[Gilson Sampaio Pereira is a master’s student at University of Stuttgart, Germany, and Sport Performance Coach. He is currently in the Coaching Mentorship Program at Athletic Lab]

We often hear in the world of sports, including strength and conditioning, that “Speed is King”. But if you consider that a fast movement is still a movement which is executed by hundreds of muscles activated in perfect symphony you could easily say that maybe “Technique is the actual King” and the rest originates from there. Everybody who has played a sport has felt the perfect, effortless feeling while executing a soccer shot, baseball or football throw, tennis forehand, Thai-boxing kick, golf swing sweet spot, or even a perfect sprint. The involved muscles feel perfectly synchronized with perfect timing.

A Sports Performance Coach (SPC) might think that this part should be left to the actual sports coach (SC) to give specific feedback to the athlete. However, there are some tools a SPC can use to enhance specific sports technique without practicing it, ensuring we are not crossing the line between the SC and SPC.

All aforementioned sports techniques have 4 things in common:

  1. You need to practice them several thousand times to achieve mastery
    – Technique enhances performance output as well as efficiency. The difference between a Top 10 ATP or WTA player and a regional player is proficiency in technique execution and less absolute movement speed and power output. Proficiency in technique execution might also lessen the predisposition for lower back injuries in Tennis players (Chow, Park & Tillman, 2009). So, enhancing technique means enhancing the overall performance of athletes.
  2. They place high stress on the involved parts of the body
    – An SPC should understand the interaction of those parts while performing the main technique of the sport. Only in that way can we really help to boost performance and prevent injuries.
  3. Utilization of the stretch shortening cycle (SSC) over large kinetic chains by subsequent acceleration of single parts
    – The concept of the kinetic chain was introduced by Franz Reuleaux, a mechanical engineer, in 1875. Dr. Arthur Steindler applied this phenomenon to the human body and came up with a definition: the combination of several successively arranged joints constituting a complex motor unit. We have overlapping segments in series.
    There is always an eccentric loading of the kinetic chain in the counter movement with a subsequent concentric action which accelerates the limb for kicking, throwing or hitting.
  4. Perfect timing in sequencing the involved parts of the kinetic chain leads to higher accelerations (e.g. of the ball or racket)
    . The limb that should be accelerated the most is usually the one which moves last. Before that, the rest of the body sequences the motion potentiating the following body part until the main limb

Looking at the four attributes stated above, numbers 2-4 can concern the SPC if she/he is willing to address general movement quality.

Increasing maximal power without raising muscular capacity

What I saw in the course of the last years is that an athlete doesn’t necessarily need to raise her/his 1RM Squat or strengthen the “core” (whatever that is) to kick, hit or throw harder or faster. The sling theory of Dr. Dr. Homayun Gharavi speaks about engaging as many muscles as possible to enhance power output. I believe that in a sound S&C program raising strength levels can contribute to every athletic sport. But if we compare the human body to an engine the automotive engineer would tell us that the horse power is dictated by the quality of the pieces, the oil used, the geometry and structure as well as the transmission, and so on. Now the hardware is covered but it also needs the right software to synchronize the fuel and air mixture, oil temperature influenced by the cooling system, throttle response and so on. What is more important, hardware or software? I hope you all agree if I say both are equally important but maybe not equally addressed in the S&C and rehab world. My intent is to give an update for the software – giving new and/or the right information to the body.

So this is what we can do!

As stated above, numbers 2-4 should be of concern to the SPC. Specifically, I would like to address numbers three and four. That means improving the utilization of the SSC for a technique specific kinetic chain and improve the timing of the involved body parts. I believe that those two characteristics, when blended perfectly together, dictate the performance output. Another thought that came up by Dr. Homayun Gharavi was that the crucial part of athletic movements is the transitions from eccentric loading of the kinetic chain to concentric. Concentric movement quality is dictated by the control of the eccentric phase and applying force with the right timing.

Here is where the bungee suspension comes in: In training, we sometimes need to slow down or isolate certain parts of a technique to get awareness of the movement. The problem is we lose the SSC-character and the dynamics of the movement if we, for example, slow down a tennis forehand. And every coach knows that as soon as an athlete gives maximal effort, compensation patterns appear. So the bungee suspension allows the athlete to basically fall in and load the whole chain by inducing postural co-activations. The next advantage is the trampoline-like character which provides the athlete with immediate feedback if they’re doing it right “applying force to a stretched trampoline sheet with the right timing leads to greater heights” same in the bungee suspension. As you can swing in the elastic bands you get a lot of repetitions in to strengthen a certain motor pattern.

Let’s get more specific now by giving one example:

Improving the Tennis Forehand

Figure 1

A big problem in tennis players is overuse injuries of the elbow and shoulder (Ellenbecker et al., 2009). What I often see in tennis players is a lack of utilization of the whole kinetic chain to produce rotational speed and therefore accelerate the arm. There is often compensation with excessive arm swinging motion that, in consequence, might lead to the stated symptoms. What if the trunk muscles generate higher velocities so that the shoulder and arm muscles just have to follow through? That could increase the efficiency of every movement and that is where I think it’s not a lack of strength but a lack of neuro-motor representation in the brain.

I apologize for having introduced the next exercise with so much information but it is a novel training method which needs some explanation to understand the train of thought.

The most critical part is the transition from eccentric to concentric loading from one part to the other. For example, hip turns “loads the line diagonal to the shoulder” this line contracts and loads up the anterior shoulder, which after contracting, loads the biceps and the forearm muscles, which then, in turn, follow through. The important part is to successfully load every part eccentrically to get the potentiating effect from a stretch shortening cycle (Komi, 2003, p. 184-202). In figure 1 you can see the force lines acting over the frontal upper body during a forehand in tennis. With the following exercise, I aim to engage the chain over which those force lines travel. (Myers, 2001, p. 187)

 


Roger Federer loading the whole kinetic chain by creating a perfect lag of the single parts

To illustrate the next exercise I am simply using some strong bands. A more convenient and better working option is to use the 4D PRO Bungee Trainer. The bungees provide a much better elastic behavior.

In the following videos below I show the warm-up exercise, a common pattern of overactive arm motion in the forehand swing and the actual exercise. As you learn to utilize the whole kinetic chain you’ll be able to accelerate smoother and faster out of the stretched bands.

Warm-up exercise: Use at least a strong band to carry your weight. If you’re heavier like me, go for a strong and medium band. Use the bands like a trampoline to accelerate out.

Forehand exercise – compensation: This is a common overactive arm swing.

Forehand exercise – Kinetic chain used:

This setup worked best for me (weight: 190lbs/88,5kg; height: 5 11″/182cm; right handed)

  1. Take one very strong band + one medium and put it on your right shoulder in order to lean in
  2. Get a second light-medium band to hold in your right hand
  3. Lean in and start bouncing. Try to emphasize the synchronization of the hips, shoulder and arm movement as you’re pretending to do a forehand.

Note that it’s only the transition phase between countermovement and acceleration, hence a small displacement of the body parts from there you only have to follow through. Because of the one sided band placement, you’ll experience a rotational moment which mimics the counter movement in a forehand. Details like arm position or the wrist lag could also be reinforced in the bungee suspension but this detail I will leave for the actual sports coach to incorporate it.

References

Chow, J. W., Park, S. A. and Tillman, M. D. 2009. Lower trunk kinematics and muscle activity during different types of tennis serves. Sports Medicine, Arthroscopy, Rehabilitation, Therapy & Technology, 1, 1 24.
Komi, P.V. (2003). Stretch-Shortening Cycle. In P.V. Komi (Hrsg.), Strength and power in sport (The Encyclopaedia of sports medicine, v. 3, S. 184 202). Osney Mead, Oxford, Malden, MA: Blackwell Science.
Myers, T. W. (2001). Anatomy Trains: Myofascial Meridians for Manual and Movement Therapists. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone.