Strength and Conditioning programs must identify an athlete’s strength and weaknesses. Identifying core weakness when designing any sort of strength & conditioning program is the foundation of programs I build for my athletes and clients. And, if you train athletes, it should be on the top of your list to.  Without identifying if an athlete has either a weak core, or poor functional movement patterns, we are doing a disservice to athletes that depend on us to deliver programs that work. It doesn’t matter if they’re only using body weight, or learning advanced movements in the gym. In either situation, it’s in your better interest to be sure movement patterns and strength function together.

Do we see athletes with weak core strength and poor motor patterns? Yes, I more certainly do. When working with middle school aged kids, we see it often and it is expected in fact act this age. Understandably so, at this age athletes are starting to develop skill refinement and mostly are just trying to accommodate growth phases. Does this mean they can’t strength train. No. Exactly the opposite–they should be training and  the most import training is STRENGTH. Without strength, virtually all other training specifics go down the drain. Strength training on machines is not the best or safest method of developing functional strength and movement patterns, but that’s for another post.

Two of my favorite functional tests include the front lunge, and the squat. Both of which can be done in an open space with nothing more than the athletes body weight. When assessing the lunge you need to look for valgus knee (knee crossing midline), hip bending or torso sway, hip (femoral) adduction and internal rotation. Helping athletes recognize valgus knee patterns is so important as there is a much greater transfer of forces when we see valgus knee position during landing and absorbing movements such as landing a rebound in basketball or finding your feet after challenging a head ball in soccer.

A muscular weakness is most typically the culpret here–most specifically speaking of the gluteus maximus and medius, which are a few of the major movers and stabilizers to controlling lower extremities during exercises such as lunging and squatting.

Unfortunately, many sport coaches fail to recognize inadequecies of these movement patterns when they request the athlete to do such exercise. This is even more critical to identify good movement patterns as athletes enter the weight room and are typically adding external loads at various positions.

Conclusion: Athletes need to pay attention to how they move during exercises as they pertain to strength movement patterns to better their opportunities of developing desired athleticism and strength-speed gains.

Coaches can keep their athletes in the game and offset injuries by educating them on the importance of developing proper movement patters like the lunge and squat.

Because after all, the primary reason for strength and movement pattern training is to better develop overall athleticism. If we as coaches expect better moving athletes, it starts with better understanding how to coach our athletes through movement patterns during drills and in the strength room.

Hollister Struck

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 3:22 PM and is filed under Athletic Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.