Keep your compass oriented to true north – true north is a strong guiding force, no hype, no false prophets, no guruism, and no quick fixes – Just straight facts. What is true north? It is quite simple, nothing fancy or especially trendy, it is the basics. Read more
Of all the biomotor qualities strength may the most all-encompassing. There is no form of motion that does not require some expression of force; therefore all sports will derive benefit from sport appropriate strength training. The key here is that it is sport appropriate. The physical quality of strength is the underpinning for the optimum development of the other biomotor qualities. Read more
Look for connections in the body.
Train to enhance the connections.
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Instead of looking at ways to predict injury and search for hidden dysfunctions I prefer to spend the time looking at possibilities to determine their level of trainability. I focus on what the athlete can do and use that as a starting point. Read more
Reductionist thinking on movement is mentally convenient. It is very easy to break the body and movements into parts and separate systems and focus on the parts to the exclusion of the whole. It may be convenient and easy but is not right. Read more
One of the key aspects of a good training or rehab programs is making connections. Recognize that the body is a kinetic chain and we always need to be aware of how we are making connections between all the links in the chain. Ask yourself if in fact you are connecting or are you disconnecting? Remember that the core is the relay center; it is the center of the action, but not the originator of the action so it plays a big role in connecting upper and lower extremities. Read more
What is needed in training is appropriate physical preparation to support and where possible enhance the quality of the sport specific technical and tactical training. They all go hand in glove. All aspects of training are highly interdependent and must be trained in varied proportions at all times of the training year. Read more
Are you preparing your athletes to be a one trick pony? What’s a one trick pony? A one trick pony is an athlete who is highly specialized in a narrow range of skill sets and conditioning. They are highly adapted to one way of doing things, very fixed in mindset and highly adapted. They are focused on what they cannot do. Read more
Forget posterior chain, glute medius, transverse abdominis and all those other reductionist, mechanistic ways of looking at the body. Instead, step back and look at the whole kinetic chain. Look at how everything is connected. Look at how the parts interact and work in synergistic patterns to solve movement problems. To analyze motion look at how everything links, syncs and coordinates. See if there is a flow, a rhythm that allows natural use of gravity and ground reaction forces to produce or reduce force. Look at movement as a big dance with varied rhythms and tempos. Look at how all systems of the body work together continually to produce efficient movement. Just like it is futile to isolate muscles the same is true with trying to isolate systems of the body. Everything is neural everything is metabolic. Read more
In the whole athlete development process we are very aware of the dangers of early specialization and even over specialization in young developing athletes. I was thinking yesterday after my interaction with some young coaches over the past couple of months that one of the biggest changes I see in the current generation of coaches is very narrow specialization. I see coaches who are incredibly knowledgeable in a very narrow area, but have no idea how their area fits into the bigger picture. As far as I can see this poses as much danger for the development of the coach as early specialization does for the athlete. My generation of coaches out of necessity had to be generalists. Read more
