Thread by @SteveEnglishbey

Prior to my foray into baseball/softball instruction, I had the great experience of working with James Cooper [well known as Adrian Peterson's trainer]. The athletes working with him were very good. Damn good actually. Many were track guys and football players.

https://twitter.com/ZachDechant/status/1447678290001551361

In working very closely with these high caliber physical athletes, I began to notice something about those who really were the most most explosive, i.e., they could start ---and stop--VERY quickly [as in change direction very quickly],they could jump higher---and quicker,etc.

In being able to closely observe these types, what seemed somewhat puzzling and seemingly contradictory was this:

They seemed to be "stiffer", somehow more "taut". These were the 2 terms I used to describe them. In a word, tighter. Even when they walked around it struck me that these terms applied.

BUT---and this is the seemingly contradictory aspect--they also seemed "springier." Tighter....but springier and more explosive. How does that work exactly I thought [this goes back over 20 yrs ago]? What explains this kind of physiology I wondered?

I can STILL remember one guy jumping from a standing start over 1 hurdle. I thought at the time: " This guy BARELY loaded [almost no hip/knee flexion], barely moved anything but had this tremendous take-off. Same with the landing ....yielded VERY little.

Then had an astonishingly fast 1st step take-off. He looked alot like this clip. Note how this guy in the clip does NOT create almost any loading of the hips/knees. Another ex. of stiff---but springy!!

In the yrs. that followed my initial impressions, I have read many books and articles that have greatly helped to better understand this kind of stiff/springy physiology.

To put it simply [this IS twitter!], much of this can be explained by understanding how fascial tissue--like tendons--can play a huge role in facilitating ballistic movement.

As one well known sprint coach [forget the name] said about elite level sprinters: "They are running on tendons". This explains the hurdler in this clip ,i.e., the muscles are creating isometric tension [stability] and the tendon "stiffness" is doing most of the work.

I took a quick search and found this article that I think is a good quick summary on tendon stiffness vs compliance:

linkedin.com/pulse/tendon-s…

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