intelligent movement
Increasing mobility creates extra capacity in the joint that the Central Nervous System can represent as movement. The body now has options, or variability, to solve a specific movement task. Skilled movement is variability! This is known as Intelligent Movement.
Options = Variability = Intelligent Movement
Emerging science is better defining how the body adapts to training inputs, such as mobility and stabilization, and introduces important changes in organizing performance enhancement methods. AthleteIQ focuses on the often overlooked but fundamental components of quality movement in combination with the traditional coaching of strength, power, speed , agility, quickness, plyometrics, etc., to optimize the training process.
We create movement intelligent, adaptable, and complex athletes. From there you can develop the attributes that lead to better performance.
Keep scrolling for a more in depth look into movement intelligence...
intelligent movement
A closer look
How does the body coordinate movement to perform a task?
How is it that skilled performers can execute complex movements with consistent outcomes?
Is skill acquisition simply a matter of repetition of that movement until you acquire that skill?
Bernstein's Degrees of Freedom Problem
Nikolai Berstein, a soviet neurophysiologist, conducted experiments on expert blacksmiths to see how they coordinated their strikes and possibly answer these questions. Bernstein concluded that every repetition of the movement was subtly different but the end result was the same. This high variability in coordinated movement patterns he referred to as "The Degrees of Freedom Problem". The body has many options on how to organize itself to solve the goal of movement. Expert level performers have available variations in the execution of their movement.
WHy Blacksmiths?
Skilled workers were the athletes of the day. For a modern translation, think of a pitcher's release point or a golfer trying to repeat a swing.
Performance enhancement
Movement potential is variability. Variability is a sign of skilled motor performance.
Movement is never produced in the same predictable pattern each time. When a person tries to repeat a movement, such as hammering, throwing, swinging, etc., their actions will never be identical because each repetition involves a unique motor pattern.
Repetition without Repetition
The behavior looks patterned in expert performers but it's being repeated using subtle variations in movement strategy.
This variability is an attribute of skilled athletes and represents an increase in the potential for quality movement to occur.
injury prevention
Of course, the opposite is true. A decrease in coordinated variability can cause performance deficits and possible injury. Without variability, the same tissue is used over and over, exceeding the load bearing capacity. This overuse can cause injury.
Movement potential without options has lost COMPLEXITY
Loss of complexity is simply a dumbing down of the body's movement potential. The brain has very few options with which to organize the body to solve the goal of movement, and is attributed to novice level performance.
Loss of variability also leads to inefficient articular interaction, or impaired feedback loops, that drive the system into the ground.
The Central Nervous System requires large amounts of information to properly map out a strategy for quality movement. Low variability limits the information to the brain.
This loss of complexity changes the Central Nervous System's ability to use the body leading to faulty movement patterns, altered force production, tissue intolerance and eventual injury.