FLEX YOUR JOINTS TO WIN
The biggest mistake most amateur athletes make is competing---and training---without flexing their joints enough. The straight arm or straight leg robs your body of both power and energy. Even athletes who flex athletically during competition may not do it enough while training.
To get an idea of how important it is to flex (bend) your joints, try this: on a flat cushioned surface like a carpet, keep your legs unflexed and jump forward as far as you can. Mark the spot where you land. Next, perform the same jump, but flex your knees, ankles and hips down into a crouch and spring up and outward for the jump. Are you shocked at how much more distance you got?
How about impact? How much more did you feel the landing of the unflexed jump? When you land on a straight leg, there is nothing there to absorb the shock of impact except the bones of your knees, hips and ankles, and the tendons attached to them. It puts a lot of stress on those parts of your body, and has a lot to do with the wear and tear that ruins joints before their time.
In a jump, the flexed joint acts like a spring, thrusting uptward with much greater power, and landing soft to absorb shock. A straight or minimally bent joint has no 'thrust' to create power by the forceful extension, or straightening, of the joint.
This goes for the fingers as well. How many times have you seen athletes reach for a ball with straight fingers, planning on flexing their fingers around the ball once it's caught? But that kind of timing is difficult to coordinate, and the results is often a fumble. Or, take the athletes who remember to flex when practicing their sport, but never think to do it while working out in the gym. They don't build functional strength in a flexed position.
Don't make that mistake. Even on the treadmill, your legs should be flexed and you should swing your arms while keeping them bent at the elbow. When reaching for a ball, be sure to grab it with fingers already flexed, then all you have to do is tighten your grip.
Many people flex their knees and hips, but forget to flex their ankles. That greatly affects balance. If you run, flexing at the ankle will not only absorb some of the shock of running, but it will stretch out the Achilles tendon, an important way to prevent injury.
Get a photo or video of yourself both in the gym and while training or competing for your sport. Look at the athletes in your group, the ones who are better than you. Notice how they bend and extend with every movement, getting much more power from a forceful joint extension, just as a compressed spring will have power when released from compression.
Train for flexion as you do any other part of your workout; practicing with intent, checking your moves in the mirror, and starting out with an exaggerated movement. Work it into your muscle memory, so that the flexing of your elbows, for example, becomes a muscle habit pattern with every movement in the gym or on your field of play.
After you've got it down so that flexed joints feel natural, you can ease up on the extreme part and flex to a normal depth, the same as you see other top athletes in your sport use. But don't just trust your impression that you're flexing enough. Use photos and video to check how much you are getting your joints ready to "spring."
Exercises that will help get joint flexion into your muscle memory include getting into a squat and walking across a room; or bending down into a deeply flexed squat and then leaping up. Have someone throw a large soft ball to you, while you catch it at chest level close to your body; then throw it back immediately. The fast flex and extension will do more to train your muscle memory than just ordinary exercise of bending the joints with resistance.
Train for flexion at least once or twice a week. The improvement in your athletic ability will amaze you almost as much as it will your competitors.