“If you fall seven times, get back up eight”
Or from the ever
wise, mini Buddha esque, Chumbawamba
“I get knocked down, but I get up again, you’re never gonna keep me down!”
Oh the 90’s,
what a great time to grow up, but back to my point…
We continually
hear about how falling is not important, but rather making sure you
get back up. But I’m here to flip the switch and stress the
importance of falling.
First let’s
clarify; this isn’t about failure or defeat like these quotes
underline, but rather what this article is about learning to fall and
land properly.
Why Would I Need to Learn to Fall?
Why should you
practice falling or landing? Well why do we crawl before we walk,
and walk before we run? Because it is a safe and natural progression
to teach our bodies to learn our limits and give us feedback on many
athletic qualities. Also learning to fall will help when you see Rachel McAdams at the bar, and don't tear your ACL when you fall head over heels.
Oh Rachel, you don't have to be
thinking of me all day
Watch little kids
on a playground and you’ll see them jumping off different objects,
testing the limits of how high they can land and fall from. It is a
form of learning the stresses our body can handle safely, and gives
our CNS a tool for reference.
While I don’t
have an exact number, I would be willing to bet that over half of
athletic injuries occur during landing after a jump, trying to break
a fall, or stops and/or changes of directions.
What do all of these have in common?
They are types of
landing, falling, decelerating movements. Athletes don’t get
taught how to land, stop, fall, or tumble. We get caught up in
developing vertical leaps, sprinting speed, power, and strength; but
often lose sight of the importance of learning stop or decelerate
these movements.
Recently Dan John
wrote a great article, here,
on T-Nation , and in it he stated,
“28,000 Americans in the 50+ age range die yearly from fall related injuries.”
Are you kidding
me, 28,000! If this doesn’t give a case for learning to fall and
land, then I don’t know what does.
So I’m going to
break down the remaining parts of the article into two parts, landing
(on your feet), and falling to the ground (tumbling).
Landing
We often see
athletes jumping onto 60” boxes, doing crazy dunks, or exhibiting
other great feats of athleticism, and we say, “I want to do that”.
So what does somebody do? They start doing intense plyometrics,
jumping on and off high ass boxes, and try to copy these athletic
movements.
What we tend to
forget is how these athletes got to where they are. We need to take
a step back, and learn the basics of landing before we try these
jumping feats.
Athletes need to
learn they can only produce as much force, as they can safely absorb.
Dynamic movements
like jumping, sprinting, bounding, etc involve our body taking in
high amounts of eccentric forces and then returning concentric forces
back out. The amount of force we return back out, depends on how
effectively and safely we take force in.
Our body is not dumb, and it is not going to allow us to jump 30 inches high if we can not safely land from 30 inches. Whether you leans towards, or away, from the whole ancestral thing, our body does not want to put itself in a situation where it might be injured.
So whether our
paleo past is still very present in our brain and nervous system,
where injury meant being an easy meal for a saber tooth, or whether
you believe we are different - evolved beings, it does not matter,
Injury = Bad!
Injury = Bad!
Our body is going
to do whatever it takes to prevent injury. It has a whole mess of
protective mechanisms and it knows what its limits are. So thinking
you can go jump 40 inches is not going to happen if your body hasn’t
learned that it can safely land from that high.
So for athletic
performance, learning to land is very important. Altitude landings,
depth drops, and box landings have been around a long time in terms
of athletic development. It is nothing new to train with those
methods to elicit high eccentric and braking forces, in attempts to
develop higher power and speed outputs.
Adding in landing
drills to a regular progression in the weight room will enhance an
athlete’s eccentric strength, proprioception, education of dealing
with high forces, and develop proper body positioning and mechanics.
More than
increasing athletic potential, learning to land has very high injury
prevention benefits. Landing drills have made a big push into ACL
prevention programs, as many ACL injuries occur from landing and
stopping actions.
Stepping off a box
and landing correctly is a key quality we need our athletes to
exhibit. If an athlete cannot land without knee valgus, proper foot
– knee – hip tracking, or a smooth, efficient, and quiet landing,
then that athlete is lacking in certain qualities. Jumping right
into an intensive program will put this person in harms way, and will
be promoting dysfunctional movement patterns.
It is important to
make sure athletes can land in various situations – double leg,
single leg, lateral, and backwards. These are all movements that
will be stressed in sports, and learning how to absorb forces at
these angles is extremely important.
Here is a whole
series of landing exercise progressions that will develop proper
landing mechanics, positioning, and eccentric loading.
The goal with each
of these exercises is to stick the landing quick and quietly. That
is a main coaching cue for us, but of course we are looking for other
signs during the landing.
Do the knees track
over the foot or do they track inside (knee valgus). Are the
athletes able to stick the landing, or are they adding in extra
little hops, or shifts in body weight. If so, the height or distance
may be too much for them to handle.
Are they
initiating the landing with the balls/forefoot, or is their heel
slamming into the ground. Again this is a sign that the eccentric
force is too much for the athlete.
Finally we want
the athlete to absorb the force quickly. This means we want them to
stick the landing as fast as they can. We want them to stabilize and
control the landing ASAP! The more time, bending, or movement it
takes to land means the athlete is losing eccentric forces through
this extra movement or time. Again this is preparing the athlete for
the extremely high demands and short contact times of plyometrics and
athletic movements.
Falling
Piggy backing
everything discussed in learning to land, is learning how to fall.
Learning to fall or training this skill, in my book, is essentially
tumbling. Somersaults, reverse somersaults, shoulder rolls, reverse
shoulder rolls, handstands, and side rolls.
I know what you’re
thinking; you won’t catch me dead doing those girly things. I’m
gonna get my ass back in the squat rack!
Well if you play
in any team sport or coach team sports, then you should definitely
reconsider.
How does tumbling
help in team sports?
It put athletes in
a position of falling, and teaches the body how to contort, twist,
and position itself when faced with similar situations during a game.
In sports like football, basketball, volleyball, soccer, and rugby,
athletes face many instances where they are falling or being taken to
the ground, and not knowing how to deal with the situations leads to
injury.
Tumbling is an
easy and safe way to learn the skills of falling. These tumbling
drills involve a great deal of mobility, stability, spatial
awareness, body coordination, timing, and rhythm. These are all very
valuable qualities that will help athletes, not only fall safely, but
will also carryover to other aspects of athletics.
Going back to Dan
John (can’t reference him enough!), tumbling is also a great way to
build “armor”.
He’s talked about how athletes, during the off-season tend to get “soft” and un-prepared for the poundings a sport will put on them.
These ground
collisions during tumbling mimic body contact, collisions, and the
physical tolls an athlete takes during games. It is a great way to
“toughen” up and prepare the athletes body for competition.
Despite it being
comical to watch some athletes try these drills, it really isn’t
all that funny that we have athletes that cannot perform simple,
basic exercises that 4 and 5 year olds can do with ease.
As a coach, you
will quickly see that your best athletes are the best at these
tumbling moves. I have observed that the best athletes I work with
tumble with the greatest grace, control, efficiency, and are overall
quiet and light during these movements.
Finally I like
tumbling movements because not only do they teach my athletes how to
safely fall and land, but also how to get back up! Like the quotes
at the beginning of this article, it is essential for athletes to get
back onto their feet after being on the ground.
You hear it all
the time during games
“Get Up!”
“Stay on Your Feet!”
Whether it’s a
linebacker being cut blocked, a volleyball player going down to dig a
kill, or a basketball player getting knocked down going to the rim.
These athletes need to get back up and get back involved in the play.
You see it all the time, an athlete is slow to get up, and his or
her team ends up paying the consequences.
So we get the best
of both worlds, we learn skills to stay on our feet, but if we do
happen to go to the ground, we learn how to do so safely and then how
to transition back onto our feet.
These are
essential athletic skills that are typically overlooked. Great
benefits will be had to youth, high school, college, and elite
athletes, but also the regular, everyday person. It will help
tremendously in athletics, but also as people age, how not to become
part of that staggering 28,000 statistic.
In the video below
is a series of the different tumbling drills you can use with your
athletes. I highly recommend using a nice big gymnastic type mat
(much bigger than the one in the video) or using grass, turf, or a
gymnastics surface for these drills.
Look for proper
movement and sequencing from the athletes. The movements should be
efficient, smooth, and quiet. Loud thuds mean the athlete is not
moving through the landings efficiency and lack in stability,
mobility, and body control.
Finally look for
smooth transitions back to their feet. Like we touched on, this is
also a drill to develop getting back on ones feet. Cue each tumbling
movement to be smooth, quiet, and to get back on their feet as quick
as possible.
Ground Floor
If you coach young
athletes, these skills and drills really do need to be in your
program. They are essential for proper development and skills that
will benefit them later on. When coaching youth athletes, I like
drills that don’t require much equipment, and teach valuable
qualities/skills naturally, without the athlete having to think much.
These drill kill many birds with one stone, and are fun and
challenging.
If you coach high
school to elite athletes, I still feel that these skills would bear
some great benefits. They might seem silly or weird, but get over
it, they work. A couple drills during a warm-up or finisher are more
than enough to progress in this area.
So feel free to
take some advice from the great Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and
start working on,
“Free, Free Falling!”
And as always Go Get 'Em!
