ONE STEP BACK = TWO STEPS FORWARD! - Blog

[Guest Prosoft Admin]

You’re 10 years old and you see it over and over again on TV…the three point shot. Those professional and college players make it look so easy. Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could make one of those! So you lean down a little deeper with the ball and take a few steps and heave it up as hard as you can. After about 12 tries one goes in…..it’s like you just won a national championship – and, addicted forever to the three.
 
The older kids and even the parents “ooh” and “ahhh” whenever they hear that ball hit the glove so hard there’s a loud “POP” that accompanies the batter’s failed swing. When it’s your turn as a 9 year old little league player to see if you can pitch you just let loose and give it all you’ve got…you’d love to be that one on the mound they’re all cheering for.
 
You’ve seen it on the beach. You’ve seen it at varsity volleyball games and on ESPN’s college games. That nasty spike that just leaves the other team speechless and helpless. No blocker, no defender could even get a touch on the ball. When I get a set I’m “swinging for the fences” …it’s gonna be YOUR kill they’re cheering for on the court.
 
Kids at every age in every sport look up to the older ones who’ve gone before them. Whether it’s the varsity players, or maybe college stars, and certainly the pro’s. It’s undeniable. Just like the commercial said…every basketball player at one point often thought they wanted to “Be like Mike.” (Michael Jordan that is.)
 
But what effect does that have on a young athlete? It undoubtedly is part of the draw we all have to sports as young, and often – not so young, athletes. Trying to replicate what the pro’s do. They’re so amazing to watch. It’s fun to see if you can even produce a glimmer of the outcomes they do. But at what price?
One of the real challenges we see often in young athletes is that at some point along the way their body, as they’re being coached in proper technique, seems to almost realize that there is a shortcut it can take. Staying on track with “perfect” technique isn’t easy. In fact it’s a real challenge to “Do it right.” (Isn’t that so true in so many things in life!)
 
So when that 9 year old steps up on the mound to pitch what happens are some subtle and some not so subtle mechanics breakdowns and bad habits…shortcuts by the body, to getting the ball to travel as fast as possible to the catcher’s glove. It can work. Unfortunately for him. With enough arm velocity and repetition of this throwing style he eventually can get the ball to the plate pretty consistently…and when he’s on, he’s on! He gets the strikes, he get’s the “ooh’s” and “ahh’s” and it all seems to be reinforced this was the way to go.
 
But then years down the road a throwing coach with a bit more experience looks at his technique and says he’s got bad habits in his legs and core, throws off balance, and is too “all arm” and they’ve got some work to do. He’s been getting sore a lot and the velocity and control are coming down and he’s not pitching as many games due to this pain he keeps getting.
 
How about the volleyball girl who as a younger player didn’t have quite enough height on her jump (who could at 10 years old) to be high enough to have time to go through the full, proper arm swing…and, who never got taught or at least never was consistently drilled in her approach to the swing. She sees the ball get set, takes her steps to the net – feet unfortunately squared facing the other team (they should be facing more to the right for a right handed hitter) and she’s only a few inches off the ground so she’s got to get that arm up early, lean back with her trunk and quick swing in an almost straight backward to forward line in order to hit the ball at all. But it works. And she starts getting consistent with this style of hitting and getting “kills” and becomes the young team’s “best” hitter….A Star is Born!
 
But then years later she’s noticing that her shoulder is getting more and more sore from hitting, and then one day she feels a sharp pain in her back on a swing in the front row. It keeps recurring and then she gets shut down after an Orthopedic doctor says the MRI showed a stress fracture in her lumbar spine.
THE DECEPTION…
 
So often young athletes, and sometimes their coaches also, can get caught being deceived by short term “success” like in the example of the pitcher or the volleyball hitter. The outcome starts to overshadow the process of how they got there. The result starts to trump that monotonous, tedious, arduous task of grinding away day after day, week after week of grooving effective and efficient proper technique.
 
And it’s in those apparent short term successes that we believe oftentimes the future downfalls of the body are created. It’s in that altering of proper mechanics that the micro stresses of tendonitises and stress fractures and ligament instability and other “overuse” injuries are born. But they aren’t just “born” – they’re repeated with dedication and persistence. They confidently and unquestioningly move forward like a runaway train. It’s hard to jump off while it’s moving so quick. It’s hard to step back and regroup and get back to the basics.
 
A WHOLE NEW PARADIGM…
 
At Paradigm Volleyball Club Karen and I have joined with CJ Denk, their fearless leader and head of coaching, to partner with them in providing the girls sports conditioning training twice weekly. CJ and his staff are awesome. They get it. Their focus is first on teaching and developing good technique, good habits. They know and accept that good team play will follow.
 
So our first task was going back and thinking about what sort of injuries tend to keep volley ball players off the court. Typically there’s ankle sprains, back pain and stress reactions and even fractures of the lumbar spine, shoulder tendonitis and even instability.
 
But the real key is going back even further to recognize what body parts have shortcomings. Who is under performing to contribute to that low back pain? Is there a body part that is the real underlying cause for why that rotator cuff on the swinging arm tends to get sore?
 
There’s a number of what we call “Big Rocks” that our human body tends to get gunked up with. It’s oftentimes across sports, across genders, across ages. No doubt there are specific issues to certain sports or even to certain positions on the field or court…but the first step is the Big Rocks. And these girls were no different.
 
It seems like a step backwards though. Going back and doing some flexibility movements. Repeating some patterns of swinging or of lunging and reaching for a ball.
 
“Where’s the advanced stuff?” I could imagine some of the girls or their parents thinking to themselves.
 
So many of the young athletes that we see at Peak Performance are successful, accomplished players at their level. But inevitably the great majority do have some underlying physical shortcomings that are holding them back from developing further and very often seem to be intimately related to their poor technique and their injuries.
 
At those young ages, when we’re trying to make the three point shot even though our form breaks down beyond 10 feet away, or throw that fast ball to a home plate that is just a bit too far away to keep that balance and timing that looked great with the shorter mound, or in this case with volleyball, that happened when trying to hit a ball over a net that is just too high or from a less than ideal set OUR BODY JUST FINDS A WAY!
 
Where you lack the strength or balance or coordination or skill or technique to “do it the right way” your body doesn’t just suddenly stop and give up and prevent you from “cheating.” YOU DO WHATEVER IT TAKES…to get that ball to reach the rim, to get velocity on that fastball, or to connect with the volleyball for a hit. And it’s in those compensations, repeated over time, that we believe the micro stresses of sport begin. It’s in that subtle and sometimes less than subtle deviation off of ideal technique, frequently done because an athlete lacks those critical precursors of ENOUGH flexibility,
ENOUGH strength, ENOUGH dynamic core, ENOUGH power…you name it…when they lack the necessary amount of whatever physical quality we’re talking about they don’t just suddenly get to move the mound in closer or lower the volleyball net or bring down a basketball goal to 9′ off the ground and 50% larger diameter.
 
THEY STILL JUST DO IT. And their body does whatever it takes to make it happen.
 
So if you’re lacking shoulder blade “pinch back” motion as a hitter you end up still hitting and swinging your arm even harder. If your ankle doesn’t bend enough your heel just comes up earlier or your knee collapses inward when you reach for a dig or jump for a hit. If your mid-back (thoracic) lacks backward motion and rotation then your low back will take over and over arch to swing at the ball.
 
So oftentimes with young athletes you really have to GET BACK TO THE BASICS to help them advance. In order to stay healthy, get healthy, reach advanced levels of performance…they all require a body that has both effective and efficient technique, that summates forces across body parts properly, that “shares the load” among muscle groups and joints in the right proportions.
 
It’s so easy to get caught up in doing the next “advanced” drill or exercise, both as a player and as a coach. But often the best approach is to analyze those athletic movements and get back to the basics…
 
TO TAKE ONE STEP BACK….so they can TAKE TWO STEPS FORWARD into the realm of full recovery from an injury or to advanced performance levels.
 
Knowing FUNCTION is the key. Be willing to take a step back to do it right – not to just do it. Finding professionals that can help identify your young athlete’s shortcomings, whether it’s for injury care or performance enhancement, will produce the best results long term. Don’t be fooled by short term successes if they’re at the cost of ingraining bad habits or avoiding using body parts that are under performing…do the right thing….DO IT RIGHT!
 
Call us at Peak Performance at 218-0240 if you need help with your young athlete’s injury or athletic development.