Oblique Running

During Oblique Running, the athlete’s gaze will remain on the PT or coach drawing concepts from both backward and lateral running. The athlete will perform the run in a backward (or forward) angled direction, anywhere between the backward and lateral run directions. A common starting point is to have the athlete perform the oblique run at a 45-degree angle. Improving the athlete’s ability to move properly in the oblique plane will greatly improve his/her ability to change direction safely and at faster speeds, improving sports performance. Like the backward and lateral runs, having the athlete’s gaze fixed on a position other than which they are running, will increase kinesthetic sense and further reduce the risk for re-injury.
Try to remember 2 important things:

• Keep athlete’s eyes and thorax fixated on PT/coach
• Train movement with change in direction at multiple angles to optimize athletes’ ability to safely move from oblique plane to other planes of motion.

Oblique running video:

Lateral Running

During a lateral run, the athlete’s gaze and upper thorax are oriented approximately 90 degrees from the direction in which he/she is running. By utilizing lateral movement, the athlete can change direction at faster speeds from 0-180 degrees of their starting thorax orientation. This makes for a more efficient change in direction in the frontal plane. Have the athlete keep his/her gaze 90 degrees from the direction in which they are running. With the athlete’s gaze focused in this position, the athlete will increase kinesthetic sense and further reduce the risk for re-injury.
But always remember:

• Have the athlete keep his/her gaze 90 degrees from the direction in which they are running
• Train movement with change in direction at multiple angles to optimize athletes’ ability to safely move from the sagittal plane to other planes of motion.

Lateral Running video:

Backward Running

During a backward run, the athlete’s gaze and upper thorax are oriented in approximately 180 degrees of the direction in which he/she is running. By utilizing backward runs, the athlete will have an improved ability to change direction at increased velocity from 0-180 degrees of their starting thorax orientation. When training such intervention, have the patient perform the movement while looking at you to improve kinesthetic sense and prevent over-reliance on the visual system. Improving proprioceptive capabilities is imperative in re-injury prevention for post-operative athletes, making this intervention a valuable tool for return-to-sport.

Always remember the following:

• Keep athlete’s eyes and thorax fixated on PT/coach
• Ensure athlete moves legs in running fashion way from PT/coach, this is NOT a backpedal
• Train movement with change in direction at multiple angles to optimize athletes’ ability to safely move from the sagittal plane to other planes of motion.

Backward running video:

A lot of athletes can benefit from change of direction exercises. Whether your athlete is training for field sports or the court, these running exercises are an effective way to develop important skills needed for performance and avoiding injury. For more information on training athletes, please reach out to us at info@goparabolic.com or call us at 908-679-5313. You can also follow us on Instagram and Facebook for more tips on how to perform better and repair right!

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Learn The Intricacies of The Pushup Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ajqMFfWT78

Admittedly, there comes a time where the basic pushup alone is no longer a significant challenge to many of our clients. Despite the fact that many people come to us and have to essentially relearn the pushup with proper mechanics, most active, healthy clients can perform pushups to our standard within a short time after learning the position and control we emphasize.

Once an individual is proficient in the skill of the basic pushup without excessive compensation — and once we have challenged their ability by adding volume — we need to find ways to challenge the pattern further to drive the person to continue to adapt.

Some might add weight in the form of a vest or chains. Some might add a power component and perform plyometric or explosive pushups. Others might even discard the pushup altogether and move permanently to some sort of externally loaded pressing or reaching exercises like a floor press or bench press.

While these are all viable options, there is another route—keep the pushup in the program, but challenge the individual’s stability and control. This requires no extra equipment, and in most cases involves very simple alterations to the basic pushup that make it exponentially more challenging.

The goal of these pushup variations is to maintain respiration, a neutral alignment of the pelvis and ribcage, and full protraction of the scapula on a flexed ribcage in more complex and unstable positions — as well as under conditions of fatigue.

When many people think of increasing the difficulty of an exercise, they consider only variables like weight, volume, velocity, etc. Adding complexity once a basic pattern has been mastered is just as valuable a way to increase the difficulty of an exercise while continuing to develop the basic ability to control and sense the position of one’s own body in space.

These variations are a great way to challenge core and shoulder stability and can be added to any workout where pushups would be performed. However, my favorite place to use them is as accessory work after heavy lifting to get in some additional upper body volume with a focus on movement quality.

Push-Up + Breathing

The pushup + breathing is often the first exercise I’ll go to after a client has shown the ability to execute the fundamental pushup for relatively high volumes without a breakdown in technique. It involves performing a normal pushup, but instead of flowing continuously from one rep to the next, the top position is held for a full breath cycle.

This accomplishes two things: First, it increases the time the individual is under tension by a large margin. Spending longer at the top of each rep while holding an isometric reach will make it much more fatiguing than a regular pushup.

Second, it forces the individual to own the top position of his or her pushup and find an optimal position in which to breathe. It just so happens that to get a good breath – breath that expands the ribcage 360 degrees — we need to align the pelvis and ribcage and inhale from a position of a full exhalation. The top of a pushup is a phenomenal place to do that.

By holding the top position of each rep, we are creating an environment where the individual has to focus on protracting the scapula, a full exhale to draw the ribs down, in, and back, and then an inhale with active abdominals to try to expand the upper back.

This is a deceptively hard exercise and challenges shoulder and anterior core stability to a far greater degree than a typical pushup. In order to focus on achieving a quality breath on each rep — and because time under tension is greatly increased — we usually start people with 3-4 sets of 5-8 reps performed as a secondary or accessory exercise for the day.

Push-Up To Single Arm Support

This is a personal favorite of mine. The pushup to single-arm support is a great way to add a unilateral component to the pushup, challenge reflexive shoulder stability, and train triplanar gait of the thorax.

Perform a pushup as usual finishing with an exhale and a full reach. Then, holding the reach throughout, lift one arm off the ground and reach across the body and touch the opposite ribcage. Imagine the shoulders are headlights and keep both headlights facing directly towards the floor. More importantly, keep the pants’ zipper line facing directly towards the floor. Pause in this position and resist the tendency to want to rotate away from the down arm for 2-3 seconds, then place the hand back on the ground, perform another pushup, and then repeat with the other arm.

By removing one hand from the floor we can greatly increase the challenge to the individual’s ability to reflexively stabilize the shoulder of the arm that remains in contact with the ground, as well as the ability to control the pelvis and the ribcage in all three planes of motion.

The goal of the exercise should be to keep the pelvis as neutral as possible, minimizing rotation. This can be accomplished by trying to imagine keeping the belt buckle facing straight towards the floor. While the pelvis remains neutral, by reaching through a single arm and exhaling, we are creating rotation through the thorax.

This is created primarily by the serratus anterior on the side of the arm we are reaching through, which abducts the thorax to the opposite side in the frontal plane and creates rib internal rotation on that side with rib external rotation on the other. To use a concrete example: reaching with the right arm abducts the thorax to the left, creates left rib internal rotation, and right rib external rotation.

Here is where the ability to keep the pelvis neutral and not let it rotate along with the thorax becomes critical.

Many sports, especially rotational sports, require the ability to disassociate movement of the thorax from the movement of the pelvis in all three planes of motion in order to optimize biomechanical efficiency. By keeping the pelvis neutral and driving rotation through the thorax via a unilateral reach, we are training this disassociation with active abdominals and control of both of these structures in three planes of motion. This is the real function of the so-called “core” and makes this pushup variation an all-star for any athlete whose sport demands rotation.

If, however, we allow the pelvis to rotate along with the trunk, we are no longer rotating the trunk. We are just rotating the entire body. The inability to disassociate the movement of these two key structures is at the root of many movement dysfunctions and mechanical inefficiencies in sport.

To truly be a beast, try to hold the reach with a neutral pelvis and take a full breath cycle. By inhaling with rib internal rotation opposite the side of the reaching arm, we create trunk rotation to the same side as the reaching arm. In essence, we are training the mechanics of the torso during normal human walking. Again, to employ a concrete example: after reaching and exhaling with the right arm, inhaling with the left ribs internally rotated will drive trunk rotation to the right.

While this all sounds very complex, this exercise is great because it allows an individual to feel exactly what he’s doing improperly. Most people will try it the first time and find themselves rotating away from the down arm uncontrollably while also shifting their center of mass too far towards that same arm. The individual will then have to find a way to stabilize in order to avoid losing control of the position. My advice — continue to exhale until the tank is empty and reach further.

Performing this variation demands and develops triplanar core control, reflexive shoulder stability, and the ability to inhibit posterior chain muscles like lats and paraspinal’s, all while building muscle mass and localized endurance. In my experience, it’s one of the most effective and time-efficient upper body accessory exercises we have at our disposal.

Begin with 3-4 sets of 4-6 reps on each side. This may seem conservative, but if the movement is performed properly with a focus on quality over quantity, this will be more than enough.

Push-Up With Mountain Climber Breathing

There is one commonality that all field and court sports share—locomotion, often in the form of sprinting. Even on ice in the game of hockey, the mechanics of skating fast are not as different from sprinting on land as many people think. In all of these cases, locomotion involves the ability to “split the hips” or rapidly move one hip into the extension to put force into the ground while the other hip moves into flexion.

While this action occurs at the hips, the abs work to help control the pelvis and ribcage in three planes of motion. The ability to achieve proper sprint mechanics for optimal efficiency and speed demands that athletes not just be able to produce a great deal of force into the ground and do it quickly, but that they are able to get into and maintain an alignment that affords them the ability to express full ranges of motion at distal joints like the hips and shoulders and produce force in the right direction to propel themselves forward.

This is why physical preparation practitioners like Ty Tyrrell and Mike Robertson of IFAST preach the importance of training core stability in positions of hip extension and where the pelvis is “split.” The ability to control the trunk and pelvis in a position where one hip is extended and one is flexed is essential to executing proper acceleration mechanics, which has application to every team-based sport imaginable. If we hope to teach athletes proper sprint mechanics, we need to give them context and stability in positions associated with sprinting.

Enter the pushup with mountain climber breathing. This is an advanced pushup variation that involves moving one hip into flexion while the other stays in extension as the individual presses himself up from the floor. As the knee is driven forward into a position of hip flexion, exhale and reach through the floor, blowing out as much air as possible and drawing the ribs down, in, and back. Hold the position and inhale, maintaining active abdominals so that the air fills and expands the upper back. Fully exhale once again, then bring the flexed hip back into extension and repeat the process on the other side.

Not only does this variation involve a ton of time under tension and is, therefore, brutal on the upper body, it also trains the anterior core in a position that is similar to the posture seen in the acceleration phase of sprinting.

By flexing one hip, we increase abdominal activity, which, coupled with a full reach and exhale on each rep, will allow us to inhale and drive air into the posterior ribcage, which sets the foundation for scapular and shoulder stability.

While it is very beneficial for athletes to learn to control their bodies while holding a position that resembles the lower body mechanics of gait, this is also just a great way to train core stability for anyone who has mastered the basic pushup and is looking for a very challenging variation.

Once again, quality is more important than quantity, and we usually start with 3-4 sets of 4-6 reps each.

Too often, we cast aside the basics, believing that once we’ve reached a certain level they can no longer offer us benefit. This is the furthest thing from the truth, as mastery of fundamental movement can benefit us at any level.

Even if the pushup alone is no longer a challenge, simple additions that require no equipment at all can continue to develop quality mechanics while building strength, hypertrophy, and muscular endurance, making the pushup a highly adaptable and valuable tool in any athlete or fitness enthusiast’s arsenal. These three variations enhance the effectiveness of the pushup and create an awesome full-body training effect that also fosters movement quality for those who are ready for the next step.

For more information on training review our blog on our website, or, if you’re interested in being one of our athletes, check out our page on performance training.

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The Key to Speed

Here is an elite athlete at Parabolic’s 8-week NFL Draft Prep program changing direction.

Coaches and athletes in track and field have long known that the key to speed lies not in choppy, rapid leg movements that take you nowhere. The secret to speed is applying force to the ground to propel the body in the desired direction as efficiently and effectively as possible.

The fastest, most explosive running backs don’t dance around in place. They make one cut and get vertical, exploding past defenders for big gains. Fast, explosive backs quickly put their foot in the ground and propel themselves laterally with speed and power that others can only dream of. They burn their competition with the top-end speed that many opponents can’t begin to rival.

When watching these elite performers, we marvel at the fluidity and power of their movements, and at their ability to transport their bodies from one place to the next as if soaring through space.

Greater Application of Support Forces to the Ground Improves Speed

How do they do this? Research has shown that faster top running speeds are achieved with greater application of support forces to the ground and not by moving the limbs faster (1).

Weyand et al. compared athletes with a top speed of 6.2 m/s all the way up to the fastest 100-m sprinter in the world, who achieved a top speed of 11.1 m/s. The slowest subject was able to reposition her leg nearly as fast as the fastest 100-m sprinter on the planet (1).

One difference between the sprinters analyzed was the application of force to the ground. The analysis showed that the top sprinter applied 1.26 times more force to the ground at top speed than the slowest athlete (1).

Greater Horizontal Ground Reaction Forces Improve Speed

Another study by Morin et al. showed a strong correlation between horizontal ground reaction forces (GRF) and 100m-sprint performance. This demonstrates that higher level acceleration and sprint performance was achieved by not only applying high amounts of force to the ground but by orienting them horizontally to

propel the body forward, (2). Both of these studies involved an analysis of highly trained sprint athletes.

With this knowledge, we can now critically look at these so-called “speed gurus”. They post videos of their athletes running through ladders that require them to move their feet rapidly while moving their body practically nowhere.

Why Ladder Drills Aren’t The Most Effective Exercise

The forces that the body must absorb and produce during the execution of these foot ladder drills are FAR less than the demands placed on an athlete during max effort sprinting. Additionally, the velocities at which these forces must be absorbed and produced are significantly less than what is experienced during sprint performance. Finally, the limb movements and joint positions utilized when running through a ladder are different from those seen during acceleration, change of direction, and max velocity sprinting, and therefore, do not transfer to these skills.

How Ladder Drills Still Serve a Purpose

Now, before someone comes out of the woodwork and defends the use of ladder drills, I am very aware that they serve a purpose as a warm-up tool. However, I’d still argue that there are more effective ways to warm up that give you a greater return on your investment.
They also serve as an EXTREMELY low-level plyometric exercise that can reintroduce athletes to short-ground contact time plyometric activity and changes of direction after injury or in the training of young, untrained kids.

Finally, they can create a context to teach an athlete proper position when changing directions. The key to this last point is that there will be no transfer from ladder drills to the athlete’s actual sport unless the athlete is able to apply the skills he or she learned at the velocities and against the forces demanded of them during the sport performance.

This is known as the SAID principle, or Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands. The body changes very specifically to meet the demands you place on it. It does so to be more prepared in case that EXACT demand is placed on it again, a mechanism for survival and resiliency against stress.

You can teach someone the best change of direction angle in the world as they “icky shuffle” back and forth through a ladder in a very controlled environment.  However, if they can’t demonstrate that angle and force redirection in a reactive, chaotic environment that actually leads to them accelerating in another direction on game day, then you’ve done nothing for them.

The Problem With Footwork

However, the three points listed above are not the concern when it comes to the use of these drills. The problem is when “footwork” and ladder drills comprise a substantial percentage of the athlete’s on-field training volume. Brief use of a ladder or a low-intensity change-of-direction drill during any one of the above scenarios may be entirely appropriate, but teaching athletes that they will improve their speed and agility by doing this consistently and for large sections of their workouts is wrong.

When you understand the underlying scientific principles that govern all movement, it becomes much easier to filter information and separate quality training from fluff.

Improving sprinting acceleration is about applying greater forces into the ground, in a shorter window of time, oriented horizontally to propel the body forward.

Avoid Gimmicks and Flashy Footwork

Ultimately, these training tips: how to improve your athlete’s speed, use scientifically-proven methods. You need to apply a greater application of support forces to the ground. Gimmicks and flashy footwork may make you look cool on social media. However, they will never improve performance the way that tried and true training methods. methods that have stood the test of time and generated real, measurable results — will.

Sources

1. Weyand, P. G., Sternlight, D. B., Bellizzi, M. J., & Wright, S. (2000). Faster Top Running Speeds Are Achieved With Greater Ground Forces Not More Rapid Leg Movements.  Journal Of Applied Physiology,(89), 1991-1999. Doi: 10.220.33.5
2. Morin, J., Edouard, P., & Samozino, P. (2013). New Insights Into Sprint Biomechanics and Determinants of Elite 100m Performance. New Studies In Athletics, 3(4), 87-103.
3. Giuliano, T., & Terrell, T. (2017). Force and Power: Maximizing Performance With Velocity Based Training.

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