by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS
I have said many times that the vast majority of us suck at moving in the transverse plane. We don’t rotate efficiently. But why? What is the reason?
This is an interesting question that I don’t know what we can arrive at a really exact answer because the answer is likely multifactorial. After some thought and research, I believe that there are several major factors that contribute to our poor rotary stability.
Rotation is Complex
Movement patterns that involve rotation are, by nature, rather complex. They almost always involve several joints in unison with the proper timing, sequence and rhythm. If any of those joints are not working properly or appropriately coordinated by the nervous system, rotation is going to suffer.
This complexity is challenging on several levels.
- It is tricky for the brain and body to put that many things together and do it well. If their nervous system isn’t efficient or it they have a restriction is one of the joints, then they won’t put everything together in an optimal manner.
- It requires a keen, educated eye to recognize where things are breaking down. For clinicians or coaches who aren’t accustomed to analyzing movement, it can be very difficult to identify where the breakdown is occurring during their rotational patterns. It takes attention to detail and a solid understanding of how we move to identify the problem so a novice individual will not likely be able to tell you where the issue is occurring.
Rotation isn’t easily quantifiable
We like to see numbers. Especially if we are coaches. We love data. We allow ourselves to be paralyzed by the data. We are lead to believe that if we see an improvement of 5 pounds in a 1 rep max on an exercise over a period of time that their training is a success. This works well for exercises such as the bench press, back squat or deadlift. But, it doesn’t work well for a Pallof press, cable chop or rolling pattern.
Because of the complexity of the movement, those exercises are very difficult to assess them under a load. And, honestly, you wouldn’t want to try to assess them under a load because load is not an appropriate indication of the quality of the pattern. But, because we like to train things that we can assess objectively, we don’t focus much time on other things.
There are likely other factors, which I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments section, but I do believe that these are 2 major factors as to why we don’t train rotation effectively.
I think most likely that people feel they do noy need to train inrotation, but i feel that being able to move efficiemtly, this is very important for protecting spinal integrity.
I have always trained with rotation due that i am a former college baseball and hockey player.
I completely agree with the two major factors and would like to add that we typically DON’T train in the transverse plane although we DO work and play in them occasionally, and that is typically where injury does occur. As a chiropractor I can’t even count how many times I have had a patient tell me they are exercising regularly but have an injury from doing some light rotational movement (often times with flexion or extension), yet when we start having them do some basic rehab exercises they are very challenged. I don’t think it is because they are lying to me about their exercise frequency/intensity, but I do think they just don’t exercise transverse plane movements.