Building Foundations: You Go Girl!

I'm working with a young, female cross country runner--call her AJ--who is preparing for her junior year in high school. My job is work on basic running mechanics (relaxing the upper body, more efficient arm swing) and building a foundation of strength.

AJ is about 5' 7" and 115 lbs. She's a 12:30ish two-miler. Born and built to go long; needs to get stronger and learn how to find and express power when necessary. She's never lifted or done any supervised jumping. We're working with some R sided (hip/core/shoulder girdle) weakness. She's got a mellow, quiet--but determined--personality. My job is also to light a bit of a fire and bring out confidence in her ability to be faster and stronger.

So far, our 3x/wk workouts have been great. We are learning to train; gaining confidence; building neuromuscular coordination and expressing torso stability while learning good lower extremity mechanics with squats. She's learning to control R hip IR/knee valgus movements with landing mechanics. While I was on vacation, AJ was diligent with her program and I returned to find improved pressing (overhead & push up). This young athlete was even using a mirror at home to make sure her mechanics were perfect with push ups.

She's gaining confidence, even though her teammates have questioned her resistance training. "Aren't you afraid of getting bulky?" they ask. She just laughs. I'm so proud of her. She understands it takes hard work, attention to detail and persistence. Such a joy to work with at all times.

I can't wait to see her progress over the next two years.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Form and Function

Image
Way back in 2002, I scanned these images by Howard Schatz from Sports Illustrated (October 14, 2002). A fascinating array of elite female athlete physiques, heights and weights, eh? These are some of the women featured in his book Athlete --a very cool pictorial essay that celebrates athletic form and function.
Read more

It's About Preparing People, not Preventing Injuries

ACL injuries do not happen in a void. People sustain injuries when their infrastructure is unable to manage a specific set of physical circumstances. To describe the mechanism of the injury without the context of the person and their level/type of sport, is to miss valuable insight. In sport, we prepare the person, to the best of our understanding, to meet the physical demands of that sport. We do not just work to prevent one particular injury; we prepare athletes to navigate the total sport physical environment. By "we" I mean the coaching and support staff -- specifically the athletic development staff.  Athletic development (AD) coaches prepare athletes through the development of physical literacy and movement competencies via movement progressions. It is more than strength, power, agility; it is the acquisition of knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviors to manage themselves within the entire sporting environment. At the higher levels of sport, AD coaches coordinate wit
Read more

The 411 on Back Angles and Torque When Squatting

The angle of the torso, when squatting, is not a function of whether or not the bar is high or low on the back. The angle of the torso (and thus torque on the spine) is primarily determined by the angle of the shin, a.k.a how much the ankle dorsiflexes. AND IN MY BOOK, THIS IS THE KEY TO BEST BACK TRAINING PRACTICES. GET IT??? MAKE YOUR QUADS, HAMS AND GLUTES DO THE WORK. If your shin is perpendicular to the floor, then your torso will incline forward to keep the CoM over your BoS, regardless of how low the bar is on your back. And your back will be forced to handle higher torque. A good, general rule of thumb, IMHO, is to keep the shins and the torso parallel, from an inclination standpoint. This could change with femur/torso length issues (tight adductors and hips in general can cause issues too), but this method is pretty good to help someone figure out whether or not they have decent ankle flexibility when squatting. And this will minimize torque on the back, as we will d
Read more