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Posted 07/23/2010

Often, we see athletes in our clinic who are involved in a variety of activities and they wonder why they have pain. After all, they’re “in shape”, and often they’re young and otherwise healthy. Many of them report that they are sure to cross-train because they’ve heard cross training helps to prevent injuries and over training. Part of the problem is their understanding of real cross training. If your idea of cross training includes running, biking and weight lifting, then you’re missing something very important. It’s something we try to stress to our patients, and you may have read about it in some of our other staff’s writings. It’s the fact that our bodies can and therefore should be worked through multiple planes of motion.

I think sometimes we as therapists think this idea is self explanatory, but may in reality confuse many of our patients or readers, so let me explain. Think of the different planes this way: Imagine you’re standing and do any of the following moves: 1) Walking straight forward (or backward) is one plane of movement we call the sagittal plane, 2) Side Stepping either left or right is another plane called the frontal plane, and 3) Rotating either left or right (this can be your whole body, or can occur throughout your body. i.e. at your hips, trunk, neck) and is called the transverse plane. Ideally, when you are training for any sport, it is in your best interest to work all of the planes of motion. If, as stated above, you’re only running, cycling, and weight lifting, you are neglecting the frontal plane and have minimal transverse plane motion.

I would suggest any of the following activities to make your training more dynamic through multiple plane of motion: tennis, basketball, volleyball, roller blading/skating, racket ball, throw a Frisbee with a friend, play catch with a football/baseball (just don’t throw the ball/Frisbee directly to your friend, but rather chase it a little). Don’t be limited by these few suggestions. Come up with some activities that you can do with your friends/family that make your body work in multiple directions.

Train smart and train hard.

~Dave
Questions or Comments?

Posted July 23, 2010 at 7:12am by David Drummer.
Tagged With: Cross Training • 0 Comments