Diaphragmatic Breathing/
“Belly” Breathing
37
39
The athletes said that the second punch “actually felt more powerful” and “it was stronger.” They left out quicker, but they understood the idea. The tenser that one feels, the slower will be his or her movements. The tension interferes with the synchronization and timing of the movement. To perform optimally, one must activate the muscles at the right time and in the right order. In a punch, the fist does not do the work; the fist transmits the force generated by the legs and torso. In Awareness Through Movement, Feldenkrais wrote, “In a well-organized body work done by the large muscles is passed on to its final destination through the bones by weaker muscles, but without losing much of its power on the way.” A disorganized body leaks power.
Occasionally, an athlete makes a great play when angry, and they attribute it to their anger or the adrenaline rush. This is a happy coincidence. Playing angry negatively affects performance because it diverts attention from the task, and the adrenaline and hormonal rush affects fine motor control (Of course, some sports require little to no fine motor control, and these are the sports, such as football, generally associated with anger and aggression. However, when the anger creates tension, it affects synchronization and coordination in motor skills, whether fine or gross).
Waiting to form a first until the last possible instant is an example of relaxation in movement. Tensing the muscles prior to throwing a punch demonstrates tension, and this tension affects coordination and performance in any sport skill. Rick DeMont, associate head coach for men’s swimming at the University of Arizona, said, “Tension is slow, tension is inefficient. You need to be relaxed.” The top athletes have a superior ability to relax the muscles not actively involved in the immediate muscle contractions or co-contractions. When the muscles relax, they do not inhibit the performance of the prime movers or synergists involved with the movement. In Triphasic Training, University of Minnesota strength and conditioning coach Cal Dietz wrote that the speed of relaxation following muscular contraction was nearly 200% faster in top athletes than lower-level athletes.
“The paradox of athletics”
DeMont called the need for relaxation “the paradox of athletics” because coaches otherwise stress hard work and effort, which appear to contradict with the need for proper, and timely, relaxation. In a 2008 article by Gina Kolata in the New York Times, Clyde Hart, the director of track and field at Baylor University, pointed to the way that children run. “They throw their heads back….They think that the harder they go, the faster they run.” The paradox between hard and fast, efficient, and relaxed. That tension is the first thing that he corrects. “The quickest way to improve a sprinter is to teach him to relax.”
Unlike many coaches who tell players to relax, but fail to provide the tools to relax, Hart has his athletes concentrate on their eyes. He instructs them to run sleepy eyed; when they run with eyes wide, they are tense. As the eyes relax, the face relaxes, followed by the jaw, and finally, Hart tells runners to let the feeling spread through the shoulders and arms (Kolata, 2008).