Frontal Plane: Michelle Boland on Lateralization

Based on Episode 108 of the Just Fly Performance Podcast, a conversation between host Joel Smith and strength coach Dr. Michelle Boland.

The frontal plane is the plane most programs claim to train and almost none actually do, and Dr. Michelle Boland has a sharp explanation for why. A PhD and collegiate strength coach working with ice hockey, field hockey, and rowing, Boland argues that lateral band walks and slide boards are not frontal-plane training at all; they are side-to-side movement wearing a costume. What the frontal plane really asks is whether an athlete can shift their whole mass over one leg, own it, and then come back the other way.

Key Takeaways

• The frontal plane is lateralization, not side-to-side drills. Skating is not lateral movement; it is shifting over one leg and then the other.
• Give athletes what their sport does not. Repeating the patterns a sport already hammers just deepens the rut.
• Lateralize before you rotate. Rotation only works once an athlete can center over one side.
• Progress back to back, not week to week. Hold the position, then throw from it, then move through it in the same session.
• Program it as its own quality. Boland dedicates low-threshold “variability” days so heavy sagittal lifting is not the only strategy an athlete owns.

The frontal plane is lateralization, not side-to-side drills

Boland’s central correction is definitional. Coaches equate the frontal plane with moving sideways, then prescribe drills that move sideways, and assume the box is checked. She traces the real concept to PRI faculty member James Anderson.

Frontal plane goes back to what James Anderson threw at me, which is literally just the concept of lateralization. It’s not side to side at all. It’s the ability to lateralize yourself over a left leg, and then transition and lateralize yourself over a right leg, and that involves elevation and depression of a pelvis, elevation and depression of a rib cage.

Once framed that way, the standard hockey menu stops making sense, which is exactly the point she opens the episode with.

Skating is not side to side. The slide board is not skating. Don’t fool people into thinking that that’s translating into skating.

Give athletes what their sport does not

The deeper issue is what coaches mean by specificity. Boland’s read is that sports already supply enormous volumes of their own pattern, so a program that mimics it adds nothing and costs something.

My mind goes to give people what they don’t have. If I know ice hockey puts a lot of patterns and typical movements on the hip, do I want to keep putting athletes in those same positions? Am I just doing more of the same, and that’s throwing them down a path of consequences? I have to understand what they’re already getting, and show them the opposite of that.

That word, consequences, does a lot of work in her thinking. She credits PRI with making her account for the cost of a training decision, not just its intended benefit.

PRI has allowed me to understand the consequences of my decisions, and consequences implies both negative and positive. There’s both negative and positive adaptations to training.

Lateralize before you rotate

Her sequencing rule is strict, and it explains why rotational work often fails to stick. An athlete who cannot get over one leg has nothing to rotate around.

Only if you can center yourself, lateralize, be in one hemisphere of space, can you add and throw on top rotational mechanics. Can I rotate my pelvis one way and rotate my thorax over it the other way without taking it with me?

The progression she uses to get there happens inside a single session rather than across a training block. She has the athlete hold a lateral staggered stance until they can feel the stance-leg adductor and the pelvis, then keeps the same position and adds a task.

You can hold that position, you can own that position, you can feel it. And then we’re gonna go do a med ball throw. It’s the same exact position, working on the same exact thing. And then we’ll go on the slide board, focused on doing the exact same thing.

She is explicit that she progresses this way on purpose: “I like to progress things back to back, not week to week.” The concept carries across three exercises in a row, with only one or two cues, rather than waiting for a new mesocycle.

Program it as its own quality

Boland sorts her exercise menu on a continuum from health to performance. The heavy sagittal work sits at the performance end, where the athlete is set up and told to go. The frontal and transverse work sits at the sensory end, where the athlete is asked what they feel.

Health is very sensory based and incorporates a lot of frontal and transverse work, and it’s creating awareness, having athletes think about what they’re feeling. The other end of the spectrum is performance, very motor-based activities.

She is not anti-barbell; her hockey players deadlift and lift with intent on high-intensity days. Her concern is monopoly, not load.

I have one or two days a week where I call it a variability day, where they’re doing very low-threshold frontal plane and transverse plane focused activities. I don’t want to make them weightlifters or powerlifters. I don’t want that to be their only strategy.

She also hides frontal-plane work inside conditioning, where athletes stop overthinking it. On a VersaClimber she emphasizes hip hike, generating pelvis and rib movement in the frontal plane while the athlete is preoccupied with the effort rather than the mechanics.

Frequently asked questions

What is frontal plane training?
Properly understood, it is training an athlete’s ability to lateralize, to shift and center their mass over one leg and then the other, which involves elevation and depression of the pelvis and rib cage. Boland argues this is different from simply moving sideways with band walks or a slide board.

Are lateral band walks and slide boards frontal plane exercises?
They move an athlete side to side, but Boland argues they do not train lateralization, and that the slide board in particular is not skating. Her concern is that these become a proxy for sport specificity while missing what the sport actually demands.

Should rotational training come before or after frontal plane work?
After. Boland’s rule is that an athlete must be able to center over one side first; only then can rotation be layered on, because rotation requires a stable base to turn around.

How do you progress frontal plane exercises?
Back to back within a session rather than week to week. Boland has an athlete hold a lateral staggered stance until they can feel the right muscles, then keeps that position and adds a med ball throw, then carries the same concept onto the slide board.

How often should athletes train the frontal plane?
Boland programs one or two low-threshold variability days per week focused on frontal and transverse plane work, alongside her heavier sagittal-plane days, specifically so that big bilateral lifting is not the only movement strategy her athletes own.

About the authors

Dr. Michelle Boland holds a PhD and is a strength and conditioning coach who has worked in the NCAA Division I setting with women’s ice hockey, field hockey, rowing, and men’s basketball. She is heavily influenced by the Postural Restoration Institute and by her mentor Pat Davidson, and she writes and teaches on position, breathing, and plane-specific training through her own business, Michelle Boland Training.

Joel Smith is the host of the Just Fly Performance Podcast and the founder of Just Fly Sports, a former collegiate strength and track and field coach focused on speed, power, and athletic development. Listen to the full episode with Dr. Michelle Boland on Just Fly Sports.