Rotation in Sports: 3 Loaded Exercise Progressions for Maximum Efficiency

Rotation in sports refers to many common movements occurring in the athletic environment such as throwing, striking, swinging, and even changing direction.  

It is an important aspect of most sports and is critical for effective sequencing and power production.

These athletic movements are the basis for sports-specific training.  They are why rotational movements are so popular in sport-specific training.

The problem is that rotation is often trained without any true progression, and maybe even without any real structure.

Because rotation in sports is linked to throwing, striking, swinging and such movements, exercises like medball throws, kettlebell swings and the likes are common exercises we see utilized to train rotation.

So right from the get-go, we are training rotational movements in their most complex form combining load and acceleration (aka power).

But since when do we work on power before function and strength?  

This is especially true if you are following up after working on mobility or within a rehabilitation process.

Building rotation exercise progressions is safer, builds better outcomes and will likely make all those cool rotation exercises you see on Instagram much more useful in the end.

Let me tell you exactly how to build appropriate progressions to replicate the strength demands as well as the kinematic sequences that are imposed by the athletic environment.

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KINETIC CHAIN DISTRIBUTION FOR ROTATION IN SPORTS

Before we get into our exercise progressions, let’s take minute to talk about function.

While many years ago we may have referred to rotation as twisting of the torso, we now understand that there is much more to it.  

Rotation in sports involves athletic movements like throwing, swinging, striking and changing directions that require that forces be transferred along the kinetic chain.  

The kinetic chain is composed of a series of interrelated sequentially activated segments

where movement of one segment affects the proximal and distal segments.   

This distribution of forces depends on the biomechanical efficiency of the kinetic chain, starting with each of the different segments being capable of doing its job.   

For example, if a joint is compromised, either more force will be distributed to other joints, or the distribution will be inefficient, and the outcome will be impacted.

So, we definitely want each of the segments to be able to move appropriately.   According to Serola “every joint in the body undergoes shock absorption and rebound”.  This is essentially what happens during gait and what affords us the ability to run, jump, change direction, etc.

Serola further details shock absorption movement and rebound movement from and joint-by-joint perspective as follows:

I discuss the ankle and hip specifically in previous articles on the blog, so make sure to check those out.

As you can see, from a movement optimization or rehab perspective, and even from a prevention perspective, restoring range of motion is important.  

I see it as laying the groundwork of function from which you can build capacity to utilize the kinetic chain effect.

Once function is restored, we can move on to building a foundation of strength to work from.

PROGRESSION #1 – STRENGTH FOR ROTATION IN SPORTS

Although rotation in sports involves generating force within a very short time frame, mastery also requires being able to do things slowly and with control.  

Applying intentional force into newfound ranges of motion allows us to strengthen specific tissues or areas and to strengthen the pattern

Loaded rotation exercises involve using sport-specific or rotational movements performance at a controlled pace with moderate loads.

The question that remains is:

How do we load sport-specific movements? 

And no, the answer is not by tying a resistance band to a racket or golf club!

One very important element of rotation, which has been popularized by golf but is also applied in the context of throwing, is the X factor, which refers to the angle of between the hips and shoulders at the beginning of the downswing in golf or in the early cocking phase of throwing.

Basically, a common element of athletic movements like throwing, striking and swinging is creating that separation between the shoulders and hips, rapidly stretching the muscles of the hips/trunk, torso, and shoulders, and then using that stored potential energy to “release the stretch”.

While there is a dynamic element to that, it requires quite a lot of strength through the torso.  

This is where loaded rotation exercises are quite useful, because they provide strength through range of motion and in key positions.

For example, a high to low chop with moderate load performed in a slow and controlled manner helps strengthen that stretched position where the shoulders are away from the hips:

Remember, the key is to use a load that allows acceleration and mass to contribute equally to the movement.  Too little load doesn’t create the strength effort we want and too much load may perturb the kinematic sequence of the movement.

PROGRESSION #2 – ABSORPTION FOR ROTATION IN SPORTS

The next level of progression is dynamic rotational movement.  

Rotation in sports has high levels of complexity.  Namely, we need to address HOW to forces are distributed in a definitive sequence of acceleration and deceleration.  

Let me be clear, there is absolutely no lack of rotational exercises and drills out there and to be honest, they all would probably have some amount of transfer regardless of the sport.

That said, 

we can make some more judicious choices by selecting exercises that are force-vector specific and target the muscles, tissues, structures or regions we are trying to focus on

In the Movement Optimization for Athletic Prehab & Performance Strategy, we like to include exercises that have an absorption or deceleration component.  

Atlas swings are a great example of an exercise to achieve this:

PROGRESSION #3 – ACCELERATION FOR ROTATION IN SPORTS

For the third progression, we are ready to move on to the acceleration component.  

The medball throws we commonly see done to train rotational power fit well here, because throwing and jumping exercises (single jumps, not consecutive jumps) allow the individual to continue to accelerate through the entirety of the movement.

These exercises can be manipulated to target the character of the force effort in the key movements we want to train.

For example, for hip-shoulder separation, rotational medball slams would be a good choice:

MAKE SURE TO WATCH THE YOUTUBE VIDEO LINKED AT THE BEGINNING OF THIS ARTICLE FOR SPECIFICS ON THESE EXERCISES

BETTER PROGRESSIONS – BETTER ROTATION

Of the many movement patterns on which significant time is spent to develop proficiency, strength and performance, rotation is arguably the most complex.  

In some cases, you may be rehabbing an individual back from a specific lower limb injury.  Or you may have worked on restoring or improving range of motion from a prevention perspective.  

Either way, 

you will need to build appropriate progressions to replicate the strength demands as well as the kinematic sequences that will imposed on these tissues in the athletic environment

This is not only safer, because tissues and structures that have not been subjected to stress levels similar to those encountered during sport-specific situations are at greater risk of re-injury (or injury), but it also builds better outcomes and improves efficiency.

All things that matter for prehab and performance! 

Mai-Linh Dovan M.SC., CAT(C)
Certified Athletic Therapist
Founder of Rehab-U