Daily Maestroism

DM #15

Tuesday, June 7th, 2016

DM #15: Make it worse so that you can reflexively make it better. Keeping in line with the squat video I posted today, and as an homage to one of the most amazing professors I ever had (Dr. Rao, I'm looking at you), today's DM is about one of my favorite techniques, reactive neuromuscular training, aka RNT.
RNT looks to create both voluntary and reflexive movements that counter the stimulus being imparted. Put a band around someone's knees to stop them from caving in? That's RNT. Put a band around someone's waist and pull on it to get them to stop shifting to the side? That's also RNT. The applications are endless.
As I said in my earlier post, kinesthetic guidance, a.k.a. tactile queuing or touching is translated into behavior thousands of times faster than audio guidance. This means, RNT is fast. Now, I could complicate it and use big words to explain it, or go through each muscle and provide a detailed explanation on how to per from RNT when things aren't working. But I like to keep things simple. RNT summarized: Feed the dysfunction.
What does this mean? Whatever the faulty movement is, use a band or your hand or whatever external force you want, to make it worse. This will cause a reflexive response (and voluntary if you cue the person) to counter this force, and voila, you've got yourself an improved movement pattern. Just make sure the stimulus being imparted isn't so great as to overpower the movement pattern, leading to compensations, high threshold strategies, or failure. Stay in that sweet spot and you've got yourself a recipe for movement success.
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