I fell in love with the game of baseball at an early age, and throughout my baseball career I learned that life is a world of asymmetrical patterns. Every day we wake up and roll out of bed to one side, open doors with one hand, and shake or flip people off with one hand. Think about how many more times you use your right hand than your left, or vice versa. This rotation and neuromuscular gap builds over the course of your lifetime. One thing is certain, one hand, one arm, and one side will dominate your life.

Train your non-dominant side to become a well-rounded athlete. [Photo credit: Pixabay]

As a baseball strength and conditioning coach, my summers are packed with seasoned veterans and young stars trying to improve many aspects of their game. What I see is a gap between their left and right side cross-rotational patterns. Whether it is from a mobility or stability issue, tension issue, or neurological issue, the gap derives from the fact they swing, throw, and play a stressful game over and over again with their dominant side.

Eighty-nine percent of the population is right-handed, ten percent is left-handed and one percent choose which hand they want to use. This is a big reason why left-handed pitchers are so valuable in baseball and why they have a better chance of getting drafted. But what if they throw right-handed and bat left or if they throw left-handed bat right? Since 1876 there have been 56 non-pitchers that throw left-handed and bat right-handed, most notably Rickey Henderson who had 13,608 plate appearances. Only five position players since 1900 have played 1,000 games batting right-handed and throwing left-handed: Henderson, Ryan Ludwick, Cody Ross, Cleon Jones, and Hal Chase. Conversely, there have been 1,581 non-pitchers who threw right-handed and batted left-handed, which means there is still a gap between sides considering that only 18,461 were ever recorded as playing in the big leagues since 1876.

How Can We Decrease the Gap?

Start by using your other side for simple things in life. If you are right-handed, open doors, open the fridge, or hold groceries with your left hand. Let your dominant hand rest for these simple tasks so it can prepare for complex actions like throwing a baseball, swinging a bat, or stealing a bag.

• I have my baseball players switch hit after coming off of a long season. We set up a soft toss station or a baseball tee and have them hit twice the amount on their bad side. This gets their body to challenge an uncomfortable movement and creates neuromuscular chaos throughout their whole body, which showers the neuromuscular system with feedback because it is not used to stabilizing and dynamically transferring force through the opposite side.

• Not only is this exercise useful, it’s also fun. I have never had an athlete hop into the cage and take hacks (baseball swings) on their bad side, and get pissed off because they couldn’t hit the ball as hard. They already know they are going to suck so they have no expectations. When the pressure is removed from an athlete after a long season, you create the potential to thrive.

Completing simple tasks with your non-dominant side will not only give your dominant side increased recovery for complex movements, but it will also improve your overall athletic ability and quality of movement, which can set you up for potential mastery through the creation of longevity.

The post Train Your Weak Side appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Adapt Training to Changing Routines

When I was playing collegiate baseball I began as a starting pitcher and ended my career as a closer. The transition from starting once a week to possibly pitching in three out of four games was a difficult and humbling transformation. I had to recondition my body and mind to adapt from working in a progressively low-to-high threshold environment over the course of a week, to working in a high-to-low threshold environment on a daily basis. I developed a new training routine, game day preparation routine, and in-game routine.

To do it, I used a concept called “Gap Training,” something I learned from my good friend Dan John. Gap training examines an exercise program and identifies where the imbalance lies between fundamental human movements (push, pull, hinge, squat, ground work). Then you either increase or decrease movements, based on the gaps and goals.

If this is you after every workout, chances are you’d benefit from balancing your arousal level with some gap threshold training.

The Arousal Threshold Gap

“Gap Threshold Training” expands on this concept. Gap threshold training finds where you live on the arousal continuum and figures out how to balance your arousal level. This can be difficult, because everyone likes to go all out when training, even when their life is already chaotic outside of the gym.

Applying gap threshold training to your current routine starts by understanding where you fall on the arousal continuum. Are you a low-threshold athlete, such as a yoga enthusiast, or a high-threshold athlete who doesn’t know how to turn it down? High-threshold training is not determined by a high percentage of max effort in lifts; rather, it is training in an environment where a coach is yelling like a drill sergeant, or the workout of the day is high-intensity circuits.

High-threshold training has its place because everyone enjoys ass-kicking, high-intensity workouts on occasion, but the frequency and intensity must be determined by where you live on the arousal continuum. Most athletes haven’t spent enough time on the other side to truly understand how to gauge their output. If you do not understand both high and low arousal levels and when to turn it up or down, you create a gap in your training.

Moving Between Thresholds

Once you have established where you live, you need to understand the other side of the continuum. Most importantly, you need to learn how to transition from one side to the other.

Workout 1: High-to-Low Threshold

1. Deadlift: 5×5 (high threshold)
2. Hip flexor stretch: 5 reps, 10 breaths/side (low threshold)
3. Wall-supported wall slides: 4×15 (medium threshold)

Workout 2: Low-to-High Threshold

1. Side-lying windmills: 4×6/side (low threshold)
2. Turkish get ups: 4×1/side (medium threshold)
3. Kettlebell swing: 4×10 (high threshold)

Workout 3: High-to-High, Low-to-Low Threshold

1. Farmer carry: 40yd x 3 (high threshold)
2. Sprint: 40yd x 3 (high threshold)
   2min off (1min unfocused breathing, 1min focused diaphragmatic breathing)
3. Quadruped neck nods: 3×10 (low threshold)
4. Segmental body rolls: 3×1/side (low threshold)

Workout 4: Low-to-Low, High-to-High Threshold

1. Inchworm to downward dog to Cook squat: 2 reps (low threshold)
2. Humane burpee: 2 reps (low threshold)
3. Double KB front squat carry: 2×10 (high threshold)
4. 10yd side-to-side shuffle x3 to 30yd crossover sprint x2 (high threshold)

3min off (1.5min unfocused breathing, 1.5min focused diaphragmatic breathing)

Learn How and When to Turn It On

It is rare to find people who live in the middle. Those athletes who have mastered control of their arousal level are the 1 percent. They have the ability to know when to turn up their arousal levels and how to turn them down quickly and efficiently to conserve energy.

Having an awareness of where you’re at and where you need to be to perform is a huge component in everyday life and training. Establish both sides of the arousal continuum, then develop a process to transfer from one side to the other. Being able to live on both sides will create longevity in your life. Identify your movement gaps, and then look deeper to establish the gaps in your threshold training.

More Fundamental Training Concepts:

• Periodize Focus, Not Just Intensity
• 6 Elements That Belong in Every Athlete’s Training Program
• Make Gains Like a Beginner: Novelty and Hypertrophy
• New on Breaking Muscle Today

Photo courtesy of J Perez Imagery.

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