Optimal Performance Quote Series: Master Yoda

"NO! Try not. Do or do not. There is no try" -Master Yoda

Optimal Performance Quote Series: Michael Jordan

"I'm not afraid to take a step and if I fail, I fail. I pick myself up and move on. If we can all learn one thing in life, it's don't be afraid to take on something that you believe you're capable of achieving." -Michael Jordan

Are you getting better every day?

KAIZEN is a word in the Japanese language that means "CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT." It was first introduced into English as a way of to describe increasing efficiency of the manufacturing process by statistical analysis. I first heard it through the TOTAL IMMERSION swimming method that encourages swimmers to have a goal of swimming better each time they get into the pool.

To truly practice, kaizen a person needs to be mindful of their thoughts, words and actions. That's much easier said (and typed) than done. We live in such a fast paced society that most of the time, we just "do" things without thinking about them. When is the last time you drove to work or school and thought "How did I get here?" I have had that happen on more than one occasion. It seems like we are almost beamed from one place to another. The unfortunate thing is those precious moments are moments that you and I will never have back.

A wise man once told me that TIME is the only commodity that we can never truly get back. Once a moment is gone, it's gone.

As we go about our lives, its so easy for us to go on auto-pilot in a number of situations. As a employee, supervisor, therapist, coach, teacher, parent, student, etc., we all have moments that we are not really there. It's one thing for you to miss something in your life but for most of us, we usually have someone else sharing a experience with us; and for us not to be FULLY PRESENT robs ourselves and the other person of the experience.

Can we afford to miss moments with others when the future is so uncertain? I hate to bring up an unfortunate event but it's powerful. On 9/11, we lost thousands of Americans in a terrorist attack. What is even sadder is there were probably moments that those people may have missed with their loved ones who may have thought "I'll see Mom/Dad/Sister/Brother/Friend later. We'll have plenty of time." Later never came.

Take a moment to look up from reading and take in the scene. Then take a moment to reach out to someone you have not talked to in a while and maybe reminisce with them. Smile at a stranger. Hug your loved one.

Being better doesn't require you to sweat, run, lift weights, practice Yoga, etc. It just requires you to be PRESENT 100 PERCENT.  When you are present, you leave space for yourself to improve. If you are present, those improvements will be there before you know it.

As always, I welcome questions and comments.

Thank you,

Will

3 AWESOME and EFFECTIVE ways to cross-train athletes

Many athletes go through their entire career doing the "regular" activities like lifting weights, running, doing plyometrics, etc. These are all important to development but unfortunately there are hundreds of other ways to develop athletes that are never really pursued unless it pushed by a progressive athletic development team. Fortunately, I have been blessed to be part of a team like this for the past 6 years where we regulary integrated traditional weight lifting, functional training, Yoga, Pilates, swimming conditioning, martial arts and gymnastics. Our success at winning multiple conference championships every year and sending student athletes to top-tier athletic collegiate programs has been a result of good skills coaching, good athletes and a good multi-discipline training and conditioning program.

This summer, I took on the job of not only training and conditioning my high school athletes, I also worked with current collegiate athletes. Many of the guys already had summer programs from their coaches, and I didn't want to fuss with their programs. What I did do was to insert some training that worked on some of areas that were not focused on. We did a lot of functional training with the 3-D Lunge Matrices and 3-D footwork as well as tweaked some traditional lifts like the Power Clean.

We also did some VERY non-traditional work which consisted of:

YOGA

PILATES

AQUATIC CONDITIONING

At the end of the summer, my collegiate athletes reported feeling stronger, quicker and more flexible than they ever had. Even as I checked in this fall, they are still feeling great and many are still following the program that we did this summer within reason of their primary athletic schedules.

An example schedule looked like this (including their respective school workouts):

Monday: Functional Training

Tuesday: Traditional Lifts and 3-D Lunge and Squat Matrices

Wednesday: Pilates Core work and Functional Balance Training

Thursday: 3-D Footwork, Agility, Speed and Quickness

Friday: Yoga and Aquatics

Athletes were responsible for maintaining their individual sport skills so many would do it after their workouts.

What we saw was the guys were moving better, able to recover faster and maintain a high level of skill work during tournaments and games. Additionally, injuries that had affected the guys during their seasons were able to heal properly and didn't bother them all summer and into their seasons or preseasons.

In the next few posts, I will cover in more detail what we did with YOGA, PILATES AND AQUATIC CONDITIONING and will include videos as well.

Take a look at your workouts. Are you including any cross-training to give your body a rest from its routine and give your brain a chance to create a few more neural pathways from the different activity?

If you want to jump the gun a bit, try this: Instead of going to the weightroom today, look for a beginners Pilates or Yoga class. Get there a little early and tell the teacher you dont have much experience. Teachers LOVE to have new people in their classes and most will give you a little extra attention. Afterall, we want you to come back. (Note: If you are a guy who is nervous about going into a class full of women, SWALLOW YOUR PRIDE AND GO then CHECK YOUR EGO at the door. Not to mention, the women in classes are usually beautiful and I have seen on more than one occasion people chatting it up after class. It's a win-win for everyone!)

How about swimming? Do 2 or 3 pool lengths destroy you and have you rethinking your athleticism? If so, check out TOTAL IMMERSION. It's amazing swimming instruction by revolutionary coach, Terry Laughlin. I went from struggling with 2 lengths to being able to swim a 1/2 mile easily and ready for more. There are tons of Youtube videos as well as thorough explanations of the method by Terry.

I look forward to sharing with you. If you have any thoughts or comments about how you cross-train, I'd love to hear them.

Thanks!

Will



5 simple steps to functionally prepare your athlete VIDEO!

Here is a video from a blog post I did a few days ago. I wanted to repost it since it got lost in the shuffle. It was originally entitlted "5 SIMPLE BASIC WAYS TO PREPARE YOUR ATHLETE FOR SUCCESS"

Let me know what you think.

Best,

Will

Optimal Performance Quote Series

"Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

How to functionally condition athletes that dominate

After athletes have been able to get a good hold on the FUNDAMENTAL MOVEMENTS that were discusseed in part II of the "HOW TO FUNCTIONALLY TRAIN ATHLETES THAT WIN CHAMPIONSHIPS", we now move onto the ENHANCEMENT MOVEMENTS.

These are the enhancement variables that stimulate conditioning for the intended activity/sport: 

Functional movement (replicates specfic movement within sport)

Cardiorespiratory training

Speed, Agility, Quickness conditioning

Structural conditioning

Complex conditioning (Power Snatch, Power Clean, Hang Cleans, etc)

As you can see, these movement are a lot more complex than the lunges, squats, skips, jumps, etc that make up FUNDAMENTAL MOVEMENTS. These enhancement movements are as close to the activity/sport as you can get, so having the fundamentals well established will benefit all athletes. It's hard to do Power Clean if you cannot squat properly. The same goes for lunges in 3 planes of motion with Speed, Agiliity and Quickness training. Low mobility and stability (mostability) in the body, in particular the hips, equals `low results from the training. It's as simple as that.

Whenever we take on a new class of athletes, they ALWAYS want to do the sexy lifts like Power Cleans because they think that will get them results faster. Of course they will get some results, but unfortunately, they eventually plateau. As soon as we can convince them to take a month or so off of the "Big Lifts" and focus on the FUNDAMENTAL MOVMENTS, they moan and complain at first, but when they come back a few weeks later, they find that their lifts have skyrocketed WITHOUT them doing any of the lifts. Imagine that!

However, when they do move to the ENHANCEMENT MOVEMENTS we insist that they still do all of the work in 3 planes of motion and not limit themselves to the traditional stances. After all, we are getting them as close to the activity as possible and unfortunately, sports are not predicatble. The movements within the acttivity, must be spontaneous but controllable. The athlete needs to know that they can be in almost any position and be able to decelerate their body eccentrically so that they concentrically accelerate or unload the entire neuromuscular system.

As we look through this functional process, we see that it is a process that when followed, yields results that athletes can take to the field and even to the bank!

I will revisit the ENHANCEMENT MOVEMENTS in future posts to go further in depth on one particular conditioning as well as the various tweaks that can be applied to them.

Here is a video that demonstrates one category of the ENHANCEMENT MOVEMENTS as well as a FOOT POSITION tweak that is applicable to the Complex Conditioning lifts.


This clip is a 3-D version of the Power Clean. Traditionally, the move is taught with the feet facing forward but rarely do we still a symmetrical stance in sports, so we had Tony move into various foot positions to illicit different neuromuscular responses. This should not be attempted until an athlete has a very good grasp on the various positions with low to no weight.


RESULTS: One athlete in particular, as a high school junior (6'2 185lbs- wide receiver), was able to max squat 405lbs  even after he had surgery for a sports hernia about 6 months prior (Note: He was cleared by the doctor for full activity). This athlete did not squat heavy for most of the summer but had been working with the various squats in single, double and triple plane stances, so when it came time for more weight, all of the muscles were able to coordinate to eccentricallly decelerate to a concentric acceleration.

As always I love comments and questions.


Thanks,

Will