My family and I made it back from our vacation yesterday evening safe and sound. Here I am hanging out with Goofy and Donald.
It was tough to leave. We left sunny Orlando with 80 degree weather and landed in Cincinnati for a lay over with the temperature at 50 degrees. It was a fun trip! Jenn and I are ready to get back to work and the kids are ready for school….well, sort of?
Mobile and Stable Athletes
We often talk about making our athletes more mobile however, let’s not forget about immediately making them more stable following the mobility.
If I have an athlete perform a mobility exercise like a dynamic hip flexor drill in all three planes, then I have her follow it up with a stability exercise. One of the exercises I like to assign is band resisted knee raise to activate the hip flexor. I also like assign hop and holds. This is with the foot held in the air is activating the hip flexor by virtue of holding into flexion.
When I have my athletes perform chest and shoulder stretches I will often back these up with push up type exercises or rowing exercises.
The key is to give the joint some strength and integrity in its new range of motion. Also, you want to be sure the proprioceptors are activated and ready to protect the joints and soft tissue in its new length.
This is why you never want to perform simple static stretches and immediately go hard into acceleration or deceleration training. They muscles and joints are more vulnerable to injury due to the newly relaxed tissue and receptors.
When designing your warm up be sure to include some exercises that increase both mobility and stability back to back.
P.S. – After seeing Goofy and Donald and the rest of the Disney characters run, I have concluded they definitely need to take the IYCA Speed Certification to get up to speed. If you see the Disney Crew…send them to www.youthspeedspecialist.com so they can train to be a champion.
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