Athletes Play Dynamically and Should Train Dynamically
March 22, 2015 |
John Paul Catanzaro
Many times research is extrapolated from a pathological population
and applied to a healthy population. Static muscle endurance training of
the core is one such example. Here’s an excerpt from Shinkle et al., 2012 on the topic:
“In sports, muscular demands vary greatly from athlete to athlete.
This makes it very difficult to have one statement that will address all
superiorities or inadequacies of the core. Currently, plank exercises
are considered an adequate method of training the core for athletes to
improve core strength and stability. The problem with these exercises is
that they put the athletes in a nonfunctional static position that is
very rarely replicated in the demands of sport-related activities. To
train for the majority of sports, it requires a dynamic motion.”
The same concept applies with static versus dynamic stretching as I discuss in my Stretch for Strength
video presentation. Stretching is velocity specific. There’s actually a
low correlation between static and dynamic stretching. For example, a
martial artist may be able to kick you in the head but might not reach
his toes during a sit-and-reach test. The bottom line is that if you
want to be flexible in motion, you must stretch in motion.
Back to core training… For best results, a combination of static
endurance training as a method of injury prevention (e.g., plank and
side bridge exercises) and dynamic explosive training to improve
performance (e.g., cable woodchop and medicine ball exercises) should be used with athletes.