318: Pat Davidson on Aerial and Terrestrial Factors in Athletic Performance Training

More show notes at https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-318/ Today’s episode features Pat Davidson, Ph.D..  Pat is an independent trainer and educator in NYC.  Pat is the creator of the “Rethinking the Big Patterns” lecture series, is a former college professor, and is one of the most intelligent coaches I know in the world of fitness and human performance.  As an athlete, Pat has an extensive training background including time in strongman, mixed martial arts, and many types of weightlifting activities.  He has been a guest on multiple prior episodes of this series. The human body is quite complex, as is the potential array of training interventions we can impose on it.  To ease this process, and help us to direct our focus, it can be helpful to categorize means and methods.  We have spoken on this podcast often about compression, expansion, mid-early-late stance, and other biomechanical topics.  Outside of these ideas, training can also be, simply, considered in light of spending more, or less time on the ground and in contact with objects. On the podcast today, Pat shares his thoughts on a new idea in categorizing athletes and training means, which is based on that contact with the ground and deformable objects.  This goes beyond muscles, and into the sum total of a variety of muscle, joint and pressure system actions that deal with more, or less points of contact for an athletic movement. Within this system of “high ground” and “low ground”, Pat goes into exercise classification, as well as an explanation why more “aerial” exercise, such as movements involving a level of balance, are as popular as they are, based on the ground/aerial spectrum and links to athleticism.  Pat also gets into the role of the feet, particularly in mid-stance, on the tail end of this enlightening conversation.  This talk really helps us see a number of training means in a new and helpful light. Pat and I had a long and awesome talk here; based on some logistics with production and time, we’ll be jumping right into the meat and potatoes of our talk Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster.com, Lost Empire Herbs, and the Elastic Essentials online course. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to https://lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for FREE (just pay for shipping), head to: https://justflypinepollen.com Find out more about the the online course, Elastic Essentials, by heading to https://justflysports.thinkific.com