Few sports are played in one direction. How fast you can change direction and move in multiple directions is often the different maker. In May our site theme was changing direction and agility. We put together 1 new video, 2 podcasts, and 9 articles from 12 contributors exploring how athletes change direction, how to train for that, and more.
If you want to learn about skill acquisition, Rob Gray is your guy. His day job is as Associate Professor of Human Systems Engineering at Arizona State University, with a focus on researching perceptual-motor control in sports, driving, and aviation. But in addition, his passion is spreading that knowledge outside of academia. His Perception & Action Podcast is on my favorites list and helps translate the latest research in the field easy to digest nuggets of wisdom that coaches can use in training. Read more
Yesterday we posted the first part of an interview with Frans Bosch in anticipation of his new book coming out next week: Anatomy of Agility: Movement Analysis in Sport (available for preorder in the HMMR Store). In that part we looked at role of perception in agility, how to eliminate errors, developing independent athletes, and quantifying progress. Below we continue to the conversation by taking a look at a few different topics: attractors of agility, connecting training to context, and how this impacts other general training concepts. Read more
Agree with his methods or not, few coaches have forced us to rethink how we prepare athletes as Frans Bosch has over the last five years. The publication of Strength Training and Coordination: An Integrative Approach started a conversation about how motor learning concepts can be brought into the weight room. Read more
As with any area of training, when it comes to training the legs we often fall back to our same training routines and exercises. That’s a shame since it is one of the most fundamental aspects of training. We wanted to help coaches get out of that rut this month by exploring some different ways to train the legs. Through the month we published 12 new articles, 2 new videos, and 1 new podcast on the topic from a 9 different contributors. Read more
This month’s site theme is training the legs. We’ve posted a lot of content, and have more to come. Our focus over the last week is on a lot of the methods many of the authors have learned from Vern Gambetta. Read more
As the coronavirus pandemic has spread around the globe and forced athletes into quarantine, we’ve put together resources on how you can keep training at home. Over the past few weeks we’ve published 23 new articles, 2 new videos, and 2 new podcasts on the topic from a dozen different contributors. Below are links to all of our new resources, as well as highlights from our archive on the topic. Read more
Throughout February we took a look at skill acquisition, motor learning, and teaching technique. Below you’ll find all of our new content on the topic, including highlights from our archive that give some more insight on the area. Read more
George M. Perry is a running and sports performance coach with emphases on movement training and post-injury return-to-play. Edited with minor contributions from Martin Bingisser.
Most coaches’ instruction approaches drills biomechanically: body positions, joint angles, activation patterns underlying movement sequences. These referents require an internal focus of attention. Athletes are directed and trained to think about how they are moving their body. What if we have been going about it all wrong? What if athletes instead focus on the intended effect on an implement, the environment, or something else external to the athlete’s body? Read more
The more you do something, the harder it is to change. If you have ever worked with older athletes, or been one yourself, you know first hand the struggle involved. Beginners can make drastic technical changes in a matter of minutes, but older athletes can spend a year fighting for a minuscule change. That is the great challenge facing experienced athletes, but there is hope. Read more
