Turns - Weighted Flips

that's a cool idea!

OK... you might to get a snickers and find your best thinking position on this post. I've tried to keep it as simple as I can, but what I say here is very important to understand... well at least I think so.

When the weighted ankle turn drill came up last week, I thought that FEEL should enter the discussion. Hence the SST this week. We always talk about feel in this sport, and some seem to have more of it than others. There’s a raft of reasons as to why that might be, but for now concentrate on the drill at hand. Weighed ankles versus non weighted ankles.

On the surface we see this as placing strain on the working muscles, and in doing that, we have the ability to increase the potential in those groups. Do it fast with weights on, and then feel like we’re doing at light speed when we take them off. Under the surface what is happening?

Everything we do is managed by the brain. In this instance it will process information using the:
Visual cortex (what the eyes see),
Somatosensory cortex (what you feel when you do this)
Motor cortex (the actual pattern of movement)
Vestibular system (body balance felt during the movement)
Audio cortex (sounds that it hears)

So all of those areas will be linked into an activation pattern in the brain (brain map) that is directly linked to the execution of the turn. When you add weights to the movement, it forces the brain to deal with the added weight. It will place a lot of stress on the sensory and motor cortices to execute a normal turn while maintaining the normal balance, visual and auditory cues it’s used to. If the drill is done with total focus on executing perfect turns with the added stress, it might increase the scope of the activation pattern. When the weights are taken off and the turn speed is increased, the brain also has the potential to learn a higher level of performance, and if you again maintain total focus on the turn execution, you will raise that skill to a level that can be used in competition.

The key in all of this is the term FOCUS. In this case really focus on the perfect execution whether having the weights on or off. Since added weights will put the execution of this skill on the edge of successful performance, there might be a lot of correction needed. The initial attempts might be way off the mark. So if the athlete can see and feel that the movement is out of balance and incorrect, then redoing and redoing the skill while developing a stronger understanding of the pattern of movement versus the feel, visual cues, sound and balance will essentially strengthen the activation pattern by coating the neurons with additional myelin. To do that requires an understanding of what the perfect execution feels like versus the weighed one… then working back towards perfection again.

What would make this an unqualified disaster is if you saw just the building strength factor as the only factor, and didn’t care whether the turns were executed perfectly or not. Just do them fast regardless, and then when you take the weights off, you’d feel lighter and as such psychologically faster. There’s nothing worse in this world than confusing the brain with drills and technique that force you into poor technical execution. It confuses the process, reduces ones feel for the correct patterns of movement, and could essentially undermine good technique.

So do this drill with an eye to make the execution perfect, or IMO don’t do it at all.

That is pretty deep. Sounds like resistance can simply cause the brain to activate more muscle fibers to perform the movement and sensory challenges help improve understanding to sum it up? If done with proper technique can potentially increase myelination along nerve pathways allowing the movement to be performed faster and thus with more power?

I wonder if there is a specific method of causing myelin coating along specific pathways. That along with increasing muscle fiber usage and getting more energy to the muscles sounds like faster swimming. If I understand this correctly... I'll have to read into this stuff more later, sounds full of important details.

mmm interesting but I doubt it last cos if you keep doing that, your muscles (or body) will get used at it so they will be downfall later on.. so the only way to prevents this is.... different version of weighted flips to stimlating the muscles so its caused shock to muscles as they not getting used at it. Its like when a person doing cardio or build muscle at vary ways to shock them which contains improved result.

I did it with 2.5 lbs on each ankle and was quite hard. I needed take breath just before each turn. Good practice.