Jae Edwards - Strength Training and Running Faster

Jae Edwards talks about the importance of restoring a proper posture before moving to any type of sprint training to avoid loading a dysfunction.

Transcript:

“When we introduce resistance training, we want to make sure that the athlete has sound posture in order for him to not get hurt. As Gray Cook says: one should never load a dysfunction. It is very important that dysfunctions are corrected before you move into not just upright sprinting but into any variation of moving at 80-90%. So the 80-90% load that you can get down the track, the 80-90% load that you can get in the gym. It really goes against you if you introduce that percentage of load to a posture and a structure which is not ready for that. {...} The athlete will get issues further down the road, whether it’s a hamstring injury or an issue that’s tied to a particular joint. These dysfunctional issues come when you start to load poor posture.

As we said, sprinting is a series of jumps in good posture and it’s very important that, before you start moving into any resistance training program, you assess the athlete from top to bottom for every single dysfunction: any upper body cross syndrome; lower body cross syndrome; any issues that’s contributing to poor posture and movement.

You also want to movement screen the seven movement patterns: pushing; pulling; bending; twisting; gait, which includes jumping, sprinting and any form of running {...}.

So, we’ve assessed and we’ve decided that these athletes all have different issues when it comes to movement. Therefore, we would have to move into the gym now, and start to look at corrective exercises before they start to move into any kind of program.”