- Structural Balance is one of the most important concepts for strength gain and injury prevention.
The body will attempt to stall strength gains if it’s becoming more out of balance.
An example of this would be Charles Poliquin’s articles about using rotator cuff work to increase the bench press of his athletes. These articles were very controversial which is part of the reason that most high level coaches are familiar with structural balance.
These are often “front to back” of the body ratios eg. hamstrings to quads or biceps to triceps but Charles also looked at Front Squat to Incline press ratio’s.
Read more about structural balance for the upper body here.
- Muscle Balance or Long : Short Range Balance also impacts gains.
Long range movements will cause more deposition of muscle mass, build stronger tendons and increase range of motion.
Short range movements will increase the mind muscle connection, bring blood flow without trauma and decrease range of motion is used without attention to long and extreme long range movements.
Often both the Long and the Short range can be weak or uncomfortable despite the mid-range feeling good.
We could test this by looking at the ratio between standing curl, incline curl and spider curl strength. The flexor muscles like biceps and hamstrings seem to be more sensitive to being trained in the extreme ranges than extension muscles.
- Left To Right Balance
Left to right imbalances are a major injury risk. Some sports are highly imbalanced with their left to right emphasis. Strength training is extra important for those playing imbalanced sports.
Practice your sport on the opposite side together with strength training for
- From The Ground Up Body Mass
Structural balance includes strength ratios between the upper and lower body. Charles liked to see Front Squat equal Close Grip Bench Press for acceleration dominant sports.
In ATG we see most of the dunk focussed athletes taking their lower bodies way beyond their upper bodies in terms of strength and mass. This makes sense when the athlete has to fly like a high jumper or like a bird. Throwing around the upper body doesn’t have the same advantage as ground based sports like Rugby or even soccer.
In high jumpers you’ll see the calf and the foot are the most developed structures. The quads and hamstrings are well developed and then there is minimal muscle in the upper body.
- Tendon To Muscle
Can the athlete throw med-balls far but lift very little... or vice-versa?
Great jumpers will generally have strong calves.
The ability to lift it fast or not at all would also tell us about the reliance on tendons.
eg. what is the 5 reps in 6 seconds squat weight vs the 10 second eccentric squat.
The ration between these numbers would tell us something about the tendon vs muscle dominance of the athlete.
The pause CMJump to Depth CMJump would also tell us about this.
- Hardware To Software
Is the trap bar deadlift very strong but the full squat very weak?
Is the athlete prone to muscle tears, tendon pain and bone stress reactions or are they seemingly unbreakable?
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