Contextual Strength Training (CST) - SSM Course -

I am Kanida, an athletic trainer active mainly in Chiba and Tokyo.
Currently, I am mainly providing conditioning guidance for university sports.

I attended the [Contextual Strength Training (CST) - SSM Course -] held at NEXPORT for two days on July 4th and 5th, so I would like to summarize an article about CST.

What is Contextual Strength Training (CST)?

Contextual Strength Training (CST) literally translates to
“Contextual Strength Training,” which istraining that takes into account the constantly changing situations and required movements during competition.
In this CST, you can learn practical training guidance that can be used in the field from the three perspectives of motor control, motor learning, and sport-specific movements to bridge basic strength training and competitive movements.
The course I took this time was the [SSM (Sports Specific Mechanics) Course].
The SSM Course is a course where you learn body manipulation for the force production required for competitive movements, with the theme of linear, lateral, and rotational movements.

Perspectives for SSM (Sport-Specific Mechanics)

To think about training according to the context, it is necessary to think from the professional perspectives of various sports and injury prevention. In SSM, we unravel each theme of “Sprint,” “Agility,” “Jump,” “Hamstrings Strain Injury (HSI),” “ACL Injury,” “Batting,” “Pitching,” “Golf Swing,” and “Ball Kicking” based on evidence, and it is a course where we introduce and practice what kind of training will improve performance and lead to injury prevention.
Even if it is called sport-specific, it is not just about “mimicking the movements of the sport,” but it is important to correctly understand the biomechanics and muscle contraction forms during force production in that competitive movement, and to set up an environment where the movements are naturally elicited for training.

To that end, we use water bags, aqua bags, medicine balls, mini hurdles, etc., to create pretension, and give perturbation and time pressure to generate co-contraction. This eliminates muscle slack and allows for appropriate movement (muscle exertion). Therefore, what I learned in this SSM course is mainly “what kind of environment to set up.” There are many training sessions using water bags and aqua bags in SNS exercise videos, but I believe that just mimicking the movements without understanding the intention behind them will not increase the contribution to performance improvement and injury prevention.

The basis is basic strength training

By learning Contextual Strength Training, I was able to feel the importance of “basic strength training” even more.
I believe that for movements such as sprinting, agility, jumping, batting, and pitching, it is basically importanthow much strong force can be appliedto the ground.
To acquire such basic “strength,” basic strength training such as squats is most effective.

The important thing ishow to connect the muscle strength acquired through basic strength training to the competition, so if you only do sport-specific training, the probability of winning against an opponent with high base muscle strength will decrease. (Especially in physical sports)
To prevent that, it is necessary to properly do basic strength training, perform sport-specific training, and carry out competitive practice evenly.

However, I think these ratios will change depending on the athlete's physical/skill level, season, etc., so I think it is necessary to decide the ratio after judging the situation.

I was able to learn new things in this seminar, and I was able to recognize once again that basic strength is important.
Instead of just mimicking movements, I felt that I could provide safe and effective training by having a firm intention, having a solid perspective such as biomechanics, separating strength training and sport-specific movements, and avoiding clumsily adding load to competitive movements. By strictly observing these, I felt that safe and effective training prescriptions could be made.

I plan to take another course in September, so I would like to learn various things there as well.

That is all.