The Environment Acts On You Before You Act On The Environment
“As living creatures, we have the ability to behave according to conditions” – (R. Blickhan et al)
Research Article Here
One of the most fascinating features of the human movement system, for us at IKN, is its ability to maintain adaptability in the presence of disturbances. Furthermore, what’s most fascinating is that we do it without even sensing the disturbance at all. What a cool system we have. This ability to cope with disturbances during movement is an incredibly important concept when working with athletes who move in a dynamic and highly unpredictable environment, and when we appreciate the fact that we move in a gravity-driven world, this concept becomes even more crucial to integrate into our performance strategies.
When moving at speed in a dynamic environment, we can separate the fundamental strategies used by an athlete into “force generation” and “disturbance rejection” strategies. Now, what we must consider here is that gravity is a constant source of stress to our movement system, as it’s always trying to pull us to the ground. The constant nature of this stress poses a “threat” to the nervous system because the number one goal of this guy inside of our skull is to keep us alive. It’s all about protection. With this in mind, we can recognize falling as the number one threat to our brain. That’s right, fall prevention is not only something necessary only for older adults, but our entire system is trying to prevent us from falling all day long. This is something we feel is not given enough credit when moving in dynamic environments, and appreciating this should encourage us to place the importance of disturbance rejection first, before force generation. Can your body cope with the unpredictable forces acting on your body while simultaneously managing the downward force of gravity? We must conquer this capability first before focusing on force generation qualities, especially if we move in uncertain environments. The question then arises:
“What are the features of our system that enable us to effectively reject these disturbances?”
In our IKN Performance course Online, we practically address those features of our movement system that allow us to manage and reject those disturbances acting on our body more effectively, which puts an athlete in a position to generate much more robust movement. This represents a shift in how we should approach improving performance in an athlete. We need to recognize the protective needs of the nervous system, and the capacity of our system as a whole to express those self-protection mechanisms. Fundamentally, if we can help athletes leverage their self-protection mechanisms, then we are going to see a change in how they move and perform. What we have put together in our online course, is a simple framework with many practical assessments and performance strategies to address these features. Most importantly, the framework also offers you a new lens through which you can view the current strategies you’re currently using, and merge them with what you learn on the course. There’s a time and a place for every movement strategy, but considering the interplay between the neurology and the dynamics of our musculoskeletal system provides a model for implementation.