It’s not about building robots

Like most athletic actions it’s not about building robots who perform the same way in a rigid model; it’s about making sure the “attractors” which are the key basic, essential, fixed movements are stable in the technical completion of the action.

The individuality and idiosyncratic elements are the “fluctuators,” changeable components that have degrees of freedom that do not negatively impact bowling performance.

When the system’s attractors are stable, it becomes more “robust” (resistant to perturbations) and more “resilient” (resistant to state change/tissue failure)

Fluctuators help us adapt to the environment but are specific to individual bowlers.

It’s their own method of organizing and adapting to the environment (self-organizing).

There is a careful balance needed when coaching as to ensure the fluctuators don’t become too rigid as is evident in the younger generation of athletes.

This serves only to develop a generation of ‘anti-fragile’ athletes where any variability causes a dramatic decrease in performance.

These are the “inter-muscular hard skills/attractors, for bowlers, in my opinion:

Each of the above are affected by intra muscular actions that ultimately dictate their effectiveness.

The key to any overhead throwing efficiency is to make your attractors stable (but not too stable) and to have some fluctuations available for adjustability, but not too many.

So why do I think these are they key technical determinates [attractors] of fast bowling?

The majority of top level fast bowlers hit them.

If by not hitting the attractors negatively impacts on performance

If by not hitting the attractors causes injury ‘Pacelab’ testing- data driven approach to fast bowling performance

To increase the stability of the attractor sites the bowler must first be able to reduce muscle slack. In my fast bowling model, I believe there are 2 layers to increasing the stability of bowling nodes [inter-muscular attractors]

Layer 1- Intra muscle coordination-Co contraction to eliminate muscle

Layer 2- Inter muscle sequencing- RSSSA [Range/Sequencing/ Speed/ Separation/ Alignment]

Assess don’t guess

Steff