ENHANCING MOTOR LEARNING WITH SLED TRAINING
JOEL BERGERON, MS, CSCS,*D, USATF-2
S
trength and conditioning programs for athletic performance
can be broken into two main components—physiologic
improvement and motor learning. While physiologic
enhancement to strength, power, and endurance play a role
in athletic success, they are relatively easy things to improve
with consistent training. Sport-specific skill acquisition such as
swinging a bat or shooting a basketball, however, takes thousands
of quality repetitions in order to master and generally progress at
a slower rate. Most coaches do not realize that strength training,
plyometrics, and core conditioning all contribute to motor
learning, when used appropriately.
When analyzing movement patterns, the human body moves
through three planes of movement; sagittal (flexion/extension
motions), frontal (ab/adduction motions), and transverse (rotary)
(1). All movements take place in one of these three planes no
matter how simple or complex, or utilize a combination of them
simultaneously. Most strength and conditioning programs are
made up primarily of exercises taking place in the sagittal plane
against the vertical pull of gravity. Teaching athletes how to move
more efficiently is more than just adding frontal, transverse,
unilateral, or bilateral exercises into a program. It also has to do
with the progression of movement patterns athletes learn, the
combinations of movements participated in when exercising, and
what is most commonly overlooked—the line of pull. This enhances
neurological learning, but even more importantly, brain plasticity,
or the ability of the brain to synthesize new movement patterns
at a faster rate (2). Brain plasticity is promoted by teaching
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the nervous system a greater number of ways to create motor
pathways, which send signals out to the muscular system (2).
Motor learning as a principle is analogous to trails created in
a forest by animal traffic. The less a path is traveled, the more
difficult it is to traverse the course due to forest overgrowth.
The more a path is traveled, the greater the ground is worn, and
if more routes from point A to point B are created, the animal
can find a path to the destination in a shorter period of time.
The nervous system works in a similar manner. The challenge is
figuring out an efficient way of teaching athletes how to create
plasticity through the training prescribed. Exposing athletes
to a variety of movement patterns that simulate actual sport
mechanics can enhance and shorten this learning process.
IDENTIFYING FUNDAMENTAL SPORT MOVEMENT PATTERNS
Most sports involve three common sport movements; swinging
an implement, throwing an object, and a form of locomotion
seen as linear, lateral, or a combination (agility) of the two. The
difficulty is breaking these movements into simpler patterns that
can be taught using conventional strength training and muscular
conditioning. But even beyond this, the greatest challenge is
finding exercises and routines that actually translate back to
sport moves.
Performing a squat, bench press, jump, or simple medicine ball
throw are all good ways to begin teaching