[youtube width=”540″ height=”303″]http://youtu.be/ihy8Rt-lq2o[/youtube]

For the second installment of the Power Athlete Warm Up Series, we introduce two movements: the Seesaw Walk to Burpee. The movement demo includes Progression 1 of the Seesaw Walk immediately followed by what we refer to as the athletic burpee. In Power Athlete circles the burpee is used as a tool to challenge our universal athletic position. And you just thought it was programmed for the suck factor.

In the video, observe Cali going through the seesaw walk, focus on her solid posture and position; stable and locked in trunk, neutral spine and neck and her attention to detail as she moves through space. If you are paying close attention to the videos (or even attended a CFFB seminar) you will start to see a theme with these warm ups.

Our objective with the Seesaw Walk is to work for an active hamstring stretch on the planted leg; remember to focus on maintaining proper position through the entire movement. We can not stress enough, but this warm up only illicit the proper response if the athlete maintains proper position. So if your movement falls apart and your position breaks, you need to FIX IT. Watch Cali’s midline from the side view and again from back. From the side, notice the straight line from her elevated and dorsi flexed foot’s heel, locked quad, neutral hips, short ribcage, retracted shoulder girdle and through the top of her neutral head. From the rear, listen as Luke drops the cue for Cali to internally rotate her hip for a ‘flat hip shelf’, or in other words hips are parallel with ground and in line with the rest of her midline. When first attempting the seawalk walk, your midline stability will be challenged, as well as your balance and body control the moment your foot leaves the ground.

A secondary purpose this movement provides is to assess the mobility of the hips and the hamstring. You may find a limiting factor and/or imbalance in your hamstrings that needs to be adddressed. Whether it be stability, mobility or flexibility this is another great tool to improve an athlete’s performance. Also, it should be noted, the athlete is working towards a “soft lock” on the planted leg. If at first, the planted leg needs to bent to make the movement possible, we will allow it as long as there is a hamstring stretch and position is maintained. John goes into some depth here about hamstrings and how important they are to knee health.

Now for the Burpee. Here we discuss the Power Athlete athletic position and a simple way to challenge it and thus reinforce it. The athletic position is universal to all athletes and can be observed across many different sports. In football, tennis, rugby, hockey and baseball this “A-frame” athletic position is observed everywhere. The setup for this is simple; feet slightly wider than shoulder width apart with knees tracking above the inside ankle, toes pointing forward, hip pushed back, short rib cage, chest up and head neutral. Basically, like you are a linebacker waiting on the snap of the ball, a tennis player ready to return a serve, or shortstop preparing to turn a double play. By introducing this position, we create awareness and preparedness for our athletes; locked and loaded and ready for anything. For many this may be very natural, for others not so much but we want you to establish this position, then challenge it by adding movement.

During the demo, you may have thought Cali missed a vital component of the burpee, but this is not the case. While the burpee can be an amazing metabolic conditioning tool, it can be so much more. In Power Athlete land, we use the burpee as a tool to force an athlete to move through different planes of motion while returning back to position, thus reinforcing the athletic position. A limiting factor for this movement can be the push up, and since our goal is to challenge posture and athletic position, not upper body strength, we omit to from the movement.  Many of your may scream….why!? Mainly, because we have seen too many of these… 

[youtube width=”540″ height=”303″]http://youtu.be/Uyu7r6EdukE[/youtube]

Even if your goal is to use the burpee just for conditioning, we strongly believe you can elevate an athlete’s heart rate while keeping priority on good positioning.  This variation of the burpee may not be the fastest; but then again, we need to ask what are you training for?  When it comes to training movement and position speed is just another “stress.”  If going fast pays your bills, then you certainly need to learn how to go fast.  Allow me to preface this with, speed should only be added once perfect movement is established.  If you adhere to this pillar of the Power Athlete program you will continue to progress and avoid the dreaded plateau.

The best way to master anything is to throw it into the workout when you are fresh…think warm up.

GOOD LUCK!

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