One of the most common therapeutic and training beliefs is that increasing
the strength of muscles invariably will decrease the likelihood of injury.
What is often forgotten is that a large or small, strong or weak, muscle
will be injured if it is not activated or adequately activated when it needs
to be. In other words, it is all very well having big, strong muscles, but,
if one has not acquired the motor skills to be able to voluntarily and
reflexively control them in as many ways as possible, especially in sport,
then the individual is still liable to be injured.
Of course, if the training has increased the strength and functional
capabilities of the passive connective tissues (such as the ligaments and
cartilages) in the body, especially about and within the joints, then, even
if the muscles are not activated, the body will be less likely to be injured
when the ligaments and other structures are called upon to act as the "last
resort" in controlling the range of movement.
This, however, represents a rare scenario, because the myotatic stretch
reflex will have done its best to activate the muscles, even if the athlete
is caught by surprise. This means that both active muscles and passive
connective tissues are involved in trying to prevent injury. Unfortunately,
if the reflexes are not conditioned (a la Pavlovian principles) to produce
suitably strong patterns of activation, then the level of muscle contraction
is going to be inadequate when it matters most.
In like fashion, all these trendy courses on core stabilisation and
strengthening are more intellectually hedonistic than practically valuable if
they do not stress the central role played by sport specific conditioning
which addresses programming of the nervous system to cope with the precise
demands of the sport, not simply the ability to improve balancing skills on
balls, wobble boards and other toys. If the supplementary training does not
exhibit a high degree of 'functional' transfer to the actual sporting skills
or the ability to reflexively cope with unexpected loading conditions, then
all of that core training may be of little consequence.
This is why therapists and coaches need to stress that strength training
means a lot more than basic muscle strengthening. The conditioning process
involves muscle and connective tissue strengthening, as well as enhancing
motor skills and the specific metabolic capabilities of the athlete.
Injuries generally comprise three kinds:
1. overload (too great a load at any instant)
2. overuse (too great a volume of loading over a prolonged period)
3. accident
The role of motor skill training in all three situations cannot be
underestimated. In the long term, the role of the neural programs in
preventing repetitive, poor patterns of movement from overstressing any
bodily structures possibly is just as important as the ability of the neural
programs to rapidly control the short term response to large or accidental
loads.
Dr Mel C Siff
Denver, USA
http://www.egroups.com/group/supertraining
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