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Balance of Power - BFS and Optojump
Balance of power” is the perfect term to describe a vital key to athletic performance.
In team sports, the coach wants every member of the team to be able to obtain optimal performance. This means we strive to make poor athletes good, good athletes great, and great athletes even better. This formula is especially effective at the high school level because every school usually has a few great athletes on any team, and therefore success is determined by how well the coach can improve the abilities of the less gifted players. This is why efficient and effective training is so important.
Although there are many components of optimal performance, among the most commonly cited by coaches and sport scientists alike are speed, power, quickness, agility and stability. Most of the attention in strength and conditioning programs is focused on the first four of these components, which is a mistake. Without stability, you do not have the ability to display the other components. Let me give you an example.
Let’s say you have the strength to perform a parallel squat with 300 pounds. If you were to spin yourself around several times to make yourself dizzy and then try to squat, you might be able to squat only 100 pounds. Why? You don’t have balance and control, and this deficiency does not allow you to display your strength. This brings us to the question of how much balance and control is necessary.
Well, if we’re talking about walking from your
bed to the kitchen to make yourself a cup of coffee in the morning, only a small amount of stability is necessary to keep you from falling down. But if we’re talking about a basketball player trying to make a fake and drive to the basket or a fullback trying to bust through a defensive line, now we’re talking about a much higher stability requirement. Further, those requirements become greater as a high school athlete progresses to college and professional levels. In other words, as an athlete moves to higher levels of competition, their balance and control also need to be improving to higher levels. If they are not improving, or even worse, if they are regressing, that raises a red flag and we need to figure out the cause.
This is why BFS has teamed with Dr. Peter G. Gorman, president of Microgate USA, the company that created OptoJump™.
OptoJump Offer Olympic Level Measurements
Testing is a valuable tool for athletic development, as it helps to monitor training and motivate athletes to achieve higher goals. And if you know which tests are appropriate and you have the proper testing tools, the process doesn’t have to be an ordeal. For example, using an OptoJump 1 meter system, a coach could test the vertical jumps of 40 athletes in as little as 10 minutes. At BFS we believe that some form of testing should be performed every two to four weeks, from something as simple as timing your dot drill performance, to running the 40-yard-dash. We have also developed the BFS Standards, which provide guidelines on what both male and female athletes should strive to reach for their age group.
Beginning Protocols
Balance Functional Stability Protocols have been established and are in use in a number of pilot schools across the USA. Student and athletes can be started simply and with no expense with standing on a single foot and marching in place protocols.
Learn about using the OptoJump one meter system to measure your march in place test with Olympic level accuracy. Read more about the importance of accurately measuring your students and athletes progress through out thier development.
