Increase Power by mobilising your nerves

Facts and figures:

Quads output increases by 14% after 2 x 15 reps of nerve stretching.

Calf and hamstring injuries are commonly caused by tight sciatic nerve. The muscles provide a protective spasm to the nerve during locomotion and if stretched or loaded sufficiently the muscles can spasm enough to cause themselves to tear, or cramp up - which can feel like a tear. By mobilising the nerve it releases the tension in the muscles and reduces the likelihood of this event.

The same principle applies to all nerves. In the golf swing, if the median nerve is tight it will reduce the amount the player can complete his back swing and adopt the best position at the top of his swing. This would be due to the muscle spasm that builds up to try and protect the inflexible nerve. The greater the muscle spasm (which is unbeknown to the player as its sub clinical at this point) the more he'll try and force his shoulder turn, which in turn increases the tension etc etc. The key to a sound and reproducible swing is to obviate any tension in the swing, so help with timing and rhythm. So by mobilising the median nerve, we are helping with all of the above.

Tight calves can cause over pronation. The dorsi-flexion (moving the ankle upwards) is not available from the ankle joint due to the tight calves, so it has to come from the sub talar joint. It comes as part of the pronation mechanism though and so increases the amount of pronation as well. This causes shin related injuries as well as knee and Achilles problems. Remember that tight calves is often from a tight sciatic nerve, so by mobilising the nerve, we can help with all these injuries as well.

A rotated pelvis can go unnoticed for many years until the compensations start to cause problems. Typically a leg length discrepancy (LLD) can result from a rotated pelvis and the leg must compensate for this. It'll either flatten the foot (pronate it), bend the knee more, or drop the hip more. Pronation will increase the load on the leg (see 'Tight Calves' paragraph), bending the knee will increase pronation (see 'Tight Calves' paragraph), and dropping the hip will increase the spasm in the glutes/piriformis. A vicious circle if ever their was one! So by reducing the spasm in the piriformis 'prophylactically', in other words preventatively, (and also if necessary), then we are helping to reduce all of the above.