Ideomotion

Here is a good introduction to an idea that is slowly gaining hold. Have the 'posturists' been getting it, at least in part wrong?

Interesting ideas that may be help some of the trainers out there in putting the pieces of the big picture together.

One thing i appreciated about Coach from the beginning was how he understood that different people will do things somewhat differently. From my yoga background, this was very challenging at first, but over the last couple of years have made enormous progress in understanding how the body 'really' works thanks to that simple cue. Ideomotion has begun to blow the picture wide open.

http://www.davewesterman.com/2011/06/19/ideomotion-the-dance-within-us/

I'll follow this up with an enlightening quote from the great Mel Siff

"In all tests which presume to measure bilateral balance, stability and strength ratios, it is essential to remember that everyone displays functional asymmetry, so that small to moderate differences in all of these factors tends to be rather meaningless. Humans are not symmetric machines and it can often be more damaging to try to alter "natural asymmetry" than it is to leave it alone. Far too many tests assume that there is some sort of norm or ideal against which everyone can be compared. At best, one can only validly make comparisons against oneself over time or against the mean of groups who are similar to you in age, bodymass, gender, sport, sporting level and injury profile."

My take is we even need a balanced viewpoint on our understanding of balance itself.

I see this as a solid approach. It's simple to get away from essential observational work and abstract real life with models and theories to the point of losing effectiveness. If children naturally are in balance, then it follows there would not be a need to "fix" anything. What's interesting to me is that many of the developmentally disabled kids I've worked with retain their balance and flexibility far longer than the rest of us (usually indefinitely until someone drastically intervenes or forces lifestyle change). Why? Often it's because they simply ignore any person who tells them the "proper" way to do things physically, use a greater set of motions and movements than we tend to, and are usually more sensory-based than verbal. Thanks for the article, I'll certainly follow up on the links in it.

I'm happy you were get something out of this. Its an idea one has to live with a while before it starts to register.

Here's some more great quotes from Siff....

Read any fitness conference brochures, interviews with various fitness gurus, website promotions of sports coaches and articles written by many fitness professionals and you will come across coaches, trainers and therapists who are referred to as "Biomechanics Experts", "Biomechanics Specialist", "Expert Biomechanist" or "Biomechanics Consultant."

These folk regularly claim to carry out "biomechanical analysis" or offer expert information on topics such as "the biomechanics of golf", "the biomechanics of baseball", "the biomechanics of running", "the biomechanics of Pilates exercises" and so forth, for a host of different sports and physical activities. So, we come across articles that read something like this:

"Gross Wissenheimer, is an 'expert biomechanist' who consults for the Mongolian Mammoths football team and whose expert advice has detected muscle imbalances and asymmetries in 56.2 percent of the players. His application of the Baggerud Larsen ultra-explosive Norwegian plyometric bench loading protocol has increased the strength, power and pay packets of 49.7 percent of all the players. His unique biomechanical understanding of deformable Norwegian Ball biomechanics has allowed him to apply his unique principles of force-couple destabilisation and re-integration in multidimensional

relativistic movement space to produce a new generation of players whose performance is unrivalled in the NML (National Mammoth League).

His method entails ballistic helical loading of the scapulothoracic and sacroiliac pseudo-joints which are known to link functionally via orthogonal neural peripheral channels to the transversus abdominis, the anal sphincter, and the plantarflexors and medial rotators of the foot, all of which can be shown to enhance the sprint start from a three point take off stance. His studies of little known Eastern texts has revealed that pressure produced by the renowned 'tongue in cheek' method or the 'digital oscillation of the nasal cavity' protocol can enhance distal thrust tension in hallucis magnus and, by a process of reciprocal inhibition in antagonistic patterns of the deep septal core muscles, produce selective recruitment of the FTIIIxy muscle fibres.

What does all of this mean to our readers? Suffice it to be said that these methods have made Gross Wissenheimer a household name in the world of pro sports training and that he certainly knows what he is talking about. His expert knowledge of advanced biomechanics and NSSM (Neuro Super Stabilisation and Mobilisation) has transformed the face of Mammoth Sport and his appointment books are filled. Surely this is living proof that what he says and does is correct and invaluable?

As Wissenheimer says, "My results show that the academics and scientists don't know anything about improving performance, even if all their theories claim that all that I am doing is wrong and unscientific - I have 12, 306 clients and 494 interns, plus I have six houses in the best countries of the world and an income that would employ all the sports scientists on the US East and West coasts for three years. That wouldn't be happening if they were so great! This practical evidence shows that my biomechanics is functionally superior to any of the biomechanics being taught at any American universities today. What's more, I would be the world's greatest coach if the Russians weren't cheating by taking all those drugs.