{"id":147532,"date":"2021-11-21T07:00:12","date_gmt":"2021-11-21T12:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/breakingmuscle.com\/uncategorized\/the-essence-of-an-athlete-how-ido-portal-helps-conor-mcgregor\/"},"modified":"2021-11-22T01:20:14","modified_gmt":"2021-11-22T06:20:14","slug":"the-essence-of-an-athlete-how-ido-portal-helps-conor-mcgregor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/breakingmuscle.com\/the-essence-of-an-athlete-how-ido-portal-helps-conor-mcgregor\/","title":{"rendered":"The Essence of an Athlete: How Ido Portal Helps Conor McGregor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently we saw a flood of Facebook re-posts of UFC fighter Conor McGregor training with Ido <\/a>Portal<\/a>. These posts have drawn attention to free movement as training. The post linked above contains an important line for those who \u201cdon’t have the base level of joint health then don’t just run out and start doing all this.\u201d<\/strong>This point is not to be glossed over.<\/p>\n

Joint ill-health interferes with our ability to detect external and internal forces<\/strong> from the ground, the wind, an opponent, or our own inertia. Our ability to take in everything that occurs in wrestling, grappling, combat situations, or any situation with a direct opponent is measured in sport as an output.<\/p>\n

The essence of an athlete is the ability to process internal and external sensory stimuli (inputs) into gross or fine patterns (outputs).<\/strong><\/p>\n

The essence of an athlete is the ability to process input stimuli into output patterns.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Poor Movement Isn’t Poor Coaching<\/h2>\n
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When an individual moves poorly (i.e., the output as a pattern is poor), it is often attributed to how the movement is coached. <\/strong>It\u2019s as if coaching injects something to improve how the central nervous system works to create a movement.<\/p>\n

However, if an athlete\u2019s joints and tissues don\u2019t have the competence to get into the right positions, it doesn\u2019t matter what a coach says.<\/strong> This is also known as the joint-by-joint approach. A joint that tends towards stiffness may run out of movement before the objective is reached. This means another joint has to give up some of its stability to continue moving.<\/p>\n

What Ido Portal does so well is maintain a level of joint health that permits him to get into positions and apply movement skills<\/strong>. His approach provides many opportunities for central and peripheral nervous system processing.<\/p>\n

How Do We Start to Move Better?<\/h2>\n

In the new movement that is movement, improvement is rarely about better coaching.<\/strong> There are three esteemed coaches from whom I\u2019ve drawn this insight.<\/p>\n