Movement Patterns: What's Missing?
There is no inherent genetic code for how humans were meant to move.
Working as both a strength and conditioning coach as well as a therapist, I get a front row seat to a lot of dysfunction and subsequent injury. Over the years, I’ve done my best to mitigate injuries in the weight room and help recover them in the clinic setting. However, one thought that rarely crosses the mind of the strict S&C coach or the strict therapist is how much of a good thing is the pattern in which my patient moves?
From a strength and conditioning basis, technique and movement patterns are crucial to development. I would advise highly that you or your young athlete learn to hinge, squat, push, pull, etc... at some point during your development. But at what point does cueing an athlete to do a bench press in strict fashion only really make them good at bench press. If you’re constantly cueing an athlete to push that butt back and keep their chest up in the squat, are they becoming better athletes or better squatters?
There’s no doubt that each athlete who takes their training seriously in the offseason, will come to a point of more, just being more. That’s why we need to shift our focus in the weight room to a more well-rounded joint health perspective. Why don’t you completely de-load the bar, get rid of the weight, put your athlete into a 90:90 hip position and have them contract their lead and trail leg into external and internal rotation respectively, for 3 sets of 25 seconds each? How many of you have experienced the cramp of this position before?
In this scenario, I guarantee two things:
The client who has never done something like this will be humbled by how weak their contraction is. Why? Because they’re starting to utilize other tissues that were otherwise neglected by the redundant patterning of their squat.
The athlete who does this will create infinitely stronger hips than the one who doesn’t but adds 10lbs to their squat.
It may not seem as “sexy” as the barbell with three plates per side, but it sure as heck will strengthen tissues of your hip that need more strength and stability. Now the hip is just an easy example that I’ve chosen to use here. All these same principles apply to the other joints of our body. Feel like you’re plateauing in a dumbbell press? Well, you likely are because the tissues involved in your bench press are overworked and lack the ability to adapt further. What’s the solution? Get rid of the bar, weights, gloves, and chalk. Get on the ground and utilize different shoulder joint positions to contract in order to access the contractile property of neglected ‘non-patterned’ tissues. Trust me it’ll be way better for the health of your soft tissues and that iPhone camera you have recording your next PR.
