PNF As A Training System – More Than Just Stretching! Part IV
Procedures of PNF
The procedures (or techniques) used in PNF include:
1. Use of specific manual contacts with the body to facilitate and guide movement
2. Application of maximal tolerated resistance
3. The use of oral commands and non-verbal cues to facilitate correct movement
4. Eliciting of maximal stretch reflex in the lengthened muscle range (Starling’s Law)
5. Use of appropriate timing and sequencing of all actions
6. Application of traction or approximation (compression) to stimulate joint receptors
7. Inclusion of recuperative motion to reduce or avoid fatigue produced by resisted activity
8. Use of Specific Activation Techniques to develop full range of voluntary movement
9. The use of Specific Relaxation Techniques.
The Specific Activation Techniques (of 8 above) need to be elaborated upon, as follows: Read more »
PNF As A Training System – More Than Just Stretching! Part III
The Fundamentals of PNF
PNF may be categorised in terms of five P-factors: Principles, Procedures, Patterns, Positions and Postures, with joint Pivots and Pacing (Timing) as important sub-categories. The methods comprising these factors were formulated from findings on neuromuscular development, such as the functional evolution of all movement from motor immaturity to motor maturity in the growing child or novice athlete in definite sequences progressing logically from:
• total to individuated
• proximal to distal, distal to proximal
• mobile to stabile
• gross to selective
• reflexive to deliberate
• overlapping to integrative
• incoordinate to coordinate
The Principles of PNF
The basic principles of PNF may be summarised as follows: Read more »
PNF As A Training System – More Than Just Stretching! Part II
PNF and the Neuromuscular Reflexes
PNF makes extensive use of the different reflexes which serve to protect the body, stabilise and mobilise it for action under a wide variety of circumstances. As we have already learned, plyometric methods recruit the myotatic stretch reflex to activate the muscles after a strong eccentric shock phase. There are many other reflex systems in the body which mediate action automatically to avoid the potentially dangerous and inefficient responses that would be caused by reliance on slower voluntary processes. A knowledge of these reflex mechanisms is vital to musculoskeletal conditioning, a fact which is stressed in PNF.
A tendency to focus on bodybuilding or general weight training techniques over-emphasizes the role of muscle contraction, which is really the end-product of the interaction of various voluntary and reflex neuromotor processes. PNF serves the valuable purpose of recognising neuromuscular mechanisms as the dominant feature of all physical movement, rehabilitation and training. Intensity, duration, speed, type and patterns of muscle activity are primarily a consequence of neuromuscular processes and the relevant reflexes of the body.
Relationship of PNF to Physical Conditioning
PNF may be seen to provide a highly systematic approach to improving directly all the S-factors of fitness and Read more »
PNF As A Training System – More Than Just Stretching! Part I
Strength training is often regarded as a discipline confined largely to the gymnasium or sports field. Unfortunately, this can obscure the fact that it can and does appear in other situations which have little direct connection with sport.
In particular, PNF (Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation) contains many useful techniques which can play an important role in the strength training of athletes. It is one of the aims of this section to show that PNF is a comprehensive conditioning system which includes not only many of the principles already covered in this book, but also adds insights which complement these principles.
PNF is invariably regarded by conditioning coaches as a special type of sophisticated stretching, alongside static, ballistic and passive stretching. PNF is far more than just another stretching technique; it is actually an entire Read more »
Strength Training Methods – Part II
It is tempting to attempt to devise a single extensive flowchart to categorise and interrelate all of the better known methods of resistance training, but the extent of overlap between the different methods makes the final result logically tedious, unattractive and largely unusable. Instead, it is simpler to organise the different methods as a loosely interconnected array of columns and rows, showing only some of the more obvious relationships (Fig 7.2). The merit of this type of chart is that it enables one to see at a glance the variety of many of the methods which were discussed in previous chapters. Where necessary, any terminology and methods that did not appear explicitly in the book are described later, so as to furnish the reader with a compendium of methods for practical application.
In using the summary depicted in Figure 7.2, it is important to note that some of the training methods may be used to achieve several different aims by altering variables such as the load, number of repetitions and rest intervals. For example, pyramiding should not be regarded merely as a bodybuilding method, because it may also be used in the Read more »
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