WEEK 5 SWINGING AND ROTATING

EXERCISES AND THEIR

APPLICATION TO SPORT

What I Need to Know

You are about to start the week 5 module. I hope you are doing great. Do you
belong to a sport that has something to do with swinging and throwing? This
module will definitely improve your skills and apply it in your own event.

Objective:

At the end of this module, you as learner is expected to:

a. Discuss the basic fundamental of rotating and swinging exercises and

its application to sports.
b. To understand the significance of proper swinging and rotating and its
application to sports.
c. To execute proper way of swinging and rotating.

What I Know
ACITIVITY 1 – PRE – TEST

Instructions: Analyze the given images below and try to identify what particular sport
the images are portraying. Use a separate sheet of paper in answering the activities.

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 1. 2.

3. 4.

What’s In
 In the previous module, you were able to practice throwing, striking, and
kicking techniques and understand its application to sports. The lesson in this
module is relevant with the previous lesson wherein you can combine those
learning and enable it to adapt in your particular event.

 Are there any difficulties that you have encounter while trying to learn these
basic skills?

 How did you manage to learn the previous lesson while having difficulty in
adapting new skills?

What’s New

What is swinging and rotational and swinging exercises?

Rotation is your body’s way to create horizontal force from standing position. The
process is a synchronized motion starting at your feet and typically finishing with your
hands.

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Sports Swing (boxing), a type of punch. Baseball swing is the process of attempting to
hit a ball with a bat in the game of baseball. Golf swing or golf stroke mechanics, the
means by which golfers analyze their execution shot in the sport of golf. Swing in
bowling, a subtype of fast bowling in cricket.

What Is It

7 Methods to Develop Rotational

Power in Sports
1. Build your legs from the Feet Up
There are very few strength
exercises that make a difference with foot power, but some do. It’s more important to
conserve function than spend endless hours doing barefoot training or exercises that
show little transfer. Foot function is everything with rotation, as the pressures during
the swing of a club, stick, racquet, or bat are unique and complex. Take a look at a
baseball swing and see how much the center of pressure changes in a matter of tenths
of seconds; a lot happens in a short period of time. Leg power for rotation is about all
force vectors with insane levels of precise footwork and speed, not just gross squatting,
hip thrusting, or lunging laterally.

2. Focus on Redirection and Energy Conservation, Not Just Static Stabilization

The spine is wonderfully designed and has several layers of connective tissue to
reduce the unnecessary motion that occurs from locomotion and common movement
patterns. The muscle groups from the hip through the shoulders should be able to
redirect more force than they create; otherwise, the recoil mechanisms of the torso are
lost. Loading and improving hip function is the cornerstone to rotational power. Just
summarizing rotation to spinal action is oversimplified and limited. A combination of
braced maximal rotational strength with rapid elastic-like motions may develop the
rate of torque needed for the fast exit velocity of balls.

3. Train Isometrically Vertically and Maximally

Prone and supine core training will not ruin coordination, nor will it solve most of
the injury problems in sport. You can do dead bugs and bird dogs like a therapy demo
model, but even those exercises proposed by the spine experts have limited transfer.
Training doesn’t need to look like what we see in sport, but it should have enough
specificity or overload that it can attack the preparation spectrum on either end.
Focus on isometric training and make it on your feet from time to time. We usually see
lying horizontal with most core training that involves bridging, while the unstable
craze made loading on one’s feet more of an act of balance than strength training. The
solution is more isometric work on one’s feet.

The oblique system is commonly assessed with electromyography because of the

size and fact it’s partially superficial. Developing rotational power is about accessing
the rate of torque development from the legs to the trunk.

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 4. Learn from Track and Field Coaches and Golf Biomechanics Experts

Golf is an international sport, so from a research standpoint, it’s better to study

than baseball. I thought about suggesting tennis, because it’s technically both a
rotational sport and overhead activity, but much of the research is on all of the sport’s
demands such as court motion and conditioning aspects. We accept golf as a driving
and putting focus, and that means mechanics and skills are priorities in the studies.

Similar to golf, athletics or track and field is also international, so the research on
performance is far more compelling than baseball and cricket, and even the racquet
sports. Throwing is another enigma, as most of the quality throwing research is on
javelin and the rest of the studies are on throwing in baseball. Then we have football, a
sport with scant research and sport science outside of repurposed rugby and AFL
investigations.

Modeling sports success is not going away anytime soon. While there is a lot of
effort being made to promote pseudo-science skills and consulting on high
performance without objective methodology, those approaches are easily exposed
when you construct a fluid plan with benchmarks and processes.

5. Using Collinear Resistance for Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation and

Biofeedback

Proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation is a method of stretching muscles to

maximize their flexibility that is often performed with a partner or trainer and that
involves a series of contractions and relaxations with enforced stretching during the
relaxation phase

Collinear resistance is an Advance Movement Training to Maximize Sport

Performance with 3D Resistance. The Proteus system by Proteus Motion Inc (formerly
Boston Biomotion) is a new category of intelligent exercise and rehab equipment
designed to strengthen, optimize, and restore sport movements using patented 3D
resistance and 3D measurement. One system is used to train and measure any
movement during post-op through peak performance and enhance movement
efficiency through external cueing, ground up motor sequencing, and biofeedback.

6. Develop Your Upper Body Strength

Bob Alejo did a fine job explaining the limitations and potential of grip training for
performance, but those involved in rotational sports should think about shoulders and
elbows more than wrists and hands. The goal of grip training is to not let the wrist and
fingers to be weak link in the equation, but you don’t need to rip a phonebook in half
to be effective in sport. Focusing on pulling, pressing, pushing, and extending is a
path to utilizing the legs and spine effectively, as most rotational sports treat the
upper body as something that is just there for the ride. My recommendation is to do
the opposite. It’s fine to challenge the upper body to be more effective. Just don’t
chase numbers like the power will transfer to club or bat.
7. Up your skills with Biomechanics and Coaching
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The lack of systematic qualitative and quantitative skill development in rotational
power sports is very strange. While nearly every team or individual coach uses video
analysis, it’s not much different than a TV meteorologist pointing on a map to obvious
references. If you want to get the most of your training, make sure your instructional
coach is working with your preparation coach. Most of the time, I see a compromise
where the strength coach wants to be the movement skill person beyond general
athletic development or the skills coach is giving haphazard training advice. Some
coaches can do both, but most can’t, no matter how well-meaning they are.
You need a team approach, or what will happen is more of the same stagnation. Skills
with rotational sport require great coaching and whoever is charge needs a checks-
and-balances system to keep the athlete improving or playing at a high level. In
my motor skill development article, I covered some of the pitfalls of cues and applying
the wrong tasks, but for rotation we need more coaches in combat and swinging sports
to be up-to-date with the correct sport science and sports training education.
No matter how great the training program is on paper, it needs to show up on the
court or field.

What’s More
Instructions: Do you like watching different sports event in Television or in
other Social Media? In this activity you will try to enumerate the different
events in sports that have something to do with rotation.

Identify 10 ten different sport that usually used rotation movements

1.____________________
2.____________________
3.____________________
4.____________________
5.____________________
6. ____________________
7. ____________________
8. ____________________
9. ____________________
10. ___________________

What I Have
Learned
Summary:
Train Your Entire Body to Prepare Your Core

Don’t be upset if this list of methods just

appears to be a shotgun approach to
training rotation. I designed it to present
the best approaches and cover all the
bases. Rotation is not just about core training or even strength training; it’s about
skilled motion and developed power from overload. In the future, we will see better

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research and even better training approaches, because we are only halfway there in
the sports performance world.

The sports training field is learning every day about looking at the context of athlete
development. We, as a profession, are also learning how to augment rotational output,
as well as decrease the injury rates on the field. Training holistically with attention to
all variables is the best approach, and this article moves you a little bit closer to the
truth of what works and what doesn’t.

What I Can Do
LET’S DO THIS
Instructions: Perform the following basic exercises.
1. Perform a 10 reps Squat in 3 sets to build your legs.
2. Perform a 10 reps of lying leg lifts of 3 sets (each side) to develop the Focus on
Redirection and Energy Conservation, Not Just Static Stabilization

3. Perform 10 reps of lateral jumping in 3 sets to develop rotational power.

4. In 30 second, perform at least 30 reps of mountain climber exercise to develop

its upper body and core.

Assessment

Instructions: Read and understand each item and use a separate sheet of
paper for your answer.
____________________1. It is a method to rotational power in sport wherein it is
better have a set of great legs than a great core.
____________________2. It is a method to rotational power in sport wherein muscle
groups from the hip through the shoulders should be able to redirect more force than
they create

____________________3. It is a method of stretching muscles to maximize their

flexibility that is often performed with a partner or trainer and that involves a series of
contractions and relaxations.

____________________4. It focuses on pulling, pressing, pushing, and extending is a

path to utilizing the legs and spine effectively.

______________________5. “No matter how great the training program is on paper, it

needs to show up on the court or field.”

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 Additional Activities
Try to observe your favorite athlete
of how they play and how their body movements differ from you. Analyze also how
their rotation movement and its relevant to how well they play the game. But do not
copy their movement without proper training to avoid injury. Congratulations on
completing Module 5.

-End of Module 5-

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