Sports Performance Training

Sports Performance Training: Train the Force, Not Just the Muscle

By Eileen Durfee, inventor & Nationally Certified Spinal Fitness Specialist

Most sports-performance programs build stronger muscles. Fewer address the thing that decides how much of that strength reaches the ground: how well your spine transfers force. Train the structure, and everything else you do works better.

Strength you can’t transfer is wasted

Power has to travel through the trunk to become speed, height, or a harder throw. When the spine holds its natural curves, the trunk is a stable platform and force passes through efficiently. When the curves collapse and the trunk pitches forward, muscular effort leaks into holding the body together instead of driving movement. Two athletes with the same squat can perform very differently because one transmits force and the other loses it.

The structural layer under every drill

• Restore the spinal curves and trunk control so your legs and hips push against a stable base.
• Then layer speed, plyometric, and strength work on top — now it has something solid to transfer through.