Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Mirrors


Did you learn how to stand properly by monitoring yourself in a mirror? Did you learn how to walk that way? run? jump? punch? In almost no athletic endeavor do you monitor your technique in a mirror. It is a distraction - very rarely is it helpful. To develop kinesthetic awareness, you need to practice it and visual feedback will make it even harder to focus on that.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

True, so true. I spent years squatting in front of mirrors and wound up with sore knees and painful lower back because the visual feedback told me I was parallel. I moved to working out in my garage (no mirrors), completely relearned how to squat and am pain free in those areas due to learning how to read the signals my own body gives me during the exercise.

Boris said...

I literally spent unproductive years in front of mirrors.

Snizshizzle said...

Man I hate those mirrors! Even though you know it is bad to try to check your form in the mirror, you sometimes find yourself doing it anyway.

THE number one tool for improving and athletes form and performance (besides a coach) is the video camera. During track meets back in high school, this one track team would video tape every single one of their fieldmen and jumpers. By the end of the season, they were BY FAR the most improved athletes and did well in States.

Boris said...

I don't understand why more coaches at the high school level don't use video cameras regularly. One coach I worked with always agreed w. my suggestions to use video more frequently in practice, but never, ever did and guess what? His athletes never really ever progressed and had the same technical errors as seniors that they had when they were freshman.