Previously I talked about power, which is adding speed to a movement. Today I’m going to talk about deceleration – slowing down a movement. I’ve written before about movement physics: all of Newton’s Laws. You know that objects in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. Remember that? That outside force can be what slows you down. If you can’t properly decelerate your movement, you’ll keep moving and eventually get injured. Let’s use a sandbag clean as an example.
A sandbag clean is a power movement. It requires speed of your hips to get that sandbag from the hinged position up to your front-loaded position. Deceleration is when you are unrolling that sandbag back to a hinged position. You need to control your speed in the unroll by bracing your core, exhaling, and moving your hips back into the hinge position to slow the movement of the sandbag. If you don’t control the movement, the sandbag crashes into the floor and you create significant pulling forces on your wrists, elbows, and shoulders, strain your hamstrings and back muscles, as well as jerking your neck. Bottom line: you hurt your body when you don’t control the speed of the movement to slow down.
Decelerating a movement is using your muscles as brakes – to slow down or stop a movement. Another example – skater hops. When you hop side to side, you bend that landing knee and exhale to brace your core. That slows down your movement and allows you to safely rebound to the other side. If you don’t bend your knee or brace your core, your jam your knee, probably fall to the ground, and can hurt your lower back. Deceleration definitely sounds like the safer way to go!
Deceleration doesn’t have to come from a power movement. It’s all about slowing down a movement. Here are some examples:
- Forward Lunge
- Side Lunge
- Agility ladder (your ability to change directions)
- Skater Hops
- Lateral Shuffle
- Max Lunge
- Lift & Chop
- Around the World with Pivot
Any time you are slowing down your movement, you are decelerating. In our 30 Minutes of Everything® program, you will hear us often talk about bracing your core. That stiffens up your core – your middle. If your core is stiff, you have more control of your arms & legs and can protect your back. You will have ample opportunity in daily life this week to decelerate your movement.