Are you training strengths or weaknesses?

If you would have to prioritize when you are training movement...What is more important, building on the strengths of the person or trying to weed out the weaknesses?

Well, it depends...right?

But what if there was a general philosophy of focusing on one or the other?

We could look at the field of corrective exercise training and pretty much make an assumption that it aims at getting rid of weaknesses.

On the other hand if we look at performance training, we often end up training the strengths. What I mean is "if you are fast, you end up training speed more than the slow person, who probably wants to work on strength or endurance more preferably".

Athletic conditioning is of course much different based on its objectives than general fitness training or physical therapy...and the ratio between training strengths and weaknesses, if you will, is probably different.

We pretty much know that Youth Training should focus on building on strengths and not focus on weaker areas too much. We know that kids need to feel successful and build their confidence through positive experiences. We also know that children go through sensitive ages in their development and it is crucial to recognize those windows of opportunity and train the areas they absorb the best.

But from the physiological point of view, if the goal is to enhance performance in a given sport and pain/injury/contraindication is not an issue, should we focus more on the strengths of an athlete or the weak links in the chain?

It is a given that if an athlete has no core strength but but he is flexible, we shouldn't just focus on improving his flexibility. That makes no sense.

But if the athlete has a lot of power but not a lot of endurance, should we not train power anymore and just focus on aerobic capacity. Well of course not but I am just trying to bring myself to ask the right questions...

We can only affect the baseline we are given through genetics that much and we should probably be careful how much we mess with those areas. Is it better to be excellent in one area of physical movement than about average in all of them?

There has to be a balance in everything I think. It also depends on the goals you are using your skills for. A basketball player might need more versatile qualitites than a shot put athlete...or not...?

What if we would only try the improve the weaknesses that limit the growth of out strengths and only focus on them to the point where the limitation in the strength is removed?

What if the ultimate goal was always the strength? What if we had a movement analysis tool that would tell us exactly how much the weakness should be improved in order to "release the strengths and use them more optimally?"

Even so, even as training to weed out weaknesses we need to make the client feel successful in that area. I think it is very important to train a weakness in such way that the client sees his/her progression and feels constant improvement and success in that area. More important than bringing their focus on the weakness is to focus on the improvement. You obviously need to bring all the findings up with your client at the evaluation, but post-evaluation we should focus on moving forward physically and mentally in that area.

In that sense, it is like training children. You need to train success in order to become "good at success." Concentrate on putting your clients in situations where they feel successful.

This week I will try to map out 3 specific strengths that my clients have and see if I can find weaknesses that still limit the strengths. After that I need a plan...a big plan.

Yes, it is just like a basic evaluation but just from another point of view I guess.

Always expect success!

Tommi

PS: A true friend knows your weaknesses but shows you your strengths; feels your fears but fortifies your faith; sees your anxieties but frees your spirit; recognizes your disabilities but emphasizes your possibilities. Willam Arthur Ward

Smart dude!

Watch the video. Great information to ponder for the day.

http://www.crossfit.com/mt-archive2/002915.html

Click the video link on this page.

Tommi

PS: None of us is as smart as all of us. Phil Condit

Just thinking...

No answers, just 10+ questions:

1. What if there was no word 'balance'?
What if it was called 'total body stabilizing strength' or 'sequential muscle coordination'?

2. What if there was no 'agility'?
Would it be called 'speed of coordination' or 'isolated power within integrated stability'?

3. Could we live without the term 'power'?
We could call it 'work divided by time'? Could power be just another form of 'dynamic flexibility'? - 'rapid dynamic flexibility of connective tissue'? Or maybe total body stretch-shortening speed?

4. What if 'flexibility' was just 'stable mobility'? Could mobility be 'isolated flexibility'?

5. Could speed be 'isolated fast energy systems'? Would combining 'aerobic' and 'anaerobic' training be called "integrated energy system training'?

6. Can I train 'strength' solely with no effects on 'flexibility', 'mobility' or 'stability'?
Can I train 'flexibility without an effect on strength? Does 'stability' equal 'strength'?

7. Is 'power' more of an ability to stretch and contract a muscle rapidly or an ability to stabilize your center and produce force against a bigger mass? Is it none of them or both of them?

8. Is 'endurance' training developing one energy system in isolation or all of them in integration? If so, in what ratios?

9. Is 'anaerobic' without oxygen? Is aerobic solely on oxygen? Can you improve 'aerobic' by only training 'anaerobic'? Vice versa?

10. Is isolated not 'functional'? Is 'functional' always integrated? What is 'integrated isolation'? What about 'isolated integration'?

At least I got a headache now, I don't know about anything else...

Tommi

PS: The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible. David M. Ogilvy

Formal exercise, solution to obesity?

With the current rate of fat gain in America and other western countries, formal exercise does not seem to be the effective enough of an answer in the fight against obesity...that is just my personal opinion.

I believe that in addition to weight management through nutrition we really have to take a look at our culture and society from the perspective of general physical activity in day-to-day living.

Look at the development of our technology. The main objective for most of the devices we have in our house, on our yard and in the garage, is to make life easier. Garage door openers, remote controls, cell phones, computers have been created with the intent to make our life PHYSICALLY easier....(or financially more productive)

Even the new exercise machines are easier and more comfortable and less inconvenient. Well, its all good as long as we realize that the equation of all that is simple and straight forward:

EASY, COMFORTABLE, CONVENIENT = LESS ENERGY USED = LESS CALORIES BURNT

So, now that we have created a world where everything is so remote-controlled and easy that we have to go to the gym to participate in artificially arranged "physical work"(,which we still effectively avoid), we are wondering how to deal with the consequences.

The physical work that we used to have to do every day has now become a hobby that we still have to do or we get health problems that we really did not have when we did physical work.

So, how do you rewind the situation? How do you re-establish some of those good daily physical tasks? I know... that is pretty hard, mentally and physically.

Just think about it, getting up from the chair to add some wood in the stove or even just to change the TV channel does not seem like much. But count how many times you would do that during your lifetime and how many calories would be burnt altogether.

What about that garage door opener? Lifting the door several times adds up adds up little by little. Snow blowers? Now we have abandoned an opportunity to shovel snow too.

Not a big deal you might say....I say those little every day movements together formed the foundation for weight management through physical activity. Then we were able to compliment that with some additional exercise at the gym or on the court if we still had extra energy.

When physical activity as a form of recreation was introduced it was mostly for fun, not for health reasons. The health benefits were known but they were not the main reason for movement. Now we have forgotten about the fun and the work we did in the yards, woods, fields and in the homes has become an obligatory moment of convenient boredom on an elliptical "going-no-where-machine".

Maybe we could start by building roads for pedestarians, bikers and rollerbladers instead of for motorized vehicles.....sounds like utopia at least in New Jersey.

Take the stairs today!

Tommi

Interesting OBESITY-article if you are interested.

PS: So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do. Benjamin Franklin.

Optimal Training Adaptation

Anyone can create a training stimulation. Not everyone can create a training adaptation, especially the desire one.

How do I facilitate the training environment and the training variables in such way that my client actually gets the desired adaptation?

Isn't that a key question to any training? Well, yes it is, but I do not think it is always that simple. Otherwise every client would reach their goals much more efficiently, I think.

I do not think knowing the client's goal means I will always get them there. Sometimes it is my fault, sometimes it is theirs and sometimes it is no one's fault....

I think the desired training adaptation requires an Optimal Adaptation Environment.

There are a lot of variables in creating O.A.E., for example:

1. Physiological variables

- the training stimulation itself

- the state of the neuro-muscular system pre- and post-training

(pains, fatigue, lack of sleep, recovery, nutrition, other movement needs etc.)

2. Mental/Emotional variables

- state of mind (work stress, family stress etc..)

- motivation

- focus

3. Environmental variables

- temperature (heat, wind, rain..)

- equipment/facility

- other people

But let me stay on the physiological adaptation environment and say hello to Mark, our case study for today.

Ok, so Mark needs to improve his Vertical Jump. Now we know the goal.

Now I need to ask, Which training adaptation will take Mark to the desired goal?

Then I need to know, Which training stimulation will take Mark to the training adaptation that will lead to the desired outcome? .....huh?

Anyway, the goal is the Vertical Jump. After the evaluation we decide that Marks's internal hip rotators are in such a bad shape that he can't load his hip musculature and produce force properly.

So, we determine that the desired training adaptation would be first mobility/flexibility in the hip and then strength of the same area.

Now we decide to use prone posterior hip stretch passively and actively as a training stimulation to get some range of motion in the area.

Then we make Mark do some 3-dimensional lunges without additional resistance.

Finally we get to do some single leg and double leg strength followed by some vertical jumps.

OK, so we figured out a path that should lead from training stimulation to adaptation to performance.

What if that was not the right path? What if we created an adaptation that was not the desired one? I think that happens a lot.

What if we had Mark do back squats without creating a mobility adaptation first in the hip rotators? Could the vertical jump still have improved? I guess it could have. Is the desired training adaptation and the desired movement goal always the same thing? I believe you can improve someone's vertical jump by just jumping under some heavy weight and repeating the desired movement pattern under resistance....so the answer would be NO then.

The question still remains though ...which adaptations did this training create and are all of them "good" adaptations? He might have improved his vertical jump and at the same time decrease his ability to change direction laterally in high velocities. Well, that is not a good thing for a basketball player. But we won't even worry about it because we have no idea that we had created such "secondary" adaptation. Oh oh!

Creating an environment where the optimal adaptations occurs, requires that I know quite a bit about how the body responds to given stimulations. The challenge is in knowing all the possible adaptations that an exercise can have on the movement system.

This might have been pretty confusing, I recognize that, but I guess my point is that a trainer or a strength coach should not facilitate only training stimulations but more so, training adaptations.

Thanks for reading!

Tommi

PS: Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected. Steve Jobs

Olympic Style Weight Lifting

Here is an excerpt of Vern Gambetta's book on Olympic Weight Lifting. Wonderful points and true wisdom, please read the whole excerpt at Vern's blog.

In the athlete development process the role of Olympic style weight training has occupied a large role. This has good and bad implications. Olympic style weight lifting is a training method that is excellent for developing power. Olympic lifting consists of two movements, the clean and jerk and the snatch. The derivatives of those movements are what make up the majority of the training exercises. There is no question of the inherent value of these exercises as a tool to raise explosive power, but once again the method must be kept in context and reconciled with the overall goal of the strength training program.

In order to achieve optimum return there are several key points that must be considered: the first point is that Olympic lifting is a sport. That sport consists of lifting as much weight as possible in the clean and jerk and the snatch. Those lifts have a high technical demand, but the skill is a closed skill that occurs in a narrow range of movement. The Olympic lifting movements do produce tremendous power production because of the distance the weight must travel, the weight and the speed requirements. This power production is highly dependent on the technical proficiency of the individual lifter. Essentially, the training of the weight lifter consists of the actual Olympic lifts and some derivative and assistance exercises. There is no running, jumping or other demands on their system. The sole focus is on lifting as much weight as possible.

Tommi

PS: The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Franklin D. Roosevelt

What is your SYSTEM of training?

systej Someone said,"Even a bad plan is better than no plan."

I have to agree to some extent that sometimes we get results even with a bad plan or a system. But without either, we are doomed to running in circles.

What is common to all the excellent coaches and trainers you know?

Mark Verstegen, Mike Boyle, Al Vermeil, Eric Cressey, JC Santana, Gary Gray, Gray Cook, Vern Gambetta, Lee Taft all have a SYSTEM. They might use different vehicles to get to their destination, but they all know HOW to get there.

If I want my client to reach his/her goal, I need to have a system. Maybe I should just order one from a catalog.... Does Perform Better carry training systems?

I guess my point is that I have to create a SYSTEM myself, based on my passions, abilities and the needs of the client. Someone else's system can also be part of my own system, such as Functional Movement Screen by Gray Cook, as long as I know the system inside and out.

What is a SYSTEM anyway?
- training program on paper?
- assessment protocol?
- periodization plan?

SYSTEM according to Webster's Online Dictionary:

1. 'something made up of many interdependent or related parts'

2. 'a method worked out in advance for achieving some objective'

3. 'the means or procedure for doing something '

I think you have a system when you are able to explain all the steps of the journey from the evaluation of a client all the way to reaching the goal. In other words, you have a clear plan. We know that many times plans change, but at least you have a map and a compass.

Maybe more importantly, can you take yourself out of the equation? Can someone else produce results by using your system? Do they understand it and can they put it into practice?

In other words, does your system require you? If it does, it might just be too complicated...

I am in the process of updating and hopefully upgrading my SYSTEMS for training. It is actually very inspiring....

Check, check, check!

Tommi

PS: A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works. John Gaule