Why You Need More Lateral Decompression + Oblique Work in Your Training

Sprinting is rotational due to the torque production. Torque created by joint rotation is the key to sprinting and sport movement mastery. 

Humans are torque beings. Torque is rotation and twisting. We are more efficient moving with rotation than we are linearly. Muscle fibers run at angles NOT linear. We have joints that allow us to move the endpoints of the muscles farther away from each other via rotation. Linear movements keep the distance between endpoints fixed which makes it difficult to longate a muscle.

Sprint training is extraobated gait training with shorter ground contact times. 

During gait we alternate reciprocal compression laterally, and the faster we are moving the more of this we typically need as a propulsive mechanism as the increased demand of ipsilateral hip flexion and shoulder extension will increase in range of motion as power increases. 

This increased compression + decompression strategy will allow for a wider continuum for increasing expansion during hip extension and shoulder flexion in mid and late stance of gait. 

The internal and external obliques are the main facilitators of this relationship respective to the ribcage and pelvis because they pull each side of the body into position for the task at hand. 

We also know, muscles at length, allow for a greater contraction (Akagi et al. 2012; Sugisaki et al. 2010). 

The more efficiently you're able to lateral compress (concentrically orient) and decompress (eccentric lengthening) the greater torque production you can potentially have in early phases of sprinting.