Want to be shifty like Shady?

Creating Stability to Produce Force

So, what does the pumpkin growing in my backyard have to do with Lesean McCoy’s seemingly endless highlights of ankle breakers? On the surface, the answer is well, nothing. But look at the tendrils each stalk sends out. The pumpkin plant is hunting for stability. As it grows, it searches out new things to hold on to, to solidify and strengthen its positioning and create a more robust, durable plant.

Your body works similarly. When you go to cut, for instance, your brain searches for a way to accomplish that specific task. It has a repertoire of movements it can choose from to do so.

You have a defender coming at you and think to yourself: “Ok, self, I want to juke that guy/girl.”

What happens after is that your brain goes into its learned motor patterns or “engrams,” searching for a way to accomplish the imposed demand, juking the defender out of his or her cleats.

To produce the maximum amount of force into the ground quickly to accomplish the task (which we know is what CoD is all about), your body must first stabilize quickly.

There is a popular expression of “firing a cannon out of a canoe.” Basically, without the stability of a fixed stable surface like the ground, firing a cannon on a boat is a silly task because, as Newton tells us (look at us applying physics!) you’re going to get pushed backwards at the same rate you shot the cannonball. It’s not going to hit the target, and therefore it’s not the most effective method for firing a cannon, right?

Your body is no different! A lot of times, we look to the prime movers. If you have a slow first step or lack explosion when you plant, the solution is usually to get stronger legs. This makes sense in theory, and for beginners can work well. But only if you can create a stable environment quickly to express that strength.

This is where motor learning comes into play. Back to the task of juking a defender, you must be able to stabilize in a variety of conditions. If you practice planting and exploding around a cone 1000 times, you might become proficient at that one specific movement pattern. Your left foot strikes in this certain spot, your right in that other certain spot, and you do it over and over. Come game time, the cornerback is not a cone, he’s actually coming towards you, at an angle! If your brain only knows that one way to juke a cone, you aren’t going to make him miss.

What’s going to happen is you’ll plant differently because the environmental demands are different and higher (someone’s actually coming at you), your brain will inhibit muscle action because it says “hey I can’t stabilize in that position!” Rather than risk injury, your brain will simply have the muscles produce less force.

In a study done with a chest press on a bench or stability ball (stable vs. unstable conditions), it was found that unstable isometric maximum force output was 59.6% less than under stable conditions (Anderson, et al. 2004). This reinforces the necessity of creating a stable environment.

So, the big question…How do we do this?

Well, the first big assumption I’m going to make is you’re already “strong enough.” If you don’t have the strength or muscle mass to produce large amounts of force, and the ability to do so quickly, there’s your answer for the time being, work on that.

The remaining answer is two-fold. First, strength training can also help facilitate the co-contractions necessary to stabilize around a joint. The more stable a joint, the more force the muscles will be able to produce. This is a critical step to creating that stable environment.

The second part involves correct motor learning, and ability to self-organize your movements in an optimal way so that you are already in the best position possible to avoid having to create tremendous amounts of stability. Things like technique work, sport practice and simply playing your sport and coming across new situations and stimuli will help.

My pumpkin did not sprout with the ability to bear fruit. First, the stems and vines had to grow, to be able to support the demands of its task, growing pumpkins. Then, it had to branch out and create stability in a variety of ways to be strong enough to support the load of the pumpkins themselves. Similarly, LeSean McCoy was not born with the ability to make a linebacker look like a fool. His body is strong enough to respond to imposed demands and can produce enough force to accomplish the task quickly. He also has played football since he was a kid, and therefore has the appropriate movement patterns and motor skills to be able to pull off such a feat. There’s a little more to this topic such as fiber-typing that could be responsible for why he’s so shifty, but that’s beyond the scope of this article.

The biggest take away from this article would be: build up your strength, be able to express that strength quickly, and be able to do so in a variety of ways and conditions! (this is NOT an endorsement of crazy instability training on bosu balls and the like – I think it’s stupid and mostly a waste of time.) Get strong, move fast & expose yourself to new movements a lot, and you’ll be breaking ankles like Shady in no time.