In the last article we talked about how and when to use an
effective crossover run.
Here, we’re going to slow down a bit, literally, and talk
about a movement that every performance coach (and most athletic coaches) teach
on some level: The shuffle.
Most coaches understand that a shuffle is simply a lateral
movement where we don’t cross our feet.
Just like with the crossover run, it’s important to
understand why and when an athlete should use a shuffle in the first place.
While the crossover is used when we need to move as fast as
possible while keeping square with an opponent, or tracking a ball, the shuffle
is generally used in small spaces where we’re able to keep the opponent in
front of us without crossing our feet.
This is as fast as I can move at 9:30pm at 34 years old. Notice the feet coming together (they don't have to click, but it's not the worst thing if they do). The key question as a coach, before you step in to change something: "Is that as fast as this athlete can possibly move right now?" If the answer is "yes" or even "probably", then they just need time, repetition and strength.
The advantage here is the ability to change directions
really quickly – our lateral orientation stays intact. The disadvantage is it
is slower than either a crossover or a straight ahead sprint.
Athletes that compete aggressively on defense (or without
looking over their shoulder at a coach or parent) generally learn to transition
from a shuffle to a crossover or sprint when needed. In other words, they use a
shuffle whenever possible until it can’t get the job done on a given play.
Think man-to-man defense in basketball.
Their only focus should
be on doing whatever it takes to keep the opponent in front.
Now that we have an understanding of the when and why, let’s
take a look at the how.
There’s a couple of mistakes we see made when teaching or
coaching this movement that I’m going to try to clarify and simplify here.
COACHING MISTAKE #1:
COACHING TO AVOID FEET “CLICKING”
First, we hear coaches consistently tell their players to
avoid letting their feet come together. Their hearts are in the right place –
the assumption is that allowing the feet to meet underneath the pelvis might
make the athlete trip over their own feet. I can speak from experience as an
athlete (and a clumsy one at that), along with countless coaching sessions
working on this movement and confidently say that this is not the case – you will almost never see an athlete fall over from
this.
The next question should be “so what?” What’s the advantage
of not restricting the feet?
It should help to think of the shuffle as a gait cycle (Lee
Taft specifically coined the term “Lateral Gait Cycle”). Just like in
sprinting, each leg has an entire cycle to work through to produce the maximum amount
of force with each push. With the shuffle, it’s an alternating push-pull cycle.
The lead leg (i.e. left leg when moving to the left) is the “pull” leg. The
back leg (right leg when moving left) is the “push” leg.
[Slow Mo Video]
A full cycle for the lead leg means a big reach out to the
side in the direction of travel (with the toe turned out), the heel digs into
the ground and begins to pull. The full phase is finished once that foot is
underneath the pelvis or center of mass.
While that is happening with the lead leg we see the back
leg go through an entire push cycle. We’ll start with the finish: “Toe off”
with this leg coincides with heel contact on the front leg. While the front leg
pulls, the push leg gathers and prepares for the next push by moving underneath
the center of mass. This will happen as the front leg finishes its pull (also
under the center of mass). This is where the feet meet in the middle.
In some athletes, but not all, this means the feet will
actually hit in the middle when attempting to shuffle at full-speed. My
suggestion is to let this happen and focus on something else that may need
cleaning up. By trying to take away the feet meeting in the middle, you would
essentially be asking the athlete to use less power on each leg. The push-pull
cycle would be incomplete and they’d gain less distance with each stride. In
other words, they’re toast.
COACHING MISTAKE #2:
COACHING TO AVOID TURNING LEAD TOE OUT
I briefly mentioned above that the toe on the lead leg will
turn out during the pull cycle. The second most common mistake we see many
coaches make is putting it in the head of the athlete that their lead toe
should never turn out.
But why?
The rationale seems valid on the surface. Most speed &
agility coaches will turn to deceleration and say “we need the ankle
dorsiflexed (toe straight ahead) in order to cut properly, so it’s more
efficient to shuffle with it already straight ahead”.
You may remember from the crossover article why we let the
toe turn out at the start (called the directional step) and the analogy of
trying intentionally to run an 8 cylinder car on only 4 cylinders just to
improve stopping ability.
That’s great, unless you’re in a quarter mile race and need
every last bit of power you can muster.
In the situations in sport where we’d need to use a shuffle
at full speed we know it’s faster to
shuffle with the toe out. And the great thing is we don’t have to coach it as
long as the athlete is focused on the right thing – competing and not letting
an opponent by!
The next great thing is we usually don’t have to teach the
athlete what to do with the foot when they do
have to stop and change directions. It’s another one of the innate abilities we
have to figure out the best position possible for a given situation – part of
our fight or flight response – if the athlete can get into a fight-or-flight
mentality while competing.
An obvious exception here would be any physical restriction
that keeps them from getting into dorsiflexion.
Toe turns out, hips stay mostly on the same level. Focus is on pushing the ground away and being fast!
SO WHAT CAN WE COACH?
We’ve focused mostly on points of shuffling that we shouldn’t
step in and correct, but where does that leave us as coaches?
Don’t worry, there’s plenty for us to do when it comes to
developing lateral speed!
ATHLETIC POSITION
Athletic position is something that’s talked about often but I don’t want to
downplay it here. Having an athlete that understands what a good athletic
position looks, and more importantly, feels
like is a great way to start working on a strong shuffle. Spend time getting an
athlete to know the difference between a defensive
athletic stance and a more traditional one.
A defensive
stance will typically have a much wider base than your run-of-the-mill shoulder
width stance that most will refer to. Why? Better to push laterally!
GET IN THE TUNNEL, STAY IN THE TUNNEL
Once the athlete
is in a good athletic stance, we like to cue them to imagine being in a short
tunnel. The goal with the athletic position, along with the shuffle itself, is
to avoid hitting your head on the top of the tunnel. This is a good visual to
keep their elevation consistent and make sure no energy is lost through the
body moving up and down during a drill or competition.
With
younger, weaker athletes (especially if they’ve gone through a recent growth
spurt) you’ll see a little bit of struggle with this, but that’s OK…stay
patient, encourage and make sure they want to come back. Eventually they’ll get
it!
BIG POWERFUL SHUFFLES!
Many coaches
will teach athletes to take short, quick shuffles where their feet move fast
but they don’t really go anywhere. This can also be a byproduct of having them
avoid clicking their feet together.
What we
really want to see is an athlete that is so aggressive they gain maximum ground
with each shuffle without overreaching and changing their elevation. A fun
demonstration is to take two athletes of very different speeds and make them
race using a shuffle for 8-10 yards. The athlete who is clearly faster is told
to take short quick shuffles and to not let
their feet come together. The other athlete is simply told that their focus is
to win! I’m sure by now you can guess
where this is going.
SUMMARY
To wrap up, we need to look at shuffling and all lateral
movement from a “whole-part” vantage point rather than a “part-whole”. In other
words, instead of trying to deconstruct the movement and piece it together
one-by-one with each athlete based on what we’ve read or heard, try to observe
great athletes move in competition.
Sometimes our instinct as performance coaches is to
immediately find things for us to “fix” but I’m a firm believer that
understanding the natural ability humans have to be fast in a fight-or-flight
environment will teach us more about how to coach speed than we ever could by
trying to teach from an anatomical & biomechanical standpoint.
One cool
thing is when we take this “whole-part” approach, the anatomy and biomechanics
make complete sense within that framework, but if we try to put an anatomical
solution to movement first, it’s easy to misinterpret what is actually going
on.
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