As I promised in my post last week, there were a number of statements in the articles I posted links to that raised some questions for me. I will list them and also provide some links that may have some answers.
- Motor programming/motor planning: KStarr seems to think that the amount and/or quality of static movements an athlete does in his/her S&C training contribute to motor programming while performing sports. Greg doesn’t because the volume of the ground-based movements far outnumber the S&C movements.
Here is what I know: S&C movements are much slower and happen in a much more controlled environment and therefore much easier to coach, fine-tune and perfect. Do those S&C movements translate directly to other sports? My intuition says that if you can’t rotate your hips outward while squatting, I am not sure how you would be able to rotate your hip under load while you were actually playing sport (for instance, if you were playing basketball and, as you were jumping, you got hit midair and had to align as you landed).
One question I have: Is there a progression of natural movement that athletes use for instance, as we get better at squatting, does that mean that all the movements “below” the squat are good enough, in addition, do we get better at the movements in the progression “after” the squat as our squat improves?
- KStarr mentions at the end of the video (near 4:30) the ability to generate more torque with feet straighter. The majority of coaches would probably say that squats happen mostly in the sagittal plane (up and down) with the prime movers flexing and extending the hip, knee and ankle joints. However, it seems that KStarr considers that rotation and torque as important parts of the squat. I need to do more research on this but when I squat with my feet more forward, it feels like I need to rotate more. Here is a little more info on torque
- Finally, the whole ACL/MCL thing didn’t seem like it got addressed in the detail that I would like. I have done some research on the internal rotation at the hip and how it affects both the knee and the ankle but I skill need some more (and probably some additional details from Ken at Spectrum PT.
Please let me know if you have any questions. Very soon, part IV, what all this means to you.