Author: Oscar Mendez.
I always
remember when we were studying and learning in the 2000´s with Professor
Horacio Anselmi in Rosario, Argentina and later here in Maldonado and
Montevideo (Uruguay), one of the things he mentioned among many revolutionary
things for the time , was that the future Books of Physiology and Training in
Sport would no longer be about muscles and cells, but rather on Hormones and
the brain and nervous system and its effect on the training process.
Now a days, 20
years later we are re discovering the role that hormones play on our body and their
influence on our health (Insulin, Cortisol, Glucagon, Growth Hormone etc) and
how they affect our overall health since many of the diseases are based on
metabolic issues.
Thanks to the
new technology we have nowadays, we have discovered that many of the things we
did many years ago were not correct and were based on assumptions that were
made and that didn´t have the technology we do now.
This also
applies to Tactics and Methodology, where Professor Frade was way ahead of his
time and now thanks to the technology, we can see and prove it was really the
way he said.
The term
“Plasticity” was first used in 1890 to Behavioral Science by William James in
the beginning of Psychology. The first person that used the term of
Neuro-plasticity was a Polish Scientist by the name of Jerzy Konorsky.
It refers to
the Physiological changes in the brain
that occur as a result of our interaction with our environment. From the moment
that our brain begins to develop in the uterus till the day we die, the
connections between the cells (neurons) in our brain re-organize to our needs of adaptation.
This dynamic
process allows us to learn and adapt according to our experiences.
Structural
Neuro-plasticity refers to the strength in the Sinapsis and whether this
connection is modified or changed.
Functional
Neuro-Plasticity refers to the permanent changes in the sinapsis due to
learning and development (Demarin,
Morovic y Béne. 2014).
Definition of Neuro-Plasticity.
We can define Neuro-plasticity as “The process by which the
brain is constantly re-organizing itself all along our lifetime”.
These are
events that occur constantly in our brain.
The Synapsis
are constantly appearing and disappearing in our body.
Their influence on modern training.
For decades,
Footbal-Soccer training in general, was based on track and field sports.
In sports that
had very little or nothing to do with Football or were totally unspecific to
our sport.
Now in modern
training, we have seen how Football has
adapted to modern science and the new scientific findings , as well as other
Paradigms (Paradigm of Complexity).
Now Physical
trainers are not the ones in charge or have the initiative, they are not the
most important in the coaching staff as before, but they are part of a Coaching
Staff, along with other trainers or coaches, where of course the Physical Sub-
Dimension is evaluated but we do not plan and do exercises based only on
Physical Dimension but rather on the Football effect the task demands.
“Because Fitness
in football is not Physical anymore, but
rather Football-related exercises due
to the complexity of the game and the influence of the Tactical Supra-Dimension
has on the game”.
Does Transfer in functional training from an
unspecific exercise to a specific one really exist?
I do not know
if this was applied in other countries and training cultures, but in South
America and Europe we were taught that if we applied an unspecific exercise of
Strength, Endurance or speed later we would have to transfer that load or
stimulus to a specific one and later we would see the improvement on physical
aspect.
This could
apply to any type of exercise on the Physical Dimension, either strength, endurance-resistance
or speed and quickness.
Many years after, many studies have concluded that
this “transfer” does not exist, (going from working General Strength for
example to Specific strength for example). This was made famous among others by French P.T. Gilles
Cometti for example.
We went from training muscles to training movements
and the nervous system now:
Many colleagues
and Friends here in South America, knowing that I lived and worked in Spain for
many years ask me when they see in videos teams in Europe training specific
movement and actions of the game.
Do they really
train this way or do the other type of training (General Exercises), do they do
them somewhere else or in a Gym?
I remember
that Rui Faria when he was working with Jose Mourinho in Chelsea in an
interview mentioned this because he was accused of lying or not being honest
when he mentioned that they do not do this type of training.
Well…the explanation
or reason is this.
This is the
reason why in Europe we train differently in relation to other places.
Here in South America we
were taught to focus on the Hill Law, The recruitment of motor units while in Europe
were based in more recent studies and evidence that suggests that we should
focus on specific movement/motion patterns and Neuro-plasticity. They ware just
based on other paradigms.
This way, strength for
example is trained specifically in the Physical Sub-dynamic, performing
specific movements similar or the same to the activity that a footballer does
in a real match.
This way when we training
the Physical Sub-Dynamic we base our tasks on specific movements where they have
a high level of intensity that we have in a game, where we have many stops and
starts, where the actions are short and very intermittent and also discontinuous
, that use specific energetic systems that are related to the game and where we
practice what the player will do in a real match with a low level of complexity
(because if complexity is high, level of intensity will decrease).
Unspecific training and its relation with muscle
injuries:
I think on
this topic, Dutch Famous Coach Raymond Verheijen has mentioned many times the
problems that unspecific training can have on footballers.
Before we use
to think and were taught, that since we had this “Transfer” from a general
/unspecific task to a specific one the physical load or stimulus was the same
so we would not calculate them as two separate stimulus and both were not
added.
Now that we
know that we are applying twice the amount of Load since they are not transferred
but added up, this is something that many Trainers and coaches do not seem to
notice or know.
Of course we
are not implying that when we have many muscle injuries it can done by only one
factor since we know the use of other specific energetic systems, reutilization
of residual substances, muscle imbalances and other reasons play a very
important role but of course it has a relative level of importance.
This is not due to bad luck, this is why many teams have tens and sometimes hundreds of
injuries and others have very little.
The 6
drivers that promote Neuro-Plasticity in
Football are:
1: Repetition.
The more we do
something the better and more efficient we become doing it.
As it is
popularly known, Repetition is the mother of Perfection and latest research
seems to agree.
2: Intensity.
The higher the
intensity of the task, the more it will demand on our nervous system.
When high levels of emotional and physical stress
in an exercise are present, and when the footballer does specifically, when he
will have to perform it in the game that stimulus will already be learned and
it will not be a new stimulus where he has to adapt. He will be already
familiarized with it.
3:Timing or
coordination.
We can define
it as “ The neurons that fire together wire together”. When we initiate a
movement different muscles intervene in that movement that are activated on
different parts of the brain and nervous system. The more we do this, the more
efficient we become in executing this movement.
4: Dificulty.
The tasks or
exercises must have an optimum level of difficulty. Not
too simple nor too difficult. Enough difficulty so that there will be an adaptation or learning but
not too much where he/she will not be able to solve them.
5: Specificity or be specific.
We must train
what we will do on the matches and games. As Jose Mourinho says “You will not
see a pianist training, running around a Piano”.
Neuro-Plasticity
will occur according to the specificty that we will train.
6:Prominence or that it has meaning.
We have
sensory maps that allow us,when something is relevant or important to us, and
in those cases there is a higher level of plasticity that when we do something
that is not important or relevant to us.
This doesn’t
appear to happen when we train something that has no meaning or significance, when
it is boring or doesn’t attract us .
"The
images we experience are brain creations
caused by an object, and not mirror reflections of the object."
Antonio Damaso.
