Movement is THE Skill to Master
The number one predictor of injury is previous injury, and the number two predictor of injury is asymmetry (past a certain point). Asymmetry is the lack of coordination of two body parts relating to one another. It seems ACL surgeries are trending these days, and even more so without contact. When a movement skill is lost due to injury or detraining, proper restoration is key. That restoration is assuming the movement was skilled and correct to begin with; otherwise, a new movement skill needs to be properly taught.
Traditional physical therapy (PT) focused on an isolated approach, but now they have a more regional approach. Unfortunately, both approaches have shown little success. Physical therapists tend to fix the site of the pain and they neglect the root cause of the pain. They also neglect the most important contributor to movement—the brain—in either approach. All movement is a function of the brain’s response to a stimulus. If there is no need to respond to an environmental stimulus, then there is no need to move. All movement is therefore a reaction, just as sports movements are reactions. If the brain is ignored in movement, then the movement will be less than optimal, which could lead to injury and/or further asymmetry. No matter how many baseball practices are held and games scheduled, no matter if you are a gym rat and pound the pavement on a regular basis, if the brain is ignored, injury will occur.
Fitness is great at conditioning an athlete, strength training can be great at strengthening an athlete, sport-specific skills are most certainly great at making performance better, but without proper movement patterns, all will be less than optimal and eventually meaningless once an injury occurs. Movement happens in the moment, in the now, it cannot be preplanned. Sports movements happen too fast for the athlete to think about the movement and how to do it; even the most highly coordinated non-sport movements are too fast to think through them (e.g. washing hair). The brain must process all the external stimuli, shed the unimportant, and focus at that moment on what movement needs to occur. More importantly, as movement is occurring, the brain is still receiving stimuli and, therefore, may alter the movement due to new environmental stimulus.
Every time an athlete responds to a stimulus, the movement is either getting better or it is getting worse. “We are what we repeatedly do.” The brain remembers everything we do, so if a poor movement pattern exists, and that pattern is practiced, that pattern only gets worse. However, if a good movement pattern exists, and that pattern is practiced, then that pattern becomes more efficient—better. A new movement pattern can always be created, just make sure that pattern is being taught and executed correctly and obviously, practiced correctly. The brain initiates, adjusts, tracks, and stores every movement one makes; the brain is always learning and adapting. *Isolation does not appear in the world, nor does it appear in the brain, which means movement is not an isolated event, it is a pattern. The brain can only process and store so much information at once. If it couldn’t rely on groupings and patterns, humanity would not have survived this long, let alone created the wonderful world of soccer…and now sports training.
Every system in the body, especially those focused on by trainers, interacts with the nervous system to provide the most efficient movement pattern for the environmental stimulus. As strange as it sounds, one clear indicator of movement quality is the breathing pattern of the athlete. Breathing is the most important function to humans—if you don’t breathe, you die—second is grip, but I digress. Breathing is also the only autonomous function that we have control over and it is the only way we can affect our nervous system. If athletes can control breathing, they can control stress levels, which means they can control movement. Certain levels of stress are required for some movements to occur. Certain levels of stress can also reduce the quality of movement.
More obvious indicators of movement quality are range of motion and mobility. Though they sound like one in the same, range of motion is joint specific and refers to the articulations of the joint; whereas, mobility is the unlimited freedom of movement based on unrestricted range of motion. For an optimal movement to occur, adequate mobility must be attained and that mobility needs to be stabilized. Stability is solely correlated to mobility. If an athlete does not have unlimited mobility, then there is no reason for that body to stabilize movement that cannot occur. Mobility needs to be present so that adequate stability can be present. Once this is accomplished then motor control is practiced. Motor control is the coordinated movement of muscles and limbs to perform a motor skill (movement pattern). Precise control is essential for an optimal movement skill. Successful motor control is essential for interacting with the world, especially in the world of soccer; it not only determines an athlete’s capabilities, it regulates balance.
Baseball skills such as the swing, pitching mechanics, and fielding are essential, but without proper movement patterns in place, they cannot be perfected. Skills such as acceleration, change of direction (deceleration), and sprinting require proper movement patterns as well. The former are true movement skills that must be taught and executed correctly; otherwise, an athlete will demonstrate compensations and dysfunctions. The better the athlete, the more likely she or he will get away with compensations, but eventually the compensations and dysfunctions will catch up to the athlete by way of a better skilled mover or worse—injury.