Very interesting subject... If you think about elite and/or professional
athletes and you actually examine body mechanics and stabilization, a
question is do these athletes have it, how do you know if "it" is adequate,
how did they get it, or are they using less than optimal activation, yet
somehow this works for them? Are years of sport specific training adequate,
or is some active thinking about stabilization necessary, or only necessary
in recovery from injury? Has research shown that we can actually train
reflexes? How long does it take and how do you do it? Do you do this to
improve performance, recover from injury, or prevent injury in a high level
athlete never previously injured? Finally and very importantly, how can
this be measured quantitatively for each sport and level of athlete? Once
you measure it, what does it mean? Is it truly related to increased injury
incidence, or how much is just related to excessive force that no optimally
activated tissue can withstand?
A final question, how do we know that strength is not intimately related to
level of neural activation- i.e., does or does not a stronger muscle
indicate higher levels of neural activation? Isn't this the basis of
combined EMG and measures of isokinetic force studies in research?
I would love to read any research you know of on the topic of the
relationships between neural activation, motor planning, and injury in
athletes. I have found in my studies so far that speculation is abundant,
but sound research is non-existent.
Jill Kison, ATC, CSCS
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