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Traditionally the focus of triathlon is on volume, intensity, and training periodization—doing particular workouts during the months, weeks, and days leading up to a race. But what if you could improve performance without logging extra distance on the road or in the water? That is the promise of Triathletes in Motion: Assessing Movement for World-Class Technique and Performance. In this book, Marc Evans introduces the Evans Assessment principle and makes the case that every triathlon training regimen should start with the physical assessments of movement. By looking carefully at movements during these assessments, you can detect limitations to mobility, flexibility, strength, and stability. These limiters cannot be corrected by traditional technique instruction alone, so Evans presents specific exercises and tests that address each one. The results are greater efficiency, fewer injuries, and faster performances.
Whether you are a veteran triathlete seeking a performance breakthrough, a newer triathlete starting the training season, or a coach or member of a triathlon federation searching for that edge, training should start with Triathletes in Motion. This resource includes hundreds of tests and exercises to help triathletes swim, cycle, and run faster and more economically. Marc Evans was triathlon's first professional coach and has consulted, coached, collaborated with, and mentored some of the biggest names in the sport, including Dave Scott and Scott Tinley. His coauthor, Jane Cappaert, is a leading expert in sport biomechanics. Now they make their unique expertise available to everyone in Triathletes in Motion.
Chapter 1 The Foundations of Triathlon Performance
Chapter 2 Principles of Triathlon Training
Chapter 3 Assessing Posture
Chapter 4 Assessing Movement
Chapter 5 Assessing and Strengthening the Core
Chapter 6 Analyzing and Improving Swimming Technique
Chapter 7 Analyzing and Improving Cycling Technique
Chapter 8 Analyzing and Improving Running Technique
Marc Evans has been inspiring excellence in endurance athletes and coaches since debuting as triathlon’s first professional coach in 1981. Triathletes in Motion, his fourth book, is his most comprehensive work to date and establishes a new standard for coaches and athletes with the Evans assessment principle by stressing the most important precept of coaching: individualization.
Marc has developed more than 100 hours of credential-based coursework on movement and stability and 75 hours on technique. He is a respected resource for elite coaches and conducts movement assessment workshops and masters-level education clinics. Marc also has lectured at sport science conferences around the world.
A two-time head coach for USA Triathlon, Marc led the elite 12-member team at the first World Championships in 1989 when Mark Allen won the gold medal for the United States. He was the head coach for the USA Triathlon performance testing at the Olympic Training Center and a founding member of USAT Coaching Commission. Additionally, he was the sports medicine conference coordinator and the director of endurance sports for the Ironman Sports and Endurance Center.
Marc is also the inventor and co-holder of the patent for the Speedo Contoured and Speedo Swim Foil training paddles that have set the standard in swimming design for over a decade. He was presented with the Award of Excellence from the American Medical Association triathlon division and was named the International Coach of the Year.
Marc lives in Boulder County, Colorado.
Jane Cappaert, PhD, is a leading expert in the field of biomechanics. Cappaert began her career at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She initially analyzed the biomechanics of athletes competing in a variety of sports. She then spent nine years studying and improving the technique of swimmers and triathletes while working at USA Swimming.
From 1997 to 2000, Cappaert designed, developed, tested, and patented Speedo International's first full-body swimsuit called FastSkin. During its debut at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, swimmers wearing FastSkin suits won 83 percent of Olympic medals.
After the 2000 Olympics, Cappaert took a position at Reebok International, where she led a team of engineers at Reebok's Human Performance Engineering Lab. While at Reebok, she engineered athletic shoes to meet the specific functional and biomechanical demands of running, power motions, cutting motions, and jumping.
“Triathletes in Motion will ensure you’re getting the most out of your training.”
Scott Molina-- Winner of the 1988 Hawaii Ironman World Championships and over 100 professional races
“Whether you are new to triathlon, or have been around the sport for years, Triathletes in Motion provides useful, specific and measurable information about training, sports nutrition, motivation and athlete physiology.”
Karlyn Pipes of Aquatic Edge-- Owner of over 200 FINA World Masters swimming records
Training Better Movement Patterns
As a triathlete, the reason you need to assess your functional movement (flexibility, joint mobility, and stability) is to improve performance as a result of achieving better technique, because you can move better and reduce recurring injuries caused by misaligned or compensating movements.
As a triathlete, the reason you need to assess your functional movement (flexibility, joint mobility, and stability) is to improve performance as a result of achieving better technique, because you can move better and reduce recurring injuries caused by misaligned or compensating movements. Unique to this book are assessments along with progressive and self-correcting exercises that help you come closer to perfecting your technique. Once you can repeatedly execute a movement with accuracy, you simply move on to the next assessment and subsequent exercise.
Progressing from the basic assessments and exercise recommendations presented in chapters 1 and 3, we move in this chapter to deeper, more innovative levels of movement assessment. These pass-or-fail tests are like exercises that progress through stages with ACES and are exceptional training for triathletes at any level, from beginner to Olympian.
Training Better Movement Patterns
In this chapter we provide steps for you to assess compensatory movement patterns. From earlier chapters, you'll recall that you should precede any change in technique with movement assessment to identify any weaknesses or limitations.
Triathletes often attempt to apply technique that gets in the way of best possible performance, and if they persist with such training, chronic injuries from overuse can result from overloading muscles and damaging soft tissue structure. A body in motion outside of its primary and most efficient pattern of stability and mobility can continue to be functional, but it will be diminished in its ability to achieve optimal performance and will be more susceptible to injury.
The human body has an amazing ability to adapt and compensate for limitations in motion by developing alternative patterns of movement. Unfortunately, these alternate patterns can establish themselves as the primary patterns after only two weeks of constant recruitment. This can ultimately place limits on the triathlete's development and optimal performance. Although the ability to perform at a high level might remain, optimal neuromuscular capabilities are hindered, resulting in a greater risk of getting caught in a cycle of constant injuries when trying to advance training.
When limitations of motion appear at any joint in the body, to achieve the total movement desired, the body will require more motion from other joints or segments of the body to perform that motion. As long as those joints or segments are able to control the additional amounts of motion being demanded of it, then no big deal. A lack of control of motion by the local (deeply placed muscles closer or directly attached to joints, where they remain neutral and work most optimally) and global (larger, fast-working superficial muscles for transferring loads and movements) stabilizing muscles often presents itself as an uncoordinated and lopsided motion when those movements are performed slowly, or as an increased perceived exertion in isometric or static low-load holding-type exercises, such as planks, prone, and lateral bridging exercises for the core.
Ideally, stability should always accompany mobility because each one can have a profound effect on the other. A lack of stability can restrict motion by demanding more from the global mobilizing muscles. Joints that lack stability show an increase in activation of the global mobilizing muscles surrounding them. (See table 4.1.) This increase in activation is a reactive protective mechanism to not only produce compression at a joint as an alternative and compensating way of creating stability at that joint, but also as a way to limit motion at that joint. When the global mobilizing muscles of the body remain active, and not completely at rest, their ability to shorten and lengthen completely is diminished, along with other key functions. These limitations restrict the amount of motion and force that are capable of being produced at any joint it crosses over. Stability, however, can be sacrificed to maintain mobility. This is done at the expense of the joint itself as well as its surrounding soft tissue structures (such as ligaments and the joint capsule). When a joint is left unprotected and unable to control excessive motion, overloading, or sudden forces, it creates an environment that can accelerate degeneration and lead to recurring injuries.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_491190_ebook_Main.jpg
Power and force generation are created from the more central parts of the body, such as our trunk, pelvis, hips, and shoulders. The more distal segments of the body are designed for more fine-motor adaptation and sensory output. This sensory output provides vital real-time data to the central nervous system (spinal cord and brain; CNS), allowing it to respond instantly with muscular activation. For example, the CNS permits the feet to make quick adjustments to maintain balance when walking over uneven surfaces and the ability to manipulate buttons and zippers with the hands. When the more proximal segments of the body are not capable of providing the stability needed to generate the amount of force or motion needed, greater demand is placed on the more distal segments to make up for that loss. Thus a myriad of compensatory movement patterns can develop, and it's crucial to have a means or formula to help in identifying the sources of these patterns.
To maximize performance, you must have appropriate load-transfer ability through the pelvis, accompanied by an ability to control stability through the core and proximal joints. You must learn to identify faulty patterns of movement and address them if you want to progress to higher levels of individually based training. By identifying and retraining the functional control of body segments, you can begin to correct movement instability and apply much more precise movements in technique. The local and deep postural stabilizers (closest to the joints) along with secondary (midlevel stabilizers) are the most important to train because they fatigue slowly (slow twitch) and provide stability because of their location and the control of joint postures. The more superficial muscles are fast twitch and build tension rapidly and only provide stability when conditions are extreme, resulting in lack of body control and more uncoordinated movements (often seen in competition when the local stabilizers have fatigued).
Read more from Triathletes in Motion by Marc Evans and Jane Cappaert.
The Deeper Core: Triathlete's Performance Center
Triathlon is a cadenced endurance sport requiring hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of movement repetitions in the extremities and torso. As you train, you experience ongoing stages of movement, adaptation, and skill learning as you progress toward advances in technique and fitness.
Triathlon is a cadenced endurance sport requiring hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of movement repetitions in the extremities and torso. As you train, you experience ongoing stages of movement, adaptation, and skill learning as you progress toward advances in technique and fitness. Constant interplay occurs in the intricate and interrelated processing of movement, including cognitive skills (understanding what needs to be done), motor skills (executing the skills), functional movement (moving in full ranges of motion), and functional and stable performance (maintaining body posture through the core).
Stability of the core is crucial to optimal performance. Movements begin deep inside your core and are transferred to your extremities. Your core controls not only your spine to maintain alignment but also movements relative to your spine. A stable core enhances skill and efficiency and can limit recurring injury by reducing stress caused by movements working against each other.
Your core is your body's stabilization system. Every aspect of motor learning and skill development is enhanced by a stable core, including postural control, functional movement, limb coordination, muscle exertion to produce tension and force, and neuromuscular control.
Performance stability is your body's ability to maintain an even, balanced, and graceful posture during all movements. The best triathletes demonstrate precise and stable movement fully observable by the most untrained eyes. Your muscles must be stable and specifically trained to move efficiently. Functional movements connect to muscular stability and, when optimal, allow muscles to work in accordance with their structure and ability. Stability must be present on both sides of the body to provide a base for equal and balanced movements.
Stability increases your capacity for potential energy and the storage of elastic energy to further optimize movement. For example, while swimming, you load and unload with changing forces during the catch, insweep, and outsweep. In cycling, the pedaling and loading of muscles and corresponding structural stability are necessary when your hip extends during the downstroke. During the run, your muscles play a critical support role during the stance phase, without which stability would be impossible.
For many triathletes, the control and coordination of movements at some point become more accurate, more controlled, and even automatic. Others struggle with developing efficient movement patterns and have difficulty refining, adapting, and putting into practice the movements that are most efficient. In such cases, there's often an underlying instability in which muscles are weak or underactive, preventing normal motion and contributing to inflexibility in muscles and joints, which are very often exposed in competition as fatigue increases. The stronger your deeper-layered core, the more stable and effective technique can be. In this chapter we'll focus on assessing, strengthening, and training your core in ways that work the deepest stabilizers and postural muscles.
The Deeper Core: Triathlete's Performance Center
Think of your core as the epicenter of your body. It is a collection of muscles that support your spine, back, hips, and pelvis. Functional triathletes are especially stable from the deepest muscles of the core - the primary and secondary stabilizers. These deep core muscles are at the axis of motion, attach to the bony segments of the spine and joints, control positioning of and provide stability and are made up of slow-twitch (type 1) muscle fibers for muscular endurance that fatigue slowly. They function at low loads and do not produce much, if any, force or torque for movement in swimming, cycling, or running, yet they play a vital role in controlling the positions of your joints. For the best transfer of load, your joints must be in optimal position for generating the highest amount of efficient energy for movement. Your deep core functions to hold your joints in neutral positions by responding with just the right amount of force during changes to posture caused by outside forces such as foot strikes while running, water pressure while swimming, and pedaling forces while cycling.See table 5.1 for a list of the core stabilizer and mobilizer muscles and table 5.2 for their characteristics.
Every level of triathlete can benefit from assessing functional capacity of the core and learning how to move from within the center points of the body to the outside limbs most effectively. Talented triathletes of all ages tend to demonstrate balanced and symmetrical movements with sureness. These efficient motions are accomplished through years of training and further enhanced by training the deep-layered muscles of the core. But training these deep-core muscles - chiefly, the transversus abdominis, multifidi, and quadratus lumborum - is far different from common high-intensity core exercise training. These muscles are not trained through intense workouts but through controlled deep-layered techniques and body-region-specific exercises.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483678_ebook1_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483679_ebook_Main.jpg
The most efficient athletic movements are those that originate from the center of the body. As a triathlete develops more efficient skills, energy expenditure is minimized as movements consolidate. Early on, however, if limitations in flexibility, mobility, and stability are ignored, movements can remain error prone, sometimes stiff and halting, and there can be an unnecessary and inefficient use of the extremities. Asymmetrical motions can produce compensations not only in functional movements but within the stabilizing muscles of the core.
A fitting expression among physical therapists and movement practitioners is that proximal stability enhances distal mobility. The core (stability center) provides the most effective way to transmit energy to the limbs (from inside to outside). For example, instead of pulling, the capable swimmer will anchor the hand and arm (slowly) and engage and transfer power from the centerline (spine, pelvis, and hips) through the hand and arm holding (sculling) against dense water. An efficient cyclist similarly works from inside to out by maintaining a level pelvis, straight spine, and limited swinging or tilting in the upper body. The triathlete runner above all depends on core stability and posture and position of the upper back and scapulae to provide ample support of the body during the exchange of foot strikes.
Read more from Triathletes in Motion by Marc Evans and Jane Cappaert.
Swimming Posture & the Phases of Freestyle
How we walk, sit, stand, and carry our posture during daily activities affects how we move in our sport. It is especially important to learn how to move from the inside to outside of the body.
How we walk, sit, stand, and carry our posture during daily activities affects how we move in our sport. It is especially important to learn how to move from the inside to outside of the body. Primarily, this means presenting a posture that permits the most efficient use of the muscles of the hips, legs, and torso (the core). Learning to engage these muscles during flexion, extension, and rotation is central to performing better movements in all sports and begins with proper posture.
Standing with anatomically correct posture begins the process for establishing and enhancing all body lines in swimming. Learning to take this position into the water and maintaining the centerlines of movement will take you further toward improved swimming than just about any technique. In assessing flexibility, mobility, and stability, movement tendencies become evident - you can tell to what extent you use your core muscles in your basic movements. For coaches, assessment can provide teaching moments in which to educate your triathletes how to be more aware of using the core muscles. Practicing functional movements teaches the body to use core muscles deep inside the body to affect movement of the limbs and achieve more efficient technique.
The muscles in the hip region are frequently unstable in triathletes. Notably, the gluteus medius (a muscle that prevents tilting or sagging of the pelvis) is an important pelvic primary stabilizer. When the gluteus medius is weak, other muscles or movements must compensate for the weakness in everyday activities, such as standing up from a chair. This compensation results in less efficient, less functional movements. Over time, the muscular, nervous, and skeletal systems become affected by these repeated less functional movements and sustained faulty postures.
Swimmers who move functionally on land transfer their skills remarkably well into the water, improving in symmetry of swimming motions and performance and reducing the risk of overuse injury. Balanced and symmetrical swimming movement begins in the proximal muscles at the body's core (below the chest to above the knees), which support the outward, or distal, muscles near the head, arms, hands, legs, and feet. An excellent technique to engage the deep core muscles is to draw in when exhaling to activate these muscles and help stabilize the pelvis, which result in better streamlining and better movements.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483767_ebook_Main.jpg
Proximal and distal - swimming from inside to out.
Thus optimal posture on land transfers directly to swimming and eases motor learning in the water. By learning to control your body during flexion (sitting) and extension (standing) through the use of your core muscles, you begin the process of establishing more functional movements. Movements controlled by active engagement and stability from the proximal muscles affect the functionality of the distal muscles during swimming (figure 6.4).
Phases of the Freestyle Swimming Stroke
There are variations in mechanics unique to each individual, but the phases of the freestyle stroke can always be recognized. In this section we progress through these phases, presenting principles for you to build on. First we'll explain the phases and primary terms related to the freestyle swimming stroke. Then we'll describe how to develop better movement through lower-intensity training that enhances motor learning by breaking down complex movements into what we call body lines.
Front Quadrant
The front quadrant is defined as the front half of the freestyle stroke underwater (figure 6.5).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483768_ebook_Main.jpg
Front quadrant.
In front-quadrant swimming, at least one hand is in the front quadrant during the entire stroke cycle. This requires a shift in stroke timing. Traditional teaching dictates finishing hard with one arm past the hips and entering the water with the other arm. In front-quadrant swimming, the right arm's entry into the water occurs during the insweep phase of the left arm (along with an exit at midtorso). When done correctly, there should be no gliding - that is, no point at which propulsion is not being applied.
One advantage of front-quadrant swimming is that it keeps the body long, with one arm always out in front or above the head. Having one arm above the head raises the body's center of mass and helps reduce torque from the buoyancy force that causes the legs to sink. Also, as is well known in ship building, a longer hull is more streamlined than a shorter hull. In front-quadrant swimming, you lengthen the hull of your body. Another advantage of front-quadrant swimming is that it changes the timing of your breathing. In traditional stroke timing, as one hand enters the water and stretches out in front, the other arm is finishing the stroke. This has been taught as the best opportunity to breathe, using momentum of the finishing arm to help rotate hips out of the water. Unfortunately, this timing of the breath leaves the hips vulnerable to sinking as the head turns and lifts to breathe (figure 6.6).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483769_ebook_Main.jpg
Posture is affected when the head is lifted or extended when breathing.
Using front-quadrant swimming forces the breath to begin earlier in the stroke, when one arm is more underneath the body (figure 6.7; breathing occurs between the two images). The position of the arm in the water out in front serves as an anchor, creating forces that support the hips and keep them from sinking.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483770_ebook_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483771_ebook_Main.jpg
Breathe early when the front arm is beginning the catch posture.
Read more from Triathletes in Motion by Marc Evans and Jane Cappaert.
Training Better Movement Patterns
As a triathlete, the reason you need to assess your functional movement (flexibility, joint mobility, and stability) is to improve performance as a result of achieving better technique, because you can move better and reduce recurring injuries caused by misaligned or compensating movements.
As a triathlete, the reason you need to assess your functional movement (flexibility, joint mobility, and stability) is to improve performance as a result of achieving better technique, because you can move better and reduce recurring injuries caused by misaligned or compensating movements. Unique to this book are assessments along with progressive and self-correcting exercises that help you come closer to perfecting your technique. Once you can repeatedly execute a movement with accuracy, you simply move on to the next assessment and subsequent exercise.
Progressing from the basic assessments and exercise recommendations presented in chapters 1 and 3, we move in this chapter to deeper, more innovative levels of movement assessment. These pass-or-fail tests are like exercises that progress through stages with ACES and are exceptional training for triathletes at any level, from beginner to Olympian.
Training Better Movement Patterns
In this chapter we provide steps for you to assess compensatory movement patterns. From earlier chapters, you'll recall that you should precede any change in technique with movement assessment to identify any weaknesses or limitations.
Triathletes often attempt to apply technique that gets in the way of best possible performance, and if they persist with such training, chronic injuries from overuse can result from overloading muscles and damaging soft tissue structure. A body in motion outside of its primary and most efficient pattern of stability and mobility can continue to be functional, but it will be diminished in its ability to achieve optimal performance and will be more susceptible to injury.
The human body has an amazing ability to adapt and compensate for limitations in motion by developing alternative patterns of movement. Unfortunately, these alternate patterns can establish themselves as the primary patterns after only two weeks of constant recruitment. This can ultimately place limits on the triathlete's development and optimal performance. Although the ability to perform at a high level might remain, optimal neuromuscular capabilities are hindered, resulting in a greater risk of getting caught in a cycle of constant injuries when trying to advance training.
When limitations of motion appear at any joint in the body, to achieve the total movement desired, the body will require more motion from other joints or segments of the body to perform that motion. As long as those joints or segments are able to control the additional amounts of motion being demanded of it, then no big deal. A lack of control of motion by the local (deeply placed muscles closer or directly attached to joints, where they remain neutral and work most optimally) and global (larger, fast-working superficial muscles for transferring loads and movements) stabilizing muscles often presents itself as an uncoordinated and lopsided motion when those movements are performed slowly, or as an increased perceived exertion in isometric or static low-load holding-type exercises, such as planks, prone, and lateral bridging exercises for the core.
Ideally, stability should always accompany mobility because each one can have a profound effect on the other. A lack of stability can restrict motion by demanding more from the global mobilizing muscles. Joints that lack stability show an increase in activation of the global mobilizing muscles surrounding them. (See table 4.1.) This increase in activation is a reactive protective mechanism to not only produce compression at a joint as an alternative and compensating way of creating stability at that joint, but also as a way to limit motion at that joint. When the global mobilizing muscles of the body remain active, and not completely at rest, their ability to shorten and lengthen completely is diminished, along with other key functions. These limitations restrict the amount of motion and force that are capable of being produced at any joint it crosses over. Stability, however, can be sacrificed to maintain mobility. This is done at the expense of the joint itself as well as its surrounding soft tissue structures (such as ligaments and the joint capsule). When a joint is left unprotected and unable to control excessive motion, overloading, or sudden forces, it creates an environment that can accelerate degeneration and lead to recurring injuries.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_491190_ebook_Main.jpg
Power and force generation are created from the more central parts of the body, such as our trunk, pelvis, hips, and shoulders. The more distal segments of the body are designed for more fine-motor adaptation and sensory output. This sensory output provides vital real-time data to the central nervous system (spinal cord and brain; CNS), allowing it to respond instantly with muscular activation. For example, the CNS permits the feet to make quick adjustments to maintain balance when walking over uneven surfaces and the ability to manipulate buttons and zippers with the hands. When the more proximal segments of the body are not capable of providing the stability needed to generate the amount of force or motion needed, greater demand is placed on the more distal segments to make up for that loss. Thus a myriad of compensatory movement patterns can develop, and it's crucial to have a means or formula to help in identifying the sources of these patterns.
To maximize performance, you must have appropriate load-transfer ability through the pelvis, accompanied by an ability to control stability through the core and proximal joints. You must learn to identify faulty patterns of movement and address them if you want to progress to higher levels of individually based training. By identifying and retraining the functional control of body segments, you can begin to correct movement instability and apply much more precise movements in technique. The local and deep postural stabilizers (closest to the joints) along with secondary (midlevel stabilizers) are the most important to train because they fatigue slowly (slow twitch) and provide stability because of their location and the control of joint postures. The more superficial muscles are fast twitch and build tension rapidly and only provide stability when conditions are extreme, resulting in lack of body control and more uncoordinated movements (often seen in competition when the local stabilizers have fatigued).
Read more from Triathletes in Motion by Marc Evans and Jane Cappaert.
The Deeper Core: Triathlete's Performance Center
Triathlon is a cadenced endurance sport requiring hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of movement repetitions in the extremities and torso. As you train, you experience ongoing stages of movement, adaptation, and skill learning as you progress toward advances in technique and fitness.
Triathlon is a cadenced endurance sport requiring hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of movement repetitions in the extremities and torso. As you train, you experience ongoing stages of movement, adaptation, and skill learning as you progress toward advances in technique and fitness. Constant interplay occurs in the intricate and interrelated processing of movement, including cognitive skills (understanding what needs to be done), motor skills (executing the skills), functional movement (moving in full ranges of motion), and functional and stable performance (maintaining body posture through the core).
Stability of the core is crucial to optimal performance. Movements begin deep inside your core and are transferred to your extremities. Your core controls not only your spine to maintain alignment but also movements relative to your spine. A stable core enhances skill and efficiency and can limit recurring injury by reducing stress caused by movements working against each other.
Your core is your body's stabilization system. Every aspect of motor learning and skill development is enhanced by a stable core, including postural control, functional movement, limb coordination, muscle exertion to produce tension and force, and neuromuscular control.
Performance stability is your body's ability to maintain an even, balanced, and graceful posture during all movements. The best triathletes demonstrate precise and stable movement fully observable by the most untrained eyes. Your muscles must be stable and specifically trained to move efficiently. Functional movements connect to muscular stability and, when optimal, allow muscles to work in accordance with their structure and ability. Stability must be present on both sides of the body to provide a base for equal and balanced movements.
Stability increases your capacity for potential energy and the storage of elastic energy to further optimize movement. For example, while swimming, you load and unload with changing forces during the catch, insweep, and outsweep. In cycling, the pedaling and loading of muscles and corresponding structural stability are necessary when your hip extends during the downstroke. During the run, your muscles play a critical support role during the stance phase, without which stability would be impossible.
For many triathletes, the control and coordination of movements at some point become more accurate, more controlled, and even automatic. Others struggle with developing efficient movement patterns and have difficulty refining, adapting, and putting into practice the movements that are most efficient. In such cases, there's often an underlying instability in which muscles are weak or underactive, preventing normal motion and contributing to inflexibility in muscles and joints, which are very often exposed in competition as fatigue increases. The stronger your deeper-layered core, the more stable and effective technique can be. In this chapter we'll focus on assessing, strengthening, and training your core in ways that work the deepest stabilizers and postural muscles.
The Deeper Core: Triathlete's Performance Center
Think of your core as the epicenter of your body. It is a collection of muscles that support your spine, back, hips, and pelvis. Functional triathletes are especially stable from the deepest muscles of the core - the primary and secondary stabilizers. These deep core muscles are at the axis of motion, attach to the bony segments of the spine and joints, control positioning of and provide stability and are made up of slow-twitch (type 1) muscle fibers for muscular endurance that fatigue slowly. They function at low loads and do not produce much, if any, force or torque for movement in swimming, cycling, or running, yet they play a vital role in controlling the positions of your joints. For the best transfer of load, your joints must be in optimal position for generating the highest amount of efficient energy for movement. Your deep core functions to hold your joints in neutral positions by responding with just the right amount of force during changes to posture caused by outside forces such as foot strikes while running, water pressure while swimming, and pedaling forces while cycling.See table 5.1 for a list of the core stabilizer and mobilizer muscles and table 5.2 for their characteristics.
Every level of triathlete can benefit from assessing functional capacity of the core and learning how to move from within the center points of the body to the outside limbs most effectively. Talented triathletes of all ages tend to demonstrate balanced and symmetrical movements with sureness. These efficient motions are accomplished through years of training and further enhanced by training the deep-layered muscles of the core. But training these deep-core muscles - chiefly, the transversus abdominis, multifidi, and quadratus lumborum - is far different from common high-intensity core exercise training. These muscles are not trained through intense workouts but through controlled deep-layered techniques and body-region-specific exercises.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483678_ebook1_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483679_ebook_Main.jpg
The most efficient athletic movements are those that originate from the center of the body. As a triathlete develops more efficient skills, energy expenditure is minimized as movements consolidate. Early on, however, if limitations in flexibility, mobility, and stability are ignored, movements can remain error prone, sometimes stiff and halting, and there can be an unnecessary and inefficient use of the extremities. Asymmetrical motions can produce compensations not only in functional movements but within the stabilizing muscles of the core.
A fitting expression among physical therapists and movement practitioners is that proximal stability enhances distal mobility. The core (stability center) provides the most effective way to transmit energy to the limbs (from inside to outside). For example, instead of pulling, the capable swimmer will anchor the hand and arm (slowly) and engage and transfer power from the centerline (spine, pelvis, and hips) through the hand and arm holding (sculling) against dense water. An efficient cyclist similarly works from inside to out by maintaining a level pelvis, straight spine, and limited swinging or tilting in the upper body. The triathlete runner above all depends on core stability and posture and position of the upper back and scapulae to provide ample support of the body during the exchange of foot strikes.
Read more from Triathletes in Motion by Marc Evans and Jane Cappaert.
Swimming Posture & the Phases of Freestyle
How we walk, sit, stand, and carry our posture during daily activities affects how we move in our sport. It is especially important to learn how to move from the inside to outside of the body.
How we walk, sit, stand, and carry our posture during daily activities affects how we move in our sport. It is especially important to learn how to move from the inside to outside of the body. Primarily, this means presenting a posture that permits the most efficient use of the muscles of the hips, legs, and torso (the core). Learning to engage these muscles during flexion, extension, and rotation is central to performing better movements in all sports and begins with proper posture.
Standing with anatomically correct posture begins the process for establishing and enhancing all body lines in swimming. Learning to take this position into the water and maintaining the centerlines of movement will take you further toward improved swimming than just about any technique. In assessing flexibility, mobility, and stability, movement tendencies become evident - you can tell to what extent you use your core muscles in your basic movements. For coaches, assessment can provide teaching moments in which to educate your triathletes how to be more aware of using the core muscles. Practicing functional movements teaches the body to use core muscles deep inside the body to affect movement of the limbs and achieve more efficient technique.
The muscles in the hip region are frequently unstable in triathletes. Notably, the gluteus medius (a muscle that prevents tilting or sagging of the pelvis) is an important pelvic primary stabilizer. When the gluteus medius is weak, other muscles or movements must compensate for the weakness in everyday activities, such as standing up from a chair. This compensation results in less efficient, less functional movements. Over time, the muscular, nervous, and skeletal systems become affected by these repeated less functional movements and sustained faulty postures.
Swimmers who move functionally on land transfer their skills remarkably well into the water, improving in symmetry of swimming motions and performance and reducing the risk of overuse injury. Balanced and symmetrical swimming movement begins in the proximal muscles at the body's core (below the chest to above the knees), which support the outward, or distal, muscles near the head, arms, hands, legs, and feet. An excellent technique to engage the deep core muscles is to draw in when exhaling to activate these muscles and help stabilize the pelvis, which result in better streamlining and better movements.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483767_ebook_Main.jpg
Proximal and distal - swimming from inside to out.
Thus optimal posture on land transfers directly to swimming and eases motor learning in the water. By learning to control your body during flexion (sitting) and extension (standing) through the use of your core muscles, you begin the process of establishing more functional movements. Movements controlled by active engagement and stability from the proximal muscles affect the functionality of the distal muscles during swimming (figure 6.4).
Phases of the Freestyle Swimming Stroke
There are variations in mechanics unique to each individual, but the phases of the freestyle stroke can always be recognized. In this section we progress through these phases, presenting principles for you to build on. First we'll explain the phases and primary terms related to the freestyle swimming stroke. Then we'll describe how to develop better movement through lower-intensity training that enhances motor learning by breaking down complex movements into what we call body lines.
Front Quadrant
The front quadrant is defined as the front half of the freestyle stroke underwater (figure 6.5).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483768_ebook_Main.jpg
Front quadrant.
In front-quadrant swimming, at least one hand is in the front quadrant during the entire stroke cycle. This requires a shift in stroke timing. Traditional teaching dictates finishing hard with one arm past the hips and entering the water with the other arm. In front-quadrant swimming, the right arm's entry into the water occurs during the insweep phase of the left arm (along with an exit at midtorso). When done correctly, there should be no gliding - that is, no point at which propulsion is not being applied.
One advantage of front-quadrant swimming is that it keeps the body long, with one arm always out in front or above the head. Having one arm above the head raises the body's center of mass and helps reduce torque from the buoyancy force that causes the legs to sink. Also, as is well known in ship building, a longer hull is more streamlined than a shorter hull. In front-quadrant swimming, you lengthen the hull of your body. Another advantage of front-quadrant swimming is that it changes the timing of your breathing. In traditional stroke timing, as one hand enters the water and stretches out in front, the other arm is finishing the stroke. This has been taught as the best opportunity to breathe, using momentum of the finishing arm to help rotate hips out of the water. Unfortunately, this timing of the breath leaves the hips vulnerable to sinking as the head turns and lifts to breathe (figure 6.6).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483769_ebook_Main.jpg
Posture is affected when the head is lifted or extended when breathing.
Using front-quadrant swimming forces the breath to begin earlier in the stroke, when one arm is more underneath the body (figure 6.7; breathing occurs between the two images). The position of the arm in the water out in front serves as an anchor, creating forces that support the hips and keep them from sinking.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483770_ebook_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483771_ebook_Main.jpg
Breathe early when the front arm is beginning the catch posture.
Read more from Triathletes in Motion by Marc Evans and Jane Cappaert.
Training Better Movement Patterns
As a triathlete, the reason you need to assess your functional movement (flexibility, joint mobility, and stability) is to improve performance as a result of achieving better technique, because you can move better and reduce recurring injuries caused by misaligned or compensating movements.
As a triathlete, the reason you need to assess your functional movement (flexibility, joint mobility, and stability) is to improve performance as a result of achieving better technique, because you can move better and reduce recurring injuries caused by misaligned or compensating movements. Unique to this book are assessments along with progressive and self-correcting exercises that help you come closer to perfecting your technique. Once you can repeatedly execute a movement with accuracy, you simply move on to the next assessment and subsequent exercise.
Progressing from the basic assessments and exercise recommendations presented in chapters 1 and 3, we move in this chapter to deeper, more innovative levels of movement assessment. These pass-or-fail tests are like exercises that progress through stages with ACES and are exceptional training for triathletes at any level, from beginner to Olympian.
Training Better Movement Patterns
In this chapter we provide steps for you to assess compensatory movement patterns. From earlier chapters, you'll recall that you should precede any change in technique with movement assessment to identify any weaknesses or limitations.
Triathletes often attempt to apply technique that gets in the way of best possible performance, and if they persist with such training, chronic injuries from overuse can result from overloading muscles and damaging soft tissue structure. A body in motion outside of its primary and most efficient pattern of stability and mobility can continue to be functional, but it will be diminished in its ability to achieve optimal performance and will be more susceptible to injury.
The human body has an amazing ability to adapt and compensate for limitations in motion by developing alternative patterns of movement. Unfortunately, these alternate patterns can establish themselves as the primary patterns after only two weeks of constant recruitment. This can ultimately place limits on the triathlete's development and optimal performance. Although the ability to perform at a high level might remain, optimal neuromuscular capabilities are hindered, resulting in a greater risk of getting caught in a cycle of constant injuries when trying to advance training.
When limitations of motion appear at any joint in the body, to achieve the total movement desired, the body will require more motion from other joints or segments of the body to perform that motion. As long as those joints or segments are able to control the additional amounts of motion being demanded of it, then no big deal. A lack of control of motion by the local (deeply placed muscles closer or directly attached to joints, where they remain neutral and work most optimally) and global (larger, fast-working superficial muscles for transferring loads and movements) stabilizing muscles often presents itself as an uncoordinated and lopsided motion when those movements are performed slowly, or as an increased perceived exertion in isometric or static low-load holding-type exercises, such as planks, prone, and lateral bridging exercises for the core.
Ideally, stability should always accompany mobility because each one can have a profound effect on the other. A lack of stability can restrict motion by demanding more from the global mobilizing muscles. Joints that lack stability show an increase in activation of the global mobilizing muscles surrounding them. (See table 4.1.) This increase in activation is a reactive protective mechanism to not only produce compression at a joint as an alternative and compensating way of creating stability at that joint, but also as a way to limit motion at that joint. When the global mobilizing muscles of the body remain active, and not completely at rest, their ability to shorten and lengthen completely is diminished, along with other key functions. These limitations restrict the amount of motion and force that are capable of being produced at any joint it crosses over. Stability, however, can be sacrificed to maintain mobility. This is done at the expense of the joint itself as well as its surrounding soft tissue structures (such as ligaments and the joint capsule). When a joint is left unprotected and unable to control excessive motion, overloading, or sudden forces, it creates an environment that can accelerate degeneration and lead to recurring injuries.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_491190_ebook_Main.jpg
Power and force generation are created from the more central parts of the body, such as our trunk, pelvis, hips, and shoulders. The more distal segments of the body are designed for more fine-motor adaptation and sensory output. This sensory output provides vital real-time data to the central nervous system (spinal cord and brain; CNS), allowing it to respond instantly with muscular activation. For example, the CNS permits the feet to make quick adjustments to maintain balance when walking over uneven surfaces and the ability to manipulate buttons and zippers with the hands. When the more proximal segments of the body are not capable of providing the stability needed to generate the amount of force or motion needed, greater demand is placed on the more distal segments to make up for that loss. Thus a myriad of compensatory movement patterns can develop, and it's crucial to have a means or formula to help in identifying the sources of these patterns.
To maximize performance, you must have appropriate load-transfer ability through the pelvis, accompanied by an ability to control stability through the core and proximal joints. You must learn to identify faulty patterns of movement and address them if you want to progress to higher levels of individually based training. By identifying and retraining the functional control of body segments, you can begin to correct movement instability and apply much more precise movements in technique. The local and deep postural stabilizers (closest to the joints) along with secondary (midlevel stabilizers) are the most important to train because they fatigue slowly (slow twitch) and provide stability because of their location and the control of joint postures. The more superficial muscles are fast twitch and build tension rapidly and only provide stability when conditions are extreme, resulting in lack of body control and more uncoordinated movements (often seen in competition when the local stabilizers have fatigued).
Read more from Triathletes in Motion by Marc Evans and Jane Cappaert.
The Deeper Core: Triathlete's Performance Center
Triathlon is a cadenced endurance sport requiring hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of movement repetitions in the extremities and torso. As you train, you experience ongoing stages of movement, adaptation, and skill learning as you progress toward advances in technique and fitness.
Triathlon is a cadenced endurance sport requiring hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of movement repetitions in the extremities and torso. As you train, you experience ongoing stages of movement, adaptation, and skill learning as you progress toward advances in technique and fitness. Constant interplay occurs in the intricate and interrelated processing of movement, including cognitive skills (understanding what needs to be done), motor skills (executing the skills), functional movement (moving in full ranges of motion), and functional and stable performance (maintaining body posture through the core).
Stability of the core is crucial to optimal performance. Movements begin deep inside your core and are transferred to your extremities. Your core controls not only your spine to maintain alignment but also movements relative to your spine. A stable core enhances skill and efficiency and can limit recurring injury by reducing stress caused by movements working against each other.
Your core is your body's stabilization system. Every aspect of motor learning and skill development is enhanced by a stable core, including postural control, functional movement, limb coordination, muscle exertion to produce tension and force, and neuromuscular control.
Performance stability is your body's ability to maintain an even, balanced, and graceful posture during all movements. The best triathletes demonstrate precise and stable movement fully observable by the most untrained eyes. Your muscles must be stable and specifically trained to move efficiently. Functional movements connect to muscular stability and, when optimal, allow muscles to work in accordance with their structure and ability. Stability must be present on both sides of the body to provide a base for equal and balanced movements.
Stability increases your capacity for potential energy and the storage of elastic energy to further optimize movement. For example, while swimming, you load and unload with changing forces during the catch, insweep, and outsweep. In cycling, the pedaling and loading of muscles and corresponding structural stability are necessary when your hip extends during the downstroke. During the run, your muscles play a critical support role during the stance phase, without which stability would be impossible.
For many triathletes, the control and coordination of movements at some point become more accurate, more controlled, and even automatic. Others struggle with developing efficient movement patterns and have difficulty refining, adapting, and putting into practice the movements that are most efficient. In such cases, there's often an underlying instability in which muscles are weak or underactive, preventing normal motion and contributing to inflexibility in muscles and joints, which are very often exposed in competition as fatigue increases. The stronger your deeper-layered core, the more stable and effective technique can be. In this chapter we'll focus on assessing, strengthening, and training your core in ways that work the deepest stabilizers and postural muscles.
The Deeper Core: Triathlete's Performance Center
Think of your core as the epicenter of your body. It is a collection of muscles that support your spine, back, hips, and pelvis. Functional triathletes are especially stable from the deepest muscles of the core - the primary and secondary stabilizers. These deep core muscles are at the axis of motion, attach to the bony segments of the spine and joints, control positioning of and provide stability and are made up of slow-twitch (type 1) muscle fibers for muscular endurance that fatigue slowly. They function at low loads and do not produce much, if any, force or torque for movement in swimming, cycling, or running, yet they play a vital role in controlling the positions of your joints. For the best transfer of load, your joints must be in optimal position for generating the highest amount of efficient energy for movement. Your deep core functions to hold your joints in neutral positions by responding with just the right amount of force during changes to posture caused by outside forces such as foot strikes while running, water pressure while swimming, and pedaling forces while cycling.See table 5.1 for a list of the core stabilizer and mobilizer muscles and table 5.2 for their characteristics.
Every level of triathlete can benefit from assessing functional capacity of the core and learning how to move from within the center points of the body to the outside limbs most effectively. Talented triathletes of all ages tend to demonstrate balanced and symmetrical movements with sureness. These efficient motions are accomplished through years of training and further enhanced by training the deep-layered muscles of the core. But training these deep-core muscles - chiefly, the transversus abdominis, multifidi, and quadratus lumborum - is far different from common high-intensity core exercise training. These muscles are not trained through intense workouts but through controlled deep-layered techniques and body-region-specific exercises.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483678_ebook1_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483679_ebook_Main.jpg
The most efficient athletic movements are those that originate from the center of the body. As a triathlete develops more efficient skills, energy expenditure is minimized as movements consolidate. Early on, however, if limitations in flexibility, mobility, and stability are ignored, movements can remain error prone, sometimes stiff and halting, and there can be an unnecessary and inefficient use of the extremities. Asymmetrical motions can produce compensations not only in functional movements but within the stabilizing muscles of the core.
A fitting expression among physical therapists and movement practitioners is that proximal stability enhances distal mobility. The core (stability center) provides the most effective way to transmit energy to the limbs (from inside to outside). For example, instead of pulling, the capable swimmer will anchor the hand and arm (slowly) and engage and transfer power from the centerline (spine, pelvis, and hips) through the hand and arm holding (sculling) against dense water. An efficient cyclist similarly works from inside to out by maintaining a level pelvis, straight spine, and limited swinging or tilting in the upper body. The triathlete runner above all depends on core stability and posture and position of the upper back and scapulae to provide ample support of the body during the exchange of foot strikes.
Read more from Triathletes in Motion by Marc Evans and Jane Cappaert.
Swimming Posture & the Phases of Freestyle
How we walk, sit, stand, and carry our posture during daily activities affects how we move in our sport. It is especially important to learn how to move from the inside to outside of the body.
How we walk, sit, stand, and carry our posture during daily activities affects how we move in our sport. It is especially important to learn how to move from the inside to outside of the body. Primarily, this means presenting a posture that permits the most efficient use of the muscles of the hips, legs, and torso (the core). Learning to engage these muscles during flexion, extension, and rotation is central to performing better movements in all sports and begins with proper posture.
Standing with anatomically correct posture begins the process for establishing and enhancing all body lines in swimming. Learning to take this position into the water and maintaining the centerlines of movement will take you further toward improved swimming than just about any technique. In assessing flexibility, mobility, and stability, movement tendencies become evident - you can tell to what extent you use your core muscles in your basic movements. For coaches, assessment can provide teaching moments in which to educate your triathletes how to be more aware of using the core muscles. Practicing functional movements teaches the body to use core muscles deep inside the body to affect movement of the limbs and achieve more efficient technique.
The muscles in the hip region are frequently unstable in triathletes. Notably, the gluteus medius (a muscle that prevents tilting or sagging of the pelvis) is an important pelvic primary stabilizer. When the gluteus medius is weak, other muscles or movements must compensate for the weakness in everyday activities, such as standing up from a chair. This compensation results in less efficient, less functional movements. Over time, the muscular, nervous, and skeletal systems become affected by these repeated less functional movements and sustained faulty postures.
Swimmers who move functionally on land transfer their skills remarkably well into the water, improving in symmetry of swimming motions and performance and reducing the risk of overuse injury. Balanced and symmetrical swimming movement begins in the proximal muscles at the body's core (below the chest to above the knees), which support the outward, or distal, muscles near the head, arms, hands, legs, and feet. An excellent technique to engage the deep core muscles is to draw in when exhaling to activate these muscles and help stabilize the pelvis, which result in better streamlining and better movements.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483767_ebook_Main.jpg
Proximal and distal - swimming from inside to out.
Thus optimal posture on land transfers directly to swimming and eases motor learning in the water. By learning to control your body during flexion (sitting) and extension (standing) through the use of your core muscles, you begin the process of establishing more functional movements. Movements controlled by active engagement and stability from the proximal muscles affect the functionality of the distal muscles during swimming (figure 6.4).
Phases of the Freestyle Swimming Stroke
There are variations in mechanics unique to each individual, but the phases of the freestyle stroke can always be recognized. In this section we progress through these phases, presenting principles for you to build on. First we'll explain the phases and primary terms related to the freestyle swimming stroke. Then we'll describe how to develop better movement through lower-intensity training that enhances motor learning by breaking down complex movements into what we call body lines.
Front Quadrant
The front quadrant is defined as the front half of the freestyle stroke underwater (figure 6.5).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483768_ebook_Main.jpg
Front quadrant.
In front-quadrant swimming, at least one hand is in the front quadrant during the entire stroke cycle. This requires a shift in stroke timing. Traditional teaching dictates finishing hard with one arm past the hips and entering the water with the other arm. In front-quadrant swimming, the right arm's entry into the water occurs during the insweep phase of the left arm (along with an exit at midtorso). When done correctly, there should be no gliding - that is, no point at which propulsion is not being applied.
One advantage of front-quadrant swimming is that it keeps the body long, with one arm always out in front or above the head. Having one arm above the head raises the body's center of mass and helps reduce torque from the buoyancy force that causes the legs to sink. Also, as is well known in ship building, a longer hull is more streamlined than a shorter hull. In front-quadrant swimming, you lengthen the hull of your body. Another advantage of front-quadrant swimming is that it changes the timing of your breathing. In traditional stroke timing, as one hand enters the water and stretches out in front, the other arm is finishing the stroke. This has been taught as the best opportunity to breathe, using momentum of the finishing arm to help rotate hips out of the water. Unfortunately, this timing of the breath leaves the hips vulnerable to sinking as the head turns and lifts to breathe (figure 6.6).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483769_ebook_Main.jpg
Posture is affected when the head is lifted or extended when breathing.
Using front-quadrant swimming forces the breath to begin earlier in the stroke, when one arm is more underneath the body (figure 6.7; breathing occurs between the two images). The position of the arm in the water out in front serves as an anchor, creating forces that support the hips and keep them from sinking.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483770_ebook_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483771_ebook_Main.jpg
Breathe early when the front arm is beginning the catch posture.
Read more from Triathletes in Motion by Marc Evans and Jane Cappaert.
Training Better Movement Patterns
As a triathlete, the reason you need to assess your functional movement (flexibility, joint mobility, and stability) is to improve performance as a result of achieving better technique, because you can move better and reduce recurring injuries caused by misaligned or compensating movements.
As a triathlete, the reason you need to assess your functional movement (flexibility, joint mobility, and stability) is to improve performance as a result of achieving better technique, because you can move better and reduce recurring injuries caused by misaligned or compensating movements. Unique to this book are assessments along with progressive and self-correcting exercises that help you come closer to perfecting your technique. Once you can repeatedly execute a movement with accuracy, you simply move on to the next assessment and subsequent exercise.
Progressing from the basic assessments and exercise recommendations presented in chapters 1 and 3, we move in this chapter to deeper, more innovative levels of movement assessment. These pass-or-fail tests are like exercises that progress through stages with ACES and are exceptional training for triathletes at any level, from beginner to Olympian.
Training Better Movement Patterns
In this chapter we provide steps for you to assess compensatory movement patterns. From earlier chapters, you'll recall that you should precede any change in technique with movement assessment to identify any weaknesses or limitations.
Triathletes often attempt to apply technique that gets in the way of best possible performance, and if they persist with such training, chronic injuries from overuse can result from overloading muscles and damaging soft tissue structure. A body in motion outside of its primary and most efficient pattern of stability and mobility can continue to be functional, but it will be diminished in its ability to achieve optimal performance and will be more susceptible to injury.
The human body has an amazing ability to adapt and compensate for limitations in motion by developing alternative patterns of movement. Unfortunately, these alternate patterns can establish themselves as the primary patterns after only two weeks of constant recruitment. This can ultimately place limits on the triathlete's development and optimal performance. Although the ability to perform at a high level might remain, optimal neuromuscular capabilities are hindered, resulting in a greater risk of getting caught in a cycle of constant injuries when trying to advance training.
When limitations of motion appear at any joint in the body, to achieve the total movement desired, the body will require more motion from other joints or segments of the body to perform that motion. As long as those joints or segments are able to control the additional amounts of motion being demanded of it, then no big deal. A lack of control of motion by the local (deeply placed muscles closer or directly attached to joints, where they remain neutral and work most optimally) and global (larger, fast-working superficial muscles for transferring loads and movements) stabilizing muscles often presents itself as an uncoordinated and lopsided motion when those movements are performed slowly, or as an increased perceived exertion in isometric or static low-load holding-type exercises, such as planks, prone, and lateral bridging exercises for the core.
Ideally, stability should always accompany mobility because each one can have a profound effect on the other. A lack of stability can restrict motion by demanding more from the global mobilizing muscles. Joints that lack stability show an increase in activation of the global mobilizing muscles surrounding them. (See table 4.1.) This increase in activation is a reactive protective mechanism to not only produce compression at a joint as an alternative and compensating way of creating stability at that joint, but also as a way to limit motion at that joint. When the global mobilizing muscles of the body remain active, and not completely at rest, their ability to shorten and lengthen completely is diminished, along with other key functions. These limitations restrict the amount of motion and force that are capable of being produced at any joint it crosses over. Stability, however, can be sacrificed to maintain mobility. This is done at the expense of the joint itself as well as its surrounding soft tissue structures (such as ligaments and the joint capsule). When a joint is left unprotected and unable to control excessive motion, overloading, or sudden forces, it creates an environment that can accelerate degeneration and lead to recurring injuries.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_491190_ebook_Main.jpg
Power and force generation are created from the more central parts of the body, such as our trunk, pelvis, hips, and shoulders. The more distal segments of the body are designed for more fine-motor adaptation and sensory output. This sensory output provides vital real-time data to the central nervous system (spinal cord and brain; CNS), allowing it to respond instantly with muscular activation. For example, the CNS permits the feet to make quick adjustments to maintain balance when walking over uneven surfaces and the ability to manipulate buttons and zippers with the hands. When the more proximal segments of the body are not capable of providing the stability needed to generate the amount of force or motion needed, greater demand is placed on the more distal segments to make up for that loss. Thus a myriad of compensatory movement patterns can develop, and it's crucial to have a means or formula to help in identifying the sources of these patterns.
To maximize performance, you must have appropriate load-transfer ability through the pelvis, accompanied by an ability to control stability through the core and proximal joints. You must learn to identify faulty patterns of movement and address them if you want to progress to higher levels of individually based training. By identifying and retraining the functional control of body segments, you can begin to correct movement instability and apply much more precise movements in technique. The local and deep postural stabilizers (closest to the joints) along with secondary (midlevel stabilizers) are the most important to train because they fatigue slowly (slow twitch) and provide stability because of their location and the control of joint postures. The more superficial muscles are fast twitch and build tension rapidly and only provide stability when conditions are extreme, resulting in lack of body control and more uncoordinated movements (often seen in competition when the local stabilizers have fatigued).
Read more from Triathletes in Motion by Marc Evans and Jane Cappaert.
The Deeper Core: Triathlete's Performance Center
Triathlon is a cadenced endurance sport requiring hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of movement repetitions in the extremities and torso. As you train, you experience ongoing stages of movement, adaptation, and skill learning as you progress toward advances in technique and fitness.
Triathlon is a cadenced endurance sport requiring hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of movement repetitions in the extremities and torso. As you train, you experience ongoing stages of movement, adaptation, and skill learning as you progress toward advances in technique and fitness. Constant interplay occurs in the intricate and interrelated processing of movement, including cognitive skills (understanding what needs to be done), motor skills (executing the skills), functional movement (moving in full ranges of motion), and functional and stable performance (maintaining body posture through the core).
Stability of the core is crucial to optimal performance. Movements begin deep inside your core and are transferred to your extremities. Your core controls not only your spine to maintain alignment but also movements relative to your spine. A stable core enhances skill and efficiency and can limit recurring injury by reducing stress caused by movements working against each other.
Your core is your body's stabilization system. Every aspect of motor learning and skill development is enhanced by a stable core, including postural control, functional movement, limb coordination, muscle exertion to produce tension and force, and neuromuscular control.
Performance stability is your body's ability to maintain an even, balanced, and graceful posture during all movements. The best triathletes demonstrate precise and stable movement fully observable by the most untrained eyes. Your muscles must be stable and specifically trained to move efficiently. Functional movements connect to muscular stability and, when optimal, allow muscles to work in accordance with their structure and ability. Stability must be present on both sides of the body to provide a base for equal and balanced movements.
Stability increases your capacity for potential energy and the storage of elastic energy to further optimize movement. For example, while swimming, you load and unload with changing forces during the catch, insweep, and outsweep. In cycling, the pedaling and loading of muscles and corresponding structural stability are necessary when your hip extends during the downstroke. During the run, your muscles play a critical support role during the stance phase, without which stability would be impossible.
For many triathletes, the control and coordination of movements at some point become more accurate, more controlled, and even automatic. Others struggle with developing efficient movement patterns and have difficulty refining, adapting, and putting into practice the movements that are most efficient. In such cases, there's often an underlying instability in which muscles are weak or underactive, preventing normal motion and contributing to inflexibility in muscles and joints, which are very often exposed in competition as fatigue increases. The stronger your deeper-layered core, the more stable and effective technique can be. In this chapter we'll focus on assessing, strengthening, and training your core in ways that work the deepest stabilizers and postural muscles.
The Deeper Core: Triathlete's Performance Center
Think of your core as the epicenter of your body. It is a collection of muscles that support your spine, back, hips, and pelvis. Functional triathletes are especially stable from the deepest muscles of the core - the primary and secondary stabilizers. These deep core muscles are at the axis of motion, attach to the bony segments of the spine and joints, control positioning of and provide stability and are made up of slow-twitch (type 1) muscle fibers for muscular endurance that fatigue slowly. They function at low loads and do not produce much, if any, force or torque for movement in swimming, cycling, or running, yet they play a vital role in controlling the positions of your joints. For the best transfer of load, your joints must be in optimal position for generating the highest amount of efficient energy for movement. Your deep core functions to hold your joints in neutral positions by responding with just the right amount of force during changes to posture caused by outside forces such as foot strikes while running, water pressure while swimming, and pedaling forces while cycling.See table 5.1 for a list of the core stabilizer and mobilizer muscles and table 5.2 for their characteristics.
Every level of triathlete can benefit from assessing functional capacity of the core and learning how to move from within the center points of the body to the outside limbs most effectively. Talented triathletes of all ages tend to demonstrate balanced and symmetrical movements with sureness. These efficient motions are accomplished through years of training and further enhanced by training the deep-layered muscles of the core. But training these deep-core muscles - chiefly, the transversus abdominis, multifidi, and quadratus lumborum - is far different from common high-intensity core exercise training. These muscles are not trained through intense workouts but through controlled deep-layered techniques and body-region-specific exercises.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483678_ebook1_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483679_ebook_Main.jpg
The most efficient athletic movements are those that originate from the center of the body. As a triathlete develops more efficient skills, energy expenditure is minimized as movements consolidate. Early on, however, if limitations in flexibility, mobility, and stability are ignored, movements can remain error prone, sometimes stiff and halting, and there can be an unnecessary and inefficient use of the extremities. Asymmetrical motions can produce compensations not only in functional movements but within the stabilizing muscles of the core.
A fitting expression among physical therapists and movement practitioners is that proximal stability enhances distal mobility. The core (stability center) provides the most effective way to transmit energy to the limbs (from inside to outside). For example, instead of pulling, the capable swimmer will anchor the hand and arm (slowly) and engage and transfer power from the centerline (spine, pelvis, and hips) through the hand and arm holding (sculling) against dense water. An efficient cyclist similarly works from inside to out by maintaining a level pelvis, straight spine, and limited swinging or tilting in the upper body. The triathlete runner above all depends on core stability and posture and position of the upper back and scapulae to provide ample support of the body during the exchange of foot strikes.
Read more from Triathletes in Motion by Marc Evans and Jane Cappaert.
Swimming Posture & the Phases of Freestyle
How we walk, sit, stand, and carry our posture during daily activities affects how we move in our sport. It is especially important to learn how to move from the inside to outside of the body.
How we walk, sit, stand, and carry our posture during daily activities affects how we move in our sport. It is especially important to learn how to move from the inside to outside of the body. Primarily, this means presenting a posture that permits the most efficient use of the muscles of the hips, legs, and torso (the core). Learning to engage these muscles during flexion, extension, and rotation is central to performing better movements in all sports and begins with proper posture.
Standing with anatomically correct posture begins the process for establishing and enhancing all body lines in swimming. Learning to take this position into the water and maintaining the centerlines of movement will take you further toward improved swimming than just about any technique. In assessing flexibility, mobility, and stability, movement tendencies become evident - you can tell to what extent you use your core muscles in your basic movements. For coaches, assessment can provide teaching moments in which to educate your triathletes how to be more aware of using the core muscles. Practicing functional movements teaches the body to use core muscles deep inside the body to affect movement of the limbs and achieve more efficient technique.
The muscles in the hip region are frequently unstable in triathletes. Notably, the gluteus medius (a muscle that prevents tilting or sagging of the pelvis) is an important pelvic primary stabilizer. When the gluteus medius is weak, other muscles or movements must compensate for the weakness in everyday activities, such as standing up from a chair. This compensation results in less efficient, less functional movements. Over time, the muscular, nervous, and skeletal systems become affected by these repeated less functional movements and sustained faulty postures.
Swimmers who move functionally on land transfer their skills remarkably well into the water, improving in symmetry of swimming motions and performance and reducing the risk of overuse injury. Balanced and symmetrical swimming movement begins in the proximal muscles at the body's core (below the chest to above the knees), which support the outward, or distal, muscles near the head, arms, hands, legs, and feet. An excellent technique to engage the deep core muscles is to draw in when exhaling to activate these muscles and help stabilize the pelvis, which result in better streamlining and better movements.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483767_ebook_Main.jpg
Proximal and distal - swimming from inside to out.
Thus optimal posture on land transfers directly to swimming and eases motor learning in the water. By learning to control your body during flexion (sitting) and extension (standing) through the use of your core muscles, you begin the process of establishing more functional movements. Movements controlled by active engagement and stability from the proximal muscles affect the functionality of the distal muscles during swimming (figure 6.4).
Phases of the Freestyle Swimming Stroke
There are variations in mechanics unique to each individual, but the phases of the freestyle stroke can always be recognized. In this section we progress through these phases, presenting principles for you to build on. First we'll explain the phases and primary terms related to the freestyle swimming stroke. Then we'll describe how to develop better movement through lower-intensity training that enhances motor learning by breaking down complex movements into what we call body lines.
Front Quadrant
The front quadrant is defined as the front half of the freestyle stroke underwater (figure 6.5).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483768_ebook_Main.jpg
Front quadrant.
In front-quadrant swimming, at least one hand is in the front quadrant during the entire stroke cycle. This requires a shift in stroke timing. Traditional teaching dictates finishing hard with one arm past the hips and entering the water with the other arm. In front-quadrant swimming, the right arm's entry into the water occurs during the insweep phase of the left arm (along with an exit at midtorso). When done correctly, there should be no gliding - that is, no point at which propulsion is not being applied.
One advantage of front-quadrant swimming is that it keeps the body long, with one arm always out in front or above the head. Having one arm above the head raises the body's center of mass and helps reduce torque from the buoyancy force that causes the legs to sink. Also, as is well known in ship building, a longer hull is more streamlined than a shorter hull. In front-quadrant swimming, you lengthen the hull of your body. Another advantage of front-quadrant swimming is that it changes the timing of your breathing. In traditional stroke timing, as one hand enters the water and stretches out in front, the other arm is finishing the stroke. This has been taught as the best opportunity to breathe, using momentum of the finishing arm to help rotate hips out of the water. Unfortunately, this timing of the breath leaves the hips vulnerable to sinking as the head turns and lifts to breathe (figure 6.6).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483769_ebook_Main.jpg
Posture is affected when the head is lifted or extended when breathing.
Using front-quadrant swimming forces the breath to begin earlier in the stroke, when one arm is more underneath the body (figure 6.7; breathing occurs between the two images). The position of the arm in the water out in front serves as an anchor, creating forces that support the hips and keep them from sinking.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483770_ebook_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483771_ebook_Main.jpg
Breathe early when the front arm is beginning the catch posture.
Read more from Triathletes in Motion by Marc Evans and Jane Cappaert.
Training Better Movement Patterns
As a triathlete, the reason you need to assess your functional movement (flexibility, joint mobility, and stability) is to improve performance as a result of achieving better technique, because you can move better and reduce recurring injuries caused by misaligned or compensating movements.
As a triathlete, the reason you need to assess your functional movement (flexibility, joint mobility, and stability) is to improve performance as a result of achieving better technique, because you can move better and reduce recurring injuries caused by misaligned or compensating movements. Unique to this book are assessments along with progressive and self-correcting exercises that help you come closer to perfecting your technique. Once you can repeatedly execute a movement with accuracy, you simply move on to the next assessment and subsequent exercise.
Progressing from the basic assessments and exercise recommendations presented in chapters 1 and 3, we move in this chapter to deeper, more innovative levels of movement assessment. These pass-or-fail tests are like exercises that progress through stages with ACES and are exceptional training for triathletes at any level, from beginner to Olympian.
Training Better Movement Patterns
In this chapter we provide steps for you to assess compensatory movement patterns. From earlier chapters, you'll recall that you should precede any change in technique with movement assessment to identify any weaknesses or limitations.
Triathletes often attempt to apply technique that gets in the way of best possible performance, and if they persist with such training, chronic injuries from overuse can result from overloading muscles and damaging soft tissue structure. A body in motion outside of its primary and most efficient pattern of stability and mobility can continue to be functional, but it will be diminished in its ability to achieve optimal performance and will be more susceptible to injury.
The human body has an amazing ability to adapt and compensate for limitations in motion by developing alternative patterns of movement. Unfortunately, these alternate patterns can establish themselves as the primary patterns after only two weeks of constant recruitment. This can ultimately place limits on the triathlete's development and optimal performance. Although the ability to perform at a high level might remain, optimal neuromuscular capabilities are hindered, resulting in a greater risk of getting caught in a cycle of constant injuries when trying to advance training.
When limitations of motion appear at any joint in the body, to achieve the total movement desired, the body will require more motion from other joints or segments of the body to perform that motion. As long as those joints or segments are able to control the additional amounts of motion being demanded of it, then no big deal. A lack of control of motion by the local (deeply placed muscles closer or directly attached to joints, where they remain neutral and work most optimally) and global (larger, fast-working superficial muscles for transferring loads and movements) stabilizing muscles often presents itself as an uncoordinated and lopsided motion when those movements are performed slowly, or as an increased perceived exertion in isometric or static low-load holding-type exercises, such as planks, prone, and lateral bridging exercises for the core.
Ideally, stability should always accompany mobility because each one can have a profound effect on the other. A lack of stability can restrict motion by demanding more from the global mobilizing muscles. Joints that lack stability show an increase in activation of the global mobilizing muscles surrounding them. (See table 4.1.) This increase in activation is a reactive protective mechanism to not only produce compression at a joint as an alternative and compensating way of creating stability at that joint, but also as a way to limit motion at that joint. When the global mobilizing muscles of the body remain active, and not completely at rest, their ability to shorten and lengthen completely is diminished, along with other key functions. These limitations restrict the amount of motion and force that are capable of being produced at any joint it crosses over. Stability, however, can be sacrificed to maintain mobility. This is done at the expense of the joint itself as well as its surrounding soft tissue structures (such as ligaments and the joint capsule). When a joint is left unprotected and unable to control excessive motion, overloading, or sudden forces, it creates an environment that can accelerate degeneration and lead to recurring injuries.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_491190_ebook_Main.jpg
Power and force generation are created from the more central parts of the body, such as our trunk, pelvis, hips, and shoulders. The more distal segments of the body are designed for more fine-motor adaptation and sensory output. This sensory output provides vital real-time data to the central nervous system (spinal cord and brain; CNS), allowing it to respond instantly with muscular activation. For example, the CNS permits the feet to make quick adjustments to maintain balance when walking over uneven surfaces and the ability to manipulate buttons and zippers with the hands. When the more proximal segments of the body are not capable of providing the stability needed to generate the amount of force or motion needed, greater demand is placed on the more distal segments to make up for that loss. Thus a myriad of compensatory movement patterns can develop, and it's crucial to have a means or formula to help in identifying the sources of these patterns.
To maximize performance, you must have appropriate load-transfer ability through the pelvis, accompanied by an ability to control stability through the core and proximal joints. You must learn to identify faulty patterns of movement and address them if you want to progress to higher levels of individually based training. By identifying and retraining the functional control of body segments, you can begin to correct movement instability and apply much more precise movements in technique. The local and deep postural stabilizers (closest to the joints) along with secondary (midlevel stabilizers) are the most important to train because they fatigue slowly (slow twitch) and provide stability because of their location and the control of joint postures. The more superficial muscles are fast twitch and build tension rapidly and only provide stability when conditions are extreme, resulting in lack of body control and more uncoordinated movements (often seen in competition when the local stabilizers have fatigued).
Read more from Triathletes in Motion by Marc Evans and Jane Cappaert.
The Deeper Core: Triathlete's Performance Center
Triathlon is a cadenced endurance sport requiring hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of movement repetitions in the extremities and torso. As you train, you experience ongoing stages of movement, adaptation, and skill learning as you progress toward advances in technique and fitness.
Triathlon is a cadenced endurance sport requiring hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of movement repetitions in the extremities and torso. As you train, you experience ongoing stages of movement, adaptation, and skill learning as you progress toward advances in technique and fitness. Constant interplay occurs in the intricate and interrelated processing of movement, including cognitive skills (understanding what needs to be done), motor skills (executing the skills), functional movement (moving in full ranges of motion), and functional and stable performance (maintaining body posture through the core).
Stability of the core is crucial to optimal performance. Movements begin deep inside your core and are transferred to your extremities. Your core controls not only your spine to maintain alignment but also movements relative to your spine. A stable core enhances skill and efficiency and can limit recurring injury by reducing stress caused by movements working against each other.
Your core is your body's stabilization system. Every aspect of motor learning and skill development is enhanced by a stable core, including postural control, functional movement, limb coordination, muscle exertion to produce tension and force, and neuromuscular control.
Performance stability is your body's ability to maintain an even, balanced, and graceful posture during all movements. The best triathletes demonstrate precise and stable movement fully observable by the most untrained eyes. Your muscles must be stable and specifically trained to move efficiently. Functional movements connect to muscular stability and, when optimal, allow muscles to work in accordance with their structure and ability. Stability must be present on both sides of the body to provide a base for equal and balanced movements.
Stability increases your capacity for potential energy and the storage of elastic energy to further optimize movement. For example, while swimming, you load and unload with changing forces during the catch, insweep, and outsweep. In cycling, the pedaling and loading of muscles and corresponding structural stability are necessary when your hip extends during the downstroke. During the run, your muscles play a critical support role during the stance phase, without which stability would be impossible.
For many triathletes, the control and coordination of movements at some point become more accurate, more controlled, and even automatic. Others struggle with developing efficient movement patterns and have difficulty refining, adapting, and putting into practice the movements that are most efficient. In such cases, there's often an underlying instability in which muscles are weak or underactive, preventing normal motion and contributing to inflexibility in muscles and joints, which are very often exposed in competition as fatigue increases. The stronger your deeper-layered core, the more stable and effective technique can be. In this chapter we'll focus on assessing, strengthening, and training your core in ways that work the deepest stabilizers and postural muscles.
The Deeper Core: Triathlete's Performance Center
Think of your core as the epicenter of your body. It is a collection of muscles that support your spine, back, hips, and pelvis. Functional triathletes are especially stable from the deepest muscles of the core - the primary and secondary stabilizers. These deep core muscles are at the axis of motion, attach to the bony segments of the spine and joints, control positioning of and provide stability and are made up of slow-twitch (type 1) muscle fibers for muscular endurance that fatigue slowly. They function at low loads and do not produce much, if any, force or torque for movement in swimming, cycling, or running, yet they play a vital role in controlling the positions of your joints. For the best transfer of load, your joints must be in optimal position for generating the highest amount of efficient energy for movement. Your deep core functions to hold your joints in neutral positions by responding with just the right amount of force during changes to posture caused by outside forces such as foot strikes while running, water pressure while swimming, and pedaling forces while cycling.See table 5.1 for a list of the core stabilizer and mobilizer muscles and table 5.2 for their characteristics.
Every level of triathlete can benefit from assessing functional capacity of the core and learning how to move from within the center points of the body to the outside limbs most effectively. Talented triathletes of all ages tend to demonstrate balanced and symmetrical movements with sureness. These efficient motions are accomplished through years of training and further enhanced by training the deep-layered muscles of the core. But training these deep-core muscles - chiefly, the transversus abdominis, multifidi, and quadratus lumborum - is far different from common high-intensity core exercise training. These muscles are not trained through intense workouts but through controlled deep-layered techniques and body-region-specific exercises.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483678_ebook1_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483679_ebook_Main.jpg
The most efficient athletic movements are those that originate from the center of the body. As a triathlete develops more efficient skills, energy expenditure is minimized as movements consolidate. Early on, however, if limitations in flexibility, mobility, and stability are ignored, movements can remain error prone, sometimes stiff and halting, and there can be an unnecessary and inefficient use of the extremities. Asymmetrical motions can produce compensations not only in functional movements but within the stabilizing muscles of the core.
A fitting expression among physical therapists and movement practitioners is that proximal stability enhances distal mobility. The core (stability center) provides the most effective way to transmit energy to the limbs (from inside to outside). For example, instead of pulling, the capable swimmer will anchor the hand and arm (slowly) and engage and transfer power from the centerline (spine, pelvis, and hips) through the hand and arm holding (sculling) against dense water. An efficient cyclist similarly works from inside to out by maintaining a level pelvis, straight spine, and limited swinging or tilting in the upper body. The triathlete runner above all depends on core stability and posture and position of the upper back and scapulae to provide ample support of the body during the exchange of foot strikes.
Read more from Triathletes in Motion by Marc Evans and Jane Cappaert.
Swimming Posture & the Phases of Freestyle
How we walk, sit, stand, and carry our posture during daily activities affects how we move in our sport. It is especially important to learn how to move from the inside to outside of the body.
How we walk, sit, stand, and carry our posture during daily activities affects how we move in our sport. It is especially important to learn how to move from the inside to outside of the body. Primarily, this means presenting a posture that permits the most efficient use of the muscles of the hips, legs, and torso (the core). Learning to engage these muscles during flexion, extension, and rotation is central to performing better movements in all sports and begins with proper posture.
Standing with anatomically correct posture begins the process for establishing and enhancing all body lines in swimming. Learning to take this position into the water and maintaining the centerlines of movement will take you further toward improved swimming than just about any technique. In assessing flexibility, mobility, and stability, movement tendencies become evident - you can tell to what extent you use your core muscles in your basic movements. For coaches, assessment can provide teaching moments in which to educate your triathletes how to be more aware of using the core muscles. Practicing functional movements teaches the body to use core muscles deep inside the body to affect movement of the limbs and achieve more efficient technique.
The muscles in the hip region are frequently unstable in triathletes. Notably, the gluteus medius (a muscle that prevents tilting or sagging of the pelvis) is an important pelvic primary stabilizer. When the gluteus medius is weak, other muscles or movements must compensate for the weakness in everyday activities, such as standing up from a chair. This compensation results in less efficient, less functional movements. Over time, the muscular, nervous, and skeletal systems become affected by these repeated less functional movements and sustained faulty postures.
Swimmers who move functionally on land transfer their skills remarkably well into the water, improving in symmetry of swimming motions and performance and reducing the risk of overuse injury. Balanced and symmetrical swimming movement begins in the proximal muscles at the body's core (below the chest to above the knees), which support the outward, or distal, muscles near the head, arms, hands, legs, and feet. An excellent technique to engage the deep core muscles is to draw in when exhaling to activate these muscles and help stabilize the pelvis, which result in better streamlining and better movements.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483767_ebook_Main.jpg
Proximal and distal - swimming from inside to out.
Thus optimal posture on land transfers directly to swimming and eases motor learning in the water. By learning to control your body during flexion (sitting) and extension (standing) through the use of your core muscles, you begin the process of establishing more functional movements. Movements controlled by active engagement and stability from the proximal muscles affect the functionality of the distal muscles during swimming (figure 6.4).
Phases of the Freestyle Swimming Stroke
There are variations in mechanics unique to each individual, but the phases of the freestyle stroke can always be recognized. In this section we progress through these phases, presenting principles for you to build on. First we'll explain the phases and primary terms related to the freestyle swimming stroke. Then we'll describe how to develop better movement through lower-intensity training that enhances motor learning by breaking down complex movements into what we call body lines.
Front Quadrant
The front quadrant is defined as the front half of the freestyle stroke underwater (figure 6.5).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483768_ebook_Main.jpg
Front quadrant.
In front-quadrant swimming, at least one hand is in the front quadrant during the entire stroke cycle. This requires a shift in stroke timing. Traditional teaching dictates finishing hard with one arm past the hips and entering the water with the other arm. In front-quadrant swimming, the right arm's entry into the water occurs during the insweep phase of the left arm (along with an exit at midtorso). When done correctly, there should be no gliding - that is, no point at which propulsion is not being applied.
One advantage of front-quadrant swimming is that it keeps the body long, with one arm always out in front or above the head. Having one arm above the head raises the body's center of mass and helps reduce torque from the buoyancy force that causes the legs to sink. Also, as is well known in ship building, a longer hull is more streamlined than a shorter hull. In front-quadrant swimming, you lengthen the hull of your body. Another advantage of front-quadrant swimming is that it changes the timing of your breathing. In traditional stroke timing, as one hand enters the water and stretches out in front, the other arm is finishing the stroke. This has been taught as the best opportunity to breathe, using momentum of the finishing arm to help rotate hips out of the water. Unfortunately, this timing of the breath leaves the hips vulnerable to sinking as the head turns and lifts to breathe (figure 6.6).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483769_ebook_Main.jpg
Posture is affected when the head is lifted or extended when breathing.
Using front-quadrant swimming forces the breath to begin earlier in the stroke, when one arm is more underneath the body (figure 6.7; breathing occurs between the two images). The position of the arm in the water out in front serves as an anchor, creating forces that support the hips and keep them from sinking.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483770_ebook_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483771_ebook_Main.jpg
Breathe early when the front arm is beginning the catch posture.
Read more from Triathletes in Motion by Marc Evans and Jane Cappaert.
Training Better Movement Patterns
As a triathlete, the reason you need to assess your functional movement (flexibility, joint mobility, and stability) is to improve performance as a result of achieving better technique, because you can move better and reduce recurring injuries caused by misaligned or compensating movements.
As a triathlete, the reason you need to assess your functional movement (flexibility, joint mobility, and stability) is to improve performance as a result of achieving better technique, because you can move better and reduce recurring injuries caused by misaligned or compensating movements. Unique to this book are assessments along with progressive and self-correcting exercises that help you come closer to perfecting your technique. Once you can repeatedly execute a movement with accuracy, you simply move on to the next assessment and subsequent exercise.
Progressing from the basic assessments and exercise recommendations presented in chapters 1 and 3, we move in this chapter to deeper, more innovative levels of movement assessment. These pass-or-fail tests are like exercises that progress through stages with ACES and are exceptional training for triathletes at any level, from beginner to Olympian.
Training Better Movement Patterns
In this chapter we provide steps for you to assess compensatory movement patterns. From earlier chapters, you'll recall that you should precede any change in technique with movement assessment to identify any weaknesses or limitations.
Triathletes often attempt to apply technique that gets in the way of best possible performance, and if they persist with such training, chronic injuries from overuse can result from overloading muscles and damaging soft tissue structure. A body in motion outside of its primary and most efficient pattern of stability and mobility can continue to be functional, but it will be diminished in its ability to achieve optimal performance and will be more susceptible to injury.
The human body has an amazing ability to adapt and compensate for limitations in motion by developing alternative patterns of movement. Unfortunately, these alternate patterns can establish themselves as the primary patterns after only two weeks of constant recruitment. This can ultimately place limits on the triathlete's development and optimal performance. Although the ability to perform at a high level might remain, optimal neuromuscular capabilities are hindered, resulting in a greater risk of getting caught in a cycle of constant injuries when trying to advance training.
When limitations of motion appear at any joint in the body, to achieve the total movement desired, the body will require more motion from other joints or segments of the body to perform that motion. As long as those joints or segments are able to control the additional amounts of motion being demanded of it, then no big deal. A lack of control of motion by the local (deeply placed muscles closer or directly attached to joints, where they remain neutral and work most optimally) and global (larger, fast-working superficial muscles for transferring loads and movements) stabilizing muscles often presents itself as an uncoordinated and lopsided motion when those movements are performed slowly, or as an increased perceived exertion in isometric or static low-load holding-type exercises, such as planks, prone, and lateral bridging exercises for the core.
Ideally, stability should always accompany mobility because each one can have a profound effect on the other. A lack of stability can restrict motion by demanding more from the global mobilizing muscles. Joints that lack stability show an increase in activation of the global mobilizing muscles surrounding them. (See table 4.1.) This increase in activation is a reactive protective mechanism to not only produce compression at a joint as an alternative and compensating way of creating stability at that joint, but also as a way to limit motion at that joint. When the global mobilizing muscles of the body remain active, and not completely at rest, their ability to shorten and lengthen completely is diminished, along with other key functions. These limitations restrict the amount of motion and force that are capable of being produced at any joint it crosses over. Stability, however, can be sacrificed to maintain mobility. This is done at the expense of the joint itself as well as its surrounding soft tissue structures (such as ligaments and the joint capsule). When a joint is left unprotected and unable to control excessive motion, overloading, or sudden forces, it creates an environment that can accelerate degeneration and lead to recurring injuries.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_491190_ebook_Main.jpg
Power and force generation are created from the more central parts of the body, such as our trunk, pelvis, hips, and shoulders. The more distal segments of the body are designed for more fine-motor adaptation and sensory output. This sensory output provides vital real-time data to the central nervous system (spinal cord and brain; CNS), allowing it to respond instantly with muscular activation. For example, the CNS permits the feet to make quick adjustments to maintain balance when walking over uneven surfaces and the ability to manipulate buttons and zippers with the hands. When the more proximal segments of the body are not capable of providing the stability needed to generate the amount of force or motion needed, greater demand is placed on the more distal segments to make up for that loss. Thus a myriad of compensatory movement patterns can develop, and it's crucial to have a means or formula to help in identifying the sources of these patterns.
To maximize performance, you must have appropriate load-transfer ability through the pelvis, accompanied by an ability to control stability through the core and proximal joints. You must learn to identify faulty patterns of movement and address them if you want to progress to higher levels of individually based training. By identifying and retraining the functional control of body segments, you can begin to correct movement instability and apply much more precise movements in technique. The local and deep postural stabilizers (closest to the joints) along with secondary (midlevel stabilizers) are the most important to train because they fatigue slowly (slow twitch) and provide stability because of their location and the control of joint postures. The more superficial muscles are fast twitch and build tension rapidly and only provide stability when conditions are extreme, resulting in lack of body control and more uncoordinated movements (often seen in competition when the local stabilizers have fatigued).
Read more from Triathletes in Motion by Marc Evans and Jane Cappaert.
The Deeper Core: Triathlete's Performance Center
Triathlon is a cadenced endurance sport requiring hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of movement repetitions in the extremities and torso. As you train, you experience ongoing stages of movement, adaptation, and skill learning as you progress toward advances in technique and fitness.
Triathlon is a cadenced endurance sport requiring hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of movement repetitions in the extremities and torso. As you train, you experience ongoing stages of movement, adaptation, and skill learning as you progress toward advances in technique and fitness. Constant interplay occurs in the intricate and interrelated processing of movement, including cognitive skills (understanding what needs to be done), motor skills (executing the skills), functional movement (moving in full ranges of motion), and functional and stable performance (maintaining body posture through the core).
Stability of the core is crucial to optimal performance. Movements begin deep inside your core and are transferred to your extremities. Your core controls not only your spine to maintain alignment but also movements relative to your spine. A stable core enhances skill and efficiency and can limit recurring injury by reducing stress caused by movements working against each other.
Your core is your body's stabilization system. Every aspect of motor learning and skill development is enhanced by a stable core, including postural control, functional movement, limb coordination, muscle exertion to produce tension and force, and neuromuscular control.
Performance stability is your body's ability to maintain an even, balanced, and graceful posture during all movements. The best triathletes demonstrate precise and stable movement fully observable by the most untrained eyes. Your muscles must be stable and specifically trained to move efficiently. Functional movements connect to muscular stability and, when optimal, allow muscles to work in accordance with their structure and ability. Stability must be present on both sides of the body to provide a base for equal and balanced movements.
Stability increases your capacity for potential energy and the storage of elastic energy to further optimize movement. For example, while swimming, you load and unload with changing forces during the catch, insweep, and outsweep. In cycling, the pedaling and loading of muscles and corresponding structural stability are necessary when your hip extends during the downstroke. During the run, your muscles play a critical support role during the stance phase, without which stability would be impossible.
For many triathletes, the control and coordination of movements at some point become more accurate, more controlled, and even automatic. Others struggle with developing efficient movement patterns and have difficulty refining, adapting, and putting into practice the movements that are most efficient. In such cases, there's often an underlying instability in which muscles are weak or underactive, preventing normal motion and contributing to inflexibility in muscles and joints, which are very often exposed in competition as fatigue increases. The stronger your deeper-layered core, the more stable and effective technique can be. In this chapter we'll focus on assessing, strengthening, and training your core in ways that work the deepest stabilizers and postural muscles.
The Deeper Core: Triathlete's Performance Center
Think of your core as the epicenter of your body. It is a collection of muscles that support your spine, back, hips, and pelvis. Functional triathletes are especially stable from the deepest muscles of the core - the primary and secondary stabilizers. These deep core muscles are at the axis of motion, attach to the bony segments of the spine and joints, control positioning of and provide stability and are made up of slow-twitch (type 1) muscle fibers for muscular endurance that fatigue slowly. They function at low loads and do not produce much, if any, force or torque for movement in swimming, cycling, or running, yet they play a vital role in controlling the positions of your joints. For the best transfer of load, your joints must be in optimal position for generating the highest amount of efficient energy for movement. Your deep core functions to hold your joints in neutral positions by responding with just the right amount of force during changes to posture caused by outside forces such as foot strikes while running, water pressure while swimming, and pedaling forces while cycling.See table 5.1 for a list of the core stabilizer and mobilizer muscles and table 5.2 for their characteristics.
Every level of triathlete can benefit from assessing functional capacity of the core and learning how to move from within the center points of the body to the outside limbs most effectively. Talented triathletes of all ages tend to demonstrate balanced and symmetrical movements with sureness. These efficient motions are accomplished through years of training and further enhanced by training the deep-layered muscles of the core. But training these deep-core muscles - chiefly, the transversus abdominis, multifidi, and quadratus lumborum - is far different from common high-intensity core exercise training. These muscles are not trained through intense workouts but through controlled deep-layered techniques and body-region-specific exercises.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483678_ebook1_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483679_ebook_Main.jpg
The most efficient athletic movements are those that originate from the center of the body. As a triathlete develops more efficient skills, energy expenditure is minimized as movements consolidate. Early on, however, if limitations in flexibility, mobility, and stability are ignored, movements can remain error prone, sometimes stiff and halting, and there can be an unnecessary and inefficient use of the extremities. Asymmetrical motions can produce compensations not only in functional movements but within the stabilizing muscles of the core.
A fitting expression among physical therapists and movement practitioners is that proximal stability enhances distal mobility. The core (stability center) provides the most effective way to transmit energy to the limbs (from inside to outside). For example, instead of pulling, the capable swimmer will anchor the hand and arm (slowly) and engage and transfer power from the centerline (spine, pelvis, and hips) through the hand and arm holding (sculling) against dense water. An efficient cyclist similarly works from inside to out by maintaining a level pelvis, straight spine, and limited swinging or tilting in the upper body. The triathlete runner above all depends on core stability and posture and position of the upper back and scapulae to provide ample support of the body during the exchange of foot strikes.
Read more from Triathletes in Motion by Marc Evans and Jane Cappaert.
Swimming Posture & the Phases of Freestyle
How we walk, sit, stand, and carry our posture during daily activities affects how we move in our sport. It is especially important to learn how to move from the inside to outside of the body.
How we walk, sit, stand, and carry our posture during daily activities affects how we move in our sport. It is especially important to learn how to move from the inside to outside of the body. Primarily, this means presenting a posture that permits the most efficient use of the muscles of the hips, legs, and torso (the core). Learning to engage these muscles during flexion, extension, and rotation is central to performing better movements in all sports and begins with proper posture.
Standing with anatomically correct posture begins the process for establishing and enhancing all body lines in swimming. Learning to take this position into the water and maintaining the centerlines of movement will take you further toward improved swimming than just about any technique. In assessing flexibility, mobility, and stability, movement tendencies become evident - you can tell to what extent you use your core muscles in your basic movements. For coaches, assessment can provide teaching moments in which to educate your triathletes how to be more aware of using the core muscles. Practicing functional movements teaches the body to use core muscles deep inside the body to affect movement of the limbs and achieve more efficient technique.
The muscles in the hip region are frequently unstable in triathletes. Notably, the gluteus medius (a muscle that prevents tilting or sagging of the pelvis) is an important pelvic primary stabilizer. When the gluteus medius is weak, other muscles or movements must compensate for the weakness in everyday activities, such as standing up from a chair. This compensation results in less efficient, less functional movements. Over time, the muscular, nervous, and skeletal systems become affected by these repeated less functional movements and sustained faulty postures.
Swimmers who move functionally on land transfer their skills remarkably well into the water, improving in symmetry of swimming motions and performance and reducing the risk of overuse injury. Balanced and symmetrical swimming movement begins in the proximal muscles at the body's core (below the chest to above the knees), which support the outward, or distal, muscles near the head, arms, hands, legs, and feet. An excellent technique to engage the deep core muscles is to draw in when exhaling to activate these muscles and help stabilize the pelvis, which result in better streamlining and better movements.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483767_ebook_Main.jpg
Proximal and distal - swimming from inside to out.
Thus optimal posture on land transfers directly to swimming and eases motor learning in the water. By learning to control your body during flexion (sitting) and extension (standing) through the use of your core muscles, you begin the process of establishing more functional movements. Movements controlled by active engagement and stability from the proximal muscles affect the functionality of the distal muscles during swimming (figure 6.4).
Phases of the Freestyle Swimming Stroke
There are variations in mechanics unique to each individual, but the phases of the freestyle stroke can always be recognized. In this section we progress through these phases, presenting principles for you to build on. First we'll explain the phases and primary terms related to the freestyle swimming stroke. Then we'll describe how to develop better movement through lower-intensity training that enhances motor learning by breaking down complex movements into what we call body lines.
Front Quadrant
The front quadrant is defined as the front half of the freestyle stroke underwater (figure 6.5).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483768_ebook_Main.jpg
Front quadrant.
In front-quadrant swimming, at least one hand is in the front quadrant during the entire stroke cycle. This requires a shift in stroke timing. Traditional teaching dictates finishing hard with one arm past the hips and entering the water with the other arm. In front-quadrant swimming, the right arm's entry into the water occurs during the insweep phase of the left arm (along with an exit at midtorso). When done correctly, there should be no gliding - that is, no point at which propulsion is not being applied.
One advantage of front-quadrant swimming is that it keeps the body long, with one arm always out in front or above the head. Having one arm above the head raises the body's center of mass and helps reduce torque from the buoyancy force that causes the legs to sink. Also, as is well known in ship building, a longer hull is more streamlined than a shorter hull. In front-quadrant swimming, you lengthen the hull of your body. Another advantage of front-quadrant swimming is that it changes the timing of your breathing. In traditional stroke timing, as one hand enters the water and stretches out in front, the other arm is finishing the stroke. This has been taught as the best opportunity to breathe, using momentum of the finishing arm to help rotate hips out of the water. Unfortunately, this timing of the breath leaves the hips vulnerable to sinking as the head turns and lifts to breathe (figure 6.6).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483769_ebook_Main.jpg
Posture is affected when the head is lifted or extended when breathing.
Using front-quadrant swimming forces the breath to begin earlier in the stroke, when one arm is more underneath the body (figure 6.7; breathing occurs between the two images). The position of the arm in the water out in front serves as an anchor, creating forces that support the hips and keep them from sinking.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483770_ebook_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483771_ebook_Main.jpg
Breathe early when the front arm is beginning the catch posture.
Read more from Triathletes in Motion by Marc Evans and Jane Cappaert.
Training Better Movement Patterns
As a triathlete, the reason you need to assess your functional movement (flexibility, joint mobility, and stability) is to improve performance as a result of achieving better technique, because you can move better and reduce recurring injuries caused by misaligned or compensating movements.
As a triathlete, the reason you need to assess your functional movement (flexibility, joint mobility, and stability) is to improve performance as a result of achieving better technique, because you can move better and reduce recurring injuries caused by misaligned or compensating movements. Unique to this book are assessments along with progressive and self-correcting exercises that help you come closer to perfecting your technique. Once you can repeatedly execute a movement with accuracy, you simply move on to the next assessment and subsequent exercise.
Progressing from the basic assessments and exercise recommendations presented in chapters 1 and 3, we move in this chapter to deeper, more innovative levels of movement assessment. These pass-or-fail tests are like exercises that progress through stages with ACES and are exceptional training for triathletes at any level, from beginner to Olympian.
Training Better Movement Patterns
In this chapter we provide steps for you to assess compensatory movement patterns. From earlier chapters, you'll recall that you should precede any change in technique with movement assessment to identify any weaknesses or limitations.
Triathletes often attempt to apply technique that gets in the way of best possible performance, and if they persist with such training, chronic injuries from overuse can result from overloading muscles and damaging soft tissue structure. A body in motion outside of its primary and most efficient pattern of stability and mobility can continue to be functional, but it will be diminished in its ability to achieve optimal performance and will be more susceptible to injury.
The human body has an amazing ability to adapt and compensate for limitations in motion by developing alternative patterns of movement. Unfortunately, these alternate patterns can establish themselves as the primary patterns after only two weeks of constant recruitment. This can ultimately place limits on the triathlete's development and optimal performance. Although the ability to perform at a high level might remain, optimal neuromuscular capabilities are hindered, resulting in a greater risk of getting caught in a cycle of constant injuries when trying to advance training.
When limitations of motion appear at any joint in the body, to achieve the total movement desired, the body will require more motion from other joints or segments of the body to perform that motion. As long as those joints or segments are able to control the additional amounts of motion being demanded of it, then no big deal. A lack of control of motion by the local (deeply placed muscles closer or directly attached to joints, where they remain neutral and work most optimally) and global (larger, fast-working superficial muscles for transferring loads and movements) stabilizing muscles often presents itself as an uncoordinated and lopsided motion when those movements are performed slowly, or as an increased perceived exertion in isometric or static low-load holding-type exercises, such as planks, prone, and lateral bridging exercises for the core.
Ideally, stability should always accompany mobility because each one can have a profound effect on the other. A lack of stability can restrict motion by demanding more from the global mobilizing muscles. Joints that lack stability show an increase in activation of the global mobilizing muscles surrounding them. (See table 4.1.) This increase in activation is a reactive protective mechanism to not only produce compression at a joint as an alternative and compensating way of creating stability at that joint, but also as a way to limit motion at that joint. When the global mobilizing muscles of the body remain active, and not completely at rest, their ability to shorten and lengthen completely is diminished, along with other key functions. These limitations restrict the amount of motion and force that are capable of being produced at any joint it crosses over. Stability, however, can be sacrificed to maintain mobility. This is done at the expense of the joint itself as well as its surrounding soft tissue structures (such as ligaments and the joint capsule). When a joint is left unprotected and unable to control excessive motion, overloading, or sudden forces, it creates an environment that can accelerate degeneration and lead to recurring injuries.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_491190_ebook_Main.jpg
Power and force generation are created from the more central parts of the body, such as our trunk, pelvis, hips, and shoulders. The more distal segments of the body are designed for more fine-motor adaptation and sensory output. This sensory output provides vital real-time data to the central nervous system (spinal cord and brain; CNS), allowing it to respond instantly with muscular activation. For example, the CNS permits the feet to make quick adjustments to maintain balance when walking over uneven surfaces and the ability to manipulate buttons and zippers with the hands. When the more proximal segments of the body are not capable of providing the stability needed to generate the amount of force or motion needed, greater demand is placed on the more distal segments to make up for that loss. Thus a myriad of compensatory movement patterns can develop, and it's crucial to have a means or formula to help in identifying the sources of these patterns.
To maximize performance, you must have appropriate load-transfer ability through the pelvis, accompanied by an ability to control stability through the core and proximal joints. You must learn to identify faulty patterns of movement and address them if you want to progress to higher levels of individually based training. By identifying and retraining the functional control of body segments, you can begin to correct movement instability and apply much more precise movements in technique. The local and deep postural stabilizers (closest to the joints) along with secondary (midlevel stabilizers) are the most important to train because they fatigue slowly (slow twitch) and provide stability because of their location and the control of joint postures. The more superficial muscles are fast twitch and build tension rapidly and only provide stability when conditions are extreme, resulting in lack of body control and more uncoordinated movements (often seen in competition when the local stabilizers have fatigued).
Read more from Triathletes in Motion by Marc Evans and Jane Cappaert.
The Deeper Core: Triathlete's Performance Center
Triathlon is a cadenced endurance sport requiring hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of movement repetitions in the extremities and torso. As you train, you experience ongoing stages of movement, adaptation, and skill learning as you progress toward advances in technique and fitness.
Triathlon is a cadenced endurance sport requiring hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of movement repetitions in the extremities and torso. As you train, you experience ongoing stages of movement, adaptation, and skill learning as you progress toward advances in technique and fitness. Constant interplay occurs in the intricate and interrelated processing of movement, including cognitive skills (understanding what needs to be done), motor skills (executing the skills), functional movement (moving in full ranges of motion), and functional and stable performance (maintaining body posture through the core).
Stability of the core is crucial to optimal performance. Movements begin deep inside your core and are transferred to your extremities. Your core controls not only your spine to maintain alignment but also movements relative to your spine. A stable core enhances skill and efficiency and can limit recurring injury by reducing stress caused by movements working against each other.
Your core is your body's stabilization system. Every aspect of motor learning and skill development is enhanced by a stable core, including postural control, functional movement, limb coordination, muscle exertion to produce tension and force, and neuromuscular control.
Performance stability is your body's ability to maintain an even, balanced, and graceful posture during all movements. The best triathletes demonstrate precise and stable movement fully observable by the most untrained eyes. Your muscles must be stable and specifically trained to move efficiently. Functional movements connect to muscular stability and, when optimal, allow muscles to work in accordance with their structure and ability. Stability must be present on both sides of the body to provide a base for equal and balanced movements.
Stability increases your capacity for potential energy and the storage of elastic energy to further optimize movement. For example, while swimming, you load and unload with changing forces during the catch, insweep, and outsweep. In cycling, the pedaling and loading of muscles and corresponding structural stability are necessary when your hip extends during the downstroke. During the run, your muscles play a critical support role during the stance phase, without which stability would be impossible.
For many triathletes, the control and coordination of movements at some point become more accurate, more controlled, and even automatic. Others struggle with developing efficient movement patterns and have difficulty refining, adapting, and putting into practice the movements that are most efficient. In such cases, there's often an underlying instability in which muscles are weak or underactive, preventing normal motion and contributing to inflexibility in muscles and joints, which are very often exposed in competition as fatigue increases. The stronger your deeper-layered core, the more stable and effective technique can be. In this chapter we'll focus on assessing, strengthening, and training your core in ways that work the deepest stabilizers and postural muscles.
The Deeper Core: Triathlete's Performance Center
Think of your core as the epicenter of your body. It is a collection of muscles that support your spine, back, hips, and pelvis. Functional triathletes are especially stable from the deepest muscles of the core - the primary and secondary stabilizers. These deep core muscles are at the axis of motion, attach to the bony segments of the spine and joints, control positioning of and provide stability and are made up of slow-twitch (type 1) muscle fibers for muscular endurance that fatigue slowly. They function at low loads and do not produce much, if any, force or torque for movement in swimming, cycling, or running, yet they play a vital role in controlling the positions of your joints. For the best transfer of load, your joints must be in optimal position for generating the highest amount of efficient energy for movement. Your deep core functions to hold your joints in neutral positions by responding with just the right amount of force during changes to posture caused by outside forces such as foot strikes while running, water pressure while swimming, and pedaling forces while cycling.See table 5.1 for a list of the core stabilizer and mobilizer muscles and table 5.2 for their characteristics.
Every level of triathlete can benefit from assessing functional capacity of the core and learning how to move from within the center points of the body to the outside limbs most effectively. Talented triathletes of all ages tend to demonstrate balanced and symmetrical movements with sureness. These efficient motions are accomplished through years of training and further enhanced by training the deep-layered muscles of the core. But training these deep-core muscles - chiefly, the transversus abdominis, multifidi, and quadratus lumborum - is far different from common high-intensity core exercise training. These muscles are not trained through intense workouts but through controlled deep-layered techniques and body-region-specific exercises.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483678_ebook1_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483679_ebook_Main.jpg
The most efficient athletic movements are those that originate from the center of the body. As a triathlete develops more efficient skills, energy expenditure is minimized as movements consolidate. Early on, however, if limitations in flexibility, mobility, and stability are ignored, movements can remain error prone, sometimes stiff and halting, and there can be an unnecessary and inefficient use of the extremities. Asymmetrical motions can produce compensations not only in functional movements but within the stabilizing muscles of the core.
A fitting expression among physical therapists and movement practitioners is that proximal stability enhances distal mobility. The core (stability center) provides the most effective way to transmit energy to the limbs (from inside to outside). For example, instead of pulling, the capable swimmer will anchor the hand and arm (slowly) and engage and transfer power from the centerline (spine, pelvis, and hips) through the hand and arm holding (sculling) against dense water. An efficient cyclist similarly works from inside to out by maintaining a level pelvis, straight spine, and limited swinging or tilting in the upper body. The triathlete runner above all depends on core stability and posture and position of the upper back and scapulae to provide ample support of the body during the exchange of foot strikes.
Read more from Triathletes in Motion by Marc Evans and Jane Cappaert.
Swimming Posture & the Phases of Freestyle
How we walk, sit, stand, and carry our posture during daily activities affects how we move in our sport. It is especially important to learn how to move from the inside to outside of the body.
How we walk, sit, stand, and carry our posture during daily activities affects how we move in our sport. It is especially important to learn how to move from the inside to outside of the body. Primarily, this means presenting a posture that permits the most efficient use of the muscles of the hips, legs, and torso (the core). Learning to engage these muscles during flexion, extension, and rotation is central to performing better movements in all sports and begins with proper posture.
Standing with anatomically correct posture begins the process for establishing and enhancing all body lines in swimming. Learning to take this position into the water and maintaining the centerlines of movement will take you further toward improved swimming than just about any technique. In assessing flexibility, mobility, and stability, movement tendencies become evident - you can tell to what extent you use your core muscles in your basic movements. For coaches, assessment can provide teaching moments in which to educate your triathletes how to be more aware of using the core muscles. Practicing functional movements teaches the body to use core muscles deep inside the body to affect movement of the limbs and achieve more efficient technique.
The muscles in the hip region are frequently unstable in triathletes. Notably, the gluteus medius (a muscle that prevents tilting or sagging of the pelvis) is an important pelvic primary stabilizer. When the gluteus medius is weak, other muscles or movements must compensate for the weakness in everyday activities, such as standing up from a chair. This compensation results in less efficient, less functional movements. Over time, the muscular, nervous, and skeletal systems become affected by these repeated less functional movements and sustained faulty postures.
Swimmers who move functionally on land transfer their skills remarkably well into the water, improving in symmetry of swimming motions and performance and reducing the risk of overuse injury. Balanced and symmetrical swimming movement begins in the proximal muscles at the body's core (below the chest to above the knees), which support the outward, or distal, muscles near the head, arms, hands, legs, and feet. An excellent technique to engage the deep core muscles is to draw in when exhaling to activate these muscles and help stabilize the pelvis, which result in better streamlining and better movements.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483767_ebook_Main.jpg
Proximal and distal - swimming from inside to out.
Thus optimal posture on land transfers directly to swimming and eases motor learning in the water. By learning to control your body during flexion (sitting) and extension (standing) through the use of your core muscles, you begin the process of establishing more functional movements. Movements controlled by active engagement and stability from the proximal muscles affect the functionality of the distal muscles during swimming (figure 6.4).
Phases of the Freestyle Swimming Stroke
There are variations in mechanics unique to each individual, but the phases of the freestyle stroke can always be recognized. In this section we progress through these phases, presenting principles for you to build on. First we'll explain the phases and primary terms related to the freestyle swimming stroke. Then we'll describe how to develop better movement through lower-intensity training that enhances motor learning by breaking down complex movements into what we call body lines.
Front Quadrant
The front quadrant is defined as the front half of the freestyle stroke underwater (figure 6.5).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483768_ebook_Main.jpg
Front quadrant.
In front-quadrant swimming, at least one hand is in the front quadrant during the entire stroke cycle. This requires a shift in stroke timing. Traditional teaching dictates finishing hard with one arm past the hips and entering the water with the other arm. In front-quadrant swimming, the right arm's entry into the water occurs during the insweep phase of the left arm (along with an exit at midtorso). When done correctly, there should be no gliding - that is, no point at which propulsion is not being applied.
One advantage of front-quadrant swimming is that it keeps the body long, with one arm always out in front or above the head. Having one arm above the head raises the body's center of mass and helps reduce torque from the buoyancy force that causes the legs to sink. Also, as is well known in ship building, a longer hull is more streamlined than a shorter hull. In front-quadrant swimming, you lengthen the hull of your body. Another advantage of front-quadrant swimming is that it changes the timing of your breathing. In traditional stroke timing, as one hand enters the water and stretches out in front, the other arm is finishing the stroke. This has been taught as the best opportunity to breathe, using momentum of the finishing arm to help rotate hips out of the water. Unfortunately, this timing of the breath leaves the hips vulnerable to sinking as the head turns and lifts to breathe (figure 6.6).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483769_ebook_Main.jpg
Posture is affected when the head is lifted or extended when breathing.
Using front-quadrant swimming forces the breath to begin earlier in the stroke, when one arm is more underneath the body (figure 6.7; breathing occurs between the two images). The position of the arm in the water out in front serves as an anchor, creating forces that support the hips and keep them from sinking.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483770_ebook_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483771_ebook_Main.jpg
Breathe early when the front arm is beginning the catch posture.
Read more from Triathletes in Motion by Marc Evans and Jane Cappaert.
Training Better Movement Patterns
As a triathlete, the reason you need to assess your functional movement (flexibility, joint mobility, and stability) is to improve performance as a result of achieving better technique, because you can move better and reduce recurring injuries caused by misaligned or compensating movements.
As a triathlete, the reason you need to assess your functional movement (flexibility, joint mobility, and stability) is to improve performance as a result of achieving better technique, because you can move better and reduce recurring injuries caused by misaligned or compensating movements. Unique to this book are assessments along with progressive and self-correcting exercises that help you come closer to perfecting your technique. Once you can repeatedly execute a movement with accuracy, you simply move on to the next assessment and subsequent exercise.
Progressing from the basic assessments and exercise recommendations presented in chapters 1 and 3, we move in this chapter to deeper, more innovative levels of movement assessment. These pass-or-fail tests are like exercises that progress through stages with ACES and are exceptional training for triathletes at any level, from beginner to Olympian.
Training Better Movement Patterns
In this chapter we provide steps for you to assess compensatory movement patterns. From earlier chapters, you'll recall that you should precede any change in technique with movement assessment to identify any weaknesses or limitations.
Triathletes often attempt to apply technique that gets in the way of best possible performance, and if they persist with such training, chronic injuries from overuse can result from overloading muscles and damaging soft tissue structure. A body in motion outside of its primary and most efficient pattern of stability and mobility can continue to be functional, but it will be diminished in its ability to achieve optimal performance and will be more susceptible to injury.
The human body has an amazing ability to adapt and compensate for limitations in motion by developing alternative patterns of movement. Unfortunately, these alternate patterns can establish themselves as the primary patterns after only two weeks of constant recruitment. This can ultimately place limits on the triathlete's development and optimal performance. Although the ability to perform at a high level might remain, optimal neuromuscular capabilities are hindered, resulting in a greater risk of getting caught in a cycle of constant injuries when trying to advance training.
When limitations of motion appear at any joint in the body, to achieve the total movement desired, the body will require more motion from other joints or segments of the body to perform that motion. As long as those joints or segments are able to control the additional amounts of motion being demanded of it, then no big deal. A lack of control of motion by the local (deeply placed muscles closer or directly attached to joints, where they remain neutral and work most optimally) and global (larger, fast-working superficial muscles for transferring loads and movements) stabilizing muscles often presents itself as an uncoordinated and lopsided motion when those movements are performed slowly, or as an increased perceived exertion in isometric or static low-load holding-type exercises, such as planks, prone, and lateral bridging exercises for the core.
Ideally, stability should always accompany mobility because each one can have a profound effect on the other. A lack of stability can restrict motion by demanding more from the global mobilizing muscles. Joints that lack stability show an increase in activation of the global mobilizing muscles surrounding them. (See table 4.1.) This increase in activation is a reactive protective mechanism to not only produce compression at a joint as an alternative and compensating way of creating stability at that joint, but also as a way to limit motion at that joint. When the global mobilizing muscles of the body remain active, and not completely at rest, their ability to shorten and lengthen completely is diminished, along with other key functions. These limitations restrict the amount of motion and force that are capable of being produced at any joint it crosses over. Stability, however, can be sacrificed to maintain mobility. This is done at the expense of the joint itself as well as its surrounding soft tissue structures (such as ligaments and the joint capsule). When a joint is left unprotected and unable to control excessive motion, overloading, or sudden forces, it creates an environment that can accelerate degeneration and lead to recurring injuries.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_491190_ebook_Main.jpg
Power and force generation are created from the more central parts of the body, such as our trunk, pelvis, hips, and shoulders. The more distal segments of the body are designed for more fine-motor adaptation and sensory output. This sensory output provides vital real-time data to the central nervous system (spinal cord and brain; CNS), allowing it to respond instantly with muscular activation. For example, the CNS permits the feet to make quick adjustments to maintain balance when walking over uneven surfaces and the ability to manipulate buttons and zippers with the hands. When the more proximal segments of the body are not capable of providing the stability needed to generate the amount of force or motion needed, greater demand is placed on the more distal segments to make up for that loss. Thus a myriad of compensatory movement patterns can develop, and it's crucial to have a means or formula to help in identifying the sources of these patterns.
To maximize performance, you must have appropriate load-transfer ability through the pelvis, accompanied by an ability to control stability through the core and proximal joints. You must learn to identify faulty patterns of movement and address them if you want to progress to higher levels of individually based training. By identifying and retraining the functional control of body segments, you can begin to correct movement instability and apply much more precise movements in technique. The local and deep postural stabilizers (closest to the joints) along with secondary (midlevel stabilizers) are the most important to train because they fatigue slowly (slow twitch) and provide stability because of their location and the control of joint postures. The more superficial muscles are fast twitch and build tension rapidly and only provide stability when conditions are extreme, resulting in lack of body control and more uncoordinated movements (often seen in competition when the local stabilizers have fatigued).
Read more from Triathletes in Motion by Marc Evans and Jane Cappaert.
The Deeper Core: Triathlete's Performance Center
Triathlon is a cadenced endurance sport requiring hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of movement repetitions in the extremities and torso. As you train, you experience ongoing stages of movement, adaptation, and skill learning as you progress toward advances in technique and fitness.
Triathlon is a cadenced endurance sport requiring hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of movement repetitions in the extremities and torso. As you train, you experience ongoing stages of movement, adaptation, and skill learning as you progress toward advances in technique and fitness. Constant interplay occurs in the intricate and interrelated processing of movement, including cognitive skills (understanding what needs to be done), motor skills (executing the skills), functional movement (moving in full ranges of motion), and functional and stable performance (maintaining body posture through the core).
Stability of the core is crucial to optimal performance. Movements begin deep inside your core and are transferred to your extremities. Your core controls not only your spine to maintain alignment but also movements relative to your spine. A stable core enhances skill and efficiency and can limit recurring injury by reducing stress caused by movements working against each other.
Your core is your body's stabilization system. Every aspect of motor learning and skill development is enhanced by a stable core, including postural control, functional movement, limb coordination, muscle exertion to produce tension and force, and neuromuscular control.
Performance stability is your body's ability to maintain an even, balanced, and graceful posture during all movements. The best triathletes demonstrate precise and stable movement fully observable by the most untrained eyes. Your muscles must be stable and specifically trained to move efficiently. Functional movements connect to muscular stability and, when optimal, allow muscles to work in accordance with their structure and ability. Stability must be present on both sides of the body to provide a base for equal and balanced movements.
Stability increases your capacity for potential energy and the storage of elastic energy to further optimize movement. For example, while swimming, you load and unload with changing forces during the catch, insweep, and outsweep. In cycling, the pedaling and loading of muscles and corresponding structural stability are necessary when your hip extends during the downstroke. During the run, your muscles play a critical support role during the stance phase, without which stability would be impossible.
For many triathletes, the control and coordination of movements at some point become more accurate, more controlled, and even automatic. Others struggle with developing efficient movement patterns and have difficulty refining, adapting, and putting into practice the movements that are most efficient. In such cases, there's often an underlying instability in which muscles are weak or underactive, preventing normal motion and contributing to inflexibility in muscles and joints, which are very often exposed in competition as fatigue increases. The stronger your deeper-layered core, the more stable and effective technique can be. In this chapter we'll focus on assessing, strengthening, and training your core in ways that work the deepest stabilizers and postural muscles.
The Deeper Core: Triathlete's Performance Center
Think of your core as the epicenter of your body. It is a collection of muscles that support your spine, back, hips, and pelvis. Functional triathletes are especially stable from the deepest muscles of the core - the primary and secondary stabilizers. These deep core muscles are at the axis of motion, attach to the bony segments of the spine and joints, control positioning of and provide stability and are made up of slow-twitch (type 1) muscle fibers for muscular endurance that fatigue slowly. They function at low loads and do not produce much, if any, force or torque for movement in swimming, cycling, or running, yet they play a vital role in controlling the positions of your joints. For the best transfer of load, your joints must be in optimal position for generating the highest amount of efficient energy for movement. Your deep core functions to hold your joints in neutral positions by responding with just the right amount of force during changes to posture caused by outside forces such as foot strikes while running, water pressure while swimming, and pedaling forces while cycling.See table 5.1 for a list of the core stabilizer and mobilizer muscles and table 5.2 for their characteristics.
Every level of triathlete can benefit from assessing functional capacity of the core and learning how to move from within the center points of the body to the outside limbs most effectively. Talented triathletes of all ages tend to demonstrate balanced and symmetrical movements with sureness. These efficient motions are accomplished through years of training and further enhanced by training the deep-layered muscles of the core. But training these deep-core muscles - chiefly, the transversus abdominis, multifidi, and quadratus lumborum - is far different from common high-intensity core exercise training. These muscles are not trained through intense workouts but through controlled deep-layered techniques and body-region-specific exercises.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483678_ebook1_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483679_ebook_Main.jpg
The most efficient athletic movements are those that originate from the center of the body. As a triathlete develops more efficient skills, energy expenditure is minimized as movements consolidate. Early on, however, if limitations in flexibility, mobility, and stability are ignored, movements can remain error prone, sometimes stiff and halting, and there can be an unnecessary and inefficient use of the extremities. Asymmetrical motions can produce compensations not only in functional movements but within the stabilizing muscles of the core.
A fitting expression among physical therapists and movement practitioners is that proximal stability enhances distal mobility. The core (stability center) provides the most effective way to transmit energy to the limbs (from inside to outside). For example, instead of pulling, the capable swimmer will anchor the hand and arm (slowly) and engage and transfer power from the centerline (spine, pelvis, and hips) through the hand and arm holding (sculling) against dense water. An efficient cyclist similarly works from inside to out by maintaining a level pelvis, straight spine, and limited swinging or tilting in the upper body. The triathlete runner above all depends on core stability and posture and position of the upper back and scapulae to provide ample support of the body during the exchange of foot strikes.
Read more from Triathletes in Motion by Marc Evans and Jane Cappaert.
Swimming Posture & the Phases of Freestyle
How we walk, sit, stand, and carry our posture during daily activities affects how we move in our sport. It is especially important to learn how to move from the inside to outside of the body.
How we walk, sit, stand, and carry our posture during daily activities affects how we move in our sport. It is especially important to learn how to move from the inside to outside of the body. Primarily, this means presenting a posture that permits the most efficient use of the muscles of the hips, legs, and torso (the core). Learning to engage these muscles during flexion, extension, and rotation is central to performing better movements in all sports and begins with proper posture.
Standing with anatomically correct posture begins the process for establishing and enhancing all body lines in swimming. Learning to take this position into the water and maintaining the centerlines of movement will take you further toward improved swimming than just about any technique. In assessing flexibility, mobility, and stability, movement tendencies become evident - you can tell to what extent you use your core muscles in your basic movements. For coaches, assessment can provide teaching moments in which to educate your triathletes how to be more aware of using the core muscles. Practicing functional movements teaches the body to use core muscles deep inside the body to affect movement of the limbs and achieve more efficient technique.
The muscles in the hip region are frequently unstable in triathletes. Notably, the gluteus medius (a muscle that prevents tilting or sagging of the pelvis) is an important pelvic primary stabilizer. When the gluteus medius is weak, other muscles or movements must compensate for the weakness in everyday activities, such as standing up from a chair. This compensation results in less efficient, less functional movements. Over time, the muscular, nervous, and skeletal systems become affected by these repeated less functional movements and sustained faulty postures.
Swimmers who move functionally on land transfer their skills remarkably well into the water, improving in symmetry of swimming motions and performance and reducing the risk of overuse injury. Balanced and symmetrical swimming movement begins in the proximal muscles at the body's core (below the chest to above the knees), which support the outward, or distal, muscles near the head, arms, hands, legs, and feet. An excellent technique to engage the deep core muscles is to draw in when exhaling to activate these muscles and help stabilize the pelvis, which result in better streamlining and better movements.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483767_ebook_Main.jpg
Proximal and distal - swimming from inside to out.
Thus optimal posture on land transfers directly to swimming and eases motor learning in the water. By learning to control your body during flexion (sitting) and extension (standing) through the use of your core muscles, you begin the process of establishing more functional movements. Movements controlled by active engagement and stability from the proximal muscles affect the functionality of the distal muscles during swimming (figure 6.4).
Phases of the Freestyle Swimming Stroke
There are variations in mechanics unique to each individual, but the phases of the freestyle stroke can always be recognized. In this section we progress through these phases, presenting principles for you to build on. First we'll explain the phases and primary terms related to the freestyle swimming stroke. Then we'll describe how to develop better movement through lower-intensity training that enhances motor learning by breaking down complex movements into what we call body lines.
Front Quadrant
The front quadrant is defined as the front half of the freestyle stroke underwater (figure 6.5).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483768_ebook_Main.jpg
Front quadrant.
In front-quadrant swimming, at least one hand is in the front quadrant during the entire stroke cycle. This requires a shift in stroke timing. Traditional teaching dictates finishing hard with one arm past the hips and entering the water with the other arm. In front-quadrant swimming, the right arm's entry into the water occurs during the insweep phase of the left arm (along with an exit at midtorso). When done correctly, there should be no gliding - that is, no point at which propulsion is not being applied.
One advantage of front-quadrant swimming is that it keeps the body long, with one arm always out in front or above the head. Having one arm above the head raises the body's center of mass and helps reduce torque from the buoyancy force that causes the legs to sink. Also, as is well known in ship building, a longer hull is more streamlined than a shorter hull. In front-quadrant swimming, you lengthen the hull of your body. Another advantage of front-quadrant swimming is that it changes the timing of your breathing. In traditional stroke timing, as one hand enters the water and stretches out in front, the other arm is finishing the stroke. This has been taught as the best opportunity to breathe, using momentum of the finishing arm to help rotate hips out of the water. Unfortunately, this timing of the breath leaves the hips vulnerable to sinking as the head turns and lifts to breathe (figure 6.6).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483769_ebook_Main.jpg
Posture is affected when the head is lifted or extended when breathing.
Using front-quadrant swimming forces the breath to begin earlier in the stroke, when one arm is more underneath the body (figure 6.7; breathing occurs between the two images). The position of the arm in the water out in front serves as an anchor, creating forces that support the hips and keep them from sinking.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483770_ebook_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483771_ebook_Main.jpg
Breathe early when the front arm is beginning the catch posture.
Read more from Triathletes in Motion by Marc Evans and Jane Cappaert.
Training Better Movement Patterns
As a triathlete, the reason you need to assess your functional movement (flexibility, joint mobility, and stability) is to improve performance as a result of achieving better technique, because you can move better and reduce recurring injuries caused by misaligned or compensating movements.
As a triathlete, the reason you need to assess your functional movement (flexibility, joint mobility, and stability) is to improve performance as a result of achieving better technique, because you can move better and reduce recurring injuries caused by misaligned or compensating movements. Unique to this book are assessments along with progressive and self-correcting exercises that help you come closer to perfecting your technique. Once you can repeatedly execute a movement with accuracy, you simply move on to the next assessment and subsequent exercise.
Progressing from the basic assessments and exercise recommendations presented in chapters 1 and 3, we move in this chapter to deeper, more innovative levels of movement assessment. These pass-or-fail tests are like exercises that progress through stages with ACES and are exceptional training for triathletes at any level, from beginner to Olympian.
Training Better Movement Patterns
In this chapter we provide steps for you to assess compensatory movement patterns. From earlier chapters, you'll recall that you should precede any change in technique with movement assessment to identify any weaknesses or limitations.
Triathletes often attempt to apply technique that gets in the way of best possible performance, and if they persist with such training, chronic injuries from overuse can result from overloading muscles and damaging soft tissue structure. A body in motion outside of its primary and most efficient pattern of stability and mobility can continue to be functional, but it will be diminished in its ability to achieve optimal performance and will be more susceptible to injury.
The human body has an amazing ability to adapt and compensate for limitations in motion by developing alternative patterns of movement. Unfortunately, these alternate patterns can establish themselves as the primary patterns after only two weeks of constant recruitment. This can ultimately place limits on the triathlete's development and optimal performance. Although the ability to perform at a high level might remain, optimal neuromuscular capabilities are hindered, resulting in a greater risk of getting caught in a cycle of constant injuries when trying to advance training.
When limitations of motion appear at any joint in the body, to achieve the total movement desired, the body will require more motion from other joints or segments of the body to perform that motion. As long as those joints or segments are able to control the additional amounts of motion being demanded of it, then no big deal. A lack of control of motion by the local (deeply placed muscles closer or directly attached to joints, where they remain neutral and work most optimally) and global (larger, fast-working superficial muscles for transferring loads and movements) stabilizing muscles often presents itself as an uncoordinated and lopsided motion when those movements are performed slowly, or as an increased perceived exertion in isometric or static low-load holding-type exercises, such as planks, prone, and lateral bridging exercises for the core.
Ideally, stability should always accompany mobility because each one can have a profound effect on the other. A lack of stability can restrict motion by demanding more from the global mobilizing muscles. Joints that lack stability show an increase in activation of the global mobilizing muscles surrounding them. (See table 4.1.) This increase in activation is a reactive protective mechanism to not only produce compression at a joint as an alternative and compensating way of creating stability at that joint, but also as a way to limit motion at that joint. When the global mobilizing muscles of the body remain active, and not completely at rest, their ability to shorten and lengthen completely is diminished, along with other key functions. These limitations restrict the amount of motion and force that are capable of being produced at any joint it crosses over. Stability, however, can be sacrificed to maintain mobility. This is done at the expense of the joint itself as well as its surrounding soft tissue structures (such as ligaments and the joint capsule). When a joint is left unprotected and unable to control excessive motion, overloading, or sudden forces, it creates an environment that can accelerate degeneration and lead to recurring injuries.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_491190_ebook_Main.jpg
Power and force generation are created from the more central parts of the body, such as our trunk, pelvis, hips, and shoulders. The more distal segments of the body are designed for more fine-motor adaptation and sensory output. This sensory output provides vital real-time data to the central nervous system (spinal cord and brain; CNS), allowing it to respond instantly with muscular activation. For example, the CNS permits the feet to make quick adjustments to maintain balance when walking over uneven surfaces and the ability to manipulate buttons and zippers with the hands. When the more proximal segments of the body are not capable of providing the stability needed to generate the amount of force or motion needed, greater demand is placed on the more distal segments to make up for that loss. Thus a myriad of compensatory movement patterns can develop, and it's crucial to have a means or formula to help in identifying the sources of these patterns.
To maximize performance, you must have appropriate load-transfer ability through the pelvis, accompanied by an ability to control stability through the core and proximal joints. You must learn to identify faulty patterns of movement and address them if you want to progress to higher levels of individually based training. By identifying and retraining the functional control of body segments, you can begin to correct movement instability and apply much more precise movements in technique. The local and deep postural stabilizers (closest to the joints) along with secondary (midlevel stabilizers) are the most important to train because they fatigue slowly (slow twitch) and provide stability because of their location and the control of joint postures. The more superficial muscles are fast twitch and build tension rapidly and only provide stability when conditions are extreme, resulting in lack of body control and more uncoordinated movements (often seen in competition when the local stabilizers have fatigued).
Read more from Triathletes in Motion by Marc Evans and Jane Cappaert.
The Deeper Core: Triathlete's Performance Center
Triathlon is a cadenced endurance sport requiring hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of movement repetitions in the extremities and torso. As you train, you experience ongoing stages of movement, adaptation, and skill learning as you progress toward advances in technique and fitness.
Triathlon is a cadenced endurance sport requiring hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of movement repetitions in the extremities and torso. As you train, you experience ongoing stages of movement, adaptation, and skill learning as you progress toward advances in technique and fitness. Constant interplay occurs in the intricate and interrelated processing of movement, including cognitive skills (understanding what needs to be done), motor skills (executing the skills), functional movement (moving in full ranges of motion), and functional and stable performance (maintaining body posture through the core).
Stability of the core is crucial to optimal performance. Movements begin deep inside your core and are transferred to your extremities. Your core controls not only your spine to maintain alignment but also movements relative to your spine. A stable core enhances skill and efficiency and can limit recurring injury by reducing stress caused by movements working against each other.
Your core is your body's stabilization system. Every aspect of motor learning and skill development is enhanced by a stable core, including postural control, functional movement, limb coordination, muscle exertion to produce tension and force, and neuromuscular control.
Performance stability is your body's ability to maintain an even, balanced, and graceful posture during all movements. The best triathletes demonstrate precise and stable movement fully observable by the most untrained eyes. Your muscles must be stable and specifically trained to move efficiently. Functional movements connect to muscular stability and, when optimal, allow muscles to work in accordance with their structure and ability. Stability must be present on both sides of the body to provide a base for equal and balanced movements.
Stability increases your capacity for potential energy and the storage of elastic energy to further optimize movement. For example, while swimming, you load and unload with changing forces during the catch, insweep, and outsweep. In cycling, the pedaling and loading of muscles and corresponding structural stability are necessary when your hip extends during the downstroke. During the run, your muscles play a critical support role during the stance phase, without which stability would be impossible.
For many triathletes, the control and coordination of movements at some point become more accurate, more controlled, and even automatic. Others struggle with developing efficient movement patterns and have difficulty refining, adapting, and putting into practice the movements that are most efficient. In such cases, there's often an underlying instability in which muscles are weak or underactive, preventing normal motion and contributing to inflexibility in muscles and joints, which are very often exposed in competition as fatigue increases. The stronger your deeper-layered core, the more stable and effective technique can be. In this chapter we'll focus on assessing, strengthening, and training your core in ways that work the deepest stabilizers and postural muscles.
The Deeper Core: Triathlete's Performance Center
Think of your core as the epicenter of your body. It is a collection of muscles that support your spine, back, hips, and pelvis. Functional triathletes are especially stable from the deepest muscles of the core - the primary and secondary stabilizers. These deep core muscles are at the axis of motion, attach to the bony segments of the spine and joints, control positioning of and provide stability and are made up of slow-twitch (type 1) muscle fibers for muscular endurance that fatigue slowly. They function at low loads and do not produce much, if any, force or torque for movement in swimming, cycling, or running, yet they play a vital role in controlling the positions of your joints. For the best transfer of load, your joints must be in optimal position for generating the highest amount of efficient energy for movement. Your deep core functions to hold your joints in neutral positions by responding with just the right amount of force during changes to posture caused by outside forces such as foot strikes while running, water pressure while swimming, and pedaling forces while cycling.See table 5.1 for a list of the core stabilizer and mobilizer muscles and table 5.2 for their characteristics.
Every level of triathlete can benefit from assessing functional capacity of the core and learning how to move from within the center points of the body to the outside limbs most effectively. Talented triathletes of all ages tend to demonstrate balanced and symmetrical movements with sureness. These efficient motions are accomplished through years of training and further enhanced by training the deep-layered muscles of the core. But training these deep-core muscles - chiefly, the transversus abdominis, multifidi, and quadratus lumborum - is far different from common high-intensity core exercise training. These muscles are not trained through intense workouts but through controlled deep-layered techniques and body-region-specific exercises.
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http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483679_ebook_Main.jpg
The most efficient athletic movements are those that originate from the center of the body. As a triathlete develops more efficient skills, energy expenditure is minimized as movements consolidate. Early on, however, if limitations in flexibility, mobility, and stability are ignored, movements can remain error prone, sometimes stiff and halting, and there can be an unnecessary and inefficient use of the extremities. Asymmetrical motions can produce compensations not only in functional movements but within the stabilizing muscles of the core.
A fitting expression among physical therapists and movement practitioners is that proximal stability enhances distal mobility. The core (stability center) provides the most effective way to transmit energy to the limbs (from inside to outside). For example, instead of pulling, the capable swimmer will anchor the hand and arm (slowly) and engage and transfer power from the centerline (spine, pelvis, and hips) through the hand and arm holding (sculling) against dense water. An efficient cyclist similarly works from inside to out by maintaining a level pelvis, straight spine, and limited swinging or tilting in the upper body. The triathlete runner above all depends on core stability and posture and position of the upper back and scapulae to provide ample support of the body during the exchange of foot strikes.
Read more from Triathletes in Motion by Marc Evans and Jane Cappaert.
Swimming Posture & the Phases of Freestyle
How we walk, sit, stand, and carry our posture during daily activities affects how we move in our sport. It is especially important to learn how to move from the inside to outside of the body.
How we walk, sit, stand, and carry our posture during daily activities affects how we move in our sport. It is especially important to learn how to move from the inside to outside of the body. Primarily, this means presenting a posture that permits the most efficient use of the muscles of the hips, legs, and torso (the core). Learning to engage these muscles during flexion, extension, and rotation is central to performing better movements in all sports and begins with proper posture.
Standing with anatomically correct posture begins the process for establishing and enhancing all body lines in swimming. Learning to take this position into the water and maintaining the centerlines of movement will take you further toward improved swimming than just about any technique. In assessing flexibility, mobility, and stability, movement tendencies become evident - you can tell to what extent you use your core muscles in your basic movements. For coaches, assessment can provide teaching moments in which to educate your triathletes how to be more aware of using the core muscles. Practicing functional movements teaches the body to use core muscles deep inside the body to affect movement of the limbs and achieve more efficient technique.
The muscles in the hip region are frequently unstable in triathletes. Notably, the gluteus medius (a muscle that prevents tilting or sagging of the pelvis) is an important pelvic primary stabilizer. When the gluteus medius is weak, other muscles or movements must compensate for the weakness in everyday activities, such as standing up from a chair. This compensation results in less efficient, less functional movements. Over time, the muscular, nervous, and skeletal systems become affected by these repeated less functional movements and sustained faulty postures.
Swimmers who move functionally on land transfer their skills remarkably well into the water, improving in symmetry of swimming motions and performance and reducing the risk of overuse injury. Balanced and symmetrical swimming movement begins in the proximal muscles at the body's core (below the chest to above the knees), which support the outward, or distal, muscles near the head, arms, hands, legs, and feet. An excellent technique to engage the deep core muscles is to draw in when exhaling to activate these muscles and help stabilize the pelvis, which result in better streamlining and better movements.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483767_ebook_Main.jpg
Proximal and distal - swimming from inside to out.
Thus optimal posture on land transfers directly to swimming and eases motor learning in the water. By learning to control your body during flexion (sitting) and extension (standing) through the use of your core muscles, you begin the process of establishing more functional movements. Movements controlled by active engagement and stability from the proximal muscles affect the functionality of the distal muscles during swimming (figure 6.4).
Phases of the Freestyle Swimming Stroke
There are variations in mechanics unique to each individual, but the phases of the freestyle stroke can always be recognized. In this section we progress through these phases, presenting principles for you to build on. First we'll explain the phases and primary terms related to the freestyle swimming stroke. Then we'll describe how to develop better movement through lower-intensity training that enhances motor learning by breaking down complex movements into what we call body lines.
Front Quadrant
The front quadrant is defined as the front half of the freestyle stroke underwater (figure 6.5).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483768_ebook_Main.jpg
Front quadrant.
In front-quadrant swimming, at least one hand is in the front quadrant during the entire stroke cycle. This requires a shift in stroke timing. Traditional teaching dictates finishing hard with one arm past the hips and entering the water with the other arm. In front-quadrant swimming, the right arm's entry into the water occurs during the insweep phase of the left arm (along with an exit at midtorso). When done correctly, there should be no gliding - that is, no point at which propulsion is not being applied.
One advantage of front-quadrant swimming is that it keeps the body long, with one arm always out in front or above the head. Having one arm above the head raises the body's center of mass and helps reduce torque from the buoyancy force that causes the legs to sink. Also, as is well known in ship building, a longer hull is more streamlined than a shorter hull. In front-quadrant swimming, you lengthen the hull of your body. Another advantage of front-quadrant swimming is that it changes the timing of your breathing. In traditional stroke timing, as one hand enters the water and stretches out in front, the other arm is finishing the stroke. This has been taught as the best opportunity to breathe, using momentum of the finishing arm to help rotate hips out of the water. Unfortunately, this timing of the breath leaves the hips vulnerable to sinking as the head turns and lifts to breathe (figure 6.6).
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483769_ebook_Main.jpg
Posture is affected when the head is lifted or extended when breathing.
Using front-quadrant swimming forces the breath to begin earlier in the stroke, when one arm is more underneath the body (figure 6.7; breathing occurs between the two images). The position of the arm in the water out in front serves as an anchor, creating forces that support the hips and keep them from sinking.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483770_ebook_Main.jpg
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/125/E5785_483771_ebook_Main.jpg
Breathe early when the front arm is beginning the catch posture.
Read more from Triathletes in Motion by Marc Evans and Jane Cappaert.