3-D Feet/Hip/Core/Arm Connection Case Study: Tim Tebows "new" throwing motion

UPDATE 5/2/10: CONGRATS TO TIM TEBOW FOR BEING RECRUITED IN THE FIRST ROUND OF THE NFL DRAFT TO THE DENVER BRONCOS!

There has been a lot of hype regarding Tim Tebow lately. It's a little "Flavor of the Day"-ish so I hesitated to write this post BUT, I think there is a lot to be learned from Tim and his new throwing motion especially regarding Functional Biomechanics as it relates to throwing.

First, I want to just say that I think Tim is a great athlete. MANY MANY MANY folks have been downing him lately and that's their prerogative. If you are going to do this on this blog, STOP. STEP BACK AND ALLOW YOURSELF TO BREATHE.

I am going to say that I will give Tim credit for what he's done. He's gone in and within a few weeks reworked his throwing motion which is not an easy thing to do. However, from most accounts of him, he's a smart athlete which helps when you are unlearning a motion that has taken you through high school to college to winning the 2007 Heisman trophy. If you are interested in learning about the learning process of skills and becoming an expert, I encourage you to check out The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle.

In this post, I will take a look at Tim's "old and his new throwing motions and give a biomechanical analysis of what is allowing him to be more explosive as well as accurate.

Introduction to 3-D Lumbar Spine

"Baby, do you understand me now

Sometimes I feel a little mad

But don't you know that no one alive

Can always be an angel

When things go wrong, I seem to be bad

But I'm just a soul whose intentions are good

Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood"

Those are a few of my favorite lines from "Don't let me be misunderstood" originally performed by The Animals.

As we look at the Lumbar Spine, we see that this area of the body is where we can get a lot of pain. It's been said that over 80+% of people will have Low Back Pain (LBP) sometime in their lives. This is an amazing statistic but unfortunately, its a true. What is more interesting is that the Lumbar Spine, because it is the site of pain, is the most misunderstood. We call it the "Noisemaker" because when it's in pain, it can literally make you scream. However, as we look into the Lumbar Spine with Applied Functional Science, we see that the Lumbar Spine is the part of the body who gets beat up on the most and the actual cause may lie somewhere else in the body like at the Hips or Thoracic Spine.

In this post, we will explore:

• SIMPLE SIDE OF LUMBAR SPINE ANATOMY
• CHAIN REACTION BIOMECHANICS OF THE LUMBAR SPINE

The posts that follow will focus on Probable Suspects for the Lumbar Pain as well as a Movement Focus on preventative measures for Lower Back Pain.

3-D Optimal Performance Blog is BACK AND BETTER!

Greetings!

It has been over a month since I've posted on the blog and I apologize for not doing so sooner. It has been an interesting last few weeks on my end, with the biggest being the completion of a rather intense wrestling season where my team was able to finish 3rd in Washington, DC. The boys worked hard during the season and we definitely saw a lot of improvement from many of the wrestlers.

Interestingly enough, I had somewhat of an epiphany during this time off. The name of the blog is "3-D Optimal Performance" and its something that is near and dear to my body, mind and spirit. Initially, I focused quite a bit on Anatomy, Physiology and Chain Reaction Biomechanics as well as Functional Movement. It was a way to get a lot of the info that was in my head out and hopefully it has been useful to readers. I will still continue with this kind of writing, but I do not want the blog to be limited to this.

Efficient and Effective movement are keys to Optimal Performance in whatever discipline that you are in and maximizing what we have been given internally and externally are going to elevate our performance as much as possible. With this in mind, we will approach various topics geared toward OPTIMIZING PERFORMANCE using an Applied Functional Science thought process.

For instance, I have been training for a triathlon and decided that I just didn't want to just start swimming, cycling and running without doing in the most effective ways possible. Wasting time and energy are not ways to optimize performance, so I decided to set out and find some of the best systems for those 3 disciplines. I found:

Swimming; TOTAL IMMERSION
Cycling: SPINNING
Running: EVOLUTION RUNNING, POSE METHOD AND CHI RUNNING

I will go into more later about each discipline using AFS but I posted the links if you wanted to learn a little more about them.

Look out for a blog post on Total Immersion soon as well as a Anatomy Focus on the Lumbar Spine soon.

Thank you for reading, and please know that I'm very excited to start posting again.

Happy Friday!

Will