Posture and Position: A Key Component of Elite Performance

Posture and Position: A Key Component of Elite Performance

by Bram Wood

What is a common trait that most athletes have that often goes unnoticed? Professional athletes take the stage in many different arenas where they put their skills and abilities to the test to beat their competition. But, one component that separates the best from the rest is their ability to maintain posture and position throughout the dynamically changing environment of their sport.

What does posture and position look like in professional sports? It’s Usain Bolt running a 9.58 second in the 100m dash, O'Dell Becham Jr. making an insane one handed catch, and in the realm of our focus, Bo Bichette keeping his hands back to pepper a line drive to the right side with two strikes. Their elite level to maintain control over their trunk and execute proper posture and position allows them to do the unthinkable in their chosen arena. The next time you're watching professional sports, watch the athletes as they move through space. You will see the trunk acting as this bridge of power between the upper and lower body. 

Strong Like A Tree

I started using the term trunk after hearing NFL 10 year veteran and Power Athlete CEO, John Welbourn, refer to the core in this manner. He said his goal was always to create a trunk like that of a sequoia tree that would bend but not break, and was robust to the demands he placed on it. That is one analogy I can get behind. 

What muscles make up a strong trunk? The trunk includes the muscles that work to move the pelvis and ribcage. Some of these muscles include the hamstrings, the three muscles of the glutes, rectus abdominis, transverse abdominis, internal oblique, and external oblique. Some people may disagree with regards to the hamstrings and glutes being muscles included in the trunk, but the reason I include them is because of their important role they play in dictating the position of the pelvis. Without strong hamstrings and glutes, it is difficult for athletes to create true posterior pelvic tilt. For the sake of this blog, I am going to focus on the muscles surrounding the abdominal region. 

It’s More Than Having a Six Pack

Often, most people get caught up on the abdominals that make a six pack, but a strong trunk does not come down to whether you have a six back or not. It’s about having a trunk that’s robust, stable, and can display your athleticism effortlessly. Maintaining proper posture and position is about understanding the specific demands of the task. Then, when the environment begins to dynamically change due to different disruptors, you have the capacity to maintain the correct posture and position for the task. This applies to sport, the weight room, and any field base activities. Those who do not have the ability to uphold this standard experience performance detriment because they cannot transfer force throughout the body. Instead, they look more like Gumby or one of the noodle people you see moving in the wind at a used-car lot.  

Muscle Function

After identifying the necessary tissue and musculature that needs to be focused on, a coach can strategize to create a program to ensure proper progress. Training the trunk can happen in many different ways. I divide training the trunk into exercises focusing either on muscle function or muscle action. The function of the trunk is anti-rotation, anti-lateral flexion, and anti-extension. These different functions can then be trained either quite simply with a dead bug (anti-rotation), side plank (anti-lateral flexion), and front plank (anti-extension). 

These exercises are simple to start with because it’s necessary for all individuals to master both motor and sensory competencies before progressing to the next movement. The progressions then becomes the fun part for both the coach and the athlete because it forces them to challenge their perspective of all exercises and see what type of perturbation they cause to the trunk. Progressions of training these different functions include 1-arm landmine press (anti-rotation), 1-arm farmer’s carry (anti-lateral flexion) and barbell rollout (anti-extension). There are many more exercises that can be included in the function bucket, and luckily so because it helps remove monotony from training. 

Muscle Action
The focus now moves to training muscle action. The movements that make up muscle action of the trunk include rotation, flexion, and lateral flexion. Rotation can be trained in a variety of ways including medicine balls, cable stacks and body weight. A rotational exercise movement involves both the pelvis and thorax. Exercises that target flexion focus on bringing the thorax and the pelvis closer to one another. Some of my favorite exercises include GHD sit-ups and reverse crunches. Some of the best ways to progress flexion exercises is to bring in external load or increase volume, but make sure to keep the load appropriate for the exercise. Lateral flexion exercises are often forgotten about, but when used effectively they do a great job of targeting the obliques. Different exercises we use for implementing lateral flexion include teapots, 45 degree back extension side bends, and side plank hip drops. Just like the flexion exercises the best way to progress these movements is either with greater load or volume. 

Wrapping it All Up

Training the trunk is one of the most important pieces of a training program. Making sure to include a wide array of exercises that train both function and action to create a robust trunk will lead to an increased performance output in a variety of skills . This can be implemented easily in the warm-up, in supersets with core movements and at the end of training session. Make sure that when including trunk targeted exercises in the warm-up or in supersets to not choose too taxing of a movement that will impact output throughout the rest of the training session. As stated earlier, the goal is not to have a six pack, but to have a trunk as strong as a sequoia. The next time you are writing a program or planning your training session, make sure to evaluate whether or not you have implemented trunk training correctly and effectively. 

Written by Bram Wood