LAD Performance-The Weekly Dose
Understand leverage to become a better athlete
Another Episode of The Weekly Dose!
Every week I set out to help educate you on movement practices and principles that will enable you to become a better athlete. Whether you are a high school athlete or a 75 year old grandparent trying to keep up with your grandkids, this email will have value!
Today I am going over the concept of leverage and how we can use our body as a system of levers to excel in our sport. I hope you enjoy!
Have you ever heard that someone has great leverage in sports?
This is commonly used for individuals who are able to maintain a positional advantage.
They have angles, body awareness & understand physics (most likely without even knowing it).
So what constitutes a lever?
A lever has three pieces. A fulcrum (pivot point), an effort or force and load or resistance. A lever is a simple machine that makes work easier. Our body is composed of all sorts of these simple machines.
Where the effort, load and fulcrum are positioned within a lever yield different results. This is important. Let’s briefly talk about how this plays out.
Our body is composed of 3 different kinds of these levers.
There are Class 1, Class 2 & Class 3 levers. Each of these are good at specific things. In today’s episode we are only going to highlight Class 1 and Class 2 levers.
Class 1 is designed for strength 💪 & to put on the brakes 🛑.
A simple class 1 example is a seesaw, like what you see in the green image above.
Imagine you’re performing a squat. You go down into the bottom of this movement with your heel down. Your center of mass travels straight down as far as your body allows.
In this movement the ankle joint serves as the fulcrum (pivot point), the load is the barbell weight that is resting on your back & the effort is coming from the quads, hamstrings & glutes (to name a few) as they fight the weight.
In movement and in sport we need this type of positioning.
A Class 2 lever is built for speed. This is your go lever. This lever helps you to get somewhere.
Think of the action of jumping out for distance or accelerating in a sprint.
The initial action of your body is to fall forward. You then complete a rolling action of the foot via a drop in the shin (shin angle change) with a forward projection of your center of mass.
The fulcrum is the ball of the foot or transverse arch, the load is the body & the effort can be found in the calf muscles. Your body weight with gravity is pulling you down and the action of the calf muscles are fighting against that. There is a standoff going on between the two.
The fulcrum is at one side, the effort is on the other and the load is in the middle.
Simple image would be a wheelbarrow
Here’s a video breakdown showing what I am talking about with a class 2 lever:
So here’s the deal...
In sport you need to be able to transition quickly from a Class 1 to a Class 2 lever. This is how you retain your leverage. If you remember anything from this email it should be that!
The best athletes in the world excel at this.
Our traditional “weight room” training that is so commonplace at our high schools, colleges and pro facilities has failed us when it comes to this.
Nearly everything being done in these facilities is Class 2 lever oriented. Athletes who spend a lot of time in the weight room are getting really good at building the brakes 😳.
Don’t get me wrong, you do need this. Squatting is great for many reasons, but over-squatting can be detrimental for the simple reason of this… it doesn’t allow us to speed up the transition from Class 1 to Class 2.
Athletes who struggle with this are the ones who have a “mushy ankle” and who stay on their heel way too long.
Here are 5 exercises that you can perform to help you transition quicker to your go lever.
🗣️: If you are looking to take the guesswork out of your training and have athletic goals coming up this year I’d highly recommend my online program, The Foundational Athlete (TFA). This program was built from years of experience keeping concepts like what I have shared today in mind. No matter what sport or how old you are the program holds tremendous value 🤝
RIGHT NOW TFA is being offered with a ONE WEEK FREE TRIAL. If you sign up & aren’t liking what you see just cancel it before the week is over and you won’t be billed. What’s the harm in that? To learn more you can click below! I’d love for you to be a part of the LAD Performance team & hear more about your performance goals this year.
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