Optimal Performance Quote Series: Nova Knutson

"Hint: The cage is not locked." - Nova Knutson

Are you being 3-D Authentic?

A week or so ago, I was able to go to a Functional Soft Tissue Transformation course by one of my mentors, Lenny Parracino. He is a great teacher and a guy who is really paving the way for functional therapy.

In his workshop, he mentioned that what separates his practice from other practices was that he looked at each of his client-patients as INDIVIDUALS and took through through movements and soft tissue therapy that was AUTHENTIC as possible to their true function. Hmmm....

Lately, authenticity has been popping up a lot for me, and I started to ask myself why do I continue to see this theme. Am I not being authentic in my life? Well, the truth of the matter is that while I sometimes think so, I am probably being "semi-authentic" which is probably an oxymoron. Is it either/or?

However, there are clear moments that I am being authentic. Andrew Cohen, said this about being authentic:

The authentic self is the best part of a human being. It's the part of you that already cares, that is already passionate about evolution. When your authentic self miraculously awakens and becomes stronger than your ego, then you will truly begin to make a difference in this world. You will literally enter into a partnership with the creative principle.

Being authentic doesn't take work. It is already there and it feels comfortable. It's not forced. There is no ego that interjects judgements. The tough thing is that the pull of the ego is so great, we cannot break free from its grasp and feel a sense of anxiety when we try.

W.H. Auden said:

We would rather be ruined than changed.

We would rather die in our dread

Than climb the cross of the present

And let our illusions die

Audenn could refer to so much. In my profession, I am tasked with helping people move better so that they are more efficient in their function. Sometimes that takes soft tissue work, corrective exercise, functional conditioning, nutrition, and even behavioral changes. I can say that I have rarely had a client-patient who was ready to jump into change. There is always a hesitancy because the familiar feels easy. We're accustomed to it. Change is hard and like Auden said, people would rather be ruined than changed. However, it is that movement, that Transformational Zone(TZ), as we say in Applied Functional Science, when we move from one direction into another. The eccentric loading of our mind, body and spirit that got us to one point, is ready to propel us to the unloading or explode concentrically in another direction.

Unfortunately, this Transformational Zone needs to be sequenced appropriately and all known blocks removed so that the sensation of flow can happen. The TZ  could also be seen as a breakdown to a breakthrough. Sometimes its a little more anticipated and sometimes its spontaneous. We have to be ready for both because when that time comes, we have to just let go.

Now what I think many of us do, myself included, is play it safe. Do what we know. Take the path more travelled. It's easier to do what we know or follow in others shadows. For some, that's fine. That's their choice, but I think those reading a blog on optimal performance want more than to just be shadows.

In your life, what are you fearing now? What is keeping you from being great? Can you identify one area and take small steps to change directions for the better. I do not mean side stepping either. I mean turn this around for the better. It may be a HUGE rock but as we do functional soft tissue and training with people, we know its one fiber at a time. Chiseling down the "big rock" to smaller ones that are more manageable. It may take a few days, months or years but there is nothing like the sensation of moving freely.

Are you moving freely in mind/body/spirit? I will tell you now its not easy but boy is it rewarding.

Will

Be your authentic self. Your authentic self is who you are when you have no fear of judgment, or before the world starts pushing you around and telling you who you're supposed to be. Your fictional self is who you are when you have a social mask on to please everyone else. Give yourself permission to be your authentic self.

~ Dr. Phil

How to save your throwing arm from injury

Recently, I have had to deal with a few injuries related to throwing with my athletes that has also been concurrent with a rise of throwing injuries of a few professional athletes like Stephen Strasburg and Brett Favre.

Some of these injuries are not serious and the athlete can continue playing but others, like Strasburg, unfortunately, ended their seasons prematurely.

What do all of these have in common?

The short answer was that there was more than likely a breakdown somewhere in the kinetic chain that caused the body's tissues to be overexerted in a compensation that lead to the injury. That's the easy answer. The bigger question is WHERE in the kinetic chain was there a breakdown?


THROWING BASICS 101

When we look at throwing in any sport, we see a VERY complex skill. It requires the full body to be completely coordinated to achieve a efficient and injury free motion. This means that the from the big toe up to the top of the head, everything must be in working order and orderly working.

Proper joint motion must occur at the right time, place and speed so that the muscles and connective tissue that are attached can ECCENTRICALLY LOAD so that they can create the CONCENTRIC UNLOAD/EXPLODE which results in the throw.

When there a glitch in the process somewhere, we get an overloaded compensation somwhere else in the body that leads to an injury. For Straburg and Favre, it's focusing in on their elbows. For other throwers, it can go into places like the shoulder and lower back. It just depends on the person.

The question is now HOW DO WE TRAIN AND CONDITION FOR THE SKILL OF THROWING FOR POWER AND ACCURACY AS WELL AS FOR INJURY PREVENTION?

The process lies within Applied Functional Athletic Development design. In my other post 5 WAYS TO PREPARE YOUR ATHLETE FOR SUCCESS, I outlined the process focusing on the foot and ankle, but the same process applies for skill of throwing to develop an proficient injury free motion. It is:

1) Functional Prep

2) Fundamental Movement

3) Complex Movement

4) Skill (Throwing, in this case)

A lot of times, people tend to skip the one step or another and when that happens, we can get SOME results but not as comprehensive as is possible using the 4 step process.

In the next blog post, we will go over the Fundamental Preparation that everyone who is starting to throw, throwing or maybe post rehab should do. We'll also do some investigations into some of the elbow injuries that throwers suffer from. There are already posts on Rotator Cuff impingement  and Shoulder Instability.

Please send any questions or comments to Will@3doptimalperformance.com.

Thanks,

Will

A quick and dirty functional circuit for a total body workout

Very often, I get emails from friends asking me about a simple yet functional workout.

As many of my client-patients and athletes know, I am all about exercies being multi-planar to be functional. A while back, I wrote the post "3 exercises every athletes needs to do". They are:

LUNGES

SQUATS

PUSH-UPS

Putting the movements into a nice sequence works very well. Because function is TWEAKABLE, this cicuit can be done many ways.

For instance, you can change the number of reps within the circuit from 1-(whatever).

You can do each movement (lunge, squat, push-up) for time before you move to the next one like 45 seconds for lunges then 45 seconds for squats, etc.

You can speed up or slow down the movmements.

You decrease or increase weight of dumbells.

The number of possibilities is ENDLESS but I wanted to just shoot this video out as a INTRO TO FUNCTIONAL FITNESS.

VIDEO DETAILS

In the video, you will see me:

Do the lunge matrix with:

Both arms reaching to knees back to shoulder (bicep curl)

Both arms reaching to ankles to an overhead press

Do squats and push-ups with the single-plane tweaks of:

XXX - Feet/hands neutral

RXX- Right foot/hand forward

LXX- Left foot/hand forward

XWX- Feet/hands wider than hip distance

XNX- Feet/hands narrowr than hip distance

XXE- Feet/hands turned out

XXI- Feet/hands turned in

This circuit can be progressed into the double-plane and tri-planar tweaks, but I will save that for another day.

If you have any questions or comments please let me know.

Best,

Will

Slowing down to Speed up Development: Secrets of Success series

Faster. Stronger. Bigger.

Thats the tagline of a lot of training and conditioning programs. They LOOOOOVE to get you doing something faster. However, is faster always better?

Recently,  I was coaching our fall conditioning group in "Stances and Starts" which is basically starting in different foot positions like right or left foot foward and then going to small jog with either the same or opposite foot moving first. For some reason, a few of the guys were in good stances and when they started, there was a moment where they rocked back and then rocked forward into the jog. At first, I was puzzled as to why they would do that. It wastes a lot of time and is pretty uncoordinated. Well, I had to stop the whole group for a moment to tell them that when you want to start walking/jogging/sprinting, you simply had to lose your balance forward, the body would react by moving either foot forward. Therefore, rocking back to then go forward was very inefficient. After a few times, some of the boys got it but one did not. He simply wanted to just get started any way that his body could do at the time.  I let another coach work the rest of the drill and coached this young man. I told him to simlply "slow down, feel the weight of your body (which is 6'8", 230lbs) in the balls of the feet, lean forward and just go but DON'T RUSH!" Everytime I saw him start to rock back, I stopped him and had it do it over and slower. Big guys need to have as much finesse, balance and body awareness as anyone else on the court. If not, it makes for a BIG ineffective clumsy player. Well, after a few minutes of really focusing and slowing down, he was finally able to feel the ground under feet and every start and stance after that was perfect.

This young man need to allow himself to slow down and get into his body. So many people, especially athletes, go through their activity with their brains half-on and hoping that they 'get-it'. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't but when they do not get it, the recipe for success is not going to be do it faster. Speed covers up a lot of errors. It's in the slow speed that's when we can see what's going on.

Below is a video of the famous golfer, Ben Hogan, who was meticulous in his practice. You will see him do a few super-slow swings. It's amazing that Ben is taking the time to a) breakdown his swing into parts and b) do it a slow speed so that he is aware of the movements taking place. Notice also who he steps slowly into place. Not only does this take patience, it also takes a tremendous amount of discipline to practice with intent, focus and attention to the most minute detail.

Are you able to slow down to really get a grip on what you doing? It doesn't have to be athletics. It could be anything from work to raising a family. Some moments deserve a slow practice to appreciate the subtleties of the activities as well as the big movements.

Is there something you aren't getting within an activity? Here's a simple solution:

1) Slow down. Breathe.
2) Break the movement down into parts. Taking one big skill in one bite can be too much to deal with but smaller parts, that are then connected together make the task MUCH more approachable and attainable.
3) After practing slowly, start to integrate speed and if there is something still wrong, go back to Step 2 and do it again. Maybe something else in the chain is going wrong. If so, find and fix.

Have a productive day!!!

Will

The Myth of Mistakes: "Secrets of Success" series

"Do not fear mistakes. There are none."

-Miles Davis

Miles Davis was an icon as well as being an iconoclast. He redefined Jazz and Blues and will always be a true legend. Sometime in between making music, he was able to find some deep truths. I read the above quote in college and ALWAYS remembered it. However, it has taken me a while to really live that truth.
 
From a young age, many of us are made painfully aware of our perceived mistakes. We drop a pass, miss a passage from a piece, miss a bill payment, eat junk food. The list of mistakes goes on and on. Reactions from others can compound the feelings of guilt or anger that we may have when we make a mistake such as the "oooooh" of the crowd after a basketball player misses the game winning shot. The list of reactions goes on and on too, but I'd like to offer this:
 
THE SECOND SECRET OF SUCCESS IS THAT THERE ARE NO MISTAKES!
 
Last summer, I found a great book. The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle is an awesome book and I've suggested it to anyone who would listen. In it, Coyle explains that talent is really not all its cracked up to be. He broke it down to three vital components of so-called talent.

1) Deliberate Practice
2) Ignition/Motivation
3)  Master Coaching

The book is well worth the read but I wanted to mention an awesome blog post by Coyle. In his post "The 0.25 Second that makes all the difference" he recounts a story of the audition process of the Bolshoi Ballet Company.

Here's an excerpt from his blog:

But there’s another way of thinking about error, and it begins with a story I heard recently about Marina Semyonova, a master teacher at the Bolshoi Ballet in the fifties.

The story goes like this: Every year, Semyonova would hold a tryout for the Bolshoi, which was (and still is) one of the world’s greatest ballet troupes. You can imagine the scene: dozens of brilliant young dancers milling about, years of experience holstered and ready, their dreams on the line.

At first, the tryout would proceed like any other: the dancers would try to show their abilities and vast repertoires. But then Semyonova would surprise them. She would stop the audition and teach them one new move – something they’ve never tried. They weren’t big complex moves – to the contrary, they were quite simple. It was as if the top-level audition suddenly was replaced by a beginners’ class.

The beginners’ class section took only a few minutes. But it was by far the most important moment of the audition, because by the time it was over Semyonova knew precisely which dancers to pick and which to pass over. And as the record shows, she proved to be right far more often than not.

Semyonova wasn’t a neuroscientist, but she was onto something. She wasn’t interested in measuring levels of skill – which changes over time and can be frustratingly unpredictable. She was zeroing in on a tiny slice of time that makes a massive difference in our learning ability — that primal instant right after we make a mistake.

That instant – which this very cool brain-scan experiment shows to be about 0.25 seconds – is a fork in the road; the moment when things tip one way or the other. Either the mistake is judged as a verdict and thus blocked out — or it’s seen as a piece of information to be used. And indeed, in the experiment referenced above, the students who used their mistakes (whose brains processed them deeply in that magical 0.25 seconds) ended up scoring higher than students who didn’t.

I love this for so many reasons. That "mistake" was instant feedback of how much we can better. It's a launch pad to success. However, we've been programmed that they are bad.

Do you dwell on your mistakes? Do you get down on yourself for making an error?

Allow yourself to be open to the possibility that the kind of mistakes that you think exist, really do not. Allow the moment after you've done something that did not go your way to be feedback, acknowledge that it's neither bad or good, own it and move on to do it better next time.

"Do not fear mistakes. There are none"

-Miles Davis

Functional Pilates for Athletes: Cross-Train like a Pro Series pt. 4

If someone would have asked me if I would take, train and then finally teach Pilates ten years ago, I would have said "NO WAY!"  As a yoga teacher, I even snubbed Pilates as a "yoga knock-off" but after training in the system for the past 6 years, I take it all back.

WHO DOES PILATES?
Originally called "Contrology" by its founder Joseph Pilates, evolved as a system of rehabiltation for injured soldiers during World War II.  Joseph noticed that when the soldiers were able to move sooner, even in hospital beds, they recovered much faster. Over time he developed his system and finally moved to New York City where it became a mainstay of conditioning and rehabilitation for injured dancers, many of whom danced under Balanchine and Graham (both very physically demanding forms of dance). For decades, Pilates was used by dancers not only as conditioning but rehab. However, much like yoga, the tremendous benefits of Pilates emerged and made their way into mainstream America and finally into professional athletics. Thats right! Athletes like Kobe Bryant, Tiger Woods, Jason Kidd and Curt Schilling have all been doing Pilates and swear by this amazing system.

HOW IS PILATES FUNCTIONAL?

Many of my colleagues poo-poo Pilates, but I really think it's because they do not understand it. Their arguement to me is "when are you ever on your back crunching up in athletics? We need to train upright for function because that's where they will be performing." Well, as Gary Gray, PT says "It depends".
Looking back at Fundamental Movements, those included activities like lunging, squatting, running, jumping, hopping, pushing and pulling. However, those movements could also be lying on the back, side, and front. These movements are FOUNDATIONAL movements for us to get into our bodies.

In my last post on FUNCTIONAL YOGA FOR ATHLETES, I mentioned that it develops a greater kinesthetic sense or where and what the body is doing in space. One of the main tenets of Pilates is FOCUSING on your body.  Pilates, done correctly, requires a great deal of precision that will not let people turn their brains off as they may do during an "abs workout". When the movements are refined, it will not only be a "good workout" physically, they will have honed their awareness of their body.

Can Pilates strengthen the core? Sure, but I think it's way deeper than that. On top of the kinesthetic sense, athletes can find Pilates to be restorative in nature. Because they are either lying on the back, side or front for Mat-based Pilates, there is less load to the joints. Also, going through these movements, muscles are being eccentrically loaded and concentrically exploded  while their joints go through their range of motion in a non-weight bearing way. Joints and muscles are able to find more space, mobility and stability during the session.

Below is a quick video of the "5 Abdomnial Series" with an explanation. These five exercises that are done in a "flow" manner are great for starting to turn on all of the nerves and muscles of abs.

As always, I welcome questions and comments.

Thanks,

Will

Optimal Performance Quote Series: Ellen Bass

"There's a part of every living thing that wants to become itself. The tadpole into a frog, the chrysalis into a butterfly, a damaged human being into a whole one. That is spirituality."

-Ellen Bass

Functional Swimming for Athletes: Cross-train like a Pro series pt. 3



In 2009, I decided I was going to start doing triathlons. The second thought I had was "OH CRAP! I have to actually learn how to swim." Well, this started a search for a swim coach. Being a biomechanist, I immeditaely went to the Internet and did a search for "The Biomechanics of Swimming." Because its such a big field, I had pages and pages of results but I happened to click on TOTAL IMMERSION (TI) SWIMMING and to my surprise, they were dead on for what I needed. The founder, Terry Laughlin, promised efficieny and easy freesytle, so naturally I was encouraged. I eventually got the TI videos and TI book and started woking with a TI coach, and to say my life was changed was a bit of an undesrtatement.

The magic of the TI method is that it is systemically broken down to build or rebuild your stroke so that instead of having a barge-shaped vessel, you are more torpedo or "fishlike" so that you are able to literally glide through the water. The method is VERY 3-D in its approach as it uses all 3 planes of motion to combine into a seemeless technique.

3-D BIOMECHANIC TECHNIQUE OF TOTAL IMMERSION

Transverse Plane: Arms and lets are not used as primary propulsion. Instead, a horizontal rotation of the entire body or "hip-drive" in TI parlance is the engine that moves the body. Terrys' reason being that in longer distances (not sprints), the arms will fatique quickly and the swimmer will not be able to sustain the swim. The larger muscles of the 'core' assist the swim so the smaller muscles do not have to.

Frontal Plane: The arms become more integral in this plane since they are set as "tracks" for balance and stability. They are set wider than shoulder distance, so when the swimmer has a stable point for the rotation to go to.

Sagital Plane: The arms and legs do play a role but not as large as we would think. They do reach forward but only to have "patient hands" that just hold the water and not pull it back. As for the legs, TI preaches a 2-beat kick.

SO WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH CROSS-TRAINING???

As I started swimming more and more, I was not as sore from my other training. The swimming, even for an hour or more, had a very therapeutic affect on me. I was able to workout longer and harder without the fear of overtraining (even in fucntional training). The result was that I improved in nearly everything I was doing from strength, to flexibility, to body awareness to cardiovascular conditioning.

SO WHY DO I NEED TOTAL IMMERSION???

Well, the fact of the matter is that you dont really need the method to just get in the water and do aquatic based conditioning. However, the benefits of someone learning how to swim properly far out weigh the cons of just flopping around in the water. Feeling comfortable in the water and not feeling like you will drown is probably the top reasons why most people do not swim more. They fight water instead of moving with it. My father always told me "Do not fight the water because it will always win." I kept this in the back of my mind when I began my swim training.

With Total Immersion, the athlete is able to go through a step by step process on how to build the stroke up from nothing. If he or she is truly mindful, they are able to not only develop a good stroke, they will have improved their kinestthetic sense which, as I've said in other posts, are a vital to improving athletic ability. Moving through water, you must allow yourself to float and that is done by maintaining a sense of calm and being able to remove excess tension from the body where it doesnt need to be. What we see typically is that when an athlete becomes aware of their body, they are able to move better overall.

ON THE THERAPEUTIC SIDE....

Much research has been done to back up the wisdom of coaches regading aquatic therapy and conditioning. Some of the most cutting edge work is being done by Dr. Jan Prins at the University of Hawaii, who is also owner of Prins Aquatherapy. In a recent keynote speech to the International Society of Biomechanics in Sports, Dr. Prins described the kinesthetics of exercising in the water are:

- Most movements in the water are learned skills and take time to develop.
- Kinesthetic movement in the water is subtle, therefore, efective movement patterns must be developed and then closesly monitored.
-The water reduces the pressure induced loads on the joints and consequently allows continue exercising with decreased risk of internal injury.

Dr. Prins primary population is rehabiltiation but his strategies are still very valid for athletes.

OUR SUMMER WORKOUTS
This summer our athletes would do at least one, sometimes two pool session per week. If they could swim reasonbaly well we would do a pool set that looked like:

100yd freestyle warm-up
50yd kicking drill with kick pad
50 yd upper body pull using buoy between legs

We would then repeat for backstroke and breaststroke. Butterfly was omitted because of how complex it could be.

The guys would repeat this for at least 3 sets. For my guys who could not swim or were struggling, I took through them the Total Immersion freestyle progression. One student in particular was able to improve his stroke so much he was able to swim 1/2 mile easily and started coming in on his own before practices to swim.

For the strong swimmers, we would finish with a 10 minute continuous swim using any stroke they wanted to.

Sometimes it would be a little more conditioning based, so I used the program from Human Kinetics. Again, the effect that it had on their bodies and our recovery cannot be stressed enough how productive it was. Usually the biggers hurdle are athletes feeling comfortable in the water to do this work. Once they do, they LOVE it. Many of my athletes are still doing it on the weekend to stay up on their swimming but also recover from a long week of land-based practices and workouts.

I am posting videos below from Total Immersion. The first is the first of a video presentation that Terry gave at the Multi-Sport expo. The other are from Shinji Takeuchi, a TI master instructor, who has a beautiful form with videos that allow you to see how he started and how much he progressed with TI.


Thank you,

Will



Please click on the video to go directly to Youtube to see the rest of the series. It's worth your time to watch them all for a better understanding of the method.

The First Secret of Success is...

Success. Scary word and even scarier process.

Success also means different things to many people. To Michael Jordan, athletic success meant winning championships. To one of my best friends, Brandt, his success came in fully becoming a husband, father, math teacher and high school baseball coach (all almost within a year).

The perception about success is that it's the last thing done and the most publicized (i.e. winning a conference title) but that's not the whole picture. Unfortunately, outsiders don't see the process that leads up to the "success". They don't see the literal and metaphorical bumps, bruises and scrapes, and that's the sad part because it's the most exciting and where the most growth occurs.

I have the privilege of wearing a few "hats" and among them coach. Practices can be ugly. Coaches and athletes can have as many bad days as they have good days. Growth can initially be very fast, slow down dramatically, stop and then pick back up and shoot higher than expected. There are tears. Smiles. Laughs. Frowns. Quitting. Joining. Rejoining. All of which are unpredictable but at the end of the day: rewarding. The process that our football players go through, is the very same process that many go through with work, relationships, arts, etc. but it's that amazing process that is the core of the experience. 
So what is it about success that is so elusive in parts of peoples lives?

Unfortunately, most people do not even show up. They have the best laid plans but when it's time to put their butts on the line, they are not there physically, mentally, spiritually or all three.

THE FIRST SECRET OF SUCCESS IS SHOWING UP IN MIND, BODY AND SPIRIT.

I have seen athletes physically at practice but just going through the motions and were not mentally invested in what they were doing, so the same mistakes kept repeating themselves in practices and even during competition. I've seen clients make all the plans to lose weight and get in shape, but when it was time for a session, they were sick, busy or busy, etc. Finally, in my life, I've practice and performed in music and athletics and had a great performance but when I looked back at it, something wasn't quite there. It lacked "feeling/soul/spirit". It happens to the best and worst of us, but when we are there, right in that moment, fully present, our chances of success skyrocket exponentially.

Where are you in mind, body and spirit today? Can you be fully present at the things you do no matter how insignificant they may be?

Take the time out stop for 2 minutes out of what you are doing and take in the scene. Breathe. Observe without judgement. Do this daily so that 2 minutes becomes 5 then 10, 20, 60 until you are fully present during every moment in the day. It takes dedication, but you'll be surprised how much more productive and efficient you are when you are fully engaged. (Note: I'm still working on this, so I'm right there with you.)

In the "Secrets of Success" series, we will look at a diverse group of successful people and what they did to get to where they are. I look forward to going on this this functional success journey with you.


Thanks,

Will