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David Weck here. Today I'm going to teach you a tip for how to organize the wrists and the hands to better connect to the body and the shoulders. And also how to use elastic resistance to strengthen this [connection] to give you the ability to accelerate, to stop, to change directions with greater speed and power.
So here's how it works. The key in this begins with the wrists. What we want to do with the wrists is to position them with this cocked flexion toward the radius right here. Now this position with the wrist, check this out because this is pretty cool, is very very similar to how you would set up for any kind of a barbell press. Do you see how my wrist is here? This would be if I was bench pressing or if I'm overhead pressing. I'm using that barbell. You can see that position of the wrist right here is very similar to what I want you to do for this technique.
So, next are the hands. What we're going to do specifically with the hands, south of the wrists, is we're going to put the hands together in prayer position. We're going to flex down the hands and keep the fingers straight. So we're not doing this, we're doing this. It makes this diamond position. What this does is it creates a tensional balance in the forearms that bridges the hand and it's fingers past the elbow and it redistributes the tensional balance to the shoulders so the delts, the traps, the pecs, and the lats, all can be harnessed better. We're going to reduce the tension and the restriction through the biceps or triceps. When I'm in that position supinating you see how the bicep is shortened and it's tensed. But when I put it in to that [position] like I'm doing the barbell press and I arrange the hand in that manner, now the bicep is longer and it has a little bit less resistance tonus in it and that's going to send force from here [shoulders] to here [hand] cleaner and better. So that's the set up.
Now what we're going to do is use this elastic resistance to strengthen it, reinforce it, and give you this ability to use your arms better to run faster. Acceleration primarily.
So here's how it works. The elastic provides a unique form of resistance that's faster than gravity. Gravity is operating at 9.8 meters/second² straight down. Elastic is moving faster than that. Imagine if I'm slingshotting, how much higher and how much faster that's going to go up fighting against gravity. If I have elastics and I try to throw the elastics it never leaves my hand. It's faster than I am and excites my nervous system to operate very very fast and muscular contraction.
So, I set up that position. Watch this, it's sort of like firing guns out of the holster. Get the fingers and the hands right, get the wrists right. Boom, right there, that's your position. Now put the elastic right on the radius. Don't get it caught on the hand, don't be right at the wrist, be right at the radius so you have that nice, good strong connection and you're going to come out, walk it out. Keep the arm bent. Look at how it gets activated, look at how the bicep is long and not short. I'm going to take it back and I'm going to feel, "Wow, there's a lot of work going on" and I'm going to maintain a position. From here I'm going to rotate (keeping that in exactly the same spot) and I'm going to rotate my body without changing the arm. And what this is doing is this is linking my arm with the maximum flexibility range of motion all the way back here to my spine.
Once I've got that and obviously I do both sides of it [for Non-Dominant Side Training™], I make them strong. You'll feel, "Wow, that was some unique form of work here". It reinforces the position with the nice bend here and the nice set up here. I can now use that set up to move the arms faster through a cleaner arc because of that position. So you focus on the wrists and moving them at acceleration with that tension in the hands and you have less distance to go with better integration. Give that a shot, see if it doesn't make you run faster instantly. It may take you a little bit of work to set that position and get it reinforced so that you can use it effectively. But you will find if done properly, you will be able to start, stop and change direction faster and more powerfully to give you an athletic advantage. Try it on for size, send back comments and tune in next time for more.
