Adarq.org

Unpopular opinion:

I mean we all have our certain build and strengths and
weaknesses and because of that we are inefficient in most of our mechanics. Optimal mechanics require the ideal physique+athletic level for whatever it is you are doing. So when you try to force optimal mechanics and you don't have the required adaptions for it, you do significantly worse than your normal technique.

But imo if you keep trying to perform with optimal mechanics, you are hitting your limiting factor every time! For example, im not very good at top speed, my top speed running is quad dominant. If I continue running with my quad dominant form, my weaker p-chain +elastic strength is not being stressed enough and continue to lag behind. However when I switch to good cycling technique even though it is much less efficient for me because of my characteristics, I optimize my training to improve what is holding me back. (Simplified example)

Your point about injuries is a good one and I think progression should be extremely careful and gradual for changing mechanics. It could take months or years to get your limiting factor up to scratch and could be risky because you don't know how gradual this progression should be. But if you keep doing whatever with "personalized/suboptimal" form you will never live up to your potential and eventually hit a plateau that will be even more difficult to overcome because you've learned the wrong movement pattern so well.

Granted this doesn't apply to everything but stuff like sprinting, some jumps, change of direction where there's a clear superior form could benefit from optimizing mechanics imo

re adarq's last post, something my dad posted on fb recently:

If you can start the day without caffeine or pep pills,
If you can be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If you can resist complaining
If you can eat the same food everyday and be grateful for it,
If you can understand when loved ones are too busy to give you time,
If you can overlook when people take things out on you when,
through no fault of yours, something goes wrong,
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can face the world without lies and deceit,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without liquor,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,
If you can say honestly that deep in your heart you have no prejudice against creed or color, religion or politics,
If you can do all these things,
Then you are almost as good as your dog.

I disagree when it comes to running though. I wish T0oday still posted but he made a lot of posts about sprinters with awful techniques that still had incredibly fast times. Speed is power to weight ratio. Top speed is often considered genetic but it can be improved by working on your top speed through drills and building speed endurance. Running is natural. It's best not to overthink it. Keep it simple. By all means use a few ques like keeping your head straight and chin slightly down and arms relaxed but there's no need to over analyse. Effort>technique. If you run 200m tempos your body is naturally going to find the most efficient way for you to run and achieve the times with the least effort. That's building technique. I know my explanation is shit and I can't word it that good but focus on putting in the work, running high intensity, and building up your work capacity and that will make you achieve far greater than a smaller workload with more emphasis placed on technique.

After a disappointing showing at the Athens Olympics, crashing out of the heats in the 200m, Bolt sought out Mills as the man who might enable him to finally fulfil his youthful promise. Mills was well aware of Bolt’s natural ability, but also of his poor technique - a backwards running style and lack of core strength triggering a series of hamstring problems. He undertook a two year project of pulling apart the sprinter’s technique, painstakingly breaking his bad habits, and then reassembling it all into today’s world-beating form. It was a repetitive and challenging process, often requiring hours of video analysis to help correct the minutiae of Bolt’s individual race stages.

For sure. I think the big question though is, whether or not someone can truly spot inefficiencies in their mechanics and do the right drills to correct them. This is where I think most of it falls apart. Getting instruction from coaches with incredible amounts of experience, and perhaps having things analyzed in a performance lab, are probably good steps .. actually, more so for coach, less so for performance lab. Performance labs in universities for example, have lots of "brainiacs" but perhaps not the proper levels of actual experience, correcting technique/movements for real athletes. But legitimate coaches with impressive histories, probably are the highest up on my list. Though, you may still get advice which is aimed at "turning you into someone else", turning you into athletes they are more familiar working with.

To my first point, I imagine scoob is telling his girl to get her knees up etc .. I can picture someone forcing their knees up while running, and just wrecking their mechanics. I've seen people do this IRL, it looks absolutely insane. For some reason, they are convinced that forcing their knees up is the right thing to do. I once did something similar with cycling my trail leg, I forced it, stupid idea. The best way to get your trail leg to cycle better, is to go faster. The best way to get your knees up, is to go faster. The best way to get your shoulders/arms pumping, is to go faster. etc.

As for your quad dominant top speed mechanics, does manually focusing on your cycling technique help more than primetime sprints (stiff leg bounds) etc? You've done all kinds of things, so I imagine you know best. But, I think before people resort to form changes, they should try and focus on doing the activity more (in most cases), but also incorporate assistance exercises aimed at strengthening those weaknesses, without having to manually think about them during the actual movement. I mean, that's the route *I prefer*. Sometimes you just have to focus on something to fix it, there's all kinds of specific cases so there's lots of caveats.

Also, as for your quad dominant top speed mechanics, there's also the possible scenario that continuing to use that technique for many years, the hamstrings/glutes would still catch up because of the speed improvements over time. ie, you might hit your ceiling with natural form, but then if you just keep hammering it, you may get more contribution from p-chain since you're hitting higher speeds at your ceiling. You would know better than me though that's for sure.