Many sports people, be they professionals or purely social players, often neglect the importance of functional specific training outside their actual sport.
They view their training outside of a game as playing the sport or 'training games' rather than training the 'movement patterns' that they require on court.
If you are serious about improving your game in any capacity then it is imperative that you break down your movements on court, and analyse the patterns you require and look at which ones you are weak in.
What is important is that you are not just training muscles. The body knows nothing of muscles - it knows only movements. During the constant changes the body must make to ensure your equilibrium (gravitational balance) you constantly activate an array of muscles in patterns of co-ordination in which muscles lose their identity.
When we train movements we train hundreds of muscles at once. This stimulates and forces use of the central nervous system, which controls all movements. If you do not train and stimulate the CNS then you can never reach your potential.
So what movements are you using in netball? Let's break it down. Netball is a highly anaerobic sport with continuous explosive bouts of starting and stopping. The main movements used are:
1 Squat (jumping and landing). 2 Lunge (split landing, push off, split stance throw). These are also multi directional lunges, but the basic lunge should be mastered first. 3 Twist (while throwing, catching, blocking). 4 Push (shooting and passing). 5 Pull (grabbing of the ball and catching).
Lets look at the squat pattern in detail.
We use the squat all day long as we continuously stand up and sit down. When we jump it is an explosive squat, and when we land from that jump we cushion the landing with a squat.
If your squat is not strong and stable your jump and landing will be affected, which will encourage poor stabilisation of the pelvis.
If your pelvis is unstable, then this has the knock-on effect of destabilisation of the knees and feet. Continued uncontrolled pressure of force in these areas will undoubtedly lead to injury at some point. Know anyone with a knee or ankle injury?
So now you have understood the movements you require, and you have seen which ones you can really perform well and those you are weak in, you must look at the appropriate exercises to maximise your potential.
Let's take the squat again and look at leg strengthening and the type of strength you need.
Firstly we have to look at what is classed as closed or open chain exercises. This is the difference between a squat and a leg press, or a press up and a chest press, or a chin up and a lat pull down.
The closed chain exercise is the squat, the press up or the chin up. In these exercises the origin of the muscle moves towards the insertion.
In open chain the opposite happens. The reason this is important is that they are 180 degrees out of phase with each other neurologically, as are the osteokinematics (bone movements). So if you are doing a leg press to strengthen your legs, you are pushing the weight away from you.
Your body stays still and the weight moves. In netball if you jump, you never push the ground away from you. So a leg press is training your movement 180 degrees incorrectly.
Therefore it is imperative you use the squat for function and strength of the legs as you are training them neurologically correctly. These factors are very important for your game, as if you are programming your central nervous system 180 degrees back to front your body will never function how you want it to.
Next we have to look at the type of training. Are you in season and needing explosive movements or are you out of season and needing strength?
This is where you need to manipulate the time under tension of the weight on the muscle, and also the rest periods. This is the science of muscle growth, strength or explosive training. If training for muscle size then the stimulus should be on the muscle for no more than 60 seconds, i.e. 8-10 reps at a speed of 2-1-2. (two seconds lowering the weight, one second pause, and two seconds back up.) Then you would rest for 60-90 seconds.
This ensures that you work the correct muscle fibres and keeps you in the anaerobic threshold.
Remember, I mentioned before that netball is start, stop, and anaerobic not aerobic so again we have to be aware of the sport we are in and how we train for it.
If you are training for explosive movements, then you would do them as fast as possible for no more than 12-15 seconds, i.e. as many as you can in good form in 12-15 seconds. As explosive training involves a high degree of nervous system activation we need to rest for longer. Ideally between three and five minutes.
One last tip on how to look at you game to see where you are weakest is to look at what I call Biomotor Abilities.
There are eight listed below. What you need to do is take the 'gold standerd' netball player (a top international you believe is the best) and grade on a level of 1-10 next to each skill how good they are.
Then grade your score next to each skill. The lowest grades are the ones that you will need to work on the hardest. For example, if your balance is really low you need to look at that. You may have a great shot, but really bad balance, and the two just don't complement each other. The eight skills are:
1 Strength. 2 Power. 3 Endurance. 4 Coordination. 5 Speed. 6 Balance. 7 Agility. 8 Flexibility.
Chris Scragg is a Level II CHEK practitioner and nutritional and lifestyle management coach. As a professional strength conditioning coach Chris, pictured with me above, is involved with elite athletes, but also highly qualified to deal with chronic pain and rehabilitation which are his other specialist areas. He is currently the head personal trainer at David Lloyd Southampton in Frogmore Lane. He also works at St James Chiropractic Clinic in Winchester Road.
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