The way you use your body can dramatically affect the efficiency, coordination, of your performance. Sports place a great demand on your body that can lead to injury and limit your performance.

The secret is to let our body move with the natural ease, agility and speed that lies beneath the harmful postural habits, the unconscious interference of coordination and conditioned ways of performing.

*Dramatically improve your game * Transform your technique * Increase your confidence * Prevent injury

• Integrate specific training methods to improve explosive actions and endurance.
• Meet the physical and mental demands of sport with out compromising the spine.
• Master fundamentals, improve movement technique, gain confidence.
• Encouragement of creativity, variety, progress, and progression in performance.

• Competitive sport is associated with various physical and psychological strains.

• Youth athletes have very high participation and injury rates in sports. 

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After I stopped playing collegiate soccer all the aches and pains of 18 plus years came crashing down.  At 22 years old and each year after, my joints felt like they were 90.  I would go to chiropractor or a massage therapist and feel better but only for a day or two.  I decided to look into different alternative methods.  This is when I found the Alexander Technique and this method exposed my own rigidities and pain and gave me choices on what to do about them. 

I never realized how much tension and discomfort I was in and would always push through and block it out. I learned that I could’ve been taught at a young age how to release excess tension, perform with ease and move the spine naturally and efficiently without pain.  I thought pain was necessary to performance and training.  

Through learning the Alexander Technique for the first time in my life I was given an invitation to be free, to release unwanted tension, stress, pain and encourage to listen, self regulate, increase my awareness of my own nervous system, body and stressors and perform with my most authentic self.  

How can the Alexander Technique, a functional movement therapy, help train, improve performance and reduce injury in youth soccer athletes ? 

Learning Functional Movement Techniques like the Alexander Technique can help a player in a number of ways:

• Run faster
• Jump higher
• Change direction quicker
• Less risk of injury
• Increased coordination and balance
• Awareness and decision-making
• Creative play 

What is the Alexander Technique?

The Alexander Technique aka (functional and mindful movement) is a method that has a lot to offer sports participants. 

The focus is on preventing habitual muscular actions that cause inefficient movement patterns that can lead to injury and limit performance.  This technique teaches the connection between the “mind and the body” and how we can positively affect our use and functioning. 

Use refers to the habitual and characteristic manner in which a person moves and uses their body, all the time, whatever they are doing.

How to become a mindful soccer player

Our use is influenced by our thinking and by our emotions and to bring about changes in our use, we need to allow changes to take place in our thinking and in our reactions to things.

The way we use ourselves affects the functioning of the whole body, our whole psychophysical being. When we are functioning well we tend to feel well in every way, emotionally, physically and mentally. Ergo, we can perform to our full potential and limit injury.

For example, it’s common for people to stiffen their neck in preparation to move and yet they’ll be completely unaware that they’re doing so. It is also common for us to hold our breathe while performing a task or drill.    

I have seen this in sports people of all abilities including top athletes. The act of stiffening the neck impedes the body’s reflex activity and has a detrimental effect on coordination.  Slouching and or scrunching the neck affects the spine and the ability to breathe with maximum efficiency. It limits our performance and ability to move with ease. 

 Unfortunately, once it has become a habit it is difficult to stop until it is brought to a conscious level and the individual given instruction on how to move without the habitual preparations, or in other words, to use less effort.

Try asking yourself when you’re playing whether you really need to use as much effort as you’re using to run fast or control the ball.  

• Are you tightening your jaw and neck or lifting your shoulders?
• Are you arching your back or slouching while running ( sitting or standing)?
• Are you holding your breathe?

• Do you need to do these actions?

“Integrative neuromuscular training maintained throughout childhood and adolescence will improve movement biomechanics, minimize the risk of sports-related injury, and promote positive health outcomes during adulthood (Emery CA, Roy T, Whittaker ).”

The Alexander Technique helps kids :

* Learn skills for life including developing mindfulness,
* Finding good body balance (coordination, breathing, etc)
* Pausing to make choices (be the boss of your own body)

Which enables kids to :

  – Be responsive to demands without being overwhelmed.
– Maintain good posture.
– Improve confidence, happiness, and attention.

The technique is an education with therapeutic qualities. It helps to support and improve the quality of life. The goal is to help create an awareness and mindfulness that becomes second nature to the player or person that can be used for any activity.

The Alexander Technique can help your breathing coordination:

• understand how you interfere with your breathing
• restore your natural breathing rhythm
• allow efficient and easy movement of the whole ribcage
• manage a range of breathing difficulties like asthma
• improve breathing in exercise, speaking, singing and athletic performance

The Alexander Technique can help your spine:

• reduce muscular imbalance due to a collapsed or rigid posture ( arching the back )
• reduce unconsciously compressing spinal vertebrae
• understand the spines fundamental design and learn a way to move that will help you relieve stress, pain, inefficiency and improve mobility and coordination.
• reduce overuse of of the body’s surface muscles by engaging the central nervous system
• increase sensory awareness and become more attuned to your body’s warning signs of tension and compression

How should we be training our youth soccer athletes regarding training and conditioning?

Can the Alexander Technique (integrative functional movement) help improve our sports performance and conditioning training?

I want to share the Alexander Technique with youth soccer athletes and teach the kids how to perform with ease, freedom of movement, coordination and without pain or discomfort.  This practice will not only help on a weekly basis but having these tools and techniques will last a lifetime and can be utilized in all walks of life and endeavors

References:
Lesinski M, Prieske O, Granacher U Effects and dose–response relationships of resistance training on physical performance in youth athletes: a systematic review and meta-analysis Br J Sports Med 2016;50:781-795.
Emery CA, Roy T, Whittaker JL, et al Neuromuscular training injury prevention strategies in youth sport: a systematic review and meta-analysis Br J Sports Med 2015;49:865-870
Myer, G. D., Faigenbaum, A. D., Ford, K. R., Best, T. M., Bergeron, M. F., & Hewett, T. E. (2011). When to initiate integrative neuromuscular training to reduce sports-related injuries and enhance health in youth?. Current sports medicine reports, 10(3), 155-66.