What Trainers & Coaches need to understand about the Core for Sports Performance.
When it comes to rotational sports training, it's common for trainers to say, "the core transfers force between your hips and shoulders."
This is not entirely clear because your core completes force with your lower-body and upper-body to create rotational power.
Saying your core (torso) transfers force is basically saying your core only acts passively as a bridge, which treats the core as if it doesn't actively contribute to providing (more) force production in rotation.
HERE'S MY PERSONAL OPINION
Rotations come from the feet all the way to the hands. Most sports involve a coordinated effort by the entire body (the individual muscles added together) to apply force in an explosive manner. Athletic movements—whether throwing a punch; swinging a bat, club, or racket; or sprinting and jumping, grappling, kicking —are driven not by power generated in just one specific area of the body, but by the combination of individual muscles producing power in a smooth, coordinated sequence.
This is important in programming because, when you better understand rotational power in sports, you better understand how to train for improved rotational performance. And it became clear why Pallof Presses and plank variations aren't that great at improving rotational performance. Hence the ACTIVE Super-Typhoon. (Anti-Rotation) with the Inertia Wave ®
The practical programming implications of this are:
1) Train each section of your body (lower, core and upper) individually with strength training, through a proper optimal opposition (opposing forces) range of motion, to ensure each area is strong.
2) Use low load, dynamic rotational exercises to ensure you're able to make each area work together in a smooth, coordinated sequence. Avoid energy leaks ie: A battle rope slapping the ground. A tube rotation where the resistance tube sits against the shoulder area at full or end range.
Pallof Presses, & Planks are not core exercises.
A bunch of isometrics like pallof presses (light on - light off) and planks don't optimize core strength when your core muscles are in a lengthen position, such as when you wind up in rotational sports to start the action. Nor do they optimize your ability to make each area of your body work together in a smooth and coordinated rotational sequence needed for optimal performance.
This is NOT to say exercises like planks and pallof press shouldn't be used. They're fine exercises to incorporate. (Add a challenge by moving extremities) It's simply to say these moves don't represent the complete core performance training picture for rotational athletes as they're often made out to be. They're low, if not omitted on my list for improving rotational performance.
Different sport, same general force generation and neuromuscular coordination pattern.
Therefore, I say good performance training isn’t about loading sports-specific skills. It’s about loading specific force generation, and neuromuscular coordination patterns that transfer to target movements. Hence, why I designed the Inertia Wave ®
Not to mention, rotational power doesn’t come from the middle (core). It starts from the ground up (from the legs and hips).
Inertia Wave ® As a warmup
Before a weight training session
Use the Inertia Wave ® as an activator of the CNS, proprioceptive and fascial systems.
Inside an Energy system training session, we use the Inertia Wave ® during, or we use it sometimes at the end of a weight training session
As I always mention during a presentation “It is very difficult to establish a direct transfer from the training to the sport performance, however, the Inertia Wave methods are very efficient to improve this transfer.
-Balance and proprioception of the ankle joint (very important in soccer) through peripheral activation and horizontal force adaptations) All performed with the Inertia Wave.
SPORTING DEMANDS & INERTIA WAVE ADAPTATIONS
O.K.E = Oscillating Kinetic Energy
- Motor Control & Neuromuscular Efficiency: The Inertia Wave ® has shown to stimulate a higher motor unit recruitment of primary and secondary muscle groups. Again-well-designed O.K.E. wakes up muscles and muscle grouping behavior that help propel the body through space. Better motor control and optimal muscle recruitment translate into better movement quality.
- Fast, Efficient Force Absorption: The instability and oscillatory effects of the Inertia Wave ® do wonders for waking up proprioceptive mechanisms, as sensory receptors such as muscle spindles are forced to work overtime to continually adjust to erratic wavelength movements.
- This is a vital piece of force absorption. Most coaches and PT’s only address slow, maximal strength force absorption through lifting and do not address quick, eccentric force absorption in the proper fashion. Athletes need to be able to absorb force fast and efficiently. Highly involved muscular co-contraction behavior around joints, fast relaxations, appropriate fitness, and appropriate chains of fascial connectivity absolutely plays a role here. Sports involve much faster, ‘speed strength’ eccentric overloads for force absorption than they do ‘maximal strength’ ones.
- Integrated Core: Another benefit is having a developed center of mass/gravity, appropriately linking chains of muscle groups of the body, and assisting in proximal-distal muscle firing to control your limbs in space. K.E. and the Inertia Wave help develop these core muscles you don’t see in the mirror. A properly developed core is the channel by which force absorption and generation should be transmitted.
- Contract & Relax Cycles:
- We went into contract & relax cycles for force absorption. Muscles also must be able to very rapidly turn on and off in most sports to deliver power. The Inertia Wave work helps athletes develop proper reciprocal inhibition that can deteriorate if excessive slow, heavy lifting work is done alone without proper holistic consideration of how the body works. By this token, we can help develop rate of force development adaptations.
As a bonus, O.K.E. with the Inertia Wave creates an additional metabolic cost due to the added muscle recruitment and energy expenditure. You can potentially get creative using it in conditioning programming as many athletes do.
*The takeaway here should be to consider Inertia Wave training as a supplement in your training model. My theory is that well-designed instability training is one key component of laying a foundation for quality movement-from which everything else originates.
I have experimented with O.K.E. using the Inertia Wave in a variety of ways and have found the Inertia Wave to be a great tool in its implementation unique to itself. By getting athletes, and fitness enthusiasts of all varieties to move better-with more neurochemical efficiency-we can improve coveted strength, power, speed, and movement abilities while properly rehabbing, and bulletproofing them from injuries.
Dave Parise CEO
FMFC LLC
MES, CPT, FPTA
