Motor Preferences Systemic Approach
Motor preferences are like "shape-memory material." This analogy effectively illustrates that they are not rigid but possess contextual plasticity, while still remaining true to their fundamental structure.
Motor Preferences Are Anchored but Adaptable
-
They emerge from the body’s structural and neurophysiological organization, while dynamically adapting to internal and external constraints."
- However, they dynamically respond to internal constraints (fatigue, stress) and external constraints (environment, surface, equipment).
They Function as a Self-Adaptive System
- Available Energy: A decrease in energy can lead to compensatory strategies (e.g., a fatigued grounded athlete may recruit more posterior muscles).
- Context & Environment: Surface, equipment, or weather influence motor adjustments (e.g., an aerial athlete may adjust their stance depending on the terrain).
- Psychological State: Stress or confidence affects access to optimal preferences (e.g., under pressure, a player may experience alterations in their motor patterns).
The Ultimate Goal: Optimized Efficiency Based on Intention
- The body and mind always seek the most efficient solution to respond to momentary constraints while remaining within the framework of motor preferences.
- Intention guides action, and adaptability allows for optimizing motor responses without deviating from the individual's fundamental structure.
Motor preferences are stable yet flexible foundations, like a self-regulating system, constantly seeking efficiency based on constraints.
How to implement Motor Preferences within your players or organization?
Key 1 = Needs Pyramid of the living (and therefore athletes !)
(ranked from bottom to top of the pyramid)
1) ENERGY = Eat, drink, rest = make sure that athletes have enough energy to live & perform
2) BALANCE = balance, perception, action = Don't fall, stay coordinated
3) EMOTION = Pleasure / pain ratio = Avoiding too much pain
4) EFFICACY = Energy/tissue efficiency = Be efficient
Key 2 = The triangle of preferences
To coach an athlete, you must consider is ''off field environment'' and his life, in order to complete all the information you need to prepare is athletic planning., regarding his goals.
MOTOR PREFERENCES (past)= How athlete's life has created the ''how his body wants to perform at this moment'' (age, injuries, volume of practice, nutrition...)
CURRENT SITUATION (present) = What is the athlete's energy level and the means at his disposal to increase his performance (time, schedule equipment ...)
GOALS (futur) = What are the goals of the athlete ? Are they realistic ? What plan can be proposed ?
These 3 poles are in interaction and must be in adequacy.
1Key 1 = The cursor of polarities
Living beings are a dynamic balance between tendencies that complement/contradict each other. They have the capacity to generate a principle and its opposite. In the context of movement and injuries, we invite you to think about the principles of flexion and extension in the three planes of space.
Key 3 = Think focal and global
To understand this optical illusion, you will have to go back and forth between your global and focal vision.
The same is true for the technical gestures:
Hypothesis as an example:
''A player who does not put his weight on his forefeet. Since this
is a dominant pattern in baseball infield defensive, you might think
it's not right. But if you look more globally at the player, and see
that he is more flexed on his legs, with a lower center of gravity than
others, you will understand that he has an Terrestiral profile, that his
motricity is not based on the bounce on the forefoot, but on a flexion
system, initiated by the pelvis". And to do so his weight must be on the
back 1/3 of his feet.''
So to evaluate the value of the detail of a gesture, it is necessary to integrate it in the complete motion and to see if in the motor system of the player, it is an advantage or an incovenient. All this while taking into account the intention and the environment. And you must go back and forth to adjust !
Key 4 =The personal zone (think the complexity)
Movement emerges from interconnected underlying elements that combine in a dynamic balance, in order to reach an optimum!
Each has its own optimum (which is not a maximum). And each one has
to look for his personal zone in which he can reach his optimum.
WHICH IS THE TRUTH FOR A GROUP:
1) On average, the faster you go, the more you put your forefoot down.
2) On average, shoes are not related to injuries.
... IS NOT THE TRUTH FOR ONE PERSON.
1) This runner goes faster and stays at the same heel level.2) This runner's injury is triggered by his shoes.
AN ABSOLUTE DEFINITION
Terrestrials place their weight on the the back vs. the aerials place their weight on the front.
... IS NOT A RELATIVE DEFINITION
Very Aerial, I am more terrestrial if I place my mass at the back of myself while I am still an aerial
Key 5 = Magnifying Effect
The Motor Preferences are a range. Each athlete's profile must be evaluated individually and placed in this range.
Differences between athletes in the same group may be difficult to perceive. So to simplify the approach, the key is to use the extremes to better visualize: Willis is a very marked AERIAL. Darvish is a very strong TERRESTRIAL. It is therefore easier to see the specificity linked to their profile and to be able to refine them according to more adaptable profiles.
Key 6 = Decision tree
We need to think systemic instead of causal.
The seventh key used in motor preferences approach to work, is to
understand no move is good or bad but it is only an individual optimum.
It is important to know the standards of the group (eg baseball
players) then the ones of a sub group (eg Pitchers) and to end, the ones
of the player concerned.
The average standards of a group are potentially not those of a sub-group and even less those of an individual.
Identifying all average standards allow to know where the athlete is and his own optimum targets.
KEY 7 = Cumulative observations
It is necessary to have different points of view to analyze motor preferences of an athlete. To do so, motor preference experts accumulate many observations:
- Posture
- Balance (determines the best coordination and muscle tone)
- Running
- The technique (technical gesture) in its environment (field)
The expert can also take into account the observations obtained from the triangle of preferences, in the decision tree, the personal zone and the primary reflexes.
Key 8 = Alignment of Intention - Emotion - Action
Are you free to decide what to do? Of course not. They depend on the image that each of us has of the world around us and the image we have of ourselves.
Studies in neuro-science show that our unconscious mind decides before our conscious mind what we are going to do and this up to 10-12 seconds earlier! We think that our conscious mind is overpowering, but it is much less powerful than our unconscious mind.
7 out of 10 marathon runners, from the 30th km onwards, encounter a "wall" but the instability of their stride is measurable from the 10th km onwards: the body of these athletes knows several hours before the runner, that it is going to experience a deficiency.
To make a type of movement that goes with a type of balance and feeling, you have to develop an intention and a representation that are concomitant. Coherence makes the living evolve.
Key 9 = Structure the action
Now that the first 9 keys are done, it is time for action. But as you saw with my posts, there was a time of reflection and complexity. We can't keep going with complexity at the risk of getting lost in our thoughts and of not acting.
Now there is a time for simplification and action. Simple actions with a hierarchical order.
Advice 1: .....
Advice 2: .......
Advice 3: .......
To return to the simple things to better advance, to better act and be quickly in action.
Key 10 = The monitoring
Motor preference experts are first and foremost human and can make mistakes. To minimize the consequences of bad advice, we follow very closely the evolution of the athletes in our care. We need to know their feelings and their progress...
Humanity and collaboration are then at the center of the sport practice.