Coordinating Coordination

Just about every day players or coaches ask me what they can do to get faster or help their players get faster. The top item I tell them is to work on coordination and stretching. I could talk about both here, but you don't have all day and I don't want to overwhelm parents, players or coaches with a bunch of technical jargon.

So onto the coordination explanation.

Most if not all kids these days are already specializing in sports. I don't want to talk about whether or not I think that is good, I'm just going to explain how it can hinder performance.

When kids begin to specialize at a young age, they start to go through repetitive motions over and over. Many times this goes on for years. And because they specialize, they are not exposed to other stimuli that could be beneficial. Baseball is a prime example of that. 

There is not a lot of running in baseball compared to soccer or football. This unfortunately does not bode well for the young player when he really needs to start running during a game. His body has essentially developed the movement patterns that he trains the most (Pitching and hitting) and everything else just kind of gets left to the wayside.

Running requires coordination: you have to know how far should I extend my knees, how far forward should I lean, how big of an arm swing do I need, should I bend my knees more, should I land on my heel or on the ball of my feet, etc, etc. 

There are many instances of coordination being needed but when  a child specializes they tend to not get exposed to these tasks that demand coordination. So at our In-Season Baseball Training, we are laying a base and developing coordination each and every day by doing this sequence of a warm-up:

1. We start with the agility ladder. Most of these exercises are designed to get the kids to move their feet and place them in a specific position, while also learning to transfer body weight from one foot to the other.
2. We then progress to active stretching that requires strength to get through the stretch, but also has a very high balance demand to it. 
3. Next comes our skipping, bounding and more dynamic warm-up. These require, rhythm and timing, coordination between muscles and muscle groups as well as a spatial awareness that most youth athletes are not exposed to.
4. We then go into postural exercises and skill development such as the mini-hurdles or rapid response exercises to teach asymmetrical movements while maintaining proper posture.

The one thing about this program is it is highly asymmetrical, meaning that when one side is moving the other side is either not moving, or it is stabilizing or moving at a different rate, in a different direction or through a different range of motion. This is what kids MUST develop in order for them to become better athletes. They need to focus on movement first in different directions, with different tempo's, different ranges and different rhythms. 

If you notice that there is just something off with the movement of you or your athlete, that things just look a little off, odds are it has to do with coordination. And if you really want it to improve, do it more frequently than just at Pair & Marotta. Do the skipping in the back yard, add rapid response exercises to your pre-game warm up, and start working on running and moving in different directions than just those used in baseball. I enjoy baseball. But what I enjoy even more is watching young players become better athletes, not just better ball players.

This is what we do at Pair & Marotta Sports Performance. We teach athletes how to move their body. They are starting to see how amazing their body really is and once they realize that, their potential is unlimited in not only sports, but also in life.

Computers and...Baseball?

We've now started our In-Season Baseball Training Program and one thing is for sure. There are a lot of things that need improvement. And here is one thing I have noticed from working with kids in a learning environment:

They do not think before they move.

When learning a new movement pattern or exercise, especially in a sports training environment, it is very important that a baseball player think about what is about to happen before trying to go through the movement pattern.

So many athletes just try to make the exercise look like the person who demonstrated it. But when players go based off of what it looks like as opposed to how an exercise FEELS, they tend to get it wrong. It's like trying to run a computer program without the necessary software.

The brain is the software. It controls the entire program. It stores the motor programs and cues for going through an exercise. The muscles are the hardware. Now most computers have appropriate hardware to run most programs. However, it is the software you have to buy and upload.

If the software isn't there, then no matter how hard you try to create a program or mimic a program, it's not going to operate correctly. You must have the software for the program to run right.

By going through a Baseball Training Program, like ours at Pair & Marotta Sports Performance in Bakersfield, we are installing the software necessary to make the computer (body) and programs (swing/pitch) run faster and more efficiently.

So before we try to learn an exercise or movement pattern, we need to think about what is going to happen, take the time and effort to feel the exercise in the muscles and make sure that you are feeling what you should be feeling.

It's like I have said for so long, an exercise can look right but feel completely wrong. However, it is virtually impossible for a movement pattern to feel right and look wrong. This can be applied to a baseball swing.

So many people are paying for their kids to get hitting lessons. And many coaches are concerned with only the visual aspect of the swing. Only those who understand movement science will ask how the swing feels and which muscles the batter feels it in. If you're not doing focusing on the causes of Movement First, then you're simply putting a band-aid over a larger problem.

Here is the take away for the day: Before paying to give your child the perfect baseball swing, pitch, or lead off, make sure they can go through the basic movements. Make sure they can squat, lunge, rotate and reach before trying to change the swing. Or else you might just be putting a band-aid over something that has deeper causes.