Smart Stability Training: Why and How
“Imagine a car that can go 150 miles per hour; but the brakes only stop up to 50 miles per hour. On the court, your body is like the car. If you have strong muscles and the ability to move fast but you don’t have good brakes, you will always perform less than your best. The Stabilizing muscles are your brakes” - Dr. Mike Clark NASM OPT
What a great quote! Only a few sentences but a world of meaning. Stability muscles are the foundation of every movement we perform in sport. Without an adequate amount of stabilization structures (synergist and GTO’s) in our bodies, it is nearly impossible to perform any sport based strength or power movement. Similar to the foundation of a house, stabilization is the foundation to your athleticism along with joint health. The beautiful thing about stability training is that it improves injury prevention and creates a clean slate for our bodies to build on.
As a strength coach, two aspects that should be focused upon is injury prevention and improved function (athleticism). Stability training helps carry out these goals. In any sport, the ankle, knee, hips and occasionally the shoulders have to overcome the impact from force driven movements such as changing directions, landing and jumping. To protect against injury, stabilization muscles or “deep muscles” are recruited to give protection and support. This is an important factor that should not be overlooked. Nearly every sport task relies upon the hips, knees and ankles (triple extension) to compete. Ironically, these joints are typically the injuries found walking through the AT room door.
For those of you who think stability training is a waste of time, here are a few facts. According to Mike Clark, by implementing a 4 week stabilization progression (the same duration as strength and power training in his OPT model) a 30 percent speed increase was found along with a 55 percent decrease in ankle, knee and back injuries.
I agree with the “Bosu Hater’s”. Bosu squats are just a way to show off to your buddies at the gym. It negatively affects force production and it stresses the knee and ankle in terms of improper alignment, intense flexibility demands and confused neuromuscular function. I believe that any strength coach is in agreement with me. Your goal is to keep your athletes on the playing field. Period! This means preventing injuries by implementing safe strength and power movements. A bosu squat is a tremendous liability as well as a credibility buster. A perfect example of the dangers of innovation.
Here are a few stability based movements I highly suggest implementing into your athletes programs.
- Monster Walks – Lunge Medley -Single leg squat -Bilateral/Unilateral hops – Airex series – Hop Stabilization – Core stabilization exercises (planks, bridges, bear crawls, bird dogs, mountain climbers w/ leg elevated or leg curl)
Base Transfer
SL Chop & Row
Mini Band Bunny Hops
Three Pt. Stabilization
These exercises are a few ways to train your muscles to contract at the right time. Neuromuscular coordination is a term that involves the muscular balance (activation) of your body during movement. Efficient movement relies upon the relay of electrical impulses to the correct muscles at the proper frequency and time, an action I like to call “Activation Athleticism”.
I hope you enjoy the content.
Matthew
