What do you think of when you hear the word “variety”?
To most coaches, variety means big actions, like the difference between running and swimming, or different weightlifting actions, like a deadlift or a snatch. But when I think about the word variety, I think about the really tiny movements and slight changes in body position that make a huge difference to how our bodies experience movement.
Those slight alterations in body position could just be a change in hand position from vertical to 45 degrees, or from a straight wrist to a flexed one. These slight adjustments in position are particularly important when it comes to stretching.
If you always do a pec stretch (for example), with your elbow bent to 90 degrees, at shoulder height and palm facing forwards, you’ll never reach all those areas of your chest that could be causing movement restrictions but simply don’t get stretched in that position.
But, if you create slight variations in your hand position, for example, like turning your wrist so that your palm is at a 45-degree angle, or turning your palm to face you, or even better, turning your palm to face you then tilting it away from you to 90 degrees, then you’ll be surprised how different your pec stretch can feel.
Have you ever done a stretch like this?
When we use variety in this way, we can access lots of areas inside of the body that regular stretching and other mobility methods just cannot reach, which will give us faster, much more effective results.
But as coaches, simply adding variety to a stretch position isn’t going to give us great results if we don’t first understand what’s causing the areas of tightness and restriction in the first place. Then we can understand how and when to apply the variations for maximum results.
Many coaches skip this step because they’re hung up on the belief that understanding movement restrictions and the resulting injuries are too complex or that they take a lot of technical understanding, but they don’t.
In fact, in my book “Unlocking Fitness Part 1: Mental & Physical Health Decoded” I reveal the simple cheat code that helps EVERY sports coach to understand, without getting in over your head or all technical about it!
So, if you want to be able to take your coaching to the next level and see injuries coming BEFORE they become painful, then I invite you to head on over to unlockingfitness.com and grab your copy right now!