs. A good example of this is a squat; the deep muscles stabilize the knee, ankle, hip, and spine as torque is produced at the knee and hip. This stability improves form during exercise and helps prevent against injuries. I will spend much more time on this in the next article!
Stability: Unlocking the Human Spring to Build Toughness like a Superhero
How are football and rugby players able to get up and go a whole game after a rough tackle? How do goalkeepers in soccer constantly make a diving save without even flinching? Why is it that a young athlete can fall down hard and get back up while the rest of us require crutches after sleeping wrong? The next superpower to unlock is toughness. Your body is built with an internal spring system to absorb impacts and recycle kinetic energy. Termed the "Integrative Spring-Mass Model" by my friend Dr. James Stoxen, it has opened the door to understanding so much about improving performance and preventing injuries.
The human spring in the thoracic region is what enables a football or rugby player to absorb the impact force when he/she hits the ground. Similar to the ABF, the muscles and joints play an important part. The arch of the foot, the deep muscles, and the spine are probably the most crucial aspects of the human spring that affect performance and risk of injury. More on that will come later!
Mobility: Using the Deep Muscle System and Human Spring for Speed and Endurance
The last thing I will cover in this article is how the two stability methods impact mobility. Range of motion and proper movement techniques will always be important here. When it comes to speed, the deep muscle system's impact on stability actually helps produce more power! It was shown in recent testing at the National Strength and Conditioning Performance Center that activation of these muscles showed immediate increases in speed, vertical jump, and broad jump. It is important to build stability; it allows your body to produce more power!
In endurance, the human spring recycles kinetic energy from impact and allows the body to use it during actions like walking, running, and jumping. As the foot strikes the ground, the human spring stores the energy and exerts it as the next leg comes forward. This allows for less internal force production and requires less work. This is how runners in Africa are able to run for several miles without any shoes! Keeping a healthy human spring will allow your athlete to compete with less risk of a breakdown of his/her biomechanics and avoid certain joint and muscle pains.
I hope you enjoyed this introduction and are ready to hear more! These simple aspects will give you an edge in training your athletes, regardless of the sport they participate in. In the next article I will go more in depth on the deep muscle system and how to properly train it.