Functional Path Training

Stimulus Threshold

Stimulus threshold is the optimum training load required to elicit an adaptive response. There is a different stimulus threshold for each capacity, in the same manner there is a different time to adaptation for each capacity. There is an art and science to this. But the simple rule of thumb is that it is optimum not maximum that we are seeking.

My Egyptian Odyssey

Finally got back to Tampa last night at 6:00 pm Sunday after leaving Cairo at 7:30 am on  Saturday. I think it works out to be 42 hours of travel time. Pretty draining. I have come to the profound conclusion that the best part of travel is being at your destination, teaching, learning, enjoying the culture and the people. The worst part is the travel getting to and from the destination. It seems that most airlines view the passenger as an imposition that they must endure. That being said the last leg from  Boston to Tampa on Jet Blue was great. I had to book that one because Delta could not find me a flight (After all I only have one million plus miles on Delta).

The actual conferences in Egypt were very good. The coaches were very eager to learn and hungry for information. However they do seem to be fixated on technology, machines with blinking lights and measure strength curves in multi colors. This was a bit perplexing but I kept hammering away on functional exercise criteria. Sometime the message got through the translation. They also wanted more  exercises, but of course I refused until we could put the exercises in context. That was another concept that was tough with translation. Despite those small barriers I think I got the message across. I think their eagerness to learn bodes well for the future of sport in Egypt.

Running Mechanics

Stumbled on this picture today while searching the internet for something in preparation for my talks this week. This is Kip Kieno and I think Peka Vasala from the early 70's, may actually have been 72 Olympic games. Regardless this picture speaks a thousand words. You don't get this from doing drills, you get this from running fast!Look at this from the PAL Paradigm.

P = Posture

A = Arm Action

L = Leg Action

Training Programs

I am getting a lot of requests to comment on various popular training programs and methods. My comment is a qualified no comment. Use good sound training principles as a template to evaluate, if you do that you do not need my opinion. Be an independent thinker and take a step back and look at the big picture. You get my viewpoint everyday that I post. My ideas are based on the most current sport science I can find and best practice. The last comment I will make is to take endorsements with a huge block of salt. Because so and so endorses a program should carry no weight. There are a lot of exercise whores out there who will attach their name to anything for money. Beware of false prophets bearing gifts.

Just Passing Through?

I must admit this post was inspired by Seth Godin’s post today. How many of you are just passing through? Just showing up for workouts, counting reps, reading the workouts to the athletes or better yet posting them on a white board and standing back watching? Are you a PE teacher who takes 15 minutes for roll so you have less time to teach? Are you are therapist you has their patients go ride the bike for the 10 minutes of a therapy session? Folks that is not coaching or teaching, you are not maximizing the experience for you or the athlete. You would be surprised (maybe you would not) how much of this I see. Some people can survive this way, the group that are into job preservation, but I am not interested in surviving. I want to thrive and I want my athletes to thrive. To thrive you have to get out there and coach,you have to show up everyday in mind and body, you have to push and prod, encourage and correct, you have to be willing to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes not repeat them. A wise man once said that you have one life to life so make it special. Make it special for yourself and everyone you interact with.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss

This is from yesterday’s Writers Almanac [email protected]. I love Dr. Seuss, one of my favorite authors. He was a great teacher and I am sure would have been a great coach.

It's the birthday of a man considered to be the most popular children's book writer in American history, the best-selling children's book writer of all time, and a man who revolutionized the way children learned to read: Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, (books by this author) was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, on this day in 1904. He's the author of more than 60 children's books, including Horton Hears a Who! (1954), One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish (1960), Green Eggs and Ham (1960), Hop on Pop (1963), Oh, the Thinks You Can Think! (1975), The Butter Battle Book (1984), and of course, The Cat in the Hat (1957).

He was the grandson of German immigrants, a lifelong Lutheran, a Dartmouth graduate, and an Oxford dropout. His mom was 6 feet tall and 200 pounds, a competitive platform high diver who read him bedtime stories every night. His dad inherited a brewery from his own German immigrant father a month before Prohibition began in the U.S., and eventually became a zookeeper who brought young Theodor with him to work. The future Dr. Seuss grew up around the zoo, running around in the cages with baby lions and baby tigers.

At Dartmouth, he majored in English and wrote for the campus humor magazine. But one night he was caught drinking gin with some friends; since this was during Prohibition, it was an illegal act. The Dartmouth administration did not expel him, but as a disciplinary punishment, they did make him resign from all of his extracurricular activities, including the humor magazine, of which he was the editor-in-chief. From then on, he wrote for the magazine subversively, signing his work with his mother's maiden name, Seuss.

His mother's family pronounced it "Soise," the way it's said in Germany, but people in the States kept mispronouncing it Seuss. He eventually embraced the Anglican mispronunciation: After all, it rhymed with Mother Goose, not a bad thing for an aspiring children's book writer.

In 1937, he published his first children's book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, which he said was inspired by the rhythms of a steamliner cruiser he was on. He wrote the book, and much of the rest of his life's work, in rhyming anapestic meter, also called trisyllabic meter.

The meter is very alluring and catchy, and Seuss's masterful use of it is a big part of why his books are so enjoyable to read. The meter is made up of two weak beats followed by a stressed syllable — da da DUM da da DUM da da DUM da da DUM, as in "And today the Great Yertle, that Marvelous he / Is King of the Mud. That is all he can see."

A big study came out in the 1950s called "Why Johnny Can't Read." It was by an Austrian immigrant to the U.S., an education specialist who argued that the Dick and Jane primers being used to teach reading in grade school classrooms across America were boring and, worse, not an effective method for teaching reading. He called them "horrible, stupid, emasculated, pointless, tasteless little readers," which went "through dozens and dozens of totally unexciting middle-class, middle-income, middle-IQ children's activities that offer opportunities for reading 'Look, look' or 'Yes, yes' or 'Come, come' or 'See the funny, funny animal.'"

A publisher at Random House thought that maybe a guy named Dr. Seuss, who'd published a few not-well-known but very imaginative children's books, might be able to write a book that would be really good for teaching kids how to read. A publisher invited Dr. Seuss to dinner and said, "Write me a story that first-graders can't put down!"

Dr. Seuss spent nine months composing The Cat in the Hat. It uses just 220 different words and is 1,702 words long. He was a meticulous reviser, and he once said: "Writing for children is murder. A chapter has to be boiled down to a paragraph. Every word has to count."

Within a year of publication, The Cat in the Hat was selling 12,000 copies a month; within five years, it had sold a million copies. Dr. Seuss has sold more books for Random House Publishing than any other writer in its history.

Periodization – Some Thoughts Random and Otherwise

There is so much mumbo and confusion in this whole area I am not sure where to begin. Perhaps these thoughts will lend some clarity.

Lets start by defining Periodization, it is the planning and organization of training into a cyclic structure to develop all biomotor qualities in a systematic, sequential, and progressive manner for optimum development of performance capabilities.

Another way to look at it, it is the timing, sequence and interaction of the training stimulus to allow optimum adaptive response in pursuit of specific competitive goals. It is not about time, it is about timing. It definitely is not random, it is always undulatory in nature based on how the body adapts. You can write a linear program, but the body adapts in an undulatory manner. Despite all that is written about the difference between undulatory and linear periodization, in my opinion those are term of convenience, that confuse rather enlighten.

All components must be trained during all phases, only the proportion changes with the training age & stage of training.

There is synergy between all systems of the body and a synergistic relationship between all biomotor qualities. According to Olbrecht, different qualities have different curves of supercomensation (Olbrecht p.5). Because the various qualities have different times to adaptation and fitness decline much slower than fatigue it is possible to achieve continual adaptation.

I use this rule of thumb regarding adaptation time - Tasks that require complete recovery – Usually are high NEURAL demand. Tasks that can be trained with incomplete recovery - Usually are of high METABOLIC demand.

Wave Principle - Continuous alternation of increased and reduced training loads throughout the various training cycles to insure continual adaptation.

Steering Principle - Adjustments in training & competition based on the difference between the planned training & competition results and the actual achieved training & competition results. According to Olbrect ”Every loop provides feedback, which is used to plan the next cycle in order to fit in the training process with the individual trainability and so improve the training efficiency and return.”

I, Me, Me

Coaching is not I, me, me, rather it is us, we and them. Great coaches are not the center of attention, they are facilitators, the conductors of the orchestra. They make sure all the pieces are in place. That everyone is on the bus in the the correct seats and that the bus driver has has a good road map to the destination. Remember a good system is athlete centered, coach driven and administratively supported, it is not coach centered. I know this is news to some of the huge egos that have prowled the sidelines over the years, but people did not come come to see them, they came to watch the athletes perform. Great coaches are there in victory and defeat to lend perspective after the wins and comfort after the loses. Great coaches are leaders, not followers. Great coaches are teachers, they look for every opportunity to teach and to learn. They are always working to improve they skills, not just technical skills, but interpersonal skills. Put the spotlight on the athlete, our job is to make them better people and better athletes. Last but not least coaching is FUNdamnetal. We can have fun while teaching and guiding people toward excellence. Coaching is not an industry it is a profession, therefore it demands that we be professional.