In 1990, two men coined a term that would later become a standard term for business students and companies attempting to enter the marketplace. What is this term? Core competency. In the business world, a core competency is a specific factor that a business sees as being central to the way it or its employees work. Additionally, for it to be a legitimate core competency in business, it must provide a benefit to the customer, be inimitable, and provide broad sweeping applications to numerous products or markets.
In the world of strength and conditioning, core competency is a specific factor that is central to the way athletes function and are trained. Simply put, these core competencies are to be developed first and foremost in athletes of any discipline before even beginning to look to other movements and training interventions. To be termed core competencies, they must provide benefits to the athlete that few other methods are capable of replicating and also provide benefits for a number of movement dysfunctions. As I see it, there are two core competencies to be addressed with every athlete or client regardless of discipline—breathing and rolling patterns. That's right, breathing and rolling.
Breathing as a core competency
Breathing is a critical piece of the movement equation and is one that has been almost ignored until recently. Many people simply breathe and call it “good” if they don’t suffocate. Unfortunately, this is far too simplistic because there is a “right” and a “wrong” way to breathe.
The majority of people fall toward the “wrong” way, and incorrect breathing patterns lead to a gamut of movement dysfunctions. Improper breathing can lead to dysfunctions in the TMJ (though some osteopathic physicians see proper breathing as having a mobilizing effect on the skull) all the way down to the hips. In between, breathing plays a powerful role in cervical posture, carpal function, shoulder health (from a joint centration perspective), thoracic spine mobility, and lumbar-pelvic-hip stability via intra-abdominal pressure mechanisms. Better control at the pelvis leads to more favorable mechanics of the joints above and below, making breathing a powerful ally in preventing lower extremity injury. Restoration of proper breathing patterns can reduce tone in the majority of cervical muscles, aid in the reduction of forward head posture, and reduce tone of the hip flexors.
The biochemical effects of hyperventilation have powerful effects on fascial constriction. There are primary and/or accessory muscles in each and every fascial line presented by Thomas Myers. As we understand from the concept of tensegrity, it then stands to reason that breathing limitations alter all fascial lines and ultimately lead to movement dysfunction. One could go as far as to say that due to the relationship between the obliques and intercostals of the lateral line, improper breathing can result in reduced function of the “anterior X” that controls and produces torque, and subsequently, running and walking mechanics can be altered.
Proper breathing certainly provides great benefit to the athlete. It’s inimitable and is of huge benefit to a vast array of movement dysfunctions. Thus, there is little question that breathing must be a core competency. As the great therapist, Karel Lewit, said, “If breathing is not normalized, no other movement pattern can be.”
Rolling as a core competency
Rolling is a concept that is beginning to gain respect in the strength and conditioning world thanks to the great work of Pavel Kolar, Gray Cook, and Craig Liebenson. It isn’t a new concept, and rolling as a therapeutic technique has been utilized for decades by Moshé Feldenkrais, members of the Prague School of Rehabilitation, Margaret Knott, and Dorothy Voss, among others.
The basis of rolling goes back to the developmental sequence during which a baby follows a predictable set of developmental movement parameters as a result of “pre-programmed” neural patterns. After lifting the head, the first step in the sequence is rolling. By allowing appropriate developmental sequencing, the baby goes through postural ontogenesis and develops reflex responses that are useful at later stages of development. Unfortunately, Vojta suggests that up to 30 percent of children never reach full central nervous system maturation, yet go on to develop more complex quadruped or bipedal movement patterns. This altered sequence can contribute to movement dysfunction in many ways. Additionally, Janda and Lewit theorized that it is the body's response to revert back to an earlier stage of posture or movement patterning in response to trauma or excessive strain. It is here that rolling fits into training all populations.
Rolling allows us to train patterns that already exist in our neural circuitry that may be out of touch. In turn, it allows us to restore appropriate and reflexive motor control. Though muscles aren’t a focus in retraining patterning, rolling requires good function of the deep neck flexors, diaphragm, multifidus muscle, pelvic floor, and abdominal wall according to Kolar. Additionally, some suggest that the psoas and transverse abdominis play a role in providing stability via the inner unit of the core.
Appropriate development of the rolling sequence depends on neurological, energetic, biomechanical, and cognitive functions. In the initial stages, a feedback mechanism is in place as a response to excessive rotational stressors on the spine. This mechanical stress leads to boatloads of afferent information, which leads to long loop reflex activity that stimulates the musculature involved in stabilizing the movement. With repeated exposure, our brain is able to develop an effective feed-forward mechanism by body schema monitoring. It is at this time that the central nervous system is able to identify the body's relationship relative to its base of support and predict where alterations in the center of mass occur, which ultimately leads to anticipatory muscle response and a better controlled neutral zone. When this portion of development is complete, the body is capable of using eye and tongue movement to create reflexive activation that applies to far more movements than rolling.
With proper development, an athlete stands to gain superior control of segmental translation via feedback mechanisms and the ability to control coupled spinal shear and rotational moments, which are critical for clean gait patterns. Additionally, the establishment of strong ocular and respiratory synkinesis will allow for higher levels of function and development in all body positions. However, perhaps most beneficial is the development of the feed-forward mechanism, which can assist in the prevention of injury as a result of unexpected shifts of the center of mass characteristic of athletic contests.
Due to its ability to stimulate reflexive core activation unlike any other exercise and because it provides benefits to nearly every movement pattern via feedback and feed-forward reflex mediation, rolling is undoubtedly a core competency.
Wrap up
It’s also important to note that simply because you’ve decided you have core competencies doesn’t mean that they are all you’re allowed to focus on until they’re perfect. This couldn’t be further from the truth, as there are many exercises that will make your athletes better breathers and rollers.
Whether you agree or disagree with breathing and rolling as the two core competencies in training matters little. Instead, what matters is that whatever you choose, you have a strong supporting argument. Remember, it must provide global benefits and be difficult to emulate with other exercises. What are your core competencies?