Just Fly Performance Podcast

Just Fly Performance Podcast


176: Justin Moore on “Knees In”, Fluid Dynamics of the Body and Better Injury Prevention Training | Sponsored by SimpliFaster

November 14, 2019

Today’s episode features Justin Moore. Justin is the head performance coach at Parabolic Performance and Rehab in Montclair, New Jersey.

Justin has worked with athletes of all ages and abilities, from eight-years-old to professional football players in the National Football League (NFL) and Olympic-level Ice Skaters and Ice Dancers. He has been highly involved in the process of helping elite college football players prepare for the NFL Combine. Justin also has advanced knowledge of the concepts of PRI as well as Bill Hartman and other elite coaches, giving him a very thorough lens by which he observes the body in training. He has previously appeared on this podcast twice, on episodes 78 and 124.

An area of biomechanics and sports performance that is (thankfully) getting more attention is the internal rotation and “knees in” phenomenon that all of the great jumpers in the world utilize (albeit to varying degrees). If the knees don’t travel inwards in a reactive jump, then elastic energy transfer is lost and an athlete also loses the ability to create a strong triangle structure with their feet and legs.

The question with the “knees in” equation is “when does it become a problem”? A large amount of athletic performance programs will simply try to coach all athletes into a robotic motion where the knees don’t travel inwards at all in an attempt to avoid injury (and also assuming that the knees traveling inwards is the problem in all athletes) and in the process, rob them of elastic power. As with anything, there is a bandwidth, just like the concepts of pronation. Pronation is good, while being stuck in pronation is bad.

To fully understand when the natural and effective internal rotation and “knees in” can become an issue, Justin Moore gives us a thorough explanation, as well as many case study anecdotes. In this episode, Justin uses a lot of fluid dynamics examples, and takes a lot of work from Bill Hartman to explore deeply this corner of human performance. This episode is quite intensive and is one of those shows that you truly can study, since the material is quite foundational to the way we observe and train athletes.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster.com, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

View more show notes at Just-fly-sports.com/podcast-176-justin-moore/