It's All Just Protection

Today I want to generate conversation on thoracic spine mobility and its role in the movement patterns of the lower half. Previously I wrote about “whipping the hip”. While learning to “whip the hip” with proper sequencing and quality movement pattern, one may find themselves reaching a plateau or developing symptoms such as LBP(low back pain), hip pain. Michael Boyle and Gray Cook talk about their development of the “Joint-by-Joint Approach”. Looking at our body as a series or segments stacked on top of one another. Lack of thoracic mobility is as common as lack of hip mobility. Slouching posture, hunchback, problems rotating your torso, … Youʼve seen it. The thoracic spine is the area about which we know the least. Many performance/medical professionals recommend increasing thoracic mobility, though few have exercises designed specifically for it. The approach seems to be We know you need it, but weʼre not sure how to get it. Over the next few years, we will see an increase in exercises designed to increase thoracic mobility. Gray Cook also writes.....Ribs, vertebrae and lots of muscle and fascia crisscrossing the front and back of the thorax cause thoracic stiffness. We donʼt inherently have a lot of mobility there, but we need all we can get. However, stiffness isnʼt just something we need to get rid of. Stiffness is there for a reason. Biological mechanisms that move very well in childhood will develop stiffness following an injury or following repetitive bad mechanics over time. If the body doesnʼt stabilize correctly,it will figure out another way to get stability: itʼs called stiffness. If you find tight hamstrings or a tight T-spine and you just hit the foam roller, you may change mobility, but you will see the stiffness return the following day. Mobility efforts without reinstalling stability somewhere else simply donʼt last. Those hamstrings were tight for a reason. That T-spine is stiff for a reason. If you donʼt also backfill some of that new motion with reflex muscular integrity and motor control, youʼre going to have a problem. Usually we see tight hamstrings on people who donʼt extend their hips well. They donʼt use their glutes well, and so the poor hamstrings get double-time. The hamstrings get too much use, and they fatigue—a fatigued muscle and a tight muscle look very much the same. Itʼs all just protection. Really, I donʼt know that I can say this any clearer than what Gray Cook has/is saying. Rodger Fleming, ATC, LMT Body Awareness Therapeutic Massage

Center of Mass in Hitting

I continue to hear arguments to where the weight of a player should be when they hit a baseball, is it out front is it back. The problem as I see it is not where it is from a philosophical stand point but from a scientific stand point. Can we determine where the weight should be based on biomechanics? Let’s take a look at a picture.

I made a few dots to look at an approximate location of the center of mass, they are in orange. The first dot is where the COM basically started and just after the point of impact the COM has moved back. So the COM is behind the front foot, but the majority of the player’s weight is being supported by the front foot as seen in the picture. So here is the contradiction that gets a lot of coaches and players. We want our weight back, but want it on our front foot. This is where a biomechanical explanation can help. In human movement the center of mass

ybe outside the players body and just because the weight of the player is supported by an arm or leg does not mean that is where the weight really lies. I hope that didn’t muddy the water. Just look at the picture, and then take a look at a few more pictures and in the majority of players that are at an elite level you will notice a trend. The trend will be that the COM is behind the front foot, no matter the distribution of the weight in the feet. Teaching a hitter how to control their Center of Mass both in the Performance Training Arena as well as while performing skills will increase the player’s awareness in space and increase cross over to the field.
I have included a variation of an exercise that is highly COM demanding that can increase a player’s power for hitting and lateral movement. The variation is a speed skater movement added to a lateral box hop. As you can see from the picture the players COM is probably outside the body, the weight is on one foot and moving in a lateral direction. If the players weight gets over the foot or drifts over the foot the player looses balance, just like in hitting a baseball. If the player drifts the player in most cases cant stay balanced which decreases his chances to hit.

Have fun with the exercise and take a look at those pictures and start looking at it from a scientific position and many times the problem will take care of it self.

Brian Niswender MA
Co-Founder Baseball Strength Coaching .com