I recently spoke on a Panel for the Dodgers Sport Symposium and got access to the lectures. The Dodgers staff discussed the usage of water bags with their athletes and developing more robust motor patterns. The premise was to give feedback to the athletes on some specific movement patterns used during competition. I wanted to understand where they got the idea on how to incorporate water bags. 

What the staff talked about was how Frans Bosch (the author) was largely the reason as to why they decided to incorporate water bags, and several other drills, into their training plan. The premise was to create variance in a pattern that was already ‘developed’; more variance leads to a more reinforced pattern that is able to handle more dynamic environments. 

This led to Bosch’s book and learned more about this approach. The premise of the book was looking at developing movement patterns, but with a twist. Basic patterns such as running, jumping, or throwing are extremely rehearsed patterns that are pushed to threshold. Bosch discussed that there are other outlets that help to create more implicit learning environments for said patterns. 

One thing that is true is that no matter how similar a pattern may appear to be, it is never the same. What this means is that we need to treat patterns pushed to threshold as not the end all, be all for development of athleticism. Instead of pushing a pattern to an absolute threshold, we can create environments to challenge that movement pattern. Letting the athlete find solutions to unique environments, such as having them move a water bag vertically, horizontally, or rotationally. 

Bosch gave a profound breakthrough on functional anatomy and physiology. The breakdown made a massive departure from traditional 2 dimensional approaches. One example which I have talked about a ton personally would be Hill’s Elastic Model and the connection of the PEC to the SEC. The aspect Bosch disputed was that this is a model that is limited by its two dimensional perspective. The model cannot be a perfect representation of connective tissue because it is not accurate—we live in a three dimensional world.

From a motor learning perspective, we cannot create a perfect pattern; we can only challenge the pattern through different environments or inputs. Understanding that movement patterns can never be truly replicated, we can learn how to create control in a more unpredictable setting like a practice or game. Based on the athlete’s movement control, you place various degrees of constraints or lack thereof to challenge the athlete adequately. Much like increasing load, duration, or speed, you can progress to more challenging environments. This develops the pattern more completely, and with greater transfer. 

Simply appreciating the movement patterns rather than just going to an outlet of more weight is a great takeaway. Having a transferable pattern is probably more valuable than a pattern that can go long, fast, or with high force. Do we just throw out developing patterns to threshold? No, but we can create a more well rounded motor pattern—one that can exert high amounts of force, velocity, or capacity but has a high bandwidth to handle diverse environments. Really good resource, highly recommended.