Making your first move
A lesson on throwing and catching and the importance of controlling how you start.
One of the fundamental things my clients practice in my Pilates studio and in my online strength classes is initiating movement through their hands and feet in coordination with their breathing. The initiation of a movement has a dramatic effect on the success of that movement.
To train this skill with my clients we spend time splitting an exercise into two distinct phases:
GET SET - Feel the pressure (the grip of fingers around a dumbbell, the foot connecting into the ground, the air in the low back part of their ribcage)
MOVE - Use the pressure
At first the sequence appears stuttered, but with practice it becomes one seamless movement.
If you’ve ever watched rhythmic gymnastics, one of most jaw-dropping feats you’ll see is the throwing and catching of the apparatus (ball, ribbon, hoop, clubs, rope). HOW that apparatus leaves the gymnast’s hand 1000% dictates if it will have enough power and the right trajectory to be there to catch it.
An example of this at the highest level is the Italian rhythmic gymnast Sofia Raffaeli…
As someone who has done thousands of such throws in her previous life, I can tell you that you know the instant the apparatus leaves your hand if the throw will be a success or not.
Hours and countless reps were spent practicing the throw and only the throw. Controlling that first move is what set you up for success. If the throw wasn’t dialed in, worrying about how you were going to catch it was irrelevant.
This fundamental concept applies to everything you do: walking, rising from a chair, climbing stairs, lifting weights, squatting, push-ups, pull-ups…
Feel the pressure, use the pressure.
When you control how you start a movement, you set yourself up for success.