{"id":302,"date":"2009-11-11T03:53:44","date_gmt":"2009-11-11T03:53:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/?p=302"},"modified":"2019-01-19T23:27:45","modified_gmt":"2019-01-19T23:27:45","slug":"we-cant-stop-its-too-dangerous-weve-got-to-slow-down-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/we-cant-stop-its-too-dangerous-weve-got-to-slow-down-first\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWe can\u2019t stop. It\u2019s too dangerous. We\u2019ve got to slow down first!\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We know that many injuries happen during a phase of deceleration (IE, stopping yourself or slowing down in order to make a cut on the field, landing after jumping for a ball, at foot strike during a run, etc).<\/p>\n<p>Or in the case of the title of this article, an injury happened when Spaceball One made the jump to Ludicrous speed and needed to slow down quickly once they realized they overshot Lonestar and his Winnebago (poor Lord Dark Helmet!).<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ygE01sOhzz0\" height=\"315\" width=\"420\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Learning to stop yourself is a critical element in sports performance and, with everyone so concerned about trying to go faster, we often overlook this component of training.\u00a0 Due to its importance, I tend to place deceleration training first in my program design.\u00a0 While this is important for any athlete, I find this extremely important for youth athletes; who typically don\u2019t have great mechanics on the field and a low level of strength to handle the forces that are placed upon them during competition.<\/p>\n<p>Parents are always concerned about having their kids in the gym training for two main reasons:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><em>The kids will get hurt, as lifting weights can be dangerous.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>If the kids are lifting weights then they aren\u2019t practicing or competing in their sport.\u00a0 Which means they aren\u2019t getting better.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Obviously both of these statements are inaccurate.\u00a0 The first one was discussed in my article on\u00a0<a title=\"High School\/Junior High Resistance Training: What Does Science Tell Us?\" href=\"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/high-schooljunior-high-resistance-training-what-does-science-tell-us\/\">resistance training for youth athletes<\/a>, and the second was broken down when I talked about the\u00a0<a title=\"Long-Term Athletic Development Model\" href=\"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/long-term-athletic-development-model\/\">Long-Term Athletic Development Model<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>However, there are some other things that one must understand with regard to that second statement and training deceleration.\u00a0 Mainly, the time in the weight room or offseason conditioning should be a time to learn how to appropriately move and perform the tasks that are required of you in competition.\u00a0 When kids go out onto the field to play, there is not 50% or 75%.\u00a0 There is only 100%.\u00a0 They are all out, all the time.\u00a0 Practicing at 100% is to fast of a pace to actually learn what is going on.\u00a0 The weight room and offseason training is a wonderful opportunity to slow things down and allow kids the chance to actually learn how to do things right.\u00a0 As they become more aware of the proper form and technique, you can begin to speed things up, until they are working at competition pace with great technique.<\/p>\n<p>The two things I like athletes to learn right away are<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>How to land<\/li>\n<li>How to stop themselves<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>How to land is\u00a0taught by using low level plyometric exercises and working on sticking the landing.\u00a0 Typically I\u2019ll have the individual hold the landing position for a 2-3 count before repeating the jump.\u00a0 The focus is not on how high the athlete jumps in this phase, but rather, on how proficiently they land \u2013 Is the landing soft?\u00a0 Are the joints in good alignment?\u00a0 How balanced do they look? \u2013 This should be performed both with bilateral and unilateral plyometrics and in vertical (up and down \u2013 think traditional jumps in place), horizontal (forward and backward) and lateral (side to side) planes.\u00a0 I use low repetitions (4-6) so that fatigue does not compromise technique and the ability to understand how to land properly.\u00a0 Remember,\u00a0<em>\u201cPractice doesn\u2019t make perfect, it makes permanent.\u00a0 Only perfect practice makes perfect.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Learning to stop (decelerate) is taught on a 10-yrd field.\u00a0 The athletes stand at the start line and run out to the 5-yard line and attempt to decelerate themselves by breaking down into an athletic position. \u00a0They then back pedal 5-yrds to the start line, and then re-accelerate forward through the\u00a0finish line, which is 10-yrds ahead.\u00a0 The key points to make are that the athletes need to first learn the mechanics of slowing down before just running through the drill.\u00a0 The goal isn\u2019t to just make kids tired and exhaust them, but rather to foster a learning environment, where they can develop useable skills.\u00a0 To do this, I start by just having the athletes walk through the drill several times.\u00a0 Each time we start to walk a little faster until we are at a jog.\u00a0 Once the athletes can jog through the drill proficiently, we can begin to speed things up to real time and develop that skill in a more competitive environment.\u00a0 I teach the athletes to decelerate themselves in this drill in a few different ways:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Breaking down to an athletic position<\/li>\n<li>Breaking down to a position where one foot is slightly in front of the other (similar to a lunge position but the feet are slightly closer together).\u00a0 Remember to work on this\u00a0with both the dominant and non-dominant sides<\/li>\n<li>Breaking down to a lateral position, in which case the athletes will lateral shuffle back to the start line (rather than back pedal) before turning and sprinting towards the 10-yrd finish line.\u00a0 Again, remember to work on this with both sides<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Putting it into practice<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Putting these techniques into practice are not hard and should not be overly complicated.\u00a0 Remember to have the athletes walk through the tasks slowly at first to learn and understand what is expected of them in each position.\u00a0 Coach them through the movements and don\u2019t just let them go through the motions, as this does nothing to enhance the developmental process.<\/p>\n<p>Last week I had the opportunity to work with a group of junior high and high school lacrosse athletes (33 kids on the field and me!).\u00a0 All were worked on were fundamentals.\u00a0 We did some easy warm up and mobility exercises and then worked on basic bodyweight movements like squats, lunges, push ups, and planks (since we were on the field and not in the gym).\u00a0 We then did some low-level plyometric exercises with a deceleration emphasis \u2013 squat jump to stick the landing and ice-skater hops with a landing stick.\u00a0 We then finished with the 10-yrd deceleration drill.\u00a0 You would be amazed at how many athletes had a hard time stopping themselves in a balanced position.\u00a0 But, we slowed it down and walked through the drill several times to help improve their understanding of what was supposed to take place.\u00a0 Things as simple as this can go a long way for sports coaches.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t have to take a huge chunk of practice time.\u00a0\u00a0You just need to be consistent and specific with a few of the drills and really ensure that the kids are learning them properly.\u00a0 Teach deceleration first and reap the benefits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We know that many injuries happen during a phase of deceleration (IE, stopping yourself or slowing down in order to make a cut on the field, landing after jumping for a ball, at foot strike during a run, etc). Or in the case of the title of this article, an injury happened when Spaceball One [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-strength-and-conditioning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":308,"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302\/revisions\/308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/optimumsportsperformance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}