Movement has been the hot topic of 2014.
Since learning the Anatomy in Motion system for Movement Therapy at the start of the year, attending the Ido Portal workshop a few months ago and generally fielding more and more questions from my clients about fundamental movement as opposed to just strength and endurance.
And I’m having a ball with the rise in interest in this topic.
I especially like it as it’s the anti-thesis of so much of the current fitness world, which is run by strength coaches promoting, well, strength; Physique coaches and their obsession with symmetry; Fat loss coaches flogging insecurity for the low price of €49.99 (with over €200 worth of FREE bonuses!!!) and Crossfit turning everything into a competition.
Movement for the sake of movement is being lost. Movement quality is declining, being lost in the search of extreme weights, extreme power, extreme physiques, extreme WOD times.
But in one area, the thinking is relatively pure.
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu possibly has the most varied and complex movement potential of all the martial arts at the moment. Of course we have wrestling and Capoeira, but BJJ is where it’s at right now.
With it being such a young art with such a hotly contested competition circuit, many practitioners are looking outside of the BJJ box to learn about better movement so they can take it with them onto the mat. Strength is useless if you can’t move, endurance can be worn down if your fighting against your own physical restrictions as well as your opponent. So movement, mobility, the ability to move freely and with confidence is becoming more and more recognised.
This is reflected in the rise in popularity of systems like Ido Portal’s, the MovNat and Primal Move and guys like Dewey Nielson.
I only heard of Dewey this year as my thinking moved back towards movement (it used to be my prime focus back as a martial artist living in the mountains), and he has some great drills.
When Seb, the BJJ guy who trashed his motorcycle and had to have his knee almost completely reconstructed, came to me and mentioned that he’s still not comfortable in the bottom of the squat. Well, we moved away from the barbell and towards the movement prescription.
After one round of this drill, his squat significantly improved:
This is a task focused exercise that is challenging all his joints, but particularly the ankle, knee hip and spine. Because of his focus on the task, he’s not thinking too much about controlling the movement, which means the body is free to do whatever is needed.
His joints are being taken outside of his conscious comfort zone, the muscles that are there to support the joint and decelerate movement are kicking in like a charm and his entire system wakes up as a result.
In one session his mobility increased several fold. After 2 sessions, he’s bouncing around. Imaging how he’ll be in a few months time? And since the deep squat position is fundamental to any grappling game (think of the position you are in as you turtle up, side control, hold guard….it pretty much all deep squat)
For more on Conditioning for you BJJ, click this image
Strength and endurance are key components of fitness but they form an incomplete picture, it’s an unstable model. Mobility, ie the ability to move freely with strength and control, is the third side. And three sides make a triangle, the most structurally sound geometrical shape.
Regards
Dave Hedges www.WG-Fit.com
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