Rotational Training
James White
We generate much of our power is through rotation. Rotation is an essential element of human movement. All our muscles are designed to function in a 3d world. When training for performance, health and physique it's important to remember to include some rotation, not just for your "core" but for the movement systems and pulleys that link your body together...
Transverse Training
We live in a 3 dimensional world and move in a variety of ways. The human body is a complex system of pulleys and levers designed to efficiently move in all directions depending on the challenge ahead.
The trouble with most gym programmes Is that they only train in a very controlled unrealistic environment.
In real life, we move forward and back, side to side and around...where does power come from in the human body? rotating! Look at the rotation when we walk and run, or in power moves of a baseball pitcher, boxer, golf swing, shot put etc....full body integrated rotation.
Have a look at a diagram of the human body, look at the direction of the fibres of many of the large muscles of the body. Note that they don't just go down and side to side, but are all over the place.
The high number and variety of different tasks we have to complete in our average day means that we are bending, twisting, extending, pulling, pushing, reaching, rotating and flexing all day long. This puts our body under all sorts of stress, from all different angles. If we only train in the same old way, we won't be prepared when we race a new challenge. When you play almost any sport you start to use far more variety in your movements and they begin to have a lot more force and speed placed through them. We need to train the right way to prepare for this.
The 3 planes of Movement
There are three plains of motion that our bodies move through. These are:
Sagittal - Forwards and backwards, eg ab crunch.
Frontal - Side to side. Eg lat raise.
Transverse - Rotation. Think of your trunk in a golf swing.
The type of training that dominates most peoples workouts, even athletes and qualified coaches at times is in the sagittal plain with a smaller percentage in the frontal plain.
Just look at these popular and 'supreme' exercises and see what I mean. Squat, lunge, bench press, seated row, bent over row, clean and press and pull up. I am not saying that these exercises are not great and are not very beneficial, they are, thats why they are in a huge percentage of fitness and performance programs, but you will notice that there just aren't any transverse plain dominant exercises in there. Common mistake in many a program.
You will agree with me that if you just train bench press you will not get much stronger in the deadlift, squat or bent over row. ...This is exactly the same with the different planes. If you are just training the saggital and frontal plain and never the transverse plain you will get stronger and stronger in the saggital and frontal plain and your transverse plain will never get stronger.
For a sporting point of view you can see exactly why this would be detrimental as you are not training 1/3 of your movement ability. Even from a health, fitness and everyday point of view it is easy to see why this leaves you in a poor position.
Imagine your typical gym rat who never plays sport but likes to train to build a bit of muscle and strength. Lets say they are gardening and digging a hole. They dig their spade into the ground, lever the soil our of the earth and then lift it up. This has all been in the saggital and frontal plain so their trained strength allows them to pick up a heavy load of soil. Now with their feet planted they twist to fling the soil to one side. This is where the untrained muscles in the transverse plain have to come into play and there is no strength or protection so they will be at a higher risk of pulling a muscle, damage their spine, tear a ligament etc.
Our training should supply each and every plain of motion with sufficient work to progress creating a well balanced and functionally efficient body.
You can train yourself To be More-Athletic by incorporating many different styles of rotation training into your workouts. You can do this by incorporating both twisting exercises and unilateral exercises into your program. The unilateral exercise train you to resist rotation - to stabilise in the transverse plane, which is equally important as training to move.
Transverse Plane Exercises
Some good exercise examples that train you in the transverse plane:
Russian Twist - Lie on your back with your arms out in a t-position. Keeping your legs straight, raise your legs off the floor so your hips are at 90 degrees. Keeping your shoulders on the floor and your hips at 90 degrees, bring your legs from side to side.
Wood Chop - Set a cable machine handle at about head height on your right side. Then take the handle with your left hand and put your right hand over your left. Keeping your feet planed, hips pointed forward and your arms straight, rotate your upper body from right to left whilst pulling your arms from above your right shoulder to below your right hip.
Medicine Ball Side Throws - Take a medicine ball your hands and stand side on to a solid wall. Then whilst keeping your feet planed and arms around shoulder/stomach height, rotate and throw the ball against the wall.
Single Arm D/B Bench Press - Exactly the same as a normal D/B bench press except you will only be using one hand. If your already using a good weight on this movement you will find that switching to one arm really fires up your core trying to stabilise in the transverse plain.
Give these exercises a go and make some up for yourself. You will be surprised how much they can increase your sporting performance or just everyday lifting safety and strength.
The best way to add some rotation training to your workouts is to add some to your core workout, like the Woodsaw and Russian Twist and to integrate some rotation in with your other workouts, like swapping a set of bench for a set of one hand Dumbbell Press.
About the Author
James is a young guy but my is he strong! – He started out as a Powerlifter and has competed for Great Britain on numerous occasions. He holds British and Commonwealth records and was 2007 British Junior Powerlifting Champion. Recently he has decided it is not enough to be able to simply shift huge weights, he wants to hurt people as well. He is now dedicated to learning the sport of mixed martial arts and intends to make his competitive debut in the near future. He is a highly knowledgeable personal trainer, and is also studying osteopathy. See his personal sites at Build-muscle-burn-fat.com and James Whites Personal Training
